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WRITING SCARY

7/27/2018

WHAT MAKES A SCENE CREEPY OR SCARY?
Part of the appeal of reading is being able to walk in the shoes of another person: to do things the reader hasn't done, to experience the emotions the average person doesn't have the opportunity to feel, or to feel to the fullest, without risk. The operative words being "without risk".

It's all about how the characters feel and react to events and about how their reactions make the reader feel.

SETTING THE SCENE
The setting of a scene, or a novel, is the time and place the events unfold; where the scene/novel takes place. The mood or atmosphere of the scene is established by the sensory details and by the feelings and reactions of the characters to those details, based on their personalities in general and their moods, or emotions, at the time. Different people react differently. Image courtesy of Better Bibles Blog
https://wilmingtonbookshelf.wordpress.com/tag/scary-books/ ▼

"Both setting and atmosphere are central to your story: they both rely on and influence the plot." [Author Terri Giuliano Long]
Select the best setting to enhance the mood of the character or to cause the character to react in a way that moves the story forward or builds the character.

SENSORY DETAILS SET THE MOOD
If you want to evoke the feelings of "creepy" or "scary" in a scene, you must understand the underlying psychological basis for fear and how that relates to place.

While people, particularly children, can be taught to fear, evolutionary psychologists suggest fear exists as a primal emotion, an agent detection mechanism or process that has evolved to protect us from predators, enemies, and other harmful situations. Human beings possess and use the five senses to detect exposure and danger. To write "scary", the writer must provide those sensory details and the character must use his senses and react to them.

WHAT MAKES A PLACE SCARY?
Jay Appleton, a British geographer, is credited as first to describe what makes a place attractive or frightening to humans. "The more prospect and refuge a place offers, the more attractive it is." [Frank T. McAndrew Ph.D.- Psychology Today]

In this context, prospect means a clear and unobstructed view of the landscape [what is around us]. Refuge is defined as a secure, protected place to hide; shelter from danger. "Places where you can see, but not be seen; eat, and not be eaten." Landscape architect Randolph Hester refers to it as a "Womb with a View."

Scary places will be exposed and potentially dangerous locations with little or no ability to see what is around us. Creepy or scary feelings come from anxiety stirred up by the ambiguity of whether or not there is something to fear and/or the ambiguity of the precise nature of the threat that might be present. The following can be used to create anxiety:

● Weather ● Darkness ● Time of Day

Lightning storm Aarat County Gaol, Australia Moonless Night

● Unusual lighting ● The unfamiliar ● The Otherworldly

Eerie street lighting I.M. Cooling Tower, Belgium Maunsell Sea Forts, Steel towers on East coast of UK

● Things associated with:
Decay Death Abandonment

Danvers State Insane Abandoned cemetery Six Flags Jazzland after Hurricane Katrina
Asylum, Massachusetts

● Sense of something bad will happen but you don't know what
● Abandoned – lacking presence of other humans - lack of support system
● Things that violate the laws of nature as we understand them

● Feeling trapped – not enough space – claustrophobic – invasion of personal space

● Words and images that we have been trained to understand as representing danger

Regardless of culture or upbringing, the unknown always poses a threat because we don't know what to expect.

Another shared characteristic of "scary" is the blurred relationship with death and the body. "Humans are obsessed with death; we simply have a hard time wrapping our mind around what happens when we die." [Allegra Ringo Atlantic Monthly]

Anything that doesn’t make sense or causes us some sort of dissonance, whether it is cognitive or aesthetic, is going to be scary (axe-wielding animals, masked faces, contorted bodies). Although fear conditioning (connecting a neutral stimulus with a negative consequence) we can link pretty much anything to a fear response. Suspense involves creating anticipation that something bad will happen, but not knowing when it will occur or its precise nature.

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE TO BE FRIGHTENED?
Not all people do, but we spend billions of dollars every year on movies, television, games, books, sports, and other experiences that trigger the fight-or-flight response which is in all of us, the thrill that comes with adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine flooding through us.

However, for most people, in order to really enjoy this feeling, they need to know they are actually in a secure place and the danger is "imaginary".

If you want your characters and your readers to feel their skin crawling, to breathe heavily, and start at every sound, set the scene and its mood with those things which arouse anxiety.

