ghostexorcist

At one time I spent a great deal of effort trying to connect the Jews to the Mediterranean India Trade. It just seemed like a natural fit because it involved 11^th – 13^th Jewish merchants active in India that adhered to Maimonides’ code and the Yemen ritual. But beyond these similarities, I couldn’t find anything conclusive. I later came to appreciate their Persian origins and learned the Mediterranean and Persian Jews were active in two different areas of India. The Persian Jews were prominent in the Punjab, while their Mediterranean brothers were prominent along the Malabar Coast and in the south. Another difference was that the Persian Jews generally came by land, the Mediterranean Jews by Sea. According to Goitein, the Persian India Trade was actually beyond the scope of the Geniza. Despite these differences, the activity of those on the Malabar Coast still stands as a very good example for how the Kaifeng Jews might have lived prior to and after settling in China.

There are actually a large number of Geniza documents written in Judeo-Persian. I believe most of these were written by Persian Jews whose ancestors had moved to the Mediterranean during the 9th century at the request of their Karaite leaders. New efforts are being made to translate these documents. Five volumes are scheduled to be published in 2012 by Dr. Shaul Shacked. I currently have access to Cairo Geniza documents via the online Friedberg Geniza Project, but none of the Judeo-Persian documents have transcripts yet. To my knowledge, no one has ever compared these documents with the Kaifeng Liturgy. Such a study might turn up some valuable information.

I too am interested in how the Jews accommodated themselves to the Chinese environment. While writing this letter, I consulted some psychological / anthropological papers on “Ethnic enclaves”. These enclaves are cultural centers peopled by various ethno-religious groups living in foreign countries. This need to be around similar people in unfamiliar settings is known in psychology as “situated identity” and “contextual identity.” This is the basis for such famous enclaves as Little China, Little Italy, Greektown, etc. If you think about it, the Kaifeng Jews were an ethnic enclave themselves. One paper I am currently reading states:

"Segregation is natural as a group enters the United States. In the beginning, people's limited market resources and ethnically bound cultural and social capital are mutually reinforcing; they work in tandem to sustain ethnic neighborhoods [...] immigrants entered American cities, in which working-class people had to live near their places of employment and had little contact with people outside their neighborhood."

This information could easily be applied to ethnic groups in other countries and other times. For instance, the 14th century sojourner Ibn Battuta described the Muslim quarters of China as being cities within cities, closed off from the Chinese, with their own food, and entertainment. These areas were so self sufficient that one did not need to leave. The Muslim inhabitants simply continued to live their lives like they had done in their birth country despite being in China. The communities often had a representative that dealt exclusively with the Chinese. (A “representative of merchants” is a common and very prestigious position held by various people mentioned throughout the Geniza documents.) This is basically how I believe the early Kaifeng Jews lived. Their enclave was formed by Jewish merchants that coalesced in the city center of Kaifeng. This might have been officially sanctioned since Arabs, Persians, and Koreans had their own areas designated for them by the government. This would naturally verify the stone inscription that states the Jews were welcomed to stay. Since the Jews were merchants that probably did most of their business near their enclave, they naturally would not have come into contact with the neighboring Chinese very much. I would think only a few Jews actually spoke Chinese (not all of them needed to anyway); therefore, a representative was probably used to initiate business dealings. The community probably consisted solely of men at first. Once they were established, religious leaders were the first to be brought in [CORRECTION: SOME MERCHANTS WERE HOLY MEN THEMSELVES, SO THEY WOULD ALREADY BE PRESENT IN CHINA. ALTHOUGH, I WOULD NOT DISMISS THE POSSIBILITY THAT SOME CAME TO CHINA AT A LATER DATE SPECIFICALLY TO HOLD RELIGIOUS OFFICES.] , followed by the merchant’s own families provided they lived close enough [CORRECTION: I HAVE SINCE LEARNED THAT MERCHANTS ACTIVE SO FAR FROM HOME FOR SUCH LONG PERIODS WOULD OFTEN DIVORCE THEIR WIVES. THEREFORE, THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO SEEMS MORE LIKELY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING]. Many probably began to marry the Chinese early on because of the low numbers of Jewish women. Although it was a taboo, merchants on the Malabar Coast would sometimes marry their Hindu slave girls and convert them to Judaism. This included the most famous India Trader of them all, Abraham ben Yiju, who was active during the early to mid 12^th century. The aforementioned paper also states:

“People with more financial resources and mainstream jobs avoid ethnic zones, and these areas are left behind by immigrants with more experience and by the second generation in search of the 'Promised Land.'"

