You might think that editing textbooks would be a boring profession. Pretty much you'd be right. BUT, every now and then the editor is rewarded with amusing little pieces of information, or misinformation, that make her satisfied that she did not go into some other line of more interesting work, such as wilderness instructor. In the interest of not being selfish, I will now share with you some of these amusing little pieces of (1) information and (2) misinformation.
First, Rembrandt's Night Watch is a beautiful, haunting image of three confident musketeers striding through a crowd of people who seem confused as to why they are even in this painting. But the interesting thing about the painting is not the subject. In addition to Night Watch, it has several alternative names. One, which our fifth grade art book thoughtfully points out, is The Sortie of the Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the Civic Guard. This painting is on display in the Netherlands, at the Rijksmuseum, where it no doubt carries an equally long and absurd title, more so because it is in Dutch.
But this title does provide some explanation, at least, for why the people in the painting look confused. They have asked all around, and no one knows what a cocq is. Some believe it is the central musketeer's name; others insist that it is a clue to some hidden treasure, the location of which is known only to the musketeers, which is why they are the only ones not looking confused. In the absence of a consensus on this issue, the title Night Watch was unanimously chose in place of the original, and the people in the painting also voted to limit future titles of artwork to one word (or 15 in French).
The second interesting fact deals with issues a little closer to home, at least if you live in the U.S. Although everyone knows that the U.S. treated the Indians very shamefully in the past, few realize -- unless you read the answer key to our sixth grade history book questions -- that the U.S., at a very critical turning point in history, signed a peach treaty with the Indians. Yes. The answer key does not give any details of this treaty, which must have been very complicated and therefore secret, but I surmise that it went along the following lines:
Indians: You take too many of our peaches. This stop.
U.S.: Okay.
(Some sources believe that instead of saying "Okay," the U.S. responded with "How many is too many?" but these sources are pessimistic.)
Judging from the abundance of peaches still available today, this was one of the few treaties the U.S. ever kept with the Indians. Otherwise we would have picked them clean by 1843. The peaches, that is.
Time does not permit us to share more of these little-known facts with you, but we trust that there will be more opportunities in the future to do so. Wilderness instructors never led such an exciting life.
2 comments:
That was definitely an educated guess on your part regarding the peach treaty. Nonetheless, you are mistaken. Which isn't bad, considering this is the first error I've noticed this year, and this is November.
Anyway, as many treaties go, the peach treaty had to do with the Indians' use of peaches as an offensive weapon. At the first Thanksgiving, the Indians' covered dish was baked peaches. However, unbeknownst (KJV) to the settlers, the Indians, either out of their crazy sense of humor, or some more malicious intent, failed to remove the pits. They also used slightly rotten peaches, not enough for the taste to be readily noticeable, but just enough to give the unsuspecting settlers a severe case of the, "Oh man, oh man, oh man." Then, while the settlers were either (a) contemplating the intestinal effects of rotten peaches or (b) having extensive dental work done, the Indians got the best seats in the living room for the Lions game.
The settlers, not willing to descend into a never-ending spiral of Bad-fruit-vs.-turkey-that-had-been-left-out-too-long (they scraped the green stuff off), decided it would be better to enter into a peach treaty, whereby they all agreed that the Lions aren't worth watching anyway.
And Rotten Peaches would be a good name for a rock band.
As always, there are two sides to every treaty, and we thank you for sharing the side of the...peaches. We also agree wholeheartedly about the Lions. Somehow it is not surprising to know that even way back then, they were not worth watching.
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