Year: 2019

Ethnic Imposters

Ethnic Imposters

by Justin Durand

How often do we see it? People claim an ethnic heritage they don’t really have. Remember Rachel Dolezal? There was a scandal a few years ago because she identified as black and even served as president of the NAACP in Spokane without having the right DNA for the job.

Some people might think it’s an easy call. She claimed to be black but she’s not, so she’s an impostor. It’s easy to see that way of looking at, but for most of us there’s probably also a lingering suspicion that we haven’t quite hit the nail.

In fact, there are layers and layers of meaning and complication here.

For example, our society is coming to terms with trans people. I think most of us can understand that someone who is born in a male body can nevertheless identify as female (or vice versa). Conservatives might think we just need to beat it out of them, but that view is becoming less common (I think).

But how is ethnic dysphoria any different than gender dysphoria? That’s a hard question. And it doesn’t stop there.

Right now, Ralph Northam is fighting to save his political career after it became public that he wore black face in high school. (Because that used to count as entertainment. I don’t remember it that way but everyone sez so.) Northam’s basic argument is no one back then knew it was wrong so it’s not fair to hold him accountable now.

So, the world seems to have agreed black face is bad. But when I was a kid I read a book called Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin (1961). He darkened his skin and traveled around the South, pretending to be black. Broadly speaking, that seems like a kind of black face, but the prejudice he suffered served a purpose. It wasn’t just entertainment. He was my hero for years.

We could say there was no redeeming social value to Northam’s black face, as there was with Black Like Me. But I don’t think we can make “redeeming social value” the bright line between right and wrong, good and bad. Rachel Dolezal was doing good work as a civil rights activist, but that didn’t save her. Trans people aren’t usually offering anything for the greater social good, except of course their own wholeness, but that doesn’t mean we dismiss them.

Nor are we at a place where we can posit a rule it’s okay for people to define their own gender but not their own ethnicity. Northam is in trouble for doing black face 40 years ago, but he could probably do red face right now and get away with it. Kim TallBear notes, “Since the 18th century, non-Natives have dressed as Indians at the Boston Tea Party, in fraternal orders, in the Boy Scouts, at hobbyist powwows, within the New Age movement, and in sports, as racist mascots.”

Indeed, Italian immigrant Espira DiCorti made his entire television career posing as Iron Eyes Cody, supposedly a Native American with Cree and Cherokee ancestry. We’re in the upteenth year of the Washington Redskins trying to explain why their name is not really racist. And President Trump is using Pocahontas as a slur for political rival, apparently with the approval of the Republican party.

As a genealogist I don’t have to wait for cases like these to hit the front page. There is a constant drizzle of people who’ve had a DNA test, found that they’re zero point five percent Native American, and have adopted a full-blown Native American identity. Impostors who emerge as “Pipe Carriers for the Blackfoot Nation” or “Cheraw Nation Non-Profit Members” are a pain in the butt for all of us because their vanity distorts the research.

Very often the problem is nothing more than a stubborn naivete, usually on top of an inept and uneducated use of DNA. But in other cases, the DNA gets pressed into service to support an imposture that would be made anyway. It’s as though Rachel Dolezal could point to a 5th great grandmother who might have been black. (Oh, never mind then. That makes it okay.)

And that’s still not the end of it. Someone like Elizabeth Warren can have a genuine tradition of Cherokee ancestry, validated by DNA, but still run afoul of prevailing norms because her ancestry didn’t make her Cherokee.

But it could have. The layers just keep piling up. If her family has maintained their Cherokee culture there might not be the same controversy. And, if she had an ancestor on the Dawes Roll she would be eligible for Cherokee citizenship. But even then, there’s a strong feeling nowadays that blood quantum is an ineffective and perhaps even imperialist way of determining Native American identity. This is quite a complex topic. I was fortunate to come across a symposium in progress by the Smithsonian many years ago. I finished watching, then I’ve come back to watch and re-watch many times since. I highly recommend it. The short version is that culture not DNA determines identity.

I’m going to leave it there. Our current cultural landscape is a mess. Whites are in the same privileged position we’ve always been in. Judging by public opinion it’s sorta, kinda not okay for whites to do black face, but it might be okay to adopt a black identity. But Native Americans are different. It’s okay to do red face, okay to adopt a Native American identity, and even okay to make a living selling Native American shamanism.

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Bush Cemetery

Bush Cemetery

by Justin Durand

Some of my Horn and Roberson ancestors were buried in Bush Cemetery in Rock Port, Missouri. There’s nothing remarkable about that. It’s no different from the hundreds of little cemeteries across America where my ancestors are buried. Some of them maintained, some not.

What makes this one special is that there’s a guy who is making it his project to clean up the cemetery. Matt Barnes. He’s trimming trees, identifying graves, coordinating volunteers, and organizing weekend cleanup projects.

I’m impressed as hell. There’s not a chance I’m going to get enough time off to go out to Kansas City and help out. I have to live vicariously, following his Bush Cemetery page on Facebook and enjoying the emails I get when he finds something he thinks will interest me.

The world should be like this.

Origins of Freemasonry

Origins of Freemasonry

by Justin Durand

Like no one has ever written on this topic before. But, as it happens, I’m re-reading Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites, by C. W. Leadbeater (1986, 1998). The Old Perv. So now I’m thinking about a familiar subject.

