Thunderbird and Whale
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Those strange lights that are seen in the sky with strong earthquakes. Believed to be caused by huge electro mechanical forces of large earthquakes.
I was wondering what a Thunderbird had to do with an earthquake and suddenly remembered an earlier post here on HN.
Sound like a plausible explanation to me:
1) there is an unrelated famine.
2) suddenly eerie lighting like flashes are seen in the air above the sea. 3) followed by earthquake tremors. 4) followed by a tsunami. Many canoes are destroyed. A landslide buried a forrest. 5) the tsunami throws whale(s) onto the beach. Solving the famine by delivering a large amount of whale meat.
6) unrelated, the rains come and the animal and agriculture can thrive again.
7) the aforementioned steps are linked together in a logical coherent (be it a fantastical) story.
Or: It has nothing to do with real life events and was just thought-up by a creative storyteller.
At least to me that last entry points even more towards an earthquake origin of the story.
http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/outreach/highlights/sumatra...
Both subsidence and raising of elevations can happen during earthquakes. We commonly see these in coral deaths as the article above, or in tree deaths when land subsides under water.
2. Take a look at the map of where the epicenter is estimated to be and it’s fairly clear how the kink point in the California coastline where it switches from running N-S to NW-SE would “catch” (probably not the correct term) the tsunami with land and prevent it from going further.
3. An examination of the topography of the areas near the Pacific coast in what’s now SW Oregon and NW California shows why few Native groups would have chosen to live there in 1700 and why a tsunami would be less likely to leave an impact big enough to be remembered: it’s mountainous and inhospitable, with the elevation rising rapidly and the population low to this day. A unexpected middle of the night quake (estimated to have been around 9pm local plus the hours for the water to travel) washing away a couple fishing boats while everyone in a tiny tribe was asleep would be a small misfortune, not enough to make up legends about fighting gods over.
The 1964 Alaska "Good Friday" earthquake is the second most powerful earthquake in recorded history, estimated to have been stronger than the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.
In 1970 I wandered the ruins of the original city of Valdez. They relocated up the hill. The next morning, sleeping in our homebuilt camper van, there was a rolling 5.9 earthquake right under us. Yikes.
“The seagull and the mackerel”
Not the Dragon of Chaos again!