Our minds do a great deal to promote creepy feelings based on our upbringing, experiences we've been exposed to, values, things we've heard, read or seen, things we have mental conceptions of as ugly, scary, terrifying, dangerous. These things take root in our imaginations and blow themselves into "what ifs?"

For example, this is the Riddle House in Palm Beach Florida [on the left]. It's listed by some as one of the most terrifying places on earth.
Photo: http://listverse.com/2010/07/07/10-most-terrifying-places-on-earth/]

"Say what?"

The exterior of this house doesn't look terrifying to me. Even knowing it was a mortuary where a hanging took place inside didn't make it scary. Words describing the house as seen in the photograph wouldn't have me on the edge of my chair.

I can't say the same for the following abandoned house in Namibia, Africa, filled inside with knee-deep sand, or the Island of Dolls outside Mexico City.

Photo:www.rebelcircus.com/blog

Those images trigger feelings of dread because they push buttons in our brains that evolved long before houses even existed. These alarm buttons warn us of potential danger and motivate us to proceed with caution. It isn't so much that anything there poses a clear threat, but because it is unclear whether they represent a threat or not. This ambivalence gives us that "frozen in place" feeling, making us ill at ease.

"Words are powerful, and you should take advantage of your word choice to manipulate how you want the reader to feel about a scene."
[Kaitlin Hillerich - http://inkandquills.com/2015/04/12/how-to-use-word-choice-to-set-the-mood-of-your-story/]

The following are photos of some other creepy places from http://foryourgadgets.com/bizarre/20-creepiest-abandoned-places/18/

Underwater city of Shicheng China    Photo: NewYork Daily News    Pripyat Amusement Park Mirny Diamond Mine,
Photo: China.org    Reclaimed by Nature/Briana Jones Chernobyl, Ukraine Eastern Siberia, Russia
   Photo:allthatsinteresting.com Photo: www.roleplaygateway.com/pripyat Photo: allthatsinteresting.com/mirny

Sunken yacht in Antarctica
Photo: desertedplaces.blogspot.com

Sources
http://inkandquills.com/2015/04/12/how-to-use-word-choice-to-set-the-mood-of-your-story/
http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/fiction/setting.html
http://blog.tglong.com/2011/04/setting-and-atmosphere-part-1/
https://www.videomaker.com/article/c13/7980-light-source-in-the-mood-creating-mood-with-light
http://www.darcypattison.com/revision/4-ways-weather-affects-your-story/
http://www.everwell.com/wellness/wellness_weather/weather_moods.php
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15843/1/Effects-of-Weather-on-Human-Emotions.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-you-and-me/201301/sour-in-the-sun-3-unexpected-ways-weather-affects-your-mood
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/fall-weather-brings-risk-of-de/18331198
https://wilmingtonbookshelf.wordpress.com/tag/scary-books/
http://blog.bible/bible-blog/entry/6-scary-moments-in-the-bible
http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/nightmare-fuel-mexicos-island-of-the-dolls/3/
http://allthatsinteresting.com/reclaimed-by-nature/2
http://desertedplaces.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-sunken-yaght-in-antarctica.html
http://allthatsinteresting.com/mirny-diamond-mine
Photo:https://www.roleplaygateway.com/roleplay/pripyat/places/pripyat-amusement-park
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140711-chinas-atlantis-of-the-easthttp://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140711-chinas-atlantis-of-the-east

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POCAHONTAS AND JOHN SMITH: Greatest Love Stories Ever Told Series

7/20/2018

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I started this series because I was interested in discovering what elements of a love story make it one of the “greatest”. What makes it different from all the rest of the love stories we have read about, seen in movies or on TV, or lived? Why have certain stories captured the human imagination and lasted, in some cases, thousands of years.

So far, I would conclude these tales are usually tragedies involving great sacrifices on the part of the lovers, which often means death … and that’s about the greatest sacrifice for most human beings. Not too many HEAs.

I had no intention to blow whistles or bash myths but, in the case of Pocahontas, the popular myth appears to have been perpetrated for political reasons having nothing to do with love, romantic or otherwise. Although Pocahontas left an indelible impression enduring for more than 400 years, many who know her name know little about her. What they think they know was probably misinformation taught in school, read, or shown in the Disney movie.

