The Post Quiz - First Contacts - Answers
Created | Updated Feb 9, 2014
Take us to your leader. Failing that, do you know a good restaurant that serves gaach?
First Contacts Quiz: Answers
If you got all that, you're probably ready to join the next Away Team. We'll talk to Captain Picard for you. Seriously, though, it's amazing how many really silly things you can do, when you don't know the territory or local customs. First contact is fraught, man. And then there's the gazpacho soup incident…
Anyway, enjoy laughing at these early aliens with egg on their faces.
- The Winnebago found the French a bit odd. What did the first French visitor do when he saw a Winnebago smoking a pipe?
He tried to put him out. After the Indians stopped laughing, ,they introduced the French to tobacco. Gauloises were on their way. - The Micmac were even less impressed by French architectural ideas. What was their main criticism?
The buildings were too tall. One elder asked acidly why five- or six-foot humans needed sixty-foot buildings? You know, that's a good question… - The Iroquois found the French hilarious, especially when the gullible gits paid so much for old beaver pelts. What were the Iroquois doing with the pelts, before they sold them to the French?
They'd been wearing them for underwear. All winter. This softened them up nicely, and the pelts made very fashionable hats in Paris. But think of this, the next time you admire an old painting of a boulevardier. - The Spanish weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, either. What was Hernando de Soto looking for in Mississippi?
Looking for the Fountain of Youth. You don't live longer in Mississippi. It just seems that way. We suspect de Soto would really have enjoyed the latest catalogue of dietary supplements… - De Soto wasn't the only one. What was Juan Pardo supposed to be doing when he crossed North Carolina and the Appalachians in 1566?
Building a road to Mexico. To bring all the gold and silver back to Santa Elena. To be fair, it was his boss's idea. His boss, the governor of La Florida, thought it would be about a three-day trip, once the road was built. Actually, it probably is, with a good interstate and a fifty-five-mph speed limit… - The Dutch had weird priorities. Everybody knows that they paid the Lenape $24 worth of trade goods for the right to settle Manhattan. But then they turned around and gave up New Netherland to the English. In return for what?
Nutmeg. You heard us. The spice was really expensive back then. Indonesia had it, but not New York. Fair trade, we suppose. - The English were big liars. At least, John Smith was. He told everyone that Pocahontas was madly in love with him. What was wrong with that story?
Pocahontas was about nine years old at the time. Besides, Smith had already peddled that story about 'the princess who loved me' twice First it was a Turkish princess, then it was an African princess…like yourself much, John? - Thomas Morton, a 17th-century New Englander, kind of liked the Massachusetts Indians. He thought their houses were interesting. Which European group did he compare them to?
The 'wild Irish'. No lie. This gives us interesting ideas about what the housing situation was in Belfast in 1637. By the way, William Penn thought the Lenape were much nicer than the Irish. And he should know. He'd been neighbours to both. - Early English settlers suffered from woeful ignorance of the local flora. What happened to some 17th-century English soldiers who ate the wrong salad at Jamestown?
They went on an eleven-day drug trip. Jamestown weed, aka jimson weed or datura, is not to be trifled with. Onlookers found their antics amusing, but they needed serious detox. - Back in the day, a Scots lad fell in love with a Cherokee girl. She kind of liked his curly red hair, we understand. So they got married, but the Cherokee gave him a new name. What was it?
Bushyhead. Well, it's descriptive. The Bushyhead family have provided some famous figures in Cherokee history.
Now, trot these fun facts out, the next time somebody goes on about how Europeans spread civilisation. It'll shut them right up.
