Here I was building a geo-database for Sampa, when I found something in the middle of the official USGS data that could be either a prank, or somebody that really commited a crime and wanted to be found. You tell me.
The Clues
Everything starts with the official US database of National Geographic Names. I download this file and started importing it into my database, but the import would stop midway. I tried a couple of configuration changes and nothing, but it always failed at the same line, record number 882213.
An ordinary line on this database contains many data about a place, like its name, state, latitude, longitude and some other info. For example, the line for Seattle looks like this:
1512650 Seattle Populated Place WA 53 King 033 473622N 1221955W 47.6062095 -122.3320708 56 Seattle South
The file is so big that you can't use "traditional" ways of opening and going to line 882213, but I manage to get there and the line that was failing to import was this:
2070999 "Tell Him I Blame Him for the Children We Have Lost..." Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe Historical Marker Park MN 27 Aitkin 001 464410N 0931842W 46.73611 -93.31167 Minnewawa
Searching Google I couldn't find any reference to that phrase in the context of a geographical place or not, nor I could find any reference to what "Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe" means. I ask a friend that speaks both Chinese and Japanese, but she said it doesn't mean anything on those languages.
But, there is still one clue left. The coordinates on that row refer to a place in Minnesota near a place called Big Sandy Lake Reservoir, in Aitkin County. Here is the Google Maps link for it.
The Outcome
I can't go there, but if you live near that place or know someone that does, wouldn't be cool to figure this one out? Or, if you know somebody that has access to the USGS database, can you ask them how this data got into the system?
If you have any idea post a comment on this blog or send me an email (marcelo {-at-} sampa.com).
Comments (30) for "Calling CSI Bloggers: Is it ...
someone needs to go there, i bet there are clues! like a rusty baby carriage or something. i'm intrigued! also, whoever goes should film it. too bad i'm in los angeles. good luck, marcelo. i'll check back for updates.
By franklin - 10/26/2006 4:25 AM
Is there a Historical marker at those coordinates as the listing seems to suggest? If so, finding out what the historical marker commemorates may provide another clue
By Ike - 10/26/2006 4:30 AM
Aish=H - Ke=K - Vo=? - Go=? - Zhe=Z
By Spunky - 10/26/2006 4:35 AM
It might actually be a vague reference to President Bush and the loss of soldiers (children) in Iraq. Also, those do look like Chinese words, but perhaps it's "yo" instead of "vo" and "guo" instead of "go".
Aish, of course, is not.. But it is a Jewish organization and the name of a center, opposite the Western Wall in Jeruselum. It's also the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped.
Perhaps it's an angry disabled Jewish person, protesting the war in Iraq?
By Rush Montgomery III - 10/26/2006 4:37 AM
Hi there. I came to this via boing boing, and I'm very curious... I contacted the Aitkin County Historical Society and asked if they might have any information. If I hear anything from them, I'll let you know!
By Laura - 10/26/2006 4:38 AM
I immediately thought it was the phonetic spelling of cyrillic letter names.
By leftoverboy - 10/26/2006 4:39 AM
<i> Mikwendaagoziwag— They are remembered Sandy Lake ceremonies set for July 28
To remember those who perished at Sandy Lake during a failed attempt to re- move Ojibwe bands from Wisconsin and Michigan in 1850, GLIFWC sponsors an- nual ceremonies at the Sandy Lake site near McGregor, Minnesota. Ceremonies are slated for noon at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) site on Sandy Lake. Ceremonies will be pre- ceded by a paddle across Sandy Lake to the ACOE site. The paddle will begin at 9:00 a.m. Following the noon ceremonies, all will join in a feast. Everyone is welcome to attend and to participate in the paddle across the lake. For more information, please contact GLIFWC at (715) 682-6619 or GLIFWC’s website at www.glifwc.org.
“Tell him I blame him for the children we have lost, for the sickness we have suffered, and for the hunger we have endured. The fault rests on his shoulders.” —Flat Mouth, Leech Lake Ojibwe speaking of Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey </i>
I wonder if it could be a Native American language? I don't know any Ojibwe, but except for the 'v' I think the sounds are all good Ojibwe sounds, and Native American words often seem to get chunked into hyphenated syllables like that.
By Norvin - 10/26/2006 4:42 AM
Having done no research on this at all, and as a Minnesotan who is not an Indian native, it kind of looks to me similar to other Anishininimowin place names I have seen written. Anishininimowin is the language of the Anishinabek people, more popularly known as Ojibwe, who lived in this region (and beyond it) that is now Minnesota.
Also, the sentiment sounds like something I can imagine American Indians wanting to say to White colonizers. You might consider trying to contact the Minnesota Historical Society, in St. Paul, to ask someone about it, if it is, as indicated, a "Historical Marker Park."
By michael - 10/26/2006 4:43 AM
Dagnabbit, Bill beat me to it!
By Wayne - 10/26/2006 4:43 AM
Has anyone considered the likelihood that visiting the site will unleash an ancient evil that will haunt you to the grave? Just sayin'.
