# Native Americans unable to see Columbus's ships? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233 "2005-04-26T20:02:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/121 "2012-03-18T14:13:13Z")
zombie or no, i just don’t see how this could be true. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/122 "2012-03-18T14:17:56Z")
> [@jbperez808](#): > > One only has to play **Boggle** to realize that there are so many things that we can’t see that are right in front of us. So they couldn’t see Columbus’s ships, because they didn’t notice them among all the other ships that were out there? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/123 "2012-03-18T14:30:05Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And how would anybody know this occurred? Cook’s crew only made contact with the natives twice. Once when they tried to shoot them to collect specimens to take home, and the second time when the natives tried to burn them to death. > > During which if these encounters did the natives tell this exciting story? There’s an assumption on your part that the story could only survive if it is delivered to the white man to be put in print. The natives of Australia are well known for possessing oral history. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/124 "2012-03-18T18:22:22Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And how would anybody know this occurred? Cook’s crew only made contact with the natives twice. Once when they tried to shoot them to collect specimens to take home, and the second time when the natives tried to burn them to death. > > During which if these encounters did the natives tell this exciting story? > [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > There’s an assumption on your part that the story could only survive if it is delivered to the white man to be put in print. The natives of Australia are well known for possessing oral history. The story could go back to Cook’s ship stopping in Australia, and was simply made up by someone on the ship. In general, the concept behind this zombie thread is pure crap. There’s no evidence that people are unable to see things they are unfamiliar with. If we were talking about concepts instead of seeing physical objects, that would be another matter altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/125 "2012-03-18T22:16:20Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > There’s an assumption on your part that the story could only survive if it is delivered to the white man to be put in print. The natives of Australia are well known for possessing oral history. They are also known well known for for having no written language. So yea, since we are reading the story it could have only survived if it was delivered to the white man to be put in print. That much is kinda obvious. The claim that the story survived in oral form until someone told it to a white man to write down is equally ridiculous, since there was obviously no way that the native could have known that what they were looking at were Cook’s ships. It’s a classic example of the coin stamped “200 BC”. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/126 "2012-03-18T22:18:12Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The story could go back to Cook’s ship stopping in Australia, and was simply made up by someone on the ship. “Made up” being the operative phrase, since we know that nobody on the ship ever saw such an event. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/127 "2012-03-18T22:21:06Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > “Made up” being the operative phrase, since we know that nobody on the ship ever saw such an event. Well yeah. That’s why stories are fiction. We also have no reason to believe such an event ever happened at all to be witnessed. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/128 "2012-03-18T23:18:14Z")
> [@jbperez808](#): > > One only has to play **Boggle** to realize that there are so many things that we can’t see that are right in front of us. You may think that this applies only to “special cases” like Boggle, but the whole point of the film is that THIS SORT OF PHENOMENON IS AN EVERYDAY OCCURRENCE! Our brain filters FAR, FAR more stuff than we take for granted. There is really no comparison between not immediately seeing a particular pattern of letters and not being able to see a sailing ship. Please provide some actual documentation that anything like the anecdote mentioned in the OP (which itself is fabricated) is an “everyday occurrence.” ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/129 "2012-03-19T04:35:45Z")
> [@The\_Highwayman](#): > > Finally, the movie that started this thread must have taken some artistic license depicting this meeting of European and North American. I don’t see anything wrong with that given that people suspend reality enough to believe that there is a treasure map on the back of the Constitution. After all, it’s only a movie. No, Star Wars was just a movie. The OP is about a slick piece of propaganda meant to con people for the enrichment of the organization that produced it, with no intention of entertaining us. I realize that you and most of the posters here haven’t seen it, but as someone who has, reading apologetic comments about it is almost as maddening as watching it in the first place. Approaching it philosophically makes as much sense as making excuses for Bernie Madoff. It’s a fresh turd from beginning to end and no amount of polishing will change that. Just so everyone here knows.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/130 "2012-03-19T04:41:27Z")
It has a woman claiming to channel a millenia-old Atlantean spirit fergawdsake. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/131 "2012-03-19T04:58:42Z")
> [@Nic2004](#): > > I recall reading that the Mezo-American natives , who had never seen a horse, thought the conquistador rider and horse to be one creature. easy to imagine if you cosider the coverings and armour that were typical of both. But not see them at all… horse-hockey. I’ve heard the same about both the Aztecs and the Incas. I also recall one suggestion that the greek legends of Centaurs came from the early encounters with armed riders; when horse-riding was relatively new, the first invading tribes riding horses came in from the north. Those unsure of what they were seeing thought they were being ttacked by being half-horse and half man. The legend continued even after they figured out what they really saw. Similarly, perhaps all the “magic sword” fantasies trace back to the first iron swords that basically made bronze swords useless, as they could cut through them and retain their edge. Plus some imagination… But it’s one thing to see something and not understand it’s true nature or origin - “they came to us from giant turtles with forests on their back” or “it was a the body of a giant lama joined with the top half of a man”. It’s another to “not see” at all. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/132 "2012-03-19T05:05:54Z")
