Here's a door to the world of nature and magic in combo.
635 posts
Oroichonno - Ask Tribal Canterlot - Tumblr Blog
It's time we decolonize the Cascadian volcanoes
I want you all to know that an Arab Muslim from Tunis proposed the Theory of Evolution near 600 years before Charles Darwin even took his first breath. Don’t let them erase you.
My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
Lower Sepik Mask Papua New Guinea
Similar in some ways to the Chinese dragon some masks were danced by a group of dancers in a choreographed display of tribal pride
I hope to give a little bit about some of their details not covered inside here soon.
Milkweed can make usable fabrics
Things people forget…
Solar pumped lasers can generate steam
Algae can make biofuel and plastics
Kombucha colonies can make cloth and leather analogs
Some bacteria can generate electricity
Minor changes in temperature can make electricity
Minor vibrations like sound can make electricity
Feeding graphene to spiders and silk worms make super silk.
Infusing human skin with spider silk makes it bullet resistant.
Bacteria can be programmed to make organic metamaterials
Limpet teeth are stronger than spider silk
Hagfish slime can make fabric
Proteins from hagfish slime can make super hydrated materials.
Salps have primitive versions of chordate nervous systems that can be chained together in cloned colonies with built in life support systems.
Decellurized spinach can make vasculated tissue.
Vanadium dioxide can make synthetic muscle 1,000x stronger.
Vanadium dioxide can be programmed into organic metamaterials.
Some microorganisms generate magnetic fields
Some fungus feed on radiation
Some fungus can digest plastic
Wax worms can digest plastic
Some microbes can digest nylon.
Brains have been linked together in an organic supercomputer
Brain organoids can be 3d printed.
happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.
Yet more benefits to renewable energy sources & ways for other animals to adapt to them.
In a discovery by researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands, offshore wind turbines have become a haven for benthos — the community of marine organisms that live in, on or around the seafloor.
There are more soil animals per square meter living in the foundations of offshore wind farms than on the floor of the North Sea, a press release from Leiden University said.
“The turbine foundations provide hard substrate for settlement in areas where these habitats have never been present before. Except for islands, there are now structures spanning the entire range from sea floor to sea surface,” Jan Vanaverbeke, a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, told EcoWatch in an email. “A lot of organisms, normally living on hard substrates (rocks, bio- or geogenic reefs) have larvae with pelagic stadia, drifting in the water column and trying to find a suitable place to settle and grow into an adult. The turbines provide such substrate in areas where it has never been present before.”
In the area surrounding the wind farms, fishing is not allowed, meaning fish can flourish.
“Banning fisheries from offshore wind farms has positive effects as (1) wind farms provide a safe place for fish (where some species find a lot of food), and (2) the sea floor is not disturbed and therefore long-living animals have a chance to actually live long (they are not impacted/killed by the fishing gear that is passing),” Vanaverbeke told EcoWatch.
Honestly, so are other shellfish & most seafood in general. Speaking of sea bugs, one should at least consider the possibility of using land & sky bugs even in food & not continuing to overlook such a thing unless one is actually allergic to or have religious rules and/or taboos against eating them. Not only can they be quite sustainable to harvest as they often don't take much in the way of resources, they can be really versatile such as in cricket flour & fried cicadas (which apparently taste somewhat like fried oysters). Don't be so close minded as to limit what's edible to your own experiences or those around you uses, the question of what's edible or can be used relates to any & all things, bugs & usually thrown away stuff included.
Please know that I obviously don't endorse using endangered species, but would strongly suggest finding ways to harvest & use the plants in a root to leaf way akin to those of animals in a nose to tail way, maxing out their uses in the process (the same goes for other life forms including fungi, mycelium to cap). Don't chase people out of their eating & using habits & make assumptions from them, take the time to get to know them when possible & let a respectful exchange be made easier.
shrimps is bugs
These here, are the kinds of conversations we should be having, since it shouldn't be taboo to talk about both the things we like & dislike about our lands along with the things we like about others. It's not needfully in poor taste to talk about the pros & cons about a land we're living in or have stayed in & they're not needfully mutually exclusive. The good, bad & ugly lists aren't an awful frame of reference with which to use, especially in the context of ways to address cultural shortcomings from within the systems such as to adapt as needed, as opposed to outside factors such as those imposed upon the subject. We shouldn't shy away from such questions should they be asked, from within or otherwise.