Freemasonry has its colorful origin myths. Those are fun, but the modern sensibility is pretty tame. The Illinois Grand Lodge is typical:

“Since the middle of the 19th century, Masonic historians have sought the origins of the movement in a series of similar documents known as the Old Charges, dating from the Regius Poem in about 1425 to the beginning of the 18th century. Alluding to the membership of a lodge of operative masons, they relate a mythologized history of the craft, the duties of its grades, and the manner in which oaths of fidelity are to be taken on joining. The 15th century also sees the first evidence of ceremonial regalia.

“There is no clear mechanism by which these local trade organizations became today’s Masonic Lodges, but the earliest rituals and passwords known, from operative lodges around the turn of the 17th–18th centuries, show continuity with the rituals developed in the later 18th century by accepted or speculative Masons, as those members who did not practice the physical craft came to be known. The minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) No. 1 in Scotland show a continuity from an operative lodge in 1598 to a modern speculative Lodge. It is reputed to be the oldest Masonic Lodge in the world.” (Freemasonry Origins, The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of A.F & A.M of the State of Illinois, visited Feb. 11, 2019. One of the reasons I chose this one is because my dad was a Freemason from Illinois.)

Somewhere in the froth, everyone seems to forget that medieval craft guilds were like this. The guilds were organized in a typically medieval way around corporate identity. They had patron saints, feast days, processions, craft myths and secrets, and of course elected officers and elaborate ceremonial.

With very little effort, you could sit in a modern Masonic lodge and picture what it would look like if Western esotericism had been poured into a guild of, say candlemakers.

The patron would be St. Ambrose. The major feast would be on December 7. There would be a story about Adam making the first candle, no doubt shown by bees. And another about King Solomon and candles as a metaphor for his wisdom. And no doubt some others built around various Bible verses with themes of light and enlightenment. Scholars would find intriguing parallels to authentic medieval usages, and it would all seem very mysterious.

Certainly, as they say, “There is no clear mechanism by which these local trade organizations became today’s Masonic Lodges”, but I think that misses the larger mystery—How did we end up in a modern world where masons were the only craft guild to make the transition from “operative” to “speculative”? There should be dozens.

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Tomten

Tomten

by Justin Durand

Mom asked me today if I remember the tomte’s name. No, I don’t think I knew the tomte has a name. But I’m intrigued by the question.

Back up for a bit. We have a tomte (“house elf”). Of course we do. Our ancestors came from Sweden. Honestly, if I didn’t have one I’m not sure I’d admit it.

A tomte is a guardian of the house, like the lares and penates in Roman culture except he’s an elf not a spirit. He lives somewhere nearby, maybe in a hill or a under the barn, He protects the house and the people who live there. And, he brings luck and makes the chores lighter.

When I was a kid, I had a zillion questions. Where did he come from? (From Sweden, of course.) When? (With Grandma Josephine and Grandpa Adolph.) How did he get here? (He came in their steamer trunk.) How come we got him and our relatives didn’t? (Ahh, but they did get him We all got him.)

That last bit has to remain one of life’s mysteries. I have a tomte, and he’s the same tomte my great grandparents brought from Sweden in 1891, and all my relatives have him too, but somehow we all have our own.

After all these years, my American tomte is certainly different than he was in Sweden. I know some of those differences but probably not all.

Tomtar like to have a cheerful, hardworking environment. They don’t like arguments. They don’t like sloppy housekeeping. And, they don’t like change. That part is the same.

It’s traditional to put out a bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve, but I put out a saucer of milk like my mother did. And I don’t usually do it on Christmas Eve. More often at New Year’s Eve and Midsummer, or when I think something has happened to disturb our happy home.

Another difference — in Sweden, the tomte is sometimes said to have been the first person who cleared the land, or the person who built the house, or the first person who died in the house. That wouldn’t work in America, I don’t think. The poor tomtar would get attention only when there were good Swedes living in the house, then be ignored other times. If that’s the rule, then it’s pretty harsh.

And one last difference. I get the impression from my reading that the Swedish tomtar are essentially the local landvættir (“land spirits”), but I see my tomte as more an ancestral spirit, even though still definitely one of the húsvættir. It’s part of his job to coordinate with the land spirits. Particularly since I’m moving around and the local land spirits, whether Indian or American, are not often any part of my own family heritage.

So, getting back the question of his name. Maybe it’s Lars? Or Lasse? The Danes and Norwegian call their house elves nisse. Some people think the word nisse comes from Nils). If so, it seems certain the Swedes would be obstinately different. I think I’m going to start calling my tomte Lasse and see if he responds.

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Ethnicity, Nationality, Race, Identity, Culture & Heritage

Ethnicity, Nationality, Race, Identity, Culture & Heritage

by Justin Durand

I like this article as one of the clearest introductions to a complex subject I know.

Here’s a taste:
Heritage can overlap on the ethnicity and nationality a bit at times, but it generally refers to the ancestors of a person, and what they identified with. For example, a child born to naturalized U.S. citizens hailing from Venezuela could say they have a Venezuelan heritage, even if they don’t share the ethnicity (perhaps they can’t speak Spanish, and they are American as far as nationality.

Just a few minutes to read.