#thevets

[briefbestiary]

A swift predator that seemed to carry its progeny atop its back at all times. Supposedly it was hunted for the warmth of its pelt.

[bigger-rat]

gentle rat ear twitch

[fideidefenswhore]

What was more, there were whispers circulating that she was not even the King's child; Chapuys had been told that while annulling Cranmer 'declared by sentence that the concubine's daughter was the bastard of Mr Norris, and not the King's daughter.' There is no evidence that Henry ever questioned that Elizabeth was his; indeed, according to Ales, 'your father always acknowledged you as legitimate' and nothing could 'persuade the illustrious King that you were not his daughter.'

Young Elizabeth: Elizabeth I and Her Perilous Path to the Crown, Nicola Tallis

[ssmokyquartz]

my baby is getting surgery tomorrow and because of work I won't even be able to be there waiting for her :(( needless to say I'll achieve nothing at work tomorrow bc I'll be thinking of her the whole time

[stillmadaboutpetra]

oh omg btw. they were girls

update pic of the orange boys at their new home. babies....

[alltheverses]

A number of people have reached out for help with their campaigns. I'm putting as much of the information in one place as possible.

@moamenmajed-gaza Old campaign vetted here (link to still functioning campaign here)

@ashraffblog / @baker-family Ashraf Alanqar Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@aya2mohammed Campaign listed as #166 on Vetted Gaza Fundraiser List spreadsheet here. Prints for donations here

@tahseenkhazen Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here (Verified by association, related to @/olagaza)

@olagaza Campaign is #205 on theVetted Gaza Fundraiser List spreadsheet from @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi. Prints for donations here

@nesmano Campaign RB'd/vetted by @/el-shab-hussein here

@waseem4gaza Campaign RB'd by @/mohammadalanqer here

@mohammedalanqer Campaign shared here by @/el-shab-hussein (#274) Prints for donations from here

@sameer-24 Campaign verified by association, a friend of Mohiy (next campaign)

@/mohiy-gaza Campaign (old account was shared by @/90-ghost, Mohiy is @/wafaaresh's brother)

@wafaaresh Campaign (campaign link updated)RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@fidaa-family0 Campaign (Verified by association of her sister Wafaa and brother Mohiy)

@kawlafam12 Campaign (Vetted by association with Mohiy here)

@gazaway13 Campaign organizer Amna Merwan #247 Vetted Gaza Fundraiser List spreadsheet here Art for donations by @/rebecca-levin-art here, prints for donations from here

@lina-gaza (Formally @/azaxa) Campaign verified by association, Lina is a friend of Mohiy Art for donations by @/rebecca-levin-art here

@danashehab & @fahedshehab-new (the Shehab family) Campaign vetted by @/el-shab-hussein here

@alaakh2025 Campaign is #99 on the spreadsheet here Art for donations by @/rebecca-levin-art here, prints for donations from here

@freepaleatine95 Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here (new tumblr, same campaign.) Art for donations by @rebecca-levin-art here

@aseelo680 Campaign vetted here, art for donations by @/ebenrosetaylor here

@abdullahgaza Campaign is #81 on Operation Olive Branch and #625 on The Butterfly Effect Project

@saveyouseffamily Campaign #406 on The Butterfly Effect Project and RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@ayaanqarsblog Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@ezzaldeens-blog This campaign and this one see this post likely both legitimate and organized by the same person.

@ahmad-syam-blog Campaign #171 on the Bees and Watermelons Vetted spreadsheet

@yasermohammed Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@dinamahammed99 Campaign vetted by association to her brother:

@mahmoud1995 Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here

@save-family & @save-hijazi-family2 (related) Campaign vetted by @/90-ghost here, #475 on the Butterfly Effect Project

@shadowyavenuetaco Campaign vetted by association, Bilal is the nephew of Mohammed Ayyad (@/mohammadayyad, @/yasermohammad, @/mohammadyaser1980). (On the list above. Mohammad's campaign was RB'd by @/90-ghost here.)

