Movin'on On

In 3 days I'll be leaving the comfortable confines of my home and God willing, will return a month later. I'll discuss the field research I'll be doing shortly but I 1st must assure the 2 or 3 of you who regularly read the Blob that any interruption in my daily musings will be temporary.
Now then...about my travels. For years now I've been somewhat of an amateur anthropologist, poring over weighty tomes in musty university libraries (although, again, the mustiness may have been my undershirt), studying the writings of my predecessors, and dreaming of one day being able to make my own journey of discovery. Amazingly, such an opportunity has recently arisen and I've jumped at the chance...I embark upon my voyage this thursday.
Anthropology is a vast and rich field of study. In recent years I've narrowed my focus and have concentrated on 2 specific areas:

1. The Maputo people of Lesotho who engaged in tribal warfare using only passive/aggresive techniques of engagement. (see "The War of the 20 Year Silent Treatment" Harper Collins 1975)
2. A lost group of Viking explorers who broke away from the Jensen clan and, led by Thorvald the Narcoleptic, contravened all existing trade and attack routes and mistakenly headed east instead of west. As legend has it they arrived on the shores of Western Canada some 7 years later and have been largely disregarded by academics because of an almost total lack of solid proof.

About a year ago a colleague of mine put me in contact with an aged prospector (one of the remaining few) who'd staked a claim in the British Columbia interior. Murphy, as I call him, swore that he'd glimpsed some fantastic and puzzling things that I found most promising to say the least! There were the tales of feral children and adolescents running naked through the woods covered thickly in mud and at night; strange sounds of the elders communicating in a series of raucous hoots and what can best be described as belching noises. He also witnessed almost continuous communal grooming during the day similar to the behaviour of certain lesser primates.

Murphy is an honest soul who lives a simple life in touch with the land that he knows so well. He often says "The way I reckons it, it's the dirt what makes ya clean" and over these last few months I've come to trust him. He does like his whiskey though and my colleagues discount his tales as the lunatic ravings of a drunken old fool. I, on the other hand, thinking he may have been on to something, applied for 2 study and exploration grants and was successful in both cases. So, this thursday I set out for the uncharted B.C. interior and hope to establish a base camp in a place known to the locals as Hornby Island, site of the last alleged contact with the missing tribe.

I take leave with a sense of excited anticipation and some anxiety. This is surely a small community if it exists at all and I must take great care in not contaminating the study subjects and/or their environment. Surely I will see classic examples of inbreeding, little if any social restraint and much impulsiveness. I assume for them a fibre rich woodlands diet but the excessive flatulence this engenders may prove my downfall. I can only hope to return home with body and mind intact and, with any luck, a raft of knowledge about a heretofore mythical forest people of the West. I bring only necessities and gifts of appeasement to ease my path towards acceptance by the Jensens; a Play station electronic gaming module, candy,prozac, bagels and beer.

I trust you will all bid me safe passage and Godspeed. If I'm not home by the end of of July please help yourselves to my stuff.