NO ONE REALLY KNOWS ANYTHING
According to Jackie Mansky -- historian, professor of Native American history, and writer for the Smithsonian Magazine -- most of the histories and biographies of Pocahontas were “written by people who weren’t historians. Others were historians, [but] they were people who specialized in other matters and were taking it for granted that if something had been repeated several times in other people’s works, it must be true. When I went back and looked at the actual surviving documents from that period, I learned that much of what had been repeated about her wasn’t true at all.”

Thanks to the fact that “the winners wrote the history books” [sometimes many years after the alleged events happened] and, at that point in time, the losers’ perspective took the form of oral history, no one really knows much. Historians can’t even agree on names and dates. I’ll do my best.

IN THE BEGINNING
Pocahontas was born around 1596, the last child of Wahunsenaca, the highest chief of the Powhatan Indians [the Superchief, so to speak], and his first wife [and wife of preference] who was also named Pocahontas. She was apparently a member of the Pamunkey Tribe of Virginia.

Our Pocahontas was formally named Amonute, but was called by the more private name Matoaka, which means “flower between two streams.” Pocahontas was like a nickname which meant playful one, because of her frolicsome and curious nature. Other sources claim the nickname meant laughing and joyous one, little wanton, mischievous one, the naughty one or spoiled child. Later on, she was Christened as Rebecca.

I’ll just call her Pocahontas.

There are several important facts to remember about her beginning:
1) Little is known about the wife of Wahunsenaca [the mother of Pocahontas]. Some historians believe she died in childbirth. Whatever the truth, Pocahontas was favored by her father. She had a special place in his heart and was treated so.

2) Wahunsenaca, her father, was the most important man among the twenty-eight [thirty?] Powhatan tribes [25,000 people]. Sometimes referred to as the Powhatan Confederacy, each tribe had its own chief, and Wahunsenaca presided over the whole Confederacy.
This matters because there is quite a lot known about the Powhatan Indians and their culture, and some of the events recorded in John Smith’s book General Historie of Virginia, published in 1624, simply could not, would not have happened in that culture.

3) According to indiancountrymedianetwork.com, “The children of the Powhatan were very closely watched and cared for by all members of the tribe. Since Pocahontas was living with her father, Chief Wahunsenaca, at Werowocomoco [Capitol of the Powhatan nation], and because she was the daughter of the high chief, she was likely held to even stricter standards and provided with more structure and cultural training.”

ARRIVAL OF THE COLONISTS
The English colonists arrived in Virginia in May of 1607 and began the process of settling Jamestown. The Powhatan and settlers didn’t meet until the winter of that year, when Captain John Smith [27 at the time] was captured by Wahunsenaca’s brother Opechancanough. Once captured, Smith was displayed at several Powhatan Indian towns before being brought to the high Chief Wahunsenaca in Werowocomoco.

References are unclear regarding the length of time John Smith was a captive of the Powhatan. Apparently, it was long enough for Pocahontas to try to teach him the Algonquian language and for Chief Wahunsenaca to take a liking to him, to discover they both feared the Spanish, and ultimately offer 1) An alliance against Spain; 2) A better site for the Jamestown colony; and 3) “Adoption” by the tribe [an initiation and recognition of Smith as another chief].

According to Smith’s book, he was brought in front of Chief Wahunsenaca to be executed. In his version of the story, his head was forced onto two large stones and a warrior raised a club to smash in his brains.

Pocahontas Saving the Life of Captain John Smith, chromolithograph, c. 1870.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital file no. cph 3g03368)

Before the warrior could do it, Pocahontas rushed in and placed her head over Smith’s, saving his life. After that, the chief told Smith he was now part of the tribe, and in return for two guns and a grindstone, he gave Smith land on the York River and his esteem as a son. Then Smith was allowed to leave.

Afterward, the chief sent food to the starving English. No mention of this “rescue” appears in any of John Smith’s notes, letters, or written accounts of his capture until after the death of Pocahontas.

The oral history of the tribes indicates what Smith described was not an intended execution -- although Smith wouldn’t have understood that -- but a four-day ceremony in which Smith became a werowance, a honorary member of the tribe. Children were never allowed to be present at any sort of religious ritual, including the werowance ceremony, so many historians deem it highly unlikely, if not impossible, that Pocahontas, a child of ten or eleven, would have been there.

Over the course of the next two years, the Powhatan made many trips to the colony, to bring gifts of food and to trade. It was probable that Pocahontas, being the favored daughter of the chief, was present as a sign of peace to the English. It’s clear she went there often enough to be known at the colony.

