The Puzzle in Ancestry

1895

A Mathematician Tries to Clear Up a Difficulty In Family Descent.

It goes without saying that a man has two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and so on, so that if we go back, say, ten generations, doubling at each stop, we have 2,048 ancestors. This sort of argument has been used by superficial genealogists to show that at the time of William the Conqueror each of us had more ancestors than the total population of England; hence we must each be descended from every Englishman of that day, including the immortal William himself.

The absurdity of this sort of reasoning has been pointed out by Professor Brooks of Johns Hopkins. His immediate object is to establish a point in the theory of evolution, but he confutes all silly genealogists at the same time. While it is true that we do have four grandparents they need not be four separate and distinct persons. First cousins have not more than three separate grandparents. If they are doubly cousins, they have but two. So in the tenth generation one's 2,048 ancestors are never 2,048 separate persons. They abound in "duplicates," so to speak, as every one knows who has tried to trace his descent, not in one line, but in all possible lines. These duplicates abound especially in small communities whose inhabitants have intermarried for years.

Besides this the lines from a given pair of ancestors tend to become extinct sooner or later, so as ancestry is traced back the probability is that all the persons living in a given community will be found to be descended, not from all, but from a very few — perhaps only one or two — of the inhabitants of the community as they were centuries ago. So, instead of having all Englishmen of the year 1000 for our ancestors, the probability is that we are descended from comparatively few of them — the number may be technically many thousands, but one individual does duty for several scores, or even several hundreds of these, the lines of ancestry converging upon him from many different directions. This is what Professor Brooks calls the "convergence of ancestry." — Exchange.

Charms and Witchcraft

1900

The Malay is a Firm Believer In Their Efficacy

The Malay is a firm believer in the efficacy of charms. He wears amulets, places written words of magic in houses and sports a tiger's claw as a preventive of disease. If he is specially primitive and backwoodsy, when he enters a forest he says: "Go to the right, all my enemies and assailants! May you not look upon me; let me walk alone!" To allay a storm he says: "The elephants collect, they wallow across the sea. Go to the right, go to the left, I break the tempest." When about to begin an elephant hunt, according to Thompson, he uses this charm: "The elephant trumpets, he wallows across the lake. The pot boils, the pan boils across the point. Go to the left, go to the right, spirit of grandfather (the elephant); I loose the fingers upon the bowstring."

The Malay believes in witches and witchcraft. There is the bottle imp, the Polong, which feeds on its owner's blood till the time comes for it to take possession of an enemy. Then there is a horrid thing, the Penangalan, which possesses women. Frequently it leaves its rightful abode to fly away at night to feed on blood, faking the form of the head and intestines of the person it inhabited, in which shape it wanders around.

Such beliefs may perhaps have their origin in metempsychosis, which in other ways has some foothold among the common people. For instance, elephants and tigers are believed sometimes to be human souls in disguise, and so the Malay addresses them as "grandfather" to allay their wrath and avoid direct reference to them. Crocodiles also are often regarded as sacred, and special charms are used in fishing for them. One such, given by Maxwell, is as follows: "Oh, Dangsari, lotus flower, receive what I send thee. If thou receivest it not, may thy eyes be torn out." — R. Clyde Ford in Popular Science Monthly.

A Curious Legend — Standing Rock

1874

The new Indian agency between Grand River and Fort Rice, called Standing Rock, derives its name from a large boulder standing out alone upon the prairie about three miles from the river. There is a strange Indian superstition connected with this rock, and the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal thus tells it:

"Many years ago a powerful band of Indians made that section their stamping grounds. The chief of the band deserted his old wife for a young squaw. This so grieved the old Queen that she went back to the river, and sat upon the ground and mourned for several days. Upon the ninth day of her grief she turned into this large boulder.

"The Indians at that agency all believe this story to this day, and worship the boulder as a god. The rock has been decorated with ribbons, pieces of red flannel, and every high-colored piece of cloth they have been able to get hold of since time out of mind. These decorations are replaced as often as they become decayed or blown away by the winds.

"At the time of our visit it was trimmed in the most gorgeous trappings imaginable. Every portion of it was covered either with ribbons and rags or paint. Within a few inches of the sacred stone is a pail of water, which is never allowed to become empty; for it is the belief of those ignorant people that the old Queen of their ancestors frequently assumes the form of a squaw and drinks the water.

"In former years she drank much more than at present, they say; but this is easily explained. Then there was more game there, which, in wandering to the pail, drank the water. To disturb this bucket or any portion of the trimmings of the petrified squaw is considered a great offence against the Great Spirit, and is punishable by death."

Frightening the Monkeys – Troubles in Africa With Monkeys

1878

The inhabitants of Kabylia, Northern Africa, are much troubled by the depredations of monkeys, who in countless numbers infest the hilly forests. The unfortunate farmers or market gardeners who live on the mountain slopes wage a continual war against these marauders, which is foredoomed, however, to endless failure; for the inhabitants were Darwinites long before Mr. Darwin was heard of; and they dare not for their life kill one of the creatures regarded by them as their ancestors.

So the monkeys increase and multiply without the chance of becoming thinned off by any fatal battue. The only thing that can be done to guard against their attacks is to frighten them away, and this is effected by some very cunning and curious devices. It is found that occasionally, after a successful raid upon some garden, a few of the less hardened offenders are overcome by the plenteousness of their feast.

The potent juice of the grapes or of the figs gets the better of their reason or of their bodily activity, and they remain stretched on the ground, to be captured by the furious proprietor, when a mild but insidious punishment is inflicted upon the prisoners. Their necks are hung with small bells or rattles, and they are turned loose at the forest edge, when the panic created by their appearance is such as to frighten all their kinsfolk and acquaintances away into the depths of the wood. If bells cannot be procured another process has been invented — that of clothing the captured ape in a stout waistcoat of red stuff and then letting him run.

The effect is magical, and long after the ostracized animal has died or got free from his slavish badge the depredators hold aloof from the dangerous district.