I think the last part of the sentence is a great illustration of how later generations of Jews found it necessary to assimilate more of the Chinese culture in order to better their social positions. More and more of them certainly began to learn the language, which would have enabled them to intermingle with the local populace and take on new professions.

The 1489 inscription simply states the Jews “brought tribute of western cloth to the Song (court).” This is rather ambiguous. A person could read the passage any number of ways and provide support to that effect. For instance, the cloth could be taken as flax because it was popular in the west. According to the 9th century Afro-Arab scholar Al-Jahiz, "All men know that Khorasan is the land of cotton, Egypt the land of flax." One might argue that Flax was known in China as well and couldn’t be the cloth alluded to. However, both Flax and cotton were widely known during the Ming when the 1489 inscription was first commissioned. So my question is: why didn’t they just name the specific cloth? I will agree with past researchers that cotton is the most plausible due to it being less popular than Flax and Silk during the Song, but I think this is as far as we can speculate. We can’t confidently state the Jews were merchants who dealt exclusively in cotton without further evidence. One thing we can be certain of, though, is that the material had already been processed and was no longer in raw form. This would have taken up much less room than huge bails of raw cotton.

History shows Jewish merchants active in the East often dealt in more than one product. The India Traders on the Malabar Coast exported everything from fragrant wood to brass furniture. The Radanites dabbled in “musk, aloes, camphor, cinnamon, and other products of the Eastern countries.” The Judeo-Persian letter from Dandan-Uliq in Xingjiang province, China points to the Jewish merchant dealing in sheep, cloth, and possibly even slaves. Specializing in only one product would be somewhat risky since that particular item may only be in demand at certain times of the year or may fall out of favor altogether. Having several items would give a merchant more flexibility to meet his buyer’s changing demands and return a better profit in the end. So it is more likely cotton textiles was only one of many products the ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews specialized in.

Robert M. Hartwell’s unpublished book Tribute Missions to Song China 960 -1126 (1983) lists envoys from countries ranging from Africa to Korea and everything in between. Most of the recorded tributes seem to be of a political nature, foreign kings and princes paying homage to the Song. Ralph Kauz states merchants often presented themselves as political envoys in order to gain favor with the court during the early Ming. I wouldn’t doubt if this was a common practice performed in prior dynasties. The available records mention “local products” being among the bulk of the tributes, apart from money and horses and the occasional 300 pound block of Jade or a "dancing elephant." Some of these certainly could have been cotton textiles.

The Jews might not have actually met the Emperor upon their arrival. You will recall the vagueness of the stone inscription: “bought tribute … to the Song (court).” The Emperor’s call for them to stay in China is not mentioned until the second line. This could mean the Jews’ tribute was forwarded onto the Emperor who later sent out a decree. Envoys mentioned in Hartwell’s book were routed away from the capital if they had taken a forbidden route through enemy territory to arrive in China (usually a northerly route) or didn’t have proper credentials. Sometimes even annual tributes from neighboring kingdoms would only be allowed to venture to the capital every other year. The areas they were rerouted too were far away from the capital, meaning an imperial decree would have to be sent out to inform them of the Emperors acceptance or decline of a tribute. So not everyone got to personally meet the emperor.  I think it is plausible that the Jews were trading in Song China long before they sent the tribute to the court. Now, the inscription says 70 people arrived, but, as I’m sure you know, other researchers believe that it could have been a scribal mistake for 17. A small contingent of merchants would be more likely to fly under the imperial radar than a huge one. (Hartman mentions one envoy so big that 50 were split off and allowed to go onto the capital, while the rest were routed to a different location.) But the number would steadily increase over time and a place would have to be designated for them. Perhaps the tribute is why their enclave was designated for them. All of this is, of course, conjecture on my part.