Pocahontas is credited as having saved the life of Smith and other colonists in a trading party by warning the Englishmen of an ambush. This claim is also reputed by historians who have studied the oral history of the tribes.

When John Smith was injured from a fire in his gunpowder bag, he was forced to return to England, and relations between the Jamestown colony and the Indians deteriorated. Pocahontas did not return to the colony for four years. Some references claim she stayed away because the English told her Smith had died.

Actually, in 1610, at the age of adulthood [14], Pocahontas married a warrior named Kocoum. This is confirmed by later colony records. He was a member of the Patawomeck tribe, a component of the Powhatan Confederacy, but related to the tribal chief. After her marriage, she was still the favored daughter, since the Powhatan women could marry whom they chose. She soon had a child, although there is debate over whether the offspring was male or female. In the Patawomeck oral history, the child was a daughter named Ka-Okee.

THE KIDNAPPING
During this period, the Powhatan were at war with the English settlers, now under Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of Virginia. Pocahontas isn’t mentioned again in colony records until 1614, when Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped her, hoping to use her as a bargaining chip to end the war with the Powhatan and to secure the return of some British prisoners, tools, and weapons.

She was held captive for over a year, apparently at first in Jamestown. During that time, she learned English, converted to Christianity, and was baptized Rebecca. She also met John Rolfe, a recently widowed settler who had come to Virginia in 1610 to pioneer the production of tobacco.

John Rolfe John Smith Captain Samuel Argall Governor Thomas Dale

MARRIAGE TO JOHN ROLFE
Written history claims that, as a captive, Pocahontas was treated as a guest, and eventually she and John Rolfe fell in love. The tribal histories claim she told her sister she was raped and treated like a slave. When she became pregnant, she was moved to a smaller town named Henrico where she gave birth to a son [Thomas] out of wedlock.

The Baptism of Pocahontas by John Gadsby Chapman www.gerard-tondu.blogspot.com
in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pocahontas-Powhatan-princess

According to https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com, “In the midst of her captivity, the English colony of Jamestown was failing. John Rolfe was under a 1616 deadline to become profitable or lose the support of the Virginia Company and the English crown. Rolfe sought to learn tobacco curing techniques from the Powhatan, but curing tobacco was a sacred practice not to be shared with outsiders. Realizing the political strength of aligning himself with the tribe, he eventually married Pocahontas on April 5 [14?], 1614."

After the two were married, the tribe’s spiritual leaders and family shared the curing practice with Rolfe. Soon afterwards, Rolfe’s tobacco was a sensation in England, which saved the colony of Jamestown, as they finally had found a profitable venture.”

Two years later, in the spring of 1616, Rebecca and John Rolfe and their infant son Thomas went to England with Governor Dale and a group of other Native American men and women, including Pocahontas’ sister, Mattachanna, and her husband. The Virginia Company saw the visit as a device to publicize the colony and to win support from King James I and other investors. During her nine months in London, our heroine met John Smith once and didn’t mince words about her displeasure with him and his countrymen who “lie much.” ▼Portrait of Pocahontas by Thomas Sully, Virginia Historical Society

THE TRAGIC DEATH
Rebecca and her husband John planned to return to Virginia in 1617 and had embarked on the ship, still on the River Thames, when Pocahontas fell ill and died. The historical party-line is that she probably had contracted a lung disease [pneumonia or tuberculosis].

▲ Portrait of Pocahontas, 1618 in “Baziliologia: A Book Then, after having dinner with Rolfe and of Kings.”(National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Argall, she began vomiting and soon after died.

So sudden was her death that her sister concluded she had been poisoned. She died at the age of about 21 or 22 in the town of Gravesend, Kent and was buried on March 11, 1617 in the chancel [near the altar] of the original St. George’s Church in Gravesend before it was destroyed by fire in 1727. John Rolfe returned to Virginia and Thomas, the son, remained in England until 1635, when he returned to Virginia and eventually became a tobacco farmer.

Her father, Chief Wahunsenaca, learned from Mattachanna that his beloved daughter had died but had never betrayed her people, as some historians claim. Heartbroken that he never rescued her, he died from grief less than a year after the death of Pocahontas.

The rebuilt St. George’s Church Statue in Fort James, Virginia
Kent, UK

Despite requests to repatriate her remains, England has always refused, claiming the exact location of the grave is unknown because of the fire and reconstruction.

