MDMD (10) Dutch Rifles

[Otto]

John Bailey:
> Anyone have any information on the 'White Horsemen' with the rifles they
> style 'Sterloops'? The inverted white star comes up again later but I've
> never been able to find much significance to the gun imagery beyond the
> obvious. Which is to say, I still find it the most creepy thing this book
> has to offer, as well as offering a very cryptic conspiracy-style portent
> linking Cape slavery to American colonialism.
>

"a sure sign of evil at work" (342.10)

The obvious: "Ster" means "star", "loop" barrel in Dutch.
"White" has always been a Pynchon metaphor for death, as it has meant death
to millions of people in Asia, Africa and America. Slavery is slavery,
Puritanism is very close to Calvinism, this links the American Founding
Fathers to the Boers.

"CH. 31 (302-314) PAXTON'S INDIAN MASSACRE Mason & Dixon learn about the
massacre of Indians in Lancaster by the Scotch-Irish Paxton boys, who now
are reported to be moving toward Philadelphia. They see the same racial
madness here that they saw in Cape Town Dutch. (307) LIBERTY, an ideal of
rationalist enlightenment, here means the right "to injure whomever we might
wish." (307) (...)
CH. 34 (341-348) The massacre site is a flourishing tourist attraction, with
the inverted star of the Sterloop reminding M&D of the Cape. Conversation at
The Dutch Rifle touches inconsequentially upon blood vengeance, city vs.
frontier, and tobacco as currency. Is America Britannia's dream?"
http://webpages.ursinus.edu/rrichter/pynchon.html

The "White Horsemen" reminds of the Bible again, Apocalypse of John 6, 2:
"And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and
a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."
Not to mention the KKK.

This is from a nostalgic Boer (and thus) Apartheid-defending website where
the "Sterloop" is just one name (among others) of a hunting-gun. The
language is Afrikaans, so better to read then to be understand spoken:

"Ons ou jagters was lief vir ons gewere, dit kan jy glo. As jy eers jou
geweer se skoot leer ken het, het jy nie nog met die visier gestaan en
peuter as jy op 'n trop buffels of olifante afkom nie; dit was maar knap vat
of hoog vat, al na gelang van die afstand van die wild. Baie van ons oumense
het hul gewere name gegee en dan van hulle gepraat asof hulle mense was. Ou
'Krul' Piet het sy ou sanna Dikyster genoem; my pa s'n het Sanna geheet, oom
Louw du Plessis s'n weer Sterloop en Magiel Roets s'n Witbek - so genoem
omdat dit voor by die punt van die laai, kort agter die korrel, 'n stuk
levoor om gehad het. Hoe sê jy? - Vandag se seuns weet nie wat die laai van
'n geweer is nie - Wát, jy ook nie? Man, bring jou geweer hier, dan sal ek
jou wys!" ("Jagkonings")

The narrator, Jan Harm Labuschagne, grown up in *stern* Calvinism, is
telling about the love of "our old hunters" for their guns ("you may believe
that," he says) who had names for them (like "Sledge Hammer" - see below),
speaking of them as if they were humans, "Dikyster", "Sanna", "Witbek" and
"Sterloop" and at the end he seems to be complaining  that the younger
people aren't familiar with guns anymore, so he's willing to teach them. He
is familiar with guns since he was eight or nine years old. From:
http://www.freeclive.snappyweb.co.uk/Freebies/Ebooks/Jagkonings-Olifante.htm
including the old flags:
"The Vierkleur (4-colour) flag of the old Transvaal Republic. A symbol of
past decency and Boer Courage"
"The National Flag of the Old Republic of South Africa - a symbol of more
peaceful, prosperous times."

What is this "past decency and Boer Courage" really saying: that the today
is undecent and cowardly. This is really fictionalising history and it's
good that we are reading the historiographic metafiction of P's "M&D" to get
to know a little bit more about that "past decency and Boer courage," as
we've read about those "honourable" years of German Süd-West colonialism in
"V." and "GR," more in Chap. 14, p.150-151.

>
> And while I'm here, I love the final comment by Mrs de Bosch, the town
> busybody, who says as you would expect 'I told you so', and then wonders
if
> the astronomers instruments didn't end up serving some other purpose than
> measuring the stars. How would you describe that purpose? What did they
do?
> That is, what exactly did the instruments do? The astronomers shook up the
> Vroom household a tiny bit, although the pieces seemed to settle
relatively
> unchanged, and the Transit itself did at least temporarily alter Cape
life,
> but the instruments? What did they really show people? As above, so below.
>

On p. 100 Mason says that the Dutch are scared to death which is the reason
for their temporarily changed attitude towards their slaves. Are they
awaiting the Apocalypse? Of course these hypocrite people *know* that their
whole lifestyle is a lie and criminal, including a couple of major sins
according to their own religious belief. They are suspicious of these
instruments they don't understand, they maybe think that these instruments
might have done the change? So they appreciate that Mason and Dixon are
leaving the colony.

>
> 'Sweetheart, put down your flamethrower.
> You know I've always loved you. '
> - Lawrence Raab, Attack of the Crab Monsters
>
Sounds like a nice family re-union at the end of the movie/book!

Otto
"Trust me. I know what I'm doing"
http://www.phrank.com/sh/sounds.html