Strange the rats in Louisiana act the same way...  we found six pairs
of shoes in one house built in 1831, behind the fireplace and in the
walls.... and another pair of shoes under the firebox of a chimeny in
a slave cabin built in the 1840's - 1850's with no evidence of rodent
disturbance around them.  I think there more than rodents involved.


On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:01:55 -0700, Josh Brinker
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sometimes people see what they want to see, and not what is obviously right
> in front of them. The excitement of a potentially significant find can
> easily point an interpretation in the direction of what is wanted.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John R Hyett" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 4:24 AM
> Subject: Ritual concealment or other causes
>
> I have just watched the TV program on ritual concealment that my Australian
> colleague Iain Stuart mentioned in a recent post to this list and I am far
> from convinced on the evidence presented. The major part of the program
> concentrated on the idea of ritual concealment based on the find of a
> child's shoe discovered during renovations of a house in Sydney. If I have
> the story right the house was constructed in 1838 and the date of
> manufacture of the shoe, a child's first walking shoe, was put between 1845
> and 1850. Examinations of records led to the conclusion it belonged to a
> child who was born in 1865 and later concealed in the wall cavity to ward
> off evil spirits. No evidence of removal of panels to place the shoe within
> the wall cavity was presented. When the renovator was talking of his
> discovery of the shoe he mentioned that he also found some lace and
> newspaper with it along with other unspecified debris. To me this sounds
> very like a collection accumulated by a rat within the wall cavity. A rat
> that invaded my house once attempted to drag a large piece of cloth through
> the bars on a heater duct, a space of about 12mm (half an inch). We also
> found a collection under a cupboard of a scarf, some of my wife's underwear,
> a spoon and dry dog food amongst other things and I have seen a rat drag an
> empty glass jar some 50 metres from where it was left, so I have no problem
> with the idea of a rat dragging a small shoe into a wall cavity along with
> other items. The other examples claimed as ritual concealment were dead cats
> found within the wall cavity of houses. When the question was asked why cats
> and never dogs the answer was that cats were known as the familiars of
> witches and were entombed to keep witches at bay. Perhaps another
> explanation is contained in those news items that crop up occasionally were
> half a house wall has to be demolished to rescue a cat that has somehow
> crawled into the wall cavity and got trapped. Dogs are a little more
> sensible. I will admit that one of the cat corpses was unlikely to have
> become trapped this way as it appeared to have been cut into several pieces
> before being placed under the floor of a house but this sounds more like
> someone desperately in need of psychiatric treatment rather than some
> semi-religious ritual. Though perhaps the more rationalistic amongst the
> profession may think that that diagnosis applies to anyone who thinks
> entombing a cat, dead or alive, in the wall of a house would in any way be
> beneficial. All this is not to say that ritual concealment of objects never
> took place but rather we should look at other logical explanations first.
> In passing, does the rumoured concealment of so many of the opponents of the
> infamous Painters and Dockers Union amongst the concrete foundations of some
> of Melbourne's 1960s buildings count as ritual concealment?
>