The bronze Pocahontas sculpture outside St. George’s, a copy of the 1923 statue at James Fort, was presented to the church by the people of Virginia on the 350th anniversary of Pocahontas’s death.

CONCLUSION
Not only is the love story between Pocahontas and John Smith an unfounded myth, a sham, but even the love story between Pocahontas and John Rolfe is questionable and certainly not one of the greatest ever told. But even if her “love story” isn’t one of the greatest, she made significant sacrifices for her people and helped create a bridge between cultures. Pocahontas deserves to be remembered and honored for who she was as a person; brave, courageous, clever, strong, and a much more interesting and important than the fictional Pocahontas.
□
Sources
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/true-story-pocahontas-not-told-disney-002285
http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html
https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/genealogy/true-story-pocahontas-historical-myths-versus-sad-reality/https:/indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/genealogy/true-story-pocahontas-historical-myths-versus-sad-reality/
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/true-story-pocahontas-not-told-disney-002285
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pocahontas-180962649/
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/pocahontas
https://www.history.com/news/how-early-american-stage-dramas-turned-pocahontas-into-fake-news
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pocahontas-Powhatan-princess
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pocahontas
http://patawomeckindiantribeofvirginia.org/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pocahontas-marries-john-rolfe
http://gerard-tondu.blogspot.com/2014/02/1614-pocahontas-marries-john-rolfe.html
Dr. Linwood "Little Bear" and Angela L. Daniel "Silver Star." The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History.Golden: Fulcrum Publishing, 2007.

Reference Books for further study
Haile, Edward Wright (editor) Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony: The First Decade: 1607-1617.Chaplain: Roundhouse, 1998.
Mossiker, Frances. Pocahontas: The Life and The Legend. New York: Da Capo Press, 1976.
Rountree, Helen C. and E. Randolph Turner III. Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and Their Predecessors.Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1989.
Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.
Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.
Towsned, Camilla. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma: The American Portrait Series. New York: Hill And Wang, 2004.
Available online through the National Park Service is A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: THE FIRST CENTURY by Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Ph.D.

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LIVING ON THE EDGE…OF A CRATER: Santorini, Greece

7/13/2018

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WHERE CAN YOU LIVE ON THE RIM OF AN ACTIVE VOLCANO CRATER?
I wrote this article after I came back from Greece in 2012 and had scheduled it on my blog for today months before Kilauea Volcano erupted in Hawaii.
Hawaii’s Kilauea-volcano
Photo: www.cbsnews.com

What foresight! Even though the affected residents didn’t live on the rim of the Kilauea’s crater, I now have a much better appreciation of the seismic events that took place in Greece thousands of years ago.

On my cruise to Greece and Turkey, we visited Santorini, one of the Greek Islands in the southern Aegean Sea. I’d heard a lot about Santorini, primarily as a vacation spot, but I didn't know what to expect. It's among the more interesting of the islands because of its unique history.

Located about 120 miles from the Greek mainland, it is the largest island in a small circular archipelago formed by an enormous volcanic eruption which obliterated what was before a single island. On Santorini, people can live on the actual rim of the crater … and they do.

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY
The island of Santorini exists in the most active portion of the South Aegean Volcanic Arc. It marks the subduction of the African tectonic plate underneath the Aegean subplate of the Euransian tectonic plate at the rate of up to 5 centimeters per year.

Here, at least twelve huge eruptions, one about every 20,000 years, resulted in collapse of the volcano’s central part, creating a large crater or caldera. Each time, however, the volcano has managed to recreate itself.

A caldera is a steep bowl shaped volcano which is formed when a volcano erupts and collapses creating a shallow reservoir, which it the caldera. The following diagrams show how each major eruption changed the island.

Eruption Phases 1 & 2 Eruption Phase 3 Eruption Phase 4
Lagonal caldera from Opening to Sea closes New caldera isolated from sea
22,000 years ago. Construction of larger cone.

Eruption Phase 5 Phase 6 Phase 7
Caldera flooding thru Last stage submarine landslides Post-caldera construction of
north-east breach. open the south-west breach. volcano 3,600 BC thru today.

