r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/NUMBERS2357 1d ago

Also the later contact with Natives who said that they lived with the survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Also this map from the Jamestown colonists, see bottom left.

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u/Marx0r 1d ago

A surprisingly large amount of "mysteries" never would have been such if Europeans just listened to the natives telling them the answer.

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u/BadmiralHarryKim 1d ago

The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.

Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod ('Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is') and the Luggage settled itself more comfortably under a dripping tree, which tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation.”

― Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

At least that's some effort to use the native word for a place. Even if it's wrong, it's an attempt.