By Nick Fagerlund - 10/26/2006 4:44 AM
Hm, I think we have a winner! I lean towards Bill's find. Perhaps this helps some as well? I have no idea what Jugdjei is, though. Perhaps I am no help at all.
According to this, with some creative liberties, you can get:
aush - into ke= bleed vo= live gou - surrender, give up zhe - stop
Kinda eerie, eh?
By Tom Foolery - 10/26/2006 4:46 AM
It seems to be an Indian language. Minnesota has a number of <a href="http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/mn/mnrezmap.html">reservations</a>. From the looks of the map there's a Sandy Lake band of Mille Lacs Ojibwe (aka Chippewa).
By puppethead - 10/26/2006 4:47 AM
you know what never, EVER turns out to be a good idea in movies? messing with indian burial grounds. i'm with nick. just sayin'. ; )
By franklin - 10/26/2006 4:50 AM
Eish means Fire in Hebrew. then, maybe Kevo and Gozeh...dunno. Also remember that each hebrew letter has a numerical value attached to it. The letters may be: Ayin or Alef to start, Yod, Shin, Kuf, Vov, Gimel, Zayin and Hei, from right to left. So that would be seven letters. Therefore seven numbers.
Maybe the language is Siouxan, as the Sioux used to live in Minnesota (Sioux name anyway), so maybe that is a lead to chase down and look to see if there is any link to the place, historical, comtemporary..... Weird.
By David - 10/26/2006 4:51 AM
Minnesotan and semi-historian here! It's a horrible misspelling of the name of an Ojibwe chief named AISH-KE-BUG-E-KOSHE, it means Flat Mouth, and it's in referance to something he said to a territorial governor in dealing with something (a treaty if I remember) that had to do with Mille Lacs.
The marker commemorates "those who perished at Sandy Lake during a failed attempt to remove Ojibwe bands from Wisconsin and Michigan in 1850."
“Tell him I blame him for the children we have lost, for the sickness we have suffered, and for the hunger we have endured. The fault rests on his shoulders.”
—Flat Mouth, Leech Lake Ojibwe speaking of Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey
Refreshing this page for the past 5-10 minutes after finding the post on Boing Boing .. and watching this unravel so quickly ... highlight of my week
-Mike
By Mike - 10/26/2006 4:56 AM
Aish-ke-bo-ge-Koshe (Flat Mouth) was one of the lead Chippewa chiefs who signed a series of treaties with the US Gov't in the 1830s-1840s. The quote above seems to be attributed to him, and it just appears that an overzealous surveyor copies down all of the text from some historical marker at that location and added it to the USGS dataset. I'm sure if you drive out to that location there is (or was at some point) a marker there with this quote on it. The difference in spelling is likely just a transliteration error between a language without a written alphabet to one with a limited range of sounds (e.g. the numerous spellings of Chief Seattle's name):
I did some searching and the word grouping of "Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe" is very similar to the naming conventions used by Bands of American Indians in the Michigan and Missisippi area's, specifically the Chippewa and sometimes the Ottawa and Potawattami.
An Example is a group band called "Aish-ke-bug-e-koshe" which might translate to Flat Mouth...
Could it be concerned with the "Big Sandy tragedy" of the Chippewa indians?: http://www.glifwc.org/pub/winter00/sandy_lake.htm
snip: Trying to survive on spoiled and inadequate government rations while waiting for the annuities, about 150 Chippewa people died from dysentery and measles at Sandy Lake. Another 230-250 died en route home. Despite the hardship, removal from their homelands was not acceptable to the Chippewa people. 150 years later, on October 12, 2000, the Sandy Lake Memorial, a monument in commemoration of this tragedy, started to move from a concept into a reality. The memorial resulted from a year’s worth of meetings with representatives from many of the affected bands to discuss and design the monument and coordinate with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who currently own and manage the site.
the language could be Chippewa, or some Native dialect.
If you go to the USGS Geographic Names database and "Search GNIS" with the phrase "Tell him I blame..." you will see that the source cited for the entry is:
Rubinstein, Sarah P., comp. Minnesota History Along the Highways: A Guide to Historic Markers and Sites. Rev. and expanded ed. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2003. 322 pages, index.
By Captain Obvious - 10/26/2006 5:58 AM
The Cheap Nickel Guess Service:
Its probably a native american name. Aish-ke-bo-koshe (or other similar spellings) (Flat Mouth (Chippewa)). The were lots of aggression/treaties way back when and this was probably a memorial to some incident. The fact that this is in minnesota seems to confirm this theory. And that the person mentioned in this memorial signed a treaty seems to confirm this as well.
I have a sneaky suspicion that this memorial was probably written in a native language, (chippewa, etc) and probably a bad mistranslation. But hey. What do I know?
But that's too simple and probably right, so lets do it the hard/fun way.
Okay, for fun. . . .
Aish: Fire (in hebrew): A reference to the accident? Children: perhaps 4 with initials: K, V, G, and J/SH?
Aish = H (backwards) Zhe = J . . . H, V G and J.
