Now we don't use hammers. The preferred outcome is death through boredom in front of a TV in a "seniors" residence.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 12:10 PM To: Tor Førde Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Euthanasia, etc (was RE: [Futurework] 103. Western society is collapsing Tor, I can't give you a reference because it was several years ago when I read it, but it was an academic book and it *was* talking of (relatively) recent history. I hope you don't take offence. No imputation about Scandinavians was intended. I'm willing to be corrected but I'd be happy to place a bet right now that my memory is correct about this if we had an expert Scandinavian historian available to consult. It only happened in the very far north. Each family had its own ceremonial site and every member of the family held the hammer. They didn't use it every year, of course -- otherwise they'd run out of grandmothers! -- but only when they'd had a bad summer. Keith Hudson At 15:41 26/09/2003 +0200, you wrote: >Ketih Hudson wrote: > > > From what I've read from anthropological studies, all pre-industrial > > societies practised some sort of euthanasia or mercy-killing when their > old > > folk lost their marbles or became too much of a burden. Only 200 years ago > > in northern Scandinavia, if farming families didn't have enough food > stored > > for all of them to survive the winter, they would club their oldest family > > member at a ceremonial site, all members of the family holding the club. > > >I live in Scandinavia, and most of Scandinavia was christened almost a >thousand years ago, and christened people did not use til kill their own >parents in that way! I have read that more than a thousand years ago >things like that might have happened, but not 200 years ago! But a >thousand years ago everbody who did not die from wounds inflicted by >weapons had to be cut by weapons to get to Vallhall. It was other >traditions at that time! > >Tor Førde Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk> _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
