Subject: Eye contact with birds
Date: Jun 29 12:55:37 1994
From: Carla Holley - cholley at eskimo.com


After a lively discussion accompanied by several nice pints 'o at
La Boheme (Seattle tav), I found my journal full
of conversation grist and several (some of them wild) conjectures.

Here's one for you: Tibetan/Nepalese hats made for little children have
startling human eyes embroidered on the tops of them. I never gave it
much thought beyond "isn't that quaint?" 'til somehow the subject of
birds on the hunt being slowed or halted by eyespots came up in
conversation. So now it occurs to me... Of course! The Tibetan plateau
is full of large buzzard-like creatures. Humans after death are often
given sky-burials, where the body is laid on a mountain side to be
disposed of in a most natural way by the birds. A sleeping, or even
sedate small child is quite a potentially tasty morsel, one could
assume. So now I think the hats were designed specifically to ward off
birds. Is that too wild? Any thoughts?

Carla
cholley at eskimo.com