As someone from Mongolia, I am very proud of Chinggis Khaan (many others know him as Genghis Khan) & his legacy alongside many others of my country & of my western neighbours of Central Asia, but me & many others especially of the younger generations have come to look at & consider the costs at which they came. The same would apply to the improvements left by the previous system despite nostalgia for said times.
anyways (I say this as someone who is deeply critical of the united states government, military, unchecked capitalism, police, etc) I am SICK of people treating america as if it has no cultural value or positives so….. I love u 85 million acres (bigger than italy) of national parks. I love u harlem renaissance. I love u groundhogs day. I love u sweet tea and fried chicken and jambalaya. I love u apple cider donuts and maizes on crisp autumn days. I love u 95k miles of coastlines and new england fisherman and hand knitted sweaters. I love u halloween where millions of people dress up and give candy to strangers and carve jack o’lanterns. I love u small talk and small towns and potlucks and bringing over casseroles to your struggling neighbors. I love u cowboys and ranch hands and arizonian cactus. I love u appalachian trail and dirtbikes and divebars. I love u sparklers and fireflies. I love u mark twain and toni morrison and emily dickinson and henry david thoreau. I love u rock n roll i love u bluegrass and hippies i love u jimi hendrix and nirvana and CCR and janis joplin. I love u victorian houses and jonny appleseed and john henry and mothman and bigfoot. I love u foggy days in the pacific northwest and neon signs and roadside attractions. I love u baseball and 1950s diners and soft serve. I love u native american art and pop art and poptarts. I love u blue jeans and barbecues and jazz musicians
He continues to be BA even now.
Republicans are banning the truth and reality. You deserve to know both. Read banned books.
@tree-on-the-hill using this as a chance to talk about powwow etiquette in general, hopefully some of this is helpful!
so big things i think of of the top of my head that may or may not be obvious:
during grand entry (especially flag songs/indian national anthem) if you can stand, stand up. if you are wearing a hat or a non religious head covering remove it if possible during grand entry
do not cross or enter the arbor after it has been blessed. the arbor is the clear area where people will be dancing. the only time to enter the arbor is during time when guests are invited (intertribal, some honoring songs, giveaways) usually this is announced by the MC
honor the protocol of whoever’s land you are on, I have lived on salish and the plateau tribes land most of my life so i am not the best guide on this specifically.
at a lot of native events people will save there spot by putting down a blanket(or shawl), so if you see a blanket with no person around it likely belongs to someone who is either dancing or getting food, give it the same space you would if the person it belongs to was there.
seats nearest the dancing circle are reserved for dancers + their families with or without blankets.
what the dancers wear is REGALIA not costumes
do not take photos of the dancers when they aren’t dancing without permission. photos or videos should not be taken during veterans songs, flag songs, honoring songs, prayer songs, dancer initiation, or any time announced by the MC.
if you find a lost feather DO NOT TOUCH!! find someone working the event or head man or head woman dancer, or notify someone at the MC booth immediately. additionally dont touch any regalia or dancers. also probably obvious but something ive seen visitors do.
trying to keep your thoughts as positive as possible especially when you are at powwow is a great extra step, a lot of nations (including mine) have beliefs where the energy of how you feel and think can be passed to others through your physical energy, especially thru contact with hands.
no alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, vaping.
in general be respectful and kind, elders are viewed as very important in most native nations, so things like making sure you arent cutting off an elder are important but also seem like general life rules to me.
luckily a lot of MCs tend to announce a lot of these but its good to know what to expect.
Cats tend to only meow at humans after a certain point in their lives for the above said reasons. Even feral cats would have something like meows in the case where they'd be in contact with humans, since most of the vocalisations cats do make amongst each other are outside the human hearing range and/or are accompanied by non-verbal cues.
A large part of housecat vocalisation toward humans isn’t goal-directed communication, but rather, affiliative signaling: a simple call-and-response protocol which establishes that the participants are part of the same social unit. Amongst themselves, most housecat affiliative signaling is non-vocal, but humans aren’t really physiologically equipped to respond to such signalling in a feline fashion, and cats, well, they’re adaptable.
Which is to say that when your cat yells, and you yell back, so the cat yells again, and so forth, what you’re really saying to each other is “hiiiiii~”.
Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023
Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!
Sejda - Free online PDF editor.
Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.
Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.
Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.
TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.
OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.
My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.
America is absolutely disconnected to meat
I think I realized this when I had went to see my dad and stepmom one day and asked if I could place my hawk’s food. (A rabbit leg) in the freezer. My step mom was disgusted by the idea that a leg from an animal was in the freezer meanwhile an entire chicken was sitting in the fridge.
Your rotisserie chicken is an entire chicken.
Your pork chop is a hunk of pig.
Your rack of ribs are from a cow’s rib cage.
