From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Yet Another UL?
Date: 11 May 1993 01:21:36 GMT

cookval@auducadm.auburn.edu writes:
  +Yesterday my husband and I were watching a videotape of "Quigley Down
  +Under", a movie starring Tom Selleck, when I spotted what I think
  +may be a reference to an urban legend.
 
    [Some details deleted]
 
  +One day while Roy
  +was gone, a band of Comanches rode up to the homestead, and Cora
  +prudently took the baby and a gun and hid in the root cellar.  The
  +Comanches were trashing up the place, and didn't seem to interested
  +in finding the occupants of the house, until the baby starting crying.
  +Cora tried to make the baby stop by talking to it softly and trying to
  +nurse the baby, but nothing worked.  In desparation she placed her hand
  +across the baby's mouth firmly enough to make it stop, and eventually
  +the Comanche's left--and the baby was dead, smothered.
  +
  +It occured to me that this was at least the third time I'd seen this
  +story, or a variation of it.  Those who watched the last episode of
  +MASH will probably recognize it, and I remember several years ago
  +reading a version about escapees from an Eastern Bloc country who
  +had a similar experience while hiding from a border patrol.
  +
  +Well, what do you think?  UL, true story, or just a dramatic convention?

Uh, yes.  This is a common motif in history and in entertainment.
>From previous postings in this area, I can give you the following
examples:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+cjf@cs.uq.oz.au (Colin Fidge) sez:
+Does anyone know the origin of this story?  Two recent retellings are
+listed below, but I am certain that I have heard it elsewhere:
+
+i)  A 1981 episode of the Japanese fantasy series "Monkey", entitled
+    "Mothers", in which a young girl is smothered while a group of
+    people hide from a witch.
+
+ii) The final episode of "M*A*S*H" (1983), entitled "Goodbye, Farewell 
+    and Amen", in which a Korean child is smothered while a group of 
+    people hide on a bus from some soldiers.  (In this case it is 
+    Hawkeye who fervently tells the mother to quieten the child, and
+    subsequently must live with the guilt.)
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+In a damning article, schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) says:
+
+Well, back in the '60s I read it in a Reader's Digest article 
+about escapees from Hungary during the '56 revolution. This 
+argues persuasively that it is an UL.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+bill@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (William Logan Lee) read it in:
+
+"The Guns of Navarone" by Alistair MacClean. (sp?)
+Fictional account of a team of saboteurs led by a character
+called "Mallory".  The real Mallory was a famous New Zealander
+mountain climber who died in the 1930s (while climbing?).
+UL scene took place in a cemetary, with a wanted saboteur holding
+his hand over the nose and mouth of a baby to avoid a sentry
+discovering him and the baby's mother.
+Sequel: "Force Ten from Navarone", both book and film.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+>From: antioch@desire.wright.edu
+
+I know of another occurence, not in television, but in history.  Off the
+coast of New Hampshire & Maine there is a group of islands called the
+Isles of Shoals.  One of these islands, Star Island, was once a small
+village.  I dont remember the specifics but this was back during the
+time when the European colonists were moving into native american 
+territories...so anyways, the "Indians" attacked the island and 
+Betty Moody ran with her baby and hid in the rocks on the far side of
+the island.  In effort to quiet her child she accidentally smothered it.
+To this day there is still a small cave that is pointed out on tours
+known as BETTY MOODY'S CAVE because of this.   This is documented in the
+book "10 Miles Out" by Frederick & Ginny McGill and can be bought in 
+bookstores in that area if you want a copy.  
+(I know this because I worked as summer staff out there for 3 years, its 
+a Hotel/conference center now)
+
+I'm sure this legend has happened all around, its quite possible and quite
+memorable...makes for good folklore.
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+And sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
+
+  Yes, it *far* predates the 1980s. I can remember discussing the
+  subject as a hypothetical question in philosophy class, circa 1968:
+  would it be immoral for a mother to allow the noisy child to suffocate, if
+  the family would otherwise be discovered by the Nazis?

Off-hand, it sounds like a folklore motif to me.

Terry "Mommy!  Mommy!" Chan
--
Energy and Environment Division   | Internet:  TWChan@lbl.gov
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory      | "Perfect teeth, nice smell,
Berkeley, California  USA  94720  |  ...a class act all the way."