But Hebrew . . . K, V, G, Tsadi? Hmm Why the double lettering for vowels? perhaps the field length was to small for the full four words? so... these could be the first letters of four words. . . but the zhe doesn't make sense still.
K for Kepha / Peter? Goetz = G + tz
Okay, so if the coordinates were are a cypher, then the location is probably not minnesota. Which would imply that the rest of the phrase is a cipher too.
Working on the assumption that the writer is making this easy. That kind of work would cost more than a nickel.
In order to "Tell Him" we would have to know who to tell. Probably should assume that a man's name is in here. Following the simple approach, more than likely a woman writing; crafty. Bitter.
If this woman was so upset, perhaps this is a memorial to her children and the father could be derived from that. Perhaps the letters imply the names of the children and with the fire could point back to the mother and father. Who knows.
Perhaps a family was involved in a fire accident where several children died, (4?).
But why go to such extremes? Perhaps because she felt that she wasn't being heard. Hmm. Conspiracy theories: she was disabled/ill or shut up/locked up somewhere?
The fact that it is in this database is weird. She might have had access. . . But that doesn't go with the "I can't voice my pain" theory. Hmm.
This reminds me of a story I heard about a drunken father driving with his children who got into an accident and the mother left a cross on the side of the road as a memorial.
Maybe this scenario was similar and someone registered the memorial that had these words on it, (with the names of the children. She probably wouldn't have put the father's name on a memorial).
Okay, enough babbling. If this is the more complicated form of message, then there would probably be a key out there somewhere... Hopefully within the database itself.
Simple Conclusion: Someone left a memorial and someone after came and logged the site.
National Gossip Conclusion: The person is still alive and had not anticipated this being found until post mortem.
Conspiracy Theory: How is it that this person goes through data dumps of this database and just happens across a non-importable record? Prank or set-up? I wonder what the datetime stamp on this version of the database schema was and when the next version was released. (the newer version wouldn't have (presumably) record/field schema inconsistencies. . . . Obviously, newer versions of this database probably do not have these import/export errors. You could research the new records to see what you come up with.
Okay, way too much fun.
Yeah.. I was in intelligence for a while. Scary, eh? :D Be careful, because "they" could point this to you, (yeah you, the reader) and you would be busted.
By esk - 10/26/2006 6:05 AM
Wow: How to solve a mystery in the gap between me loading the page and me posting! SITUATION: Downgraded from "Let's re-enact The Ring!" to "Yet again, the Indians got a raw deal."
That's still an unusually intense USGS database entry!
By Nick Fagerlund - 10/26/2006 6:14 AM
If you missed what I was talking about, I found a weird entry on the USGS database for the geo-tagging system that I'm building for Sampa. The amazing thing about the web is how quickly information propagates. Although, it propagates way faster if you appear on Boing Boing. Bill was the...
This was amazing taking a small bit of info, posting it on a site that gets tons of hits and with in no time at all the information is found and posted. I love the interweb, nice work Bill and others. :)
By Thump - 10/26/2006 6:33 PM
I do have to wonder, esk (The Cheap Nickel Guess Service), just what is a "bad mistranslation"? Wouldn't it be a "good translation"?
I can just hear it now, in the dulcet tones of our current CBI (Chief Babbling Idiot), GWBush: Never misunderestimate a bad mistranslation.
By Hugh - 11/22/2006 9:51 AM
Bill was right. It's about the Sandy Lake Tragedy and a memorial was built to commemorate the 1850 Sandy Lake Tragedy.
Odd enough, I found this while helping one of my students with research. Flat Mouth is a Chief of the Pillager Band of Ojibwe, which were (for the most part) relocated to Leech Lake during the mid-1800s. He is most well known for being instrumental in the cessation of utilizing poison as a political tool amongst the Pillager band. The quote referenced above is on a poster published by GLIFWC in reference to the Big Sandy that hangs in the hall in my school.
A related event to the Big Sandy is the Dakota Conflict/Sioux Uprising that resulted in the largest mass execution (via hanging in Mankato) in Us History. The Sioux were in contact with the Pillagers via Hole in the Day (Bugonaygeezhik) - Word is that they were planning an alliance, but Hole in the Day was assassinated while returning from a diplomatic mission. The assassination was pinned on some Pillager men, but was never proven. Either way, a possible alliance between dissatisfied Dakota and Pillager leaders was deemed a threat and force was issued against both groups in order to maintain control.
Odd enough, I also grew up down the road from and spent a tone of time near Sandy Lake (i still maintain and hunt land nearby) - which is in Mille Lacs bands territory. They didn't care much for our twin habits of either poisoning or blowing up (grenades through earth lodge smoke holes) our enemies - although they didn't complain to loudly when we pushed the Mdewakaton Dakota out of the region for them.
If someone were to do proper research, they would see that there is an awful lot of history surrounding this single event - which makes it even mroe odd/appropriate that it would turn up as a choke point.
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, when I found something in the middle of the official USGS data that could be either a prank, or somebody that really commited a crime and wanted to be found. You tell me.
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October, 2007