@karemanfamily1 Campaign has been reblogged by @/90-ghost here.

@ahmadhammad1998 / @raneen2 Campaign RB'd by @/90-ghost here.

@mahmoud-sharif2 Campaign vetted many times here

@aboodalqedra5 Campaign vetted by @/gaza-evacuation-funds here

--

Currently @yellghoul is offering prints from a zinefest in exchange for proof of $20 donations to any campaign on this spreadsheet

(Spreadsheets and links are Verified Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser List, Bees and Watermelons, The Butterfly Effect, and Operation Olive Branch.)

[bestiarium]

The Orabou [16th century, miscellaneous]

In his 16th century work 'La Cosmographie Universelle', the French explorer André Thevet talked about different cultures, people and animals from around the world.

Though I couldn't find the exact location (the text is a bit difficult to translate and read), he mentions an Arabian people who survive mainly off a strange aquatic creature he called the Orabou. This animal is about 9 to 10 foot long (a little under 3m) and has strongly pronounced scales on its body, which are very hard and resemble an old brigandine armor. He compared the texture of the skin to that of crocodiles.

Though he classified the beast as a weird type of fish, the illustration he provided showed a creature with legs, combining cat-like characteristics with an aquatic body. It has a long prehensile tail and four limbs with webbed appendages that appear to end in claws.

One of the main defining traits of the Orabou is that its meat is absolutely disgusting to eat. It's difficult to digest and it tastes terrible as well, but the people keep fishing for them simply because it's the most abundant source of nourishment in that region. The mountain where these people live used to be called Mount Orabou, named after the creature which is so abundant there, though it has since been renamed Marzouan. I am uncertain what location this is referring to.

Another reason to avoid eating the Orabou is that its meat causes a very nasty disease. I find it unclear exactly what ailment the text is talking about, but Thevet does mention that these people are already very susceptible to 'the stone' because of the climate, so I think the illness in question refers to kidney stones.

Ironically, these animals are also hunted to cure the same disease they supposedly cause: the fat of their bodies is a key ingredient in the medicine these people prepare to cure it, along with some local herbs. The exact nature of the Orabou remains a mystery. Most likely it was a reptile, given the mention of hard scales and an aquatic lifestyle, so perhaps it was a species of crocodilian. If so, it seems weird that Thevet explicitly compared its hide to that of crocodiles, though. Saudi Arabia has no shortage of lizard species, so that also seems plausible.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the Orabou ever really existed in the first place. It's not impossible that André Thevet came across a local folktale or urban legend, or just misinformation about real lizards, and worked with that. If you do encounter one, just in case, try to avoid eating them.

Sources:

Thevet, A., 1575, La Cosmographie Universelle d'André Thevet Cosmographe du Roy, illustrée de diversed figures des choses plus remarquables vevis par l'auteur, & incongneuës de noz Anciens & Modernes, Volume 1, p. 138-139, 934 pp.

(Image source 1: André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle)

(Image source 2: Tony Briggs on Artstation)

[mtlibrary]

This 16th-century artwork is of a 'haut', which are said to live in the trees. It has been identified with species of three-toed sloths such as Bradypus variegatus which are found in the forests of Central and South America. This artwork comes from 'Cosmographie universelle' (1575) by the French explorer and writer Andre Thevet (1516-1590). The book describes the history and geography of the lands in which Thevet had travelled. The two volumes contain over 1000 pages divided into 23 books. This woodcut is from chapter XIII of book XXI.

[binch-i-might-be]

well the good news is that baby is chill with the carrier now after twenty minutes of exploring the examination table and the nice lady doctor scratching his butt. and we caught the larva early so it's easily treatable. bad news is when the doctor Oiled Him Up he shook a drop of oil right back on her lip!

baby is very scared :(

[a-book-of-creatures]

Trick or Treat!

