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Hmmm... human "blood" is not specified... There is evidence of cannibalism among midwestern Mississippian (Woodland) tribes of c. 1000 AD (those who built the Great Serpent Mound near Porkopolis); I am thinking of human remains found in garbage pits at the Aztalan site near Madison, WI. Some controversy there too. For native American pagan weirdness, I recommend the sacrifice scenes in Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto." Regards, --Tom ________________________________________ From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of David Miller [[log in to unmask]] Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 6:44 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: O tawny flood Catherine, I don't have them transcribed, at least for now. But if you follow the link in my message below to the photo of the monument, it should be possible for you to zoom in and make the verses legible. It works for me. I can transcribe the first lines directly from the photograph: O tawny flood, through what dim centuries, Like a grey ribbon strangling the red hills Have you lain here? What vanished histories Flourished and faded, what dead gods and wills Held sway and passed since, from your million rills, You bore yourself? What offerings of blood Did natives make when land-devouring spills Affirghted them? What wrecks rest in your mud? What agonies of man and beast? O tawny flood! That's stanza one. We can pause here to wonder why Revelise imagines the Cherokee and Catawba tribes to have practiced human sacrifice, or perhaps someone else will transcribe another stanza, hoping for the best. David On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 3:30 AM, C Addison <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Dear David, I would be interested to read these Spenserian stanzas if you have them copied. Being in South Africa and unable to make it to your river walk at present I would be grateful if you could send them on this list (after the walk you propose, if you feel that posting them would be a spoiler!). Regards, Catherine Addison > Friends, > > Columbia is a city of rivers, having grown up at the convergence of the > Congaree, Saluda, and Broad Rivers in the midlands of South Carolina. > When > the weather suits, I like to take campus visitors for a walk down along > the > Congaree for some nice views of the rapids and the wildlife the river > supports. > > You approach the riverwalk through a park, and just before the footbridge > leading to it you pass a granite stone monument. I had never paid much > attention to the verses engraved on it--until last weekend, when taking > that walk with Doug Knox of Washington University. Doug, a reader of > plaques and historical markers, asked me if those were Spenserian stanzas > engraved on the stone. > > Indeed they are. You may see a photo at > http://www.panoramio.com/photo/19812754. The poem, a four-stanza ode > entitled "Congaree" that hails the river as "O tawny flood!", is composed > in metrically competent Faerie Queene stanzas. The diction is stilted and > the imagination melodramatic, but the author, one Max Revelise > (1907-1962), > does seem to have known that an ode to a river should be written in > stanzas > named after the great river poet in English. > > The poem was posthumously published in a slim volume, *I Died, and Other > Poems* (Valkyrie Press, 1977), that bears the traces of its author's > romantic regionalist sensibility. Revelise was a forerunner of the modern > unemployed English major who knocked around during the Depression, working > as a WPA writer before going back to school (at the University of South > Carolina) to earn an MA degree; his thesis (1942) defended the merits of > the novels of James Branch Cabell. Eventually he went to work for his > nephew, Max Gergel, at the Pierce Chemical Company. In a memoir > entitled *Excuse > Me, Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?, *Gergel > refers > to Revelise as "my genius Uncle Max." > > Doug Knox ran an Ngram which shows that the Revelise life span captures > both the high tide and the ebb of the phrase "tawny flood" ( > http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tawny+flood&year_start=1850&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3). > According to Gergel, his uncle Max was himself rather tawny of complexion, > a circumstance that led to some ambiguity in perceptions of his racial > status in the deep south of the mid-twentieth century. > > Come visit Columbia sometime, and I'll show you the engraved monument down > by the river. > > -- > David Lee Miller > Carolina Distinguished Professor of English > and Comparative Literature > Director, Center for Digital Humanities > University of South Carolina > Columbia, SC 29208 > (803) 777-4256<tel:%28803%29%20777-4256> > FAX 777-9064 > [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> > Center for Digital Humanities <http://www.cdh.sc.edu/> > Faculty Web Page <http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/people/pages/miller.html> > *Dreams of the Burning > Child<http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100865590&CFID=8776879&CFTOKEN=5f96265f3e78e4c1-CD8CDD45-C29B-B0E5-3A132DAF587030F4&jsessionid=8430cfc86f9c780302f52b2158647f227d5dTR> > * > *A Touch More > Rare<http://www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823230303> > * > -- NOTICE: Please note that this e-mail, and the contents thereof, is subject to the standard University of Zululand e-mail disclaimer which may be found at: http://www.ict.uzulu.ac.za/electronic_mail_disclaimer.html -- David Lee Miller Carolina Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature Director, Center for Digital Humanities University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 (803) 777-4256 FAX 777-9064 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Center for Digital Humanities<http://www.cdh.sc.edu/> Faculty Web Page<http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/people/pages/miller.html> Dreams of the Burning Child<http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100865590&CFID=8776879&CFTOKEN=5f96265f3e78e4c1-CD8CDD45-C29B-B0E5-3A132DAF587030F4&jsessionid=8430cfc86f9c780302f52b2158647f227d5dTR> A Touch More Rare<http://www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823230303>