The Cowboy and His Kilt

[tripleblessed]

"They sang to the cattle at night for the same reason the cowboys in the West did," Wilkie said, "to calm the herd."

A little history. In Siberia there is a state called The Altai, from its mountains, and it's next to Tuva, down along the Chinese border near Mongolia. In this area, during the 80s, Russian archeologists dug up graves about 6,000 years old. They found two bodies in very good shape, along with horses. All were in very good shape because of the permafrost. They decided, on the basis of their interpretation of the tattoos, that they had found a priestess in one and a warrior in another a few miles away. The clothing was in such good shape they put it on models and did a photo shoot, using National Geographic's resources. I saw these mummies in a museum in Novosibirsk, then was able to get out into the area where they were found, but not to the graves. I was probably 40 miles from China and 75 from Mongolia. The Steppes are the area of the domestication of the horse, and the people were herding nomads, with herds of sheep, or goats, or yaks, or camels, or a mix. And lots of horses. The Celts lived next door.

THREAD RELEVANCE - The mummies had very blonde hair and blue eyes, and might well be cousins. Many of you will have heard Tibetan monks or Tuvans throatsinging and this is where it originates. From a singing people riding herd at night, with no one to sing harmony, so they learned to make harmony on their own. The Celts traded with them, got horses, and herding, and singing to the herd to calm them. They carried these loves with them everywhere they went, and from Scotland and Ireland it came with them to the American West.


EDIT: I know I've posted some of this before, but it ties in here, and many new folk lately.