Talk:The Mound (novella)

The people of K'n-yan are human. Weird, but human. The fact that humans came from other stars billions of years ago is not the only historical fact Lovecraft made up. From the story

But they knew of the outer world, and were indeed the original stock who had peopled it as soon as its crust was fit to live on

AND

When Heaton made his own trip he resolved to get to the bottom of the mystery, and watchers from the village saw him hacking diligently at the shrubbery atop the mound. Then they saw his figure melt slowly into invisibility; not to reappear for long hours, till after the dusk drew on, and the torch of the headless squaw glimmered ghoulishly on the distant elevation. About two hours after nightfall he staggered into the village minus his spade and other belongings, and burst into a shrieking monologue of disconnected ravings. He howled of shocking abysses and monsters, of terrible carvings and statues, of inhuman captors and grotesque tortures, and of other fantastic abnormalities too complex and chimerical even to remember. "Old! Old! Old!" he would moan over and over again, "great God, they are older than the earth, and came here from somewhere else—they know what you think, and make you know what they think—they're half-man, half-ghost—crossed the line—melt and take shape again—getting more and more so, yet we're all descended from them in the beginning—children of Tulu—everything made of gold—monstrous animals, half-human—dead slaves—madness—I�! Shub-Niggurath!—that white man—oh, my God, What they did to him!...

RDM99 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.147.93 (talk) 00:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I would need to go back and reread the story for a more specific quote, but no, I do not believe the residents of K'n-yan are actually human. Taken from K'n-yan on Wikipedia: "It is inhabited by a human-like race that resemble the Native Americans of the area, though they are actually extraterrestrials who arrived in prehistoric times."

As to your first quote, "the original stock who had peopled [Earth]" does NOT imply that they are human, it implies that they lived on the Earth prior to human beings. It is no way suggestive that they were (or were not) human and isn't evidence that they were.

Your second quote, "they're half-man, half-ghost" is the ranting of a character who has been driven mad. I wouldn't accept the credibility of such a person in real life, nor do I think the credibility of a distressed fictional character should be considered either. Once again, this does not appear to be evidence that the residents of K'n-yan are human and not extraterrestrial. ialsoagree (talk) 23:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

There may be some confusion because the story portrays the characters' own confused understanding of the situation. The white people are sure the "old ones" are Indians. In one place, the story says explicitly that Indians of the past disagreed:

The settlers described the ghostly fighters as Indians, though of no familiar tribe...

The Indians, on the other hand, did not seem to claim the spectres as kinsfolk. They referred to them as "those people", "the old people", or "they who dwell below", and appeared to hold them in too great a frightened veneration to talk much about them.

Later, though, Old Grey Eagle seems to think they're the ancestors of all people:

"No good—-those people. All under here, all under there, them old ones. Yig, big father of snakes, he there. Yig is Yig. Tiráwa, big father of men, he there. Tiráwa is Tiráwa. No die. No get old. Just same like air. Just live and wait. One time they come out here, live and fight. Build um dirt tepee. Bring up gold—-they got plenty. Go off and make new lodges. Me them. You them."

I'd say, quite frankly, that the story itself doesn't say one way or the other what the relationship is between the K'n-yan and humans. Elmo iscariot (talk) 13:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Non-Human?

I see there has already been some discussion on this topic, but: From the Main Article: "The story is one of only three by Lovecraft where a non-human culture is described in rich details."

The story itself provides evidence that Kn'yan's culture is an ancient precursor to the current race of humans on earth, since it mentions that the Native Indian tribes are descended from a branch of the ancient Kn'yan who came aboveground and established strongholds.

--Almont (talk) 01:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)