November 30, 2010

Roots

Written by: Joe Wilson, CITC Chemistry Teacher, Bartlett High School

Not long ago several of us from CITC went to a conference in Victoria, BC, Canada. At this conference, I was to meet one of the most influential people of my life, Dr. Martin Brokenleg. He made the point that if you were to go back just 20 generations in human history we would find that all of us would be cousins. When studying biology I am often impressed with this thought, in the grand scheme of things we are a very young species, we have only been here for about a million years, which completely agrees with Dr, Brokenleg’s statement. Having this in mind at the same time when considering ones roots often leads to some surprising connections. What follows below are some glimpses of those connections.

Dick Thompson was at the same conference with Dr. Brokenleg and he reminds us of this at many of our meetings by saying “Hi Cousins! “ to the whole group no matter how diverse the group is.

A biology class in L.A. was doing a genomic experiment in which their DNA was sequenced and compared to an international data base. The was a group of kids that were ethnically very diverse, African-American, Caucasian, Native American Indian and so on. They discovered that even in this diverse group that about two thirds of them were related to a single woman from northern China that lived long ago but her DNA was known. I would have loved to have been in that classroom when they discovered how closely related they really were.

Tehoshpayhe (I hope I have come close in the spelling of it) is a Lakota word that I learned from Dr. Brokenleg. It refers to the concept of an extended family unit somewhat larger than the one portrayed in the American family of two parents and two and a half children. The Lakota unit of Tehoshpayhe would include about 100 brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles each playing and important role in the overall unit. Spirit is an important theme here so I got the feeling from Dr. Brokenleg that ancestors might even play a part. At a recent family reunion, we Alaskan members of the Wilson tribe cooked moose stew for 96 family members and I found myself thinking how connected we all were. Several of us at the reunion remarked about this feeling of spirit, stories of recently the departed and ancestors led to discussion of genetics, history and genealogy.

The roots of the family had been had been a passion for many relatives at the reunion and a collaboration of those with this passion produced a family tree that stretched back several hundred years. I have a copy of it and it would cover most a wall in my classroom. As extensive as it is, it falls far short of showing the connections and roots of all of us, but perhaps it is a fair start. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could all become more aware of the connections of our roots? Doesn’t this suggest that we are more alike than different, that we have more in common to celebrate than differences to fear?

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” - Rev. Martin Luther king Jr.