COUSINS
Ham, the conquistador of outer space, was captured in Africa.
He became the first chimpanzee to travel far beyond the world, the first chimponaut. They put him in the space capsule Mercury, hooked him up with more wires than a telephone switchboard, and blasted him off.
He came back safe and sound, and the record of his bodily functions demonstrated that humans too could survive a voyage into space.
Ham was on the cover of Life. And he spent the rest of his own caged in a zoo.
GRANDPARENTS
For many peoples of black Africa, ancestors are the spirits that live in the tree beside your house or in the cow grazing in the field. The great-grandfather of your great-great-grandfather is now that stream snaking down the mountainside. Your ancestor could also be any spirit that decides to accompany you on your voyage through the world, even if he or she was never a relative or an acquaintance.
The family has no borders, explains Soboufu Somé of the Dagara people: “Our children have many mothers and many fathers. As many as they wish.”
And the ancestral spirits, the ones that help you make your way, are the many grandparents that each of you has. As many as you wish.
BRIEF HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
And we tired of wandering through the forest and along the banks of rivers.
And we began settling. We invented villages and community life, turned bone into needle and thorn into spike. Tools elongated our hands, and the handle multiplied the strength of the ax, the hoe, and the knife.
We grew rice, barley, wheat, and corn, we put sheep and goats into corrals, we learned to store grain to keep from starving in bad times.
And in the fields of our labor we worshipped goddesses of fertility, women of vast hips and generous breasts. But with the passage of time they were displaced by the harsh gods of war. And we sang hymns of praise to the glory of kings, warrior chiefs, and high priests.
We discovered the words “yours” and “mine,” land became owned, and women became the property of men and fathers the owners of children.
Left far behind were the times when we drifted without home or destination.
The results of civilization were surprising: our lives became more secure but less free, and we worked a lot harder.
ORIGIN OF POLLUTION
The Pygmies, who have short bodies and long memories, recall the time before time, when the earth was above the sky.
From earth to sky fell a ceaseless rain of dust and garbage that fouled the home of the gods and poisoned their food.
The gods tolerated that filthy discharge for an eternity, then their patience ran out.
They sent a bolt of lightning, which split the earth in two. Through the crack they hurled the sun, the moon, and the stars on high, and by that route they too climbed up. Way up there, far from us, safe from us, the gods founded their new kingdom.
Ever since, we are the ones underneath.
ORIGIN OF SOCIAL CLASSES
In the earliest of times, times of hunger, the first woman was scratching at the earth when the sun’s rays penetrated her from behind. In an instant, a baby was born.
The god Pachacamac was not at all pleased with the sun’s good deed, and he tore the newborn to pieces. From the dead infant sprouted the first plants. The teeth became grains of corn, the bones became yucca, the flesh became potato, yam, squash. .
The sun’s fury was swift. His rays blasted the coast of Peru and left it forever dry. As the ultimate revenge he cracked three eggs on the soil.
From the golden egg emerged the lords.
From the silver egg, the ladies of the lords.
And from the copper egg, those who work.
SERFS AND LORDS
Cacao needs no sun, for it has its own.
From its inner glow come the pleasure and euphoria of chocolate. The gods on high had a monopoly on the thick elixir, and we humans were condemned to live in ignorance.
Quetzalcóatl stole it for the Toltecs. While the rest of the gods slept, he took a few seeds and hid them in his beard. Then he rappelled down to earth on the long thread of a spider’s web and presented them to the city of Tula.
Quetzalcóatl’s offering was usurped by the princes, the priests, and the warrior chiefs.
Their palates alone were deemed worthy.
As the owners of heaven forbade chocolate to mortals, so the owners of the earth forbade it to commoners.
RULERS AND RULED
The Bible of Jerusalem says that the people of Israel were God’s chosen, the children of God.
According to the second psalm, the chosen people were given the world to rule:
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
But the people of Israel gave Him much displeasure, ungrateful were they and sinful. And after many threats, curses, and punishments, God lost patience.
Ever since, other peoples have claimed the gift for themselves.
In the year 1900, Senator Albert Beveridge of the United States revealed: “Almighty God has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world.”
ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR
They say it was King Manu who bestowed divine prestige on the castes of India.
From his mouth emerged the priests. From his arms, the kings and warriors. From his thighs, the merchants. From his feet, the serfs and craftsmen.
And on that foundation arose the social pyramid, which in India has over three thousand stories.
Everyone is born where he should be born, to do what he should do. In the cradle lies the grave, origin is destiny: our lives are just recompense or fair punishment for our past lives, and heritage dictates our place and our role.
To correct deviations, King Manu recommended: “If a person from a lower caste hears the verses of the sacred books, he shall have molten lead poured in his ears; and if he recites them, he shall have his tongue cut out.” Such pedagogy is no longer fashionable, but anyone who departs from his place, in love, in labor, in whatever, still risks a public flogging that could leave him dead or more dead than alive.
The outcasts, one in five Indians, are beneath those on the bottom. They are called “Untouchables” because they contaminate: damned among the damned, they cannot speak to others, walk on their paths, or touch their glasses or plates. The law protects them, reality banishes them. Anyone can humiliate the men, anyone can rape the women, which is the only time the untouchables are touchable.
At the end of 2004, when the tsunami trampled the coasts of India, they collected the garbage and the dead.
As always.
ORIGIN OF WRITING
