“I have always been interested in
history,” said Darvin wiping the rain off his shirt and sipping a Belgium beer
in the downtown Isaac’s in Lancaster. In an interview with Jaquemate Darvin,
specialized in DNA analysis and interpretation, passionately interested in
history and indigenous cultures he added: “I was intrigued by the kind of history not found
in the history books. That has been my passion since I was very young. I
realized as I grew up that history is always written from a certain
perspective.”
There would appear to be a vacuum in the historic connection…
“There is only a certain aspect
of history that is shared, isn’t that right? That is, if we are talking about
history concerning economic development, indigenous culture, ‘Westernization,’
although the way history is taught in the schools is beginning to change. I
have been dealing with this issue, trying to find out about Native American
villages. But what are my sources? Colonial records! Documents made by white
Europeans. Then you look at maps and well, there are oral stories in very
specific communities all around here about Native American presence but if you
look at the maps that information is not there. You have to think about who the
map makers were: many of them people claiming land. You can find archeological
evidence of a native village but it is not on the maps.
To what extent was indigenous culture been obliterated by the expanding
invasion of white Europeans?
You go into isolated Native
American communities and they are cheering the cowboys in Hollywood movies!
They have been obliged to embrace Western values over their own culture,
although they may even deny that if you ask them. It’s scandalous! The tide is
changing and I think that according to whom you may be talking people might be
offended by that story of submission. They would be ashamed, yet it is a
reality.
History is written by the winners, don’t you think?
That is why the study of history
is so difficult. If you ask anyone on the street they say OK we had our program
and well then everyone has stories in their families. This has been passed
down, my grandfather kept the secret but…You know, there was this Carlisle
Indian school that operated up to about 80 years ago that took Native
American’s from all over the country and brought them to Carlisle, which is
about 40 miles from here and acculturated them into American culture. They
weren’t allowed to speak their own languages and had to change their names.
They were taken here from their families and brought here to be acculturated.
What happened to the different indigenous groups which populated this
area?
There was a big struggle between
Algonquian and Iroquois tribes. The Seneca branch of the Iroquois came down
from western New York sometime between 1300 and 1450 and subdued the Algonquian
peoples, before the arrival of Europeans. As more and more Europeans arrive the
pressure increases for the indigenous peoples to move west. In the Lancaster
area there were some Europeans but it wasn’t officially settle until the 17th
century. The indigenous groups came here forced out of their home areas.
Was there much resistance?
Yes, there are stories about that
if you go into the communities. There were several massacres and the physical
removal of native people to reservations, things like that.
What practices did the white settlers take from the indigenous
inhabitants?
When you think of the vegetables
we eat here—corn, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, squash, peppers—all of these were
taken from native people and today form an important part of our diet. True, cabbage,
peas and wheat came from Europe but look at the great variety. Fruits too,
strawberries, other kinds of berries.
Did the indigenous people cultivate those vegetables?
We don’t know exactly how they
did it but over thousands of years they improved maize, corn. They
ritualistically saved their best seeds for the next year as a sort of offering
to the earth and planted it the next season. You do that generation after
generation and your best seed becomes the normal seed.
What about their agricultural rituals?
Well, they had the three sisters:
the corn, the beans that wrap around the corn and the squash that lies on the
ground. They planted them ritualistically in small plots. And as fish was also
included in their ceremonies, the remains became fertilizer for the plants.
They didn’t understand agriculture scientifically as we do today but it was a
ritual of giving to the soil in anticipation of a bountiful harvest.
What do we know about the spiritual ideas of indigenous culture?
In a general sense, it is a kind
of pantheism in which god or the gods appears in everything around you. They
referred to the Great Spirit that is the ultimate reality beyond them; the
spirit is in animals, plants, water, in the air, in the wind, in the ancestors.
This is basically similar to what you might find in any other indigenous
peoples, in pre-historic times.
The way they built their houses reflected their spirituality, did it
not?
Yes, we don’t think that way but
really there is a spiritual connection. They would think that our houses were a
waist of space compared to their round structures! The Algonquian cultures
buried their dead in their houses, in the ground in their houses. You protect
your ancestors so they will protect you. There is also evidence that when they
moved they took their dead with them. I don’t know if that was a common
practice but there are colonial records about that. In any event, what is common
to pre-historic peoples everywhere is the contact with Mother Nature. Any
language based on feminine and masculine refers to “mother” nature. Because
creativity come out of birth, of plants or the birth of a child from its
mother.
What are you working on now?
Sure. I am involved in tracking
down Native American history and practices in this area, finding new things all
the time. I was just talking to a Shawnee woman in York County who was talking
about the origin of the Cocalico Creek, which I knew meant the den of serpents
and she told me why it means that. If you go to the source, to the north of the
county, there is this field of boulders—probably dating from the last ice age.
She said the indigenous people in the area would hear amidst the boulders a
sound like that of snakes and that’s why they called the creek born there “Colalico.”
Darvin L. Martin: dlm@onednatree.com
DNA Analysis & interpretation