You receive one (1) smug-looking sloth from Thevet’s account of South America

[isadomna]

The Fall of Anne Boleyn

On the day of Katherine of Aragon's funeral, Anne Boleyn miscarried a son. Henry VIII was so disappointed that he started entertaining doubts as to the validity of his marriage to her. At this time, Henry had a new love interest in the person of Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s maids of honour. Many believed that with Katherine’s death the King could easily discard Anne and remarry without controversy. The main goal of the conservatives was to see Henry VIII annulling his marriage to Anne, send her away from court in disgrace, returning to the Catholic Church and reinstating his elder daughter Mary to the line of succession. The conservative party of the court was unaware of what was about to happen.

Around the beginning of 1536, Thomas Cromwell was told a story. In the French king’s court, he was informed, rumours about Anne Boleyn’s sexual fidelity were flying: letters had been obtained in which she was accused of adultery. This story reached England by means of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who had been Henry VIII’s resident ambassador at the French court since the previous September. Henry VIII was furious, but, as ever, well able to dissemble his rage, and a discreet investigation was ordered. Of course, he could not publicly announce that he doubted his wife after he had rearranged the religious and political framework of Europe in order to marry her. Even while her behaviour was under investigation he continued to push for European recognition of his annulment and remarriage, and for Anne’s status as Queen of England. Politics was ever thus. The source for the January investigation into Anne’s fidelity is Alexander Ales, a Scottish theologian who was in London around this time. He later recounted these events in a letter to Anne Boleyn’s daughter Elizabeth I in September 1559.

Thomas Cromwell soon began interrogating Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, hoping to build a case against the Queen. Anne Boleyn must have been aware that Francis I of France was spreading unfavourable reports about her in his country. In March 1536, for instance, he revealed to the papal nuncio that Anne—“that woman”, as he coldly referred to her—was not really with child but pretended to have miscarried a son. Anne’s marriage was declared unlawful and invalid – after three years of Henry’s supporters arguing the opposite – due to his affinity with Anne’s sister. The ploy Henry had used to annul his marriage with Katherine was at once resurrected to ensure that Anne did not die a queen.

Accused of adultery with several gentlemen, incest with her brother George, plotting the King's death, and also reputed to have ensnared Henry VIII with witchcraft, Anne Boleyn was condemned to death and beheaded. The terrible fate that had haunted Katherine of Aragon, the execution of a queen on the order of her once loving husband, had come to pass. Katherine had narrowly avoided it, but the full force of Henry’s wrath descended upon the head of her rival.

The imperial ambassador Chapuys, a skilled lawyer himself, was shocked that Anne and her alleged lovers “were sentenced on mere presumption or on very slight grounds, without legal proof or valid confession”. Anne protested her innocence and said that no one could bring witnesses against her misconduct because she was not guilty. Only Mark Smeaton confessed to have had three sexual encounters with Anne, but he may have been tortured; historical sources are not unanimous on this issue. Thomas Cromwell later told Chapuys that the King ordered him to get rid of his Queen. Henry VIII’s “peculiar remorse for the wrong he had done Anne Boleyn by putting her to death on a false accusation” expressed on his deathbed and recorded by the contemporary Franciscan French monk André Thevet, who resided in England at that time, confirm his words.

The day after Anne Boleyn’s execution, the French ambassador rushed to Henry VIII’s private chambers to propose a new marriage treaty. Francis I desired Henry VIII to marry his own daughter, the sixteen-year-old Madame Madeleine. Henry protested, he would not marry Madame Madeleine because she was “too young for him”, and besides, he already had “too much experience of French bringing up and manners”, alluding to the late Anne Boleyn. He also added that he preferred to marry an Englishwoman because he could punish her if she misbehaved.

Sources:

Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Golden Age Ladies: Women Who Shaped the Courts of Henry VIII and Francis I

Nicola Clark, THE WAITING GAME: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WOMEN WHO SERVED THE TUDOR QUEENS

[ur-ubu]

francisco faria - a detail from "a leitora de thevet" (the thevet reader), drawing, 2012, pencil on paper, 185×115 cm.