The most recent of those major eruptions, one of the largest in recorded history, occurred approximately 3,600 years ago, at the height of the Minoan civilization. It brought down ash, pumice, and lava stones covering the three islands of Thira, Thirassia, and Aspronissi and destroying the local prehistoric civilization. The solid material and gasses from the volcano’s interior created a vacuum from underneath which resulted in the collapse of the central portion, leaving a massive caldera.
End Result - Photo from
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA02673

The Minoan civilization, which evolved on the island of Crete circa the 27th century BC [The Bronze Age] and lasted until the 15th century BC, eventually dominated the islands of the Aegean Sea, including the island of Thera (sometimes known as Strongili).

Another less violent eruption in circa 1500 BC destroyed the island of Thera, leaving what is today the volcanic caldera made up of two now-inhabited islands, Santorini and Therasia, and the uninhabited islands of Nea Kameni, Palaia Kameni, Aspronsi, and Christiana.

The eruption left the remaining land masses uninhabited throughout the remaining three hundred years of the Bronze Age, during which time the Greeks took over Crete. It also caused a gigantic tsunami which may have contributed to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete 68 miles to the south. One popular theory is that this eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis.

A second volcanic eruption of great magnitude took place sometime between 1500 BC and 1400 BC creating huge tidal waves along the coasts of Africa and Asia Minor. That activity is the source of the postulation that the eruption caused of the biblical plagues in Egypt since the event corresponds with the dating of Moses in Egypt.

After that, the volcano became dormant until another eruption in196 BC, when the island of Palea Kameni was created by the lava flow at the point of eruption. Activity continued until 1711 AC but the disturbances were not as strong, and even in the twentieth century there has been enough activity to cause damage.

The formation of the caldera [a feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption and sometimes confused with volcanic craters] is best seen in map and photographs below.

Map from Arial Photos from Global Volcanism Program – Smithsonian Institution
volcano.oregonstate.edu/Santorini

EARLY SETTLEMENT
Excavations in Santorini, Therassia, and Aspronisi revealed a developed civilization similar to the Minoan that flourished in Crete around 200 BC. They cultivated food, made pottery, painted wall frescos and traded with neighboring islands.

The first inhabitants of were probably coastal people from Asia Minor and, according to Herodotus, the Phoenicians. After the 1500 BC eruption, everything had been covered with volcanic ash and lava, and it remained unoccupied until around 1050 BC when Theras, former king of Sparta, came there. After that it was called Thera.

Aktrotiri Pottery Aktrotiri Buildings Aktrotiri Wall Paintings-Photo from
Photo: www.santorini-private-tours.com Photo courtesty of Touristorama www.santorini-private-tours.com

OIA VILLAGE
This town, located on the north end of Santorini, has to be one of the most scenic places in Europe. With only a couple thousand permanent residents, there’s not much there except the quaint village and dramatic scenery to be photographed.

However, in 1976, Oia was included in a preservation program of traditional settlements of the Greek National Tourism Organization. This organization has preserved and restored many buildings and received the Europa Nostra Prise in 1979 and the Prize of the Architecture Biennale in Sofia in 1986.

Photos: R. Ann Siracusa

Me and my traveling companion Santorini at sunset
Marie Lucero on a cloudy day

There are a lot of small villages, resorts, and wonderful beaches. Santorini is a great place for a relaxing vacation, although it’s no longer the “hot spot” of the European aristocracy that it was a few decades ago.

You can see why traveling is my inspiration for writing. I look for unique features of the location try to envision what could happen only in that civilization or in that specific place. Santorini might be the inspiration for an historical or even fantasy.
□
Sources
http://www.medellin.unal.edu.co/~rrodriguez/geologia/ofiolitas/Introduction%20to%20Physical%20Geology%20Syllabus.htm
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Eurasian%20plate&item_type=topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini_caldera
http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/greek_islands/santorini
http://www.decadevolcano.net/santorini/santorini_geology_geography.htm
http://jersey.uoregon.edu/~mstrick/AskGeoMan/geoQuerry18.html
https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=212040
s://www.lonelyplanet.com/greece/cyclades/santorini-thira
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oia,_Greece
https://www.airpano.com/360Degree-VirtualTour.php?3D=Santorini-Greece
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/santorini
http://www.world-guides.com/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA02673
http://www.aoi.com.au/Wild/Minoan/index.htm
https://inhabitat.com/nasas-jet-propulsion-laboratory-is-developing-robots-to-explore-hawaiis-volcanoes/
https://volcanoes-kayla-young.wikispaces.com
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3916962/The-wave-sunk-Atlantis-Deadly-tsunamis-late-Bronze-Age-driven-lava-flow.html
http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Santorini/Santorini.html
http://www.greekisland.co.uk/greeks/greek-maps.htm
http://www.santorini-private-tours.com/Akrotiri_pictures.html

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TORITOS DE PUCARA

7/6/2018

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Traveling in Peru is like experiencing other places in the world where thousands of years of civilizations steamroll over one another. Century after century, culture after culture, all leave their mark, but not as layers. Instead, as cultures, beliefs, and traditions stirred into the mix and entwined, until only archeologists can determine their origins.

