[Ansteorra] Period or not-period: the continuum

Elisabeth B. Zakes kitharis at gmail.com
Fri Sep 15 04:29:17 PDT 2006


The one thing I've not seen mentioned yet in this discussion is the
fact that one cannot actually *prove* what was not done. You can
document what WAS done, but absence of documentation should not be
taken as evidence that an activity did not exist. For example, I
cannot prove that no one ever embroidered a knife onto a sleeve. All I
can prove is that I have never seen it.

Because of this, instead of telling someone, "That's not period," I
generally phrase things as, "I've not seen that
[technique/item/whatever] documented. What can you tell me about it?"
If the person can point me to the source, I've learned something. If
the person tells me, "I made it up" or "I just thought it was" then we
can get into a discussion about what we know IS period on the
technique/item/whatever, how to research, and what constitutes primary
or secondary sources ... and we've both learned something.

Aethelyan Moondragon
Bryn Gwlad



More information about the Ansteorra mailing list