[fatehbaz]

[A] 1596 map of Peru by the Dutch mapmaker Arnold Van Langren. [...] Centrally located in Van Langren’s map [...] is a four-legged “beast” with a humanoid face.

The Latin text that describes it [...] roughly translates to: "This beast, which was called Haute by the Tupinambá people of Brazil, has never been seen eating or drinking: Because of this they believe them not to gather food, nor to nourish themselves through drink, nor from any other nourishment, but to live by a spilling of the air.” The description of a mythical New World beast that survives off the air dates back to the Spanish explorer and chronicler of the New World Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdes, most commonly known as Oviedo. [...] The French monk André Thevet (1568, 81), who spent ten weeks exploring the French Antarctique region in Brazil, co-opted Oviedo’s language in his 1557 travelogue [...]

Thevet’s anthropomorphic illustration of the sloth with a human-like face was widely copied, and it is the one most similar to that in the center of Van Langren’s map. [...]

The location of the sloth in the center of Van Langren’s map underscores its mythic significance. While Thevet and Léry described the sloth as living in Brazil, Van Langren placed it in the center of Peru, between the letters “PERUVI” and “ANA,” such that the viewer is forced to confront the animal when reading the name of the land depicted. [...] [T]his map follows the medieval tradition by placing the primary object of wonder or interest in the center -- where mapmakers often place themselves [...].

---

Both Oviedo and Thevet, for instance, described the sloth as a monstrous amalgamation of the body parts of other animals. Oviedo compared the sloth’s round face to that of a lechuça, or little owl, and its nose to that of a monico, or monkey.

Although the beast comprises the parts of several natural animals -- a monkey, a bear, a carp, a human child -- the aggregate produces [...] a monster. [...] Thevet made a startling mention of the “fyne of a Carpe.” In climbing a tree using a body part that resembles the fin of a sea creature, the sloth blatantly violates the natural order, bringing characteristics of a sea creature onto land. [...]

---

[E]ven the sloth’s name is tied to the notion of sin [...]. Oviedo drew on this foundation through his implicit connection between the sloth’s grotesque animal characteristics and blackness.

To introduce the animal, he writes: (Swift–Parakeet they call on the mainland the clumsiest animal in the world, and it is so slow and deliberate in its movement, that to walk the space which would take 50 steps, it needs an entire day. The first Christians that came to dry land, when they got to Darien in the province of Cueva, when they saw this animal (remembering that in Spain they tend to call the black man John White, because the opposite is understood), they gave it a name very far from its self, for being slow, they call it swift, and in the province of Venezuela they call it the lazy.) [...]

By connecting the irony of the sloth’s name, meaning “swift,” with the Spanish joke of naming a black man White, Oviedo ties the animal conceptually to a race Europeans considered to be inferior because of its members’ differing physical characteristics [...]. Oviedo later adds, “Ni he visto hasta agora animal tan feo ni que parezca ser tan inútil que aqueste” (I have never until now seen an animal so ugly, nor that appears to be as useless as this one) (414). [...]

---

The sloth on Van Langren’s map not only inherited European notions of race and monstrosity; it was also descended from a tradition of portraying New World flora and fauna through heavily gendered tableaus. Several of the figures on Van Langren’s map -- the sloth, the opossum, the floppy-eared dogs above it, and the Brazilian cannibals below -- originated from sixteenth-century prints that encoded notions of gender, savagery, and animality by portraying America as a classically muscled nude woman surrounded by plants and animals native to the New World. [...] The sloth also elicited disparate reactions [...]. While Oviedo, as we have seen, was repulsed by the animal, Thevet (1568, 81) seemed to delight in it, informing the reader of his description of the sloth that “by this ye may sée the wonderfull works of nature, how that she can make things strange, great, incomprehensible, and wonderfull [...]."

The opposing possibilities embodied by the sloth -- that it is both docile and monstrous, “wonderfull” and repulsive -- mirror the binaries present in gendered depictions of the land. [...]