It’s like Americans view meat as colorful red and pink hued shapes that just exist and come into the world packaged.
You see so many people getting harassed or even having their content flagged for showing how to process or field dress meat when it’s at it’s freshest. Right after culling. For some reason this is considered “gore” by many folks when in reality it’s no more different from plucking a processed chicken after cull.
You also notice that Americans have an idea of what’s normal meat and what isn’t normal meat and there’s racist undertones that I’ve noticed in a lot of these comments left on foreign cooking videos
You have people that claim a video of a man in a different country preparing something like this is “eating a dog.” Meanwhile this is roasted goat.
You have people who’s only perception of an edible fish is in fillet or fish stick form and they call something like this nasty because “Eww there’s a head!” Yeah.. most animals have heads..
Some of ya’ll need to realize what your meat looks like prior to processing and that it’s prepared in different ways. We also need to erase the stigma behind non traditional meats.
I don’t know how many times this has to be said but:
ELEVATORS SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.
RAMPS SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.
SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETERS SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.
BRAILLE MENUS SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.
ACCESSIBILITY SHOULD BE THE GODDAMN STANDARD.
Thank you and goodnight.
Sincerely, a very fucking pissed off disabled person.
Don't forget such groups as the Sorbs (a.k.a. Wends), Albanians, Circassians, Gorals, Volga Finns, & a litany of nomadic people that were listed above (even if not all of nomadic groups are indigenous & not all of the indigenous are nomadic).
Re: the conversation on the colonialism and racism of cottagecore, it’s very clear that Europeans think indigenous people don’t exist where they live or that they’re indigenous because they’re Irish or whatever the fuck, so as a Vaqueira, I think it’s time Europeans start understanding whose land they’re on and that there are indigenous people everywhere, so i’ve made a short, incomplete list of indigenous and nomadic peoples of Europe. Feel free to look up more about them, especially if you’re living on their land:
Abazins (Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia)
Adyghe/Circassian people (Russia, Turkey)
Aromanians/Vlachs (Greece, Romania, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria)
Ashkali Romani (Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia)
Avars (Russia)
Balkars (Russia)
Bashkirs (Russia)
Basque people (Spain, France)
Bats people (Georgia)
Bergitka Romani (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary)
Boyash Romani (Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia)
Boykos (Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland)
Calé Romani (Spain, Portugal, France)
Cascarot Romani (France, Spain)
Chechens (Chechnya, Russia)
Crimean Tatars (Crimea)
Dargins (Russia)
Erlides Romani (Greece)
Erromintxela (Spain, France)
Finnish Kale Romani (Finland, Sweden)
Gagauz people (Moldova, Ukraine)
Gorani people (Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia)
Gurbet Romani (Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo)
Hutsuls (Ukraine, Romania)
Ingush (Russia)
Irish Travellers (Ireland, UK)
Izhorians (Russia, Estonia)
Kalderash Romani (Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia)
Karelians (Finland, Russia)
Komi people (Russia)
Laks (Russia)
Laz people (Turkey, Georgia)
Lemkos (Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland)
Lezgins (Russia, Azerbaijan)
Lipka Tatars (Poland, Lithuania, Belarus)
Livonians (Latvia, Estonia)
Lom people (Armenia, Georgia)
Lovari Romani (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czechia, Germany)
Manouche Romani (France)
Maragatos (Spain)
Mari people (Russia)
Mingrelians (Georgia)
Mordvins (Russia)
Norwegian Travellers/Fanter (Norway)
Ossetians (Russia, South Ossetia, Georgia)
Pasiegos (Spain)
Polska Roma (Poland)
Mercheros (Spain)
Romanichal (UK)
Romanisæl (Norway, Sweden)
Ruska Roma (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)
Sámi people (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia)
Sarakatsani (Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia)
Scottish Travellers/Indigenous Highland Travellers (UK)
Servitka Roma (Ukraine, Russia)
Setos (Estonia, Russia)
Sinti (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Czechia, Netherlands, Belgium, Serbia, Croatia)
Tat people (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia)
Udi people (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Georgia)
Udmurts (Russia)
Ursari Romani (Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, Italy)
Vaqueiros de Alzada (Spain)
Veps (Russia)
Volga Tatars (Russia)
Welsh Kale Romani (UK)
Yeniche people (Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg)
Also to mention:
The millions of Jews whose homes, property, and land was stolen and never returned when they were murdered in the Shoah.
The hundreds of indigenous peoples of Asian Russia which is frequently seen as part of Europe because of its colonization by Russia.
