Today we have a pair of readings, illustrating the alternately generous and brutal, ultimately xenocidic mindset of 16th century Argentina.

This first excerpt is from the account Voyage to Río de Plata and Paraguay by Ulderico Schmidt, a German soldier and adventurer, published in 1554. Do be patient and read all the way to the end, as it gets rather interesting.

There we built a new town and called it Bonas Aeieres, that is, in German, Guter Wind.

We also brought from Hispania on board the fourteen ships seventy-two horses and mares.

Here, also, we found a place inhabited by Indian folk, named Querandíes, numbering about three thousand people, including wives and children, and they were clothed in the same way as the Charrúas, from the navel to the knees. They brought us fish and meat to eat. Those Querandíes have no houses, but wander about, as do the Gipsies with us at home, and in summer they oftentimes travel upwards of thirty miles on dry land without finding a single drop of water to drink.

And when they meet with deer and other wild beasts, when they have killed them they drink their blood. Also if they find a root, called Cardos, they eat it to slack their thirst. This — namely, that they drink blood — only happens because they cannot have any water, and that they might peradventure die of thirst.

These Querandíes brought us daily their provisions of fish and meat to our camp, and did so for a fortnight, and they did only fail once to come to us. So our captain, Pedro de Mendoza, sent to them, the Querandíes, a judge, named Johan Pabon, with two foot-soldiers, for they were at a distance of four miles from our camp. When our emissaries came near to the Indians, they were all three beaten black and blue, and were then sent back again to our camp. Pedro de Mendoza, hearing of this from the judge’s report (who for this cause raised a tumult about it in our camp), sent Diego Mendoza, his own brother, against them with three hundred foot-soldiers and thirty well-armed mounted men, of whom I also was one, straightaway charging us to kill or take prisoners all these Indian Querandíes and to take possession of their settlement. But when we came near them there were now some four thousand men,for they had assembled all their friends. And when we were about to attack them, they defended themselves in such a way that we had that very day our hands full. They also killed our commander, Diego Mendoza, and six noblemen. Of our foot-soldiers and mounted men over twenty were slain, and on their side about one thousand. Thus did they defend themselves valiantly against us, so that indeed we felt it…

In due course God Almighty graciously gave us the victory, and allowed us to take possession of their place; but we did not take prisoner any of the Indians, and their wives and children also fled away from the place before we could seize them.

…

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And when we returned again to our camp, our folk were divided into those who were to be soldiers, and the others workers, so as to have all of them employed. And a town was built there… The town wall was three foot broad, but that which was built today fell to pieces the day after, so that they suffered great poverty, and it became so bad that the horses could not go. Yea, finally, there was such want and misery for hunger’s sake, that there were neither rats, nor mice, nor snakes to still the great dreadful hunger, and unspeakable poverty, and shoes and leather were resorted to for eating and everything else.

It happened that three Spaniards stole a horse, and ate it secretly, but when it was known, they were imprisoned and interrogated under the torture. Whereupon, as soon as they admitted their guilt, they were sentenced to death by the gallows, and all three were hanged.

Immediately afterwards, at night, three other Spaniards came to the gallows to the three hanging men, and hacked off their thighs and pieces of their flesh, and took them home to still their hunger.

…

After all this we remained still another month together in great poverty in the town of Bonas Aeieres, until ships could be prepared.

At this time the Indians came in great power and force, as many as twenty-three thousand men, against us and our town of Bonas Aeieres. There were four nations of them, namely, Querandíes, Charrúas, and Timbúes. They all meant to go about to destroy us all. But God Almighty preserved the greater part of us, therefore praise and thanks be to Him always and everlasting, for on our side not more than about thirty men, including commanders and ensign were slain.

– from The Argentina Reader, pp 22-25.

For most of us, the phrase can only evoke September 11, 2001, and its attendant horrors. Perhaps for Chileans it still means September 11, 1973, and the violent end of Chilean democracy.

There is another September 11, however, and I hope to plant its seed within you, lest we think the day was always and only a sad one.

On that day in 1956, the field of cognitive science was born. The Institute of Radio Engineers, a gaggle of nerds of the finest caliber, held a “Symposium on Information Theory” at MIT. On our fateful day, the second day of the conference, three seminal papers were presented: First thing in the morning, Alan Newell and Herbert Simon (later a Nobel Laureate in Economics) presented “The Logic Theory Machine”, an automated theory-proving computer program. A little later, Noam Chomsky, age 29, presented “Three Models for the Description of Language”, which wrenched the study of language from mere sociology to a formal mathematical endeavor. And shortly after that, Princeton psychologist George Miller presented the instant classic, “The Magical Number Seven plus or minus Two”, demonstrating from multiple lines of evidence that our working memory can only handle that many items (a measly 3 bits) at a time.

These disparate papers had a common thread. As Miller wrote in a 2003 reminiscence:

I left the symposium with a conviction, more intuitive than rational, that experimental psychology, theoretical linguistics, and the computer simulation of cognitive processes were all pieces from a larger whole and that the future would see a progressive elaboration and coordination of their shared concerns.

In this new synthesis, psychology, linguistics, mathematics, and the still-infant computer science could be seen not simply as distinct fields sharing a few common elements, but rather as different approaches to a common goal: understanding the information processing in the human brain.

Today cognitive science is recognized as an endeavor unto itself. For some wandering souls like mine, it is the ultimate goal of life, heeding Socrates’ injunction that the unexamined life is not worth living; for what could be more worth examining than precisely this core of our humanity?

Catholic tradition, established in the 11th century, is to hold a procession of beeswax candles, representing the entry of Light of the World into the Temple.

In England, begining in 1709, personal (private?) candlemaking was forbidden, licenses issued separately to tallow and beeswax chandlers, and a tax applied to the chandlers. In 1834, the candlemaking regulations were lifted, which kicked off an era of innovation, beginning with Joseph Morgan’s 1834 invention of a continuous candlemaking machine, using a piston to eject candles as they solidified. His invention could produce 1500 candles per hour, no doubt causing the unemployment of many a member of the Chandlers Guild.

Alternate history: if Jesus had been a woman, then following the edicts of Leviticus 12:5, Mary would have been unclean for 14 days, and have continued in the blood of her purifying for 66 days, putting Candlemas on March 15.

That most famous March 15 preceded Mary’s by 44 years, of course. But had everyone been observing Candlemas at this time, perhaps Czechoslovakia would have been a nation for one day longer in 1939, or — ironically — Germany forced to wait one more day before achieving formal independence from the Four Powers in 1991. Small changes, small ripples.

best to all

Except, for most of us, they don’t. Ever since Julius I’s letter to Cyril of Jerusalem in 349, our thoughts turn instead to that other guy. No hard feelings.

(Just to clear something up, despite the “s”, this blog is named in honor of the Persian deity, not the Roman Johnny-come-lately, who was much less likeable in my opinion.)

Anyway, here’s to turning the corner on wintry darkness, whether you celebrate stars in the East, miraculous oil, burning yule logs, or installing batteries.

Browsing holy texts over lunch is a good habit, by the way. I recommend it.