Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 12:03:31 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) blonds of the Commonwealth

Hartshorn wrote:
>I never really understood this point.   Isn't there somewhere in the BOTNS
>where Severian says that it is known that each continent has a pattern for
>humanity, and that if people move from one land to another they will change
>to fit it?
>
>If so, how come there are European lloking people in South America (or for
>that matter, North America?)

Right, the implication being that the Europeanoids have not been living on
that continent long enough to be genetically altered into looking like the
red-brown people of Apu-Punchau.  If you can find the quote, iirc Severian
gives the number of generations that the transformation requires.

So, like the blond Argentines today, the Europeanoids have come from
elsewhere, in their case arriving maybe just a few thousand years before
Severian's time.

=mantis=


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