The X Spot: Assailing the Tender Age: The War of the Ghosts

This is a different kind of game.

Okay, maybe not a game. Not an experiment, either. Rather, it's a demonstration of something that will be coming up later on The X-Spot.

If you care to indulge me, do the following: (1) Read the below story twice, and then don't look at it again; (2) using a word processor program, write down the story in your own words; and (3) then cut and paste your response into the comment box on Blogger.

One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war cries, and they thought: “Maybe this is a war party.”

They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe, and they said: ‘What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.’

One of the young men said, ‘I have no arrows.’

‘Arrows are in the canoe,’ they said.

‘I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,’ he said, turning to the other, ‘may go with them.’

So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.

And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say, ‘Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been hit.’ Now he thought: ‘Oh, they are ghosts.’ He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot.

So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went ashore to his house and made a fire. And he told everybody and said: ‘Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick.’

He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried.

He was dead.

Labels: innocence, political theory, psychology

13 Comments:

At 6:21 AM, Charles Gramlich said…

Lol. I'd probably screw your experiment up considering that I teach about the "War of the Ghosts" just about every year in my Learning class. No telling how many times I've read this story.
At 7:20 AM, X. Dell said…

I should have known you would have, Charles. Perhaps you'll weigh in more and more as this series progresses.
At 2:03 PM, foam said…

okay .. so 2 guys go down to the river to pray ... oops, to hunt seals. they hear a canoe coming up the river and they hide along the shore. but they are wondering if it is a war party since they are also hearing noises. the canoe has 5 guys in it. they ask the 2 guys if they want to come with them to make war on the people. one guy says he doesn't want to go since folks at home would miss him (or something like that). he points to the other guy and says you can go.
so one goes on home and the other joins up with the war party. ....
...... loosing some of the middle here .... anyway, many people were killed in the war party .... loosing the end of the story too .... lousy short term memory recall here plus it's been a long day at work and the cat is laying partially on the keyboard. anywho, where was i .....
the one guy who went to war wonders if everybody is a ghost .. or something like that.
and then when the guy who went to war got home he said something. when he got home. the next day dark stuff came out of his mouth and he died.

\
At 3:42 PM, X. Dell said…

Not bad, Foam. Thanks for doing this.
At 2:26 AM, Ray Palm said…

Two men (apparently Native Americans) are fishing by a river when it becomes foggy. They hear war cries and hide behind a log. Five men in a canoe appear and ask the two men who had been hiding to join their war party. The five men in a canoe say they are going to attack a town up the river.

At first the men decline, saying they have no arrows. The members of the war party say they have arrows in the canoe. One of the two men who has been fishing says he can't go along, his relatives don't know where he is, but then he turns to the second man and says he can go.

The second man leaves in the canoe and goes upriver. A town (Kalama?) is attacked and someone tells the second man that he's been injured. The man thinks that he doesn't feel sick; he suspects the others are ghosts.

The second man returns to his village/home and tells those there of his adventure with the ghosts. Then he starts to tremble as if seriously injured; he stands up and a black shape escapes from his mouth. The others cry out and the man falls down dead.

After the others bury the dead man they play a game called Telephone. (Sorry, X. Dell, I couldn't resist!)
At 2:48 AM, Shrinky said…

Two young men went to the river to hunt seals. It became foggy and calm and they heard people approaching in a boat. Fearing it was a war party, they hid behind a log, but the warriors found them and invited them along with them to go to war. The first young man said no, he was afraid he'd be killed and his relatives wouldn't know what had happened to him, but he told his friend to go (which makes me question what kind of a friend he actually was, considering his own reasons for staying behind).
His friend said he had no arrows (maybe trying to get out of joining them?), but was told there were arrows in the boat. He went with the war party and they travelled to a neighbouring village, where they were met by people at the river who fought with them. Many were killed on both sides. One of the men from the boat said the Indian had been hit, and said they should go home. The friend who had gone with them said he felt nothing (he appears to believe he is the Indian the man spoke of).
When he returned home, he lit a fire and told everyone he travelled back with ghosts, and soon became quiet. In the morning he fell down and black stuff came out of his mouth.
Everyone cried. He was dead.
I'm assuming he was the ghost all along, and had been killed in the battle.
At 5:58 AM, X. Dell said…

Lol, Ray. As we all know, telephones play a large role in Indigenous American folklore.

Shrinky, thank you for participating. I'll be commenting more on this in a future post.
At 2:39 AM, Ray Palm said…

I was wondering afterwards if I was limited to online reading only or if it was OK to print out the story and just read it twice that way. I think I absorb more with paper instead of photons. I scan more quickly with a computer screen, racing through the words. Then again, with my memory and information overload, I'd probably make the same mistakes with the story's details.
At 8:32 AM, X. Dell said…

It might make a slight difference, Ray, if, as was designed by Dr. Frederic Bartlett, I was using it to test you. Here, it's the other way around. I'm using you to test the test. It's not your performance that's being measured here.

BTW, I think everyone here has done fine, and will help me critique something later on in this series.
At 1:52 PM, Seamus The Barbarian said…

Two young men went out one night from Egulac. They hid when they heard war cries – “This must be a war party” they thought.
They saw a canoe with five men in it. They came out of hiding and greeted the men in the canoe.
The men in the canoe said “come with us, we are going down the river to make war on the people.”
“I have no arrows” said one of the young men from Egulac.
“There are arrows in the canoe” they said.
“I will not go. My family do not know where I am. I will go back, but you can go with them if you want” said one of the young men to the other.
So the other man went with the men in the canoe. Soon they came via the river to a place where they made war. There were cries and screams and many wounds. The man noticed that none of the other men were wounded when they were hit. “So, these people are ghosts,” he thought.
Then he heard them saying “The Indian has been hurt.” Although he felt nothing, they told him he had been shot, so they took him back to Egulac.
He walked back into the village. He began to tell the people about his adventure. Then he realised that the were starting at him in horror. His face was contorted; something black came out of his mouth.

He was dead.
At 5:25 PM, X. Dell said…

Lol, Seamus. Welcome to The X-Spot.
At 1:33 AM, Seamus The Barbarian said…

Thank you - have just discovered the blog via a search for the phrase "Tavistock grin." I had been reading about Jeremiah Duggan. Lots of interesting stuff to explore.
At 1:49 PM, X. Dell said…

Seamus, I might be slow responding to stuff in the archives, but please feel free to respond to anything you see.