Another point, often used to good effect in humourous historical movies etc. - is that it takes a while for the “native” to associate the thunder stick with people falling down with holes in them, unless you happen to have both in your field of vision or feel/hear the bullet whiz by. Especially if it’s a blunderbuss and misses as often as not. As Magellan unfortunately discovered, the awe of guns wears off quickly once the natives figure out the “trick” and see that like artillery or manually guided anti-tank missiles, there is one critical and vulnerable place you need to take out. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/133 "2012-03-19T06:06:40Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > They are also known well known for for having no written language. So yea, since we are reading the story it could have only survived if it was delivered to the white man to be put in print. That much is kinda obvious. > > The claim that the story survived in oral form until someone told it to a white man to write down is equally ridiculous, since there was obviously no way that the native could have known that what they were looking at were Cook’s ships. It’s a classic example of the coin stamped “200 BC”. Nice try. But the story could have been told to an English speaking white man who couldn’t help (given his biased education) but attribute the first contact to Cook. Funny thing though. There were numerous documented Dutch explorations and contact going back 164 years before Cook arrived. The trouble with oral history is that it is difficult to maintain a sense of accurate timeline. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/134 "2012-03-19T12:16:39Z")
I is probably just the situation that the natives had no description of what they were seeing. When Captain Cook visited the Haida Indians of Vancouver Island, their oral history described the ship as a bird with giant wings. And oral histories can be very accurate- Dr. Helge Ingestad (who discovered the Viking ruins at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland) found the sagas (oral for about 400 years) completely accurate, in their descriptions of the site. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/135 "2012-03-19T12:45:24Z")
> [@jbperez808](#): > > One only has to play **Boggle** to realize that there are so many things that we can’t see that are right in front of us. You may think that this applies only to “special cases” like Boggle, but the whole point of the film is that THIS SORT OF PHENOMENON IS AN EVERYDAY OCCURRENCE! Our brain filters FAR, FAR more stuff than we take for granted. Wow! I never realized the true significance of that simple word game! Thank you Obi Wan! > [@Colibri](#): > > There is really no comparison between not immediately seeing a particular pattern of letters and not being able to see a sailing ship. > > Please provide some actual documentation that anything like the anecdote mentioned in the OP (which itself is fabricated) is an “everyday occurrence.” Pssst .. **Colibri** … I may be pointing out the obvious but it is named b **OG** gle, for a reason. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/136 "2012-03-19T13:20:51Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > So all we need to do to make a naval ship invisible–an aircraft carrier for example–is to paint it pink with yellow polka-dots. As we have never seen a pink polka-dotted aircraft carrier, it will not be visible to us. Isn’t telling a new sailor (or worker anywhere) to bring back “polka-dotted paint” a classic hazing maneuver? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233/137 "2012-03-19T17:37:27Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Similarly, perhaps all the “magic sword” fantasies trace back to the first iron swords that basically made bronze swords useless, as they could cut through them and retain their edge. Without addressing the possibility that “magic sword” myths come from experiencing a better-made sword, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that if such an event spawned the myths, it wasn’t because iron replaced bronze. Weapon-quality bronze is _harder than_ iron. Many cannons in the US Civil War, as late as the early 1860s, were made from bronze _specifically because_ it resisted the shock of black powder explosions better (for the same weight) than the then-current iron technology did. (During the war new methods of manufacturing iron cannon [such as placing red-hot hoops of iron around the barrel, which, when they cooled, constricted tightly and made the barrel sturdier] made it feasible to use iron safely.) If iron wasn’t as hard as bronze, why did it replace bronze? Because bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) is _rare_ and expensive. Tin in particular was hard to find and only a few known sites produced it back in those days. There’s evidence of extensive long-distance trade for tin, because it was essential to military power. In the Bronze Age, the warrior elite had bronze weapons and nobody else could afford them. This is part of the reason small elites dominated the civilizations of the day. The eventual discovery and development of iron smelting permitted iron to be used, and iron is _much_ cheaper and more universally available. [ul] [li]Tin makes up only about 0.001% of the earth’s crust. ([cite](http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele050.html))[/li][li]Iron is the cheapest and one of the most abundant of all metals, comprising nearly 5.6% of the earth’s crust. ([cite](http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele026.html))[/ul][/li]Iron wasn’t better/stronger (at least, at that time, before steel was developed by adding precise amounts of carbon to iron), but it was more abundant, permitting emerging states to equip large armies of warriors. And these large armies of adequately-equipped soldiers overwhelmed small elites of slightly-better-equipped bronze-wielders. Thus the Iron Age replaced the Bronze Age, but not because iron is harder than bronze. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans-unable-to-see-columbuss-ships/301233.md?page=6)