A Planet of Mongrels

[I have edited this section OUT of my upcoming memoir. My question to you, fellow Silverbacks and Silverbelles, is whether or not it should be left in. If you have an opinion, one way or the other, I hope you will share it. If your opinion is “Who cares? No one gives a &%##!, I’d appreciate knowing that, too. SB SM]

Without wanting to incite a biblical debate, the human species has been around for about 200,000 years. My story (yours, too) started in South Africa.

In time humans, who are very adept in adapting environments to their needs, migrated north, the east, then west. According to my genome analysis (as provided by National Geographic) I have genes that went in both directions. This surprised me, as I thought I was a purebred British islander with roots extending into Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. When I visited “my people” in the fall of 2013 by returning to the supposed ancestral homeland, I learned that there really are no Scottish people. The Scots are a mongrel breed consisting of Celts from Ireland, Vikings from Norway, Picts from wherever Picts came from, Normans from France, and all manner of English slime.

Similarly, my wife, Sandy, proudly claims Sicilian heritage, and her National Geographic test backs her up, but her father was Hungarian, and the Sicilians are a minestrone of Moors, Greeks, Normans, Phoenicians, and Arabs. Everyone has had their way with the Sicilians. To be Sicilian is to be yet another mongrel.

We’re all mutts, making race, and its artificial distinctions one of the world greatest granfalloons, the proud, but meaningless, association of humans as defined by Kurt Vonnegut in his mind-altering novel Cat’s Cradle.

Other notable granfalloons are political boundaries and organized religion. How many wars have been fought for race, nationality, or religion? How many lives have been lost, over nothing really.

It’s no different with canine mutts. Great Danes and Chihuahuas are the same species. Put a male and a female in the same room when the female is in heat, and they will find a way to copulate. (Don’t ask me how; I can’t figure it out either.) Three or so generations of this and you’re back to the ubiquitous mutts that are universal from Puerto Rico to New Delhi.

Humans, like dogs, can interbreed. It’s been happening for 200,000 years. It’s not going to change.

Something else I learned

Who Am I? And Why am I here?

I’ve reached the legacy period in life, in which we try to figure out who we are, where we came from, and why we were put on this planet. I haven’t given much thought to these questions previously. It’s been enough to get up, put my pants on one leg at a time, then put one foot in front of the other in the eternal quest to meet the next deadline.

With this noble purpose in mind, my wife and I set off for Scotland to discover my ancestral roots. Total disclosure: I don’t really know how Scottish I am. My surname is “Morris,” which is the 32^nd most common name in America. This is fact. I know because I Googled it. The origin of the name is either “of the moors,” meaning that I come from “a broad area of open land that is not good for farming” (Merriam-Webster). Alternatively, it could mean that I am Moorish, i.e. a Muslim of Berber and Arab descent from Northern Africa. Shakespeare’s Othello was a famous Moor. In other places the name is reported as a derivative of Mars, the Greek god of war, or it can be an anglicized version of the French “Maurice,” as in Chevalier. Am I making progress? And that’s just my father’s side.

My mother’s side of the family, which I carry in my middle name of Hunter, offers an easier identity hook. It is obvious that a Hunter exists to put meat on the table. Family lore, which gets pretty fuzzy when you go back more than two generations, places the family in the Ayrshire district of the Scottish lowlands. Assisted by my good friends Google and Wikipedia, I soon discovered an organization called Clan Hunter USA.

I have a Clan! I am somebody! Not just some warlike North African living in open lands not good for farming.

Home! for the Hunters

Moreover, the clan has a motto (Cursum Perficio– “I will complete the course,” meaning the hunt), a tartan, and even a castle! The clan can date its roots to 1107, when WillielmoVenator (translation “William the Hunter”) was granted lands by King David I in the years following the Norman Conquest. The mighty Hunters fought alongside William Wallace and Robert the Bruce in the Scottish Wars of Independence, and they defended their homestead against repeated threats from the Vikings. The castle dates from 1374 when the British Crown granted a charter for lands for the whopping annual sum of one silver penny.

We arrived in Edinburgh (Edin-burrah, not “burg” as in Pittsburg) and immediately beat a path to a tourist shop featuring all manner of Tartan chotchkes. “I’m a Hunter,” I told the store clerk. “So am I,” she answered, “it’s about the most common name in Scotland, kind of like ‘Smith.’”

Undeterred, I purchased coasters, key rings, postcards, and even shot glasses festooned with the clan markings. Yes, the shot glass cost $17.00, but where else are you going to find a shot glass with Cursum Perficio on it?

A few days later we were in the village of West Kilbride to personally tour the ancestral home. Keep in mind, there is not a single scrap of evidence to connect me with this place, family, or clan, other than the Scottish proverb that says “he who would have a gown of gold is sure to get a sleeve o’it.” This was my sleeve.

Oh, there have been a few changes since 1107, notably the grounds upon which Hunter Castle (called “Hunterston”) sits were at one point taken by the British equivalent of eminent domain, and not one, but two nuclear power plants were built just beyond the tree line visible from the castle ramparts. (Perhaps there’s a connection to the fact that I’ve devoted my professional life to promoting all things green and renewable.)

I’ve also taken a crash course in Scottish history, enough to know that the misty look that comes over the eyes of Scottish-Americans when they sip a wee dram and blubber about the “auld sod” is based on something other than fact.

Scotland lost its quest for independence at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Bonnie Prince Charlie, a wannabe King, had rallied the Highland forces into what proved to be a suicidal attack against the disciplined English forces. Although the prevailing image is of kilt-clad Highlanders brandishing swords and shouting Braveheart-worthy war screams, the truth is that the battle lasted barely an hour and was an utter rout for the Scots. The Prince stayed well clear of the front lines, escaped and went on to live as a degenerate exile on the European continent. The vanquished Highlanders, by contrast went into an extended period of poverty and cultural repression.

Scotland, at this time, was a country of hereditary land owners (lairds) and subsistence farmers (crofters), who rented their modest holdings from the lairds. This system worked when times were good and the crofters could afford their rent, but throw in the occasional potato famine and the lairds began to think that it was more profitable to have sheep rather than those pesky crofters on their lands. In what has become known as The Clearances, the crofters were evicted, often by force, and sought asylum in places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

This, in all likelihood, is my legacy. The Hunter family still has the castle and estate, but my people were the ones who got the boot. Even though I’ve paid my $35 membership fee to become an official member of Clan Hunter USA, I am one of the huddled masses whose ancestors were deemed less valuable than sheep.

Scotland regained a measure of independence in 1999 when the country established their own Parliament. People there still grumble about Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie being the rightful heir to the throne, but I’ve let it go. I’m glad to be in America publishing “practical information for friends of the environment.” To that I raise a glass with a wee dram and say “Cursum Pacificio!”

PS– One of the very cool things we did in Scotland was to attend a traditional music festival in the seaside town of Dunbar, a town whose claim to fame is tied to being the birthplace of John Muir who is widely renown as the father of environmentalism, is now celebrated with statues, civic monuments, and a museum. When his family emigrated to America, however, they were impoverished and looking for opportunity, as were, most likely, my Hunter forebears.