There are many peoples that are known by few. There may be very little to no information about them in English or any language besides the official language of the country they are in. They may not have a written tradition and all written accounts of them are in old print books. They may be known only by people who live near to the region where they are. I know this is certainly true for Vaqueiros and the nomadic peoples of Spain.
Indigenous and nomadic peoples of Europe may be called ‘hill peoples’, ‘nomads’, or ‘cursed peoples’. They have lived in your country for hundreds or thousands of years, but were or are still not considered proper citizens. They live in their own territory by their traditional lifestyle, or in the city as part of your society, or in diaspora across the world. They unequally face land theft and environmental racism. They are hardly represented, if at all, and face challenges like insufficient infrastructure, education, healthcare, or access to water. It’s time to learn who your neighbors are. We want to be known. We are in small numbers because of the land theft and cultural destruction by the European countries you live in.
If this description rings a bell for you, or if your group isn’t up here, feel free to add an indigenous or nomadic people in Europe you know!
DO NOT fuck around on this post or i will tear your head clean off
As can be summed up from all of these, the series being covered changed not only vampire writing (especially such romance), but also supernatural writing by extension. It clearly sacrificed much as to leave a lot of hard to ignore flaws (including blatant racism & a decidedly mediocre performance even in the books themselves, though not as mediocre as were the movies), but it left very clear influences on many future works including the likely popularisation and/or making of sundry social media & fanfiction websites as well as fandom expression as a whole. The influences the Twilight saga has changed fandom expression & writing among other things for better & worse, but it was likely the most influential supernatural writing to have been made for quite some time, at least in the 'western world'.
Is it really so hard to at least let people enjoy their media in peace no matter the flaws involved? One of the rare cases where the flaws should be taking into account is if a remake or remaster is in the works, but then again, maybe don't use a highly flawed baseline if doing either to start with. Maybe use or at least acknowledge whatever ways were fixed up or otherwise addressed in some ways made in the related works that came after the original's works, lest it come out haphazard in some way such as being inconsistently faithful to the original (especially blindly faithful in some ways).
we seriously need to bring back the concept of “despite its flaws i still enjoy it” instead of ‘cancelling’ every fuckin thing in sight
I don't really care for the term POC or its ilk such as BIPOC, but this is something I can't help but emphasise. It's exhausting & often thoroughly dehumanising to get treated as an educator for others when you're not working specifically as such. Most people outside the conventions of your place including outside the gender binary will respect that you don't know about the stuff you're probably meaning to ask of, but please respect that they mayn't know either or feel like sharing their perspectives in return.
[i.d. version of the “don’t make me tap the sign” simpsons meme. in the first panel a bus driver says “don’t make me tap the sign.” while driving. the second panel is a close up of the sign the driver is tapping. it reads “random BIPOC on the internet are not here to be your educators. either compensate them for their time and advice, or reach out to experts within that community that educate as their job. also, google is free.” end i.d.]
Disclaimer: this is NOT an April Fool's prank. No joke or pun here, but I just wanted to highlight that there ARE wasps that make honey. (I got sick of seeing those anti-wasp memes that claim they aren't beneficial). Brachygastra mellifica (left) and Parapolybia escalerae (right) are both Polistine wasps with the ability to produce a sugary substance. B. mellifica is an important pollinator of avocados, however, it is not yet known which flowers P. escalerae pollinate. B. mellifica ranges from Texas to Panama, while P. escalerae is native to Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. A big high five to honey producing wasps!
"In the remote Arctic almost 30 years ago, a group of Inuit middle school students and their teacher invented the Western Hemisphere’s first new number system in more than a century. The “Kaktovik numerals,” named after the Alaskan village where they were created, looked utterly different from decimal system numerals and functioned differently, too. But they were uniquely suited for quick, visual arithmetic using the traditional Inuit oral counting system, and they swiftly spread throughout the region. Now, with support from Silicon Valley, they will soon be available on smartphones and computers—creating a bridge for the Kaktovik numerals to cross into the digital realm.
Today’s numerical world is dominated by the Hindu-Arabic decimal system. This system, adopted by almost every society, is what many people think of as “numbers”—values expressed in a written form using the digits 0 through 9. But meaningful alternatives exist, and they are as varied as the cultures they belong to.
The Alaskan Inuit language, known as Iñupiaq, uses an oral counting system built around the human body. Quantities are first described in groups of five, 10, and 15 and then in sets of 20. The system “is really the count of your hands and the count of your toes,” says Nuluqutaaq."
Read the full piece here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-number-system-invented-by-inuit-schoolchildren-will-make-its-silicon-valley-debut/