Peru is certainly no exception, existing as a melting pot of modern / colonial Spanish and Inca / pre-Inca culture.

WHERE IS PUCARA, PERU?
The town of Pucara (or Pukara)—population 5,000 to 10,000, but no absolute figure—is a quiet pueblo located in the southern highlands in the northern basin of Lake Titicaca, about 66 miles north of the city of Puno (Lake Titicaca) between Cuzco and Puno. The altiplano (high plane in the Andes Mountains), is very dry, bleak, and not particularly hospitable terrain.
▼http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-earliest-americanspucara.html
My photo ▼ https://delange.org/Pucara/Pucara.htm ▼

Church of Santa Isabel De Pukara ▲ Church Dome ▲ Plaza de Armas▲

The people there, in my opinion, seemed to lack the joy of living I observed in other parts of Peru, and the inhabitants work hard and put to use every possible resource.

Within the town, facing the Plaza de Armas, is the Church of Santa Isabel De Pucara built by Jesuit missionaries in 1767. Its ornate interior contains a beautiful colonial church containing a large mural of the Jatun Ñak'aq, El Gran Degollador (or Decapitator). There is also the Museo Lítico de Pucara just off the plaza, on the road to the pre-Columbian archeological site by the same name (300 B.C. thru 300 A.D.) is known for its unusual horseshoe-shaped temple of stone masonry. Actually, the museum has some very wonderful ceramic pieces.

Photos: artisticadventureofmankind.wordpress.com/tag/wankarani-culture/

WHAT ARE THE TORITOS DE PUCARA?
It is tradition in the highlands of the Andes to place two ceramic bulls on the red clay tile roofs of the houses. The bulls are placed side by side at the peak of the roof, sometimes with a ladder and a cross.

According to Escaped to Peru – Latin American Blog, “Two bulls side by sale (male and female) are said to signify various things.” Help me out, here. I was under the impression (possibly an incorrect one) that all bulls were of the male persuasion. Am I missing something?

Regardless, the bulls keep the house safe with a blessing to the “Apus” (the Inca mountain gods) and ensure health, wealth, and unity for the occupants of the house. The bulls are combined with a ladder and a cross to allow easy passage to heaven when the final call comes.

▼Photo by George & Audrey DeLange
:https://delange.org/Pucara/Pucara.htm

Photo: Fredy Reyes Apaza ▲ ▲ http://theandrogyny.com/toritos-de-pucara/ ▲

You can buy these at the market outside the church. Buy them there, because I’ve not found them in the states, except on-line for $60 to $100.

Photo by George & Audrey DeLange:https://delange.org/Pucara/Pucara.htm▼

Sources
http://www.rediscovering-america.com/html
http://www.delange.org/Pucara/Pucara.htm
go2peru.biz/peru_guide/puno/photo_pucara_museum_church.htm
http://escapedtolatinamerica.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html
http://www.historiacultural.com/2009/04/la-cultura-pukara-pucara-puno.html
http://blog.casa-andina.com/en/destinations/toritos-of-pucara/
https://www.milavagando.it/holiday/peru-2018-partenze-garantite/
http://theandrogyny.com/toritos-de-pucara/
https://punotours.com.pe/en/private-tours/tour-pucara-pukara-1-day/
http://www.cpap.pe/node/71
https://turismoi.pe/museos/museo-litico-de-pukara-ministerio-de-cultura.htm
http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-earliest-americanspucara.html
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pucar%C3%A1_(Lampa)
https://arsartisticadventureofmankind.wordpress.com/tag/wankarani-culture/
https://delange.org/Pucara/Pucara.htm
https://www.responsiblevacation.com/vacations/peru-culture/travel-guide
https://notesfromcamelidcountry.net/2012/10/23/pucara-and-the-cult-of-the-peruvian-roof-ornament/

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