History/Mystery

History is a mystery because we are always sifting through the stories to find out whodunnit. Did the Indian really use every part of the buffalo? Or did they throw out some of the more awkward parts? Did the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock really befriend them like we are told in kindergarten when we learn about the first Thanksgiving? Or was it by coercion that the Pilgrims learned to plant fishcorn? All this sleuthing for artifacts and interrogations for primary source are all going to lead us to some spectacular, elementary-my-dear-Watson, it all makes sense now kind of denouement where we have figured everything out exactly as it happened and thereafter anyone who has a different interpretation is a revisionist asshole with an agenda and everything is absolute and there are never any unsettling questions to be asked, right? Unfortunately for those who want one version of the past that suits their station, the answers are fluid and slip thorugh our minds as time goes by, and we need to come crawling back to Baker Street, or maybe this time go to a more seedy, trench coat-clad private eye who will rough guys up for answers and sleep with some dame in the process. History is not simple. That doesn't suit you? Too bad. You're living it.