Tea at Trianon: Chaluka

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Chaluka

From Ancient Origins:

The Chaluka site was most likely occupied by the Aleuts for the entirety of its existence. They are the indigenous people of the islands and they were, and still are, superb fishermen and hunters. It is generally accepted that they settled on the island some 8,000 years ago, but some believe that they migrated to the Aleutian Island much later. There is no agreement on where they originated, some say Siberia, but other scholars state that they came from the Alaskan mainland or the Arctic Circle. The islanders speak a language that is related to that spoken by the Inuit, but they have very different cultures and ways of life. They developed sustainable societies that adapted well to the harsh environment of the archipelago. Aleuts built villages near the coast and lived in partially underground houses that allowed them to withstand the extreme cold of the subarctic winter. (Read more.)