The Money Tree

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Haha, no worries. I was just thinking of making it clear to everybody else that only a part of that was meant to be a quote.

--A

[High Lord Tolkien]

Don't you wish you could edit other people's posts?

Did I get slammed?
I love getting slammed!

Anyway HLT, it was said that the coins were hammered into the bark IIRC.

Who said?
Well then, that's pretty harsh.
I was thinking little copper coins like pennies.
How the heck do you hammer coins into the bark and not only have them stay in place but do it in such a way that you can't see anymore of the tree?
Did they use nails?
Through the coins?
WTF?
I need pictures because I can't imagine it looking any other way than awful.

[Zarathustra]

I wonder what we'd call it if we had discovered an ancient tree with American Indian coins hammered into the bark?

Art?

Native artifact?

An example of how primitive culture is better than ours?

It always bugs me how when Indians painted on rocks, that's something to preserve. But when we paint on rocks, it's graffiti and we get fined.

[Lord Mhoram]

If you get fined for painting on a rock, Malik, chances are it's public property or in or near a public space. Rocks painted on by Native Americans are usually art, or are ancient artifacts. What an odd thing to be upset about.

[hierachy]

Well, I pretty much agree with Malik. Money is a mutually accepted format for exchanging value... so that we don't have to pay someone in eggs to fix the roof.

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Every exposed piece of the tree has been covered in copper coins so that
none of the bark is visible anymore, it is considered to be like a wishing
well and to knock in a coin will bring luck or a wish to the perpetrator.

To knock - to hammer, I was close. And no, you didn't get slammed, Andormeda's post was included inside the quote tags, so it looks like you said all that.

--A

[Zarathustra]

If you get fined for painting on a rock, Malik, chances are it's public property or in or near a public space. Rocks painted on by Native Americans are usually art, or are ancient artifacts. What an odd thing to be upset about.

[Edit] Alright, not my best post. I was really just joking arouind. I don't actually sit around and worry about not being able to put some graffiti on rocks at national parks. I just get annoyed sometimes at our attitudes towards primitive cultures and modern cultures; we assume they are "closer to nature" and somehow more pure. I think my art is better than any Indian art I've ever seen. But there's a bias against "modern" and money. And there's an assumption that we're less natural than those of the past. I disagree, but no big deal.

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I dunno about less natural, but I do think that we have, if not an obligation, at least some sort of responsibility to preserve those aspects of the past even as we create new things in the present.

Or something.

--A

[Zarathustra]

Does that mean people of the future have a responsibility to preserve our "art?" Even Britney Spears? Everything will pass. As Tyler Durden said, it's like ". . .polishing the brass on the Titanic." Again, I'm not saying we should be nihilistic about the past. I believe in the Power that Preserves. But even that preservation is a temporary act. I think new creation is more important than preservation of the old.

I'm not saying everyone should be able to paint on the Grand Canyon walls. But there's just a part of me that cringes when I think that some guy who lived 500 years ago has more of a right to do as he wants with this world than I do now. I could paint the exact painting he did--line-for-line--and my picture would be a crime while his is art. The picture can remain the same while the world changes around it, redefining the people along the way.

It's just a little bit contradictory that people celebrate this more "natural" connection with the world, but themselves stand in the way of continuing that "natural" connection in the name of preservation. Keeping something the same as it was--whether it be a forest or a rock wall--restricts us from having that interactive, participatory relationship with nature that more primitive people once had. And where we do interact with our environment and make changes, like roads and buildings, this is viewed as inherently different from trails and earthen mounds, when it's really just a continuation.

[Avatar]

I see what you're saying. Especially about Britney Spears. I think for me it's more the historic aspect. That it teaches us about the people and the way they used to live.

Parts of our history, art, culture will be preserved. Perhaps even Britney Spears, frightening as the thought is. Hell, we have a much better chance of having our stuff preserved than that guy 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years ago ever did. That wall was his Louvre. Would you tear the Louvre down because it was old? (Not that I think you would actually deface or destroy that rock painting either, but that's not the point. We don't get to choose what gets preserved. (Although we have more chance of doing so now.)

And I think that it might have been the very fact that everbody assumed themselves free to do what they wanted to the world thathas contributed to the fact that now we try and preserve what's left.

--A

[Andromeda]

I have found some photos-www.shottonlad.plus.com/ingleton.html

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Thanks for the pics. Is the tree actually alive? Doesn't look it to me. (Although I suppose it was when the practice started, it doesn't look like it was the money that killed it. Looks windblown.)

Interesting sight though.

--A

[Andromeda]

Yes it looks pretty dead, when I saw it last it seemed to be alive - but its more about what it represents then its physical wellbeing. If the tree was in the land it would be a symbol of distruction.

[Avatar]

While essentially I don't disagree with you, it could also be seen as a symbol of veneration, if not in the Land, at least here. Sort of a sacrifice to the tree really.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

As far as the graffiti comparison goes, it isn't that the people of the past had more of a right to decorate than we do. I would imagine that if some tribesman went and painted a giant venus on the cliff wall next to elder whomever's tent, it wouldn't be taken very well. It's the fact that it is a part of the past that we preserve it. I mean, sure, we get arrested for grafitti, but that same grafitti will probably be in a museum in 400 years.

But I do agree that the veneration of 'natural' man is pretty ridiculous, especially when it comes from people who value the serene and peaceful over everything else. Not very much serenity in starvation, or taking down a bear with a rock . Civilization grew up, and continues to grow, and the behest of humanity.

I would be USELESS in a survivalist past. All I know how to do is talk on the phone, browse the internet, play videogames and lurk on forums.

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--A