The sloth, for all its monstrous characteristics, possesses a uniquely feminine potential to be tamed. Thevet, for one, referred to the sloth using female pronouns, and explorers such as José de Anchieta (1534-1597) and Fernão Cardim (1548/1549 – 1625) said that its face resembled that of a woman [...].

---

Yet the personification of the sloth as a woman came at the expense of the Indigenous inhabitants, who were in turn dehumanized. Thevet (1568, 81) wrote that “this beast is very louing to man, when she is tame, coueting to be always on his shoulders, [...] the which doings the wylde men of the countrey cannot abyde for that they are wicked [...]." Léry [...] clarified this point in his History of a voyage to the land of Brazil, writing, “his claws are so sharp that our Tupinamba, who are always naked, do not take much pleasure in playing with him.” Thevet invoked sympathy for the animal by citing the Indigenous inhabitants’ moral deformity [...]. The supremacy of wild animals over Indigenous peoples took symbolic form in Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1599 illustration of the Haute [sloth] [...].

The sloth asserts itself as the largest and most visible icon on Van Langren’s map, and can perhaps be taken, in all its contradictions, as a representation of America as a whole. It is depicted as both enticing and repulsive, alluring yet inferior. Its human qualities seem to lessen those of the “savage” Indigenous inhabitants surrounding it, while its animal qualities push it into the realm of the monstrous. It, like America, per the colonialist vision, requires European control in order to be tamed. In its docility, it appears ripe for conquest, but its sharp claws hint at a certain wildness which provokes terror.

---

All text above by: Abigail Weinberg. "Centering the Sloth in an Early Modern Map of Peru". Sloth Vol. 6, No. 1. Winter 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions were added by me for accessibility.] Images and their captions are also shown as they are presented in Weinberg's article. The article is available online at: [animalsandsociety.org/research/sloth/sloth-volume-6-no-1-winter-2020/centering-the-sloth-in-an-early-modern-map-of-peru/]. Sloth is a publication of The Animals and Society Institute. ASI can be contacted by phone at (734) 677-9240 and at: 2512 Carpenter Road, Suite 202A, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-1188.

[earhartsease]

The earliest European depiction of an opossum was this illustration by Andre Thevet in 1555. Early European naturalists described the many species of opossum in elaborate and often highly exaggerated terms. One account, a few decades after this illustration, claimed that a mother opossum will eat her young if captured, to spare them from being tamed or held captive.

a very tumblr beast

[transgenderer]

Then, insidiously, illusion began to lay its snares. I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendour of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoilt; I wished I had not trodden that ground as myself, but as Bernier, Tavernier or Manucci did … Once embarked upon, this guessing game can continue indefinitely. When was the best time to see India? At what period would the study of the Brazilian savages have afforded the purest satisfaction, and revealed them in their least adulterated state? Would it have been better to arrive in Rio in the eighteenth century with Bougainville, or in the sixteenth with Léry and Thevet? For every five years I move back in time, I am able to save a custom, gain a ceremony or share in another belief. But I know the texts too well not to realize that, by going back a century, I am at the same time forgoing data and lines of inquiry which would offer intellectual enrichment. And so I am caught within a circle from which there is no escape: the less human societies were able to communicate with each other and therefore to corrupt each other through contact, the less their respective emissaries were able to perceive the wealth and significance of their diversity. In short, I have only two possibilities: either I can be like some traveller of the olden days, who was faced with a stupendous spectacle, all, or almost all, of which eluded him, or worse still, filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a modern traveller, chasing after the vestiges of a vanished reality. I lose on both counts, and more seriously than may at first appear, for, while I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: all that I perceive offends me, and I constantly reproach myself for not seeing as much as I should.

Triste Tropiques, Levi-Strauss

[catholicpriestmedia]

"Saint Justin Martyr, Pray for Us!" #SaintoftheDay

📷 Saint Justin by André Thevet via #Wikipedia (PD-Art). #Catholic_Priest #CatholicPriestMedia #OraProNobis