[...] "

Back in April, I posted an entry about amphibians' strange habit of becoming cannibals when faced with a low food environment. I noted this could be used in a story to explain why humans transform into werewolves, vampires, zombies, and the like. But since then, I have done a little research and the "self-initiated micro evolution" (Phenotypic Plasticity) that I spoke of is not really feasible for humans because our physiological make up is just so different from amphibians. However, I thought of an idea for how this could happen: experimentation.

I came up with a scenario where U.S. military scientists are wanting to create super-soldiers who can survive and even thrive in environments most humans would not be able to. For the aquatic domain, the scientists take navy seals and splice in genes from various species of amphibians. This gives the soldiers the ability to breathe through their skin, spend long periods of time under water, swim quickly, jump long distances, cling to surfaces, and even hibernate. The latter ability would be a boon because they could dig down into the mud and hibernate in enemy lines for a given time, awaken, perform a series of guerrilla attacks, and (if necessary) find a new hibernation place to escape apprehension. Squads of these soldiers could operate on alternating schedules, meaning a whole platoon could take out a larger enemy component without the U.S. having to resort to sending an entire division.

But would happen if these soldiers were exposed to the same circumstances that lead amphibians to become cannibals? Considering they operate on alternating schedules, I could see one or two squads awakening during winter when there is little food. This causes them to take on drastic physiological changes akin to the Amphibians whose genes have been spliced with their own. As I explained in my post from April, these "change[s] include...a restructuring of the jaw, a widening of the mouth, enlarging of the head, and, in frogs especially, the lengthening and increase of Vomerine teeth." This means the soldiers would take on a monstrous appearance to fit their monstrous diet. This is a permanent transformation, so they would continue to reek mayhem even after the food situation had changed. The other squads could awaken to battle their mutated brothers, but I like to think the latter would be more powerful as their amphibian traits have become more dominant.

To make the story more interesting, I was thinking of a way for there to be more half-human-half-amphibian monsters. Then I remembered back to some of the research papers we had to read in my Herpetology class. One scientist did an experiment where he exposed a male frog to a large dosage of the herbicide Atrazine. In short, the chemical turned the frog into a female who could mate and lay viable eggs of its own. Therefore, a mishap could introduce some of the mutated soldiers to Atrazine, turning them into females. This means the soldiers could mate and produce mutant offspring. (I realize this last bit is gross, but it makes these monsters so much more alien as it crosses the line of gender.) If the outbreak of the "Cane Toad" in Australia is any indication, these monsters could rapidly reproduce and span out over large distances eating everything in their path.

I think this would make a nifty horror movie.

(Sabina News Record - October 22, 1964) It was cloudy, a cool October day and a brisk wind was bIowing across the cemetery; the tent was set up around the grave site, the casket lowering equipment, artificial grass, and chairs for the unknown family were in place; the Littleton Funeral Home hearse approached the grave site and stopped. Personel of the Sabina Cemetery, Spurgeon Vault Co. and Littleton Funeral Home acted as pall bearers.

As the eight men present removed their hats, Dr. F. M. Wentz, local Methodist Minister had the committal service. . . . . . and, "Eugene" was buried.

It was a simple but dignified committal service and was the concluding chapter of 35 years of mystery, this 21st day of October, 1964.

June 6, 1929 was the beginning of the story, when the body of a man 50 to 80 years old was found on the 3C highway near the Borum Road. The Littleton Funeral home was notified and the late Dr. C. E. Kinzel, then coroner, was called. He said the man had died of natural causes. The only identification that could be found on him was a slip of tablet paper with the address 1118 Yale Ave., Cincinnati written on it. The Cincinnati police checked the address and found it was a vacant lot. The closest man to this address was a man named Eugene Johnson and for this reason the unknown man was given the name of "Eugene." Those who gave him the name have since passed away; Mr. Olin Moon, mortician at Littleton's for over 40 years; and the present owner's, father and grandfather, Roger and Harry Littleton.

Several years ago the late Mr. Moon related the story that the regular method of embalming was used in preparing the unknown African American man for burial, after he was found dead. His burial was delayed while an effort was made to locate his survivors. None ever could be found, althogh Mr. Moon recalled that one person who came to see this man appeared to recognize him, but did not say anything and his identity is still a mystery.

Several people of Sabina recalled at the time of having seen the man as he slowly walked through town the evening before he was found dead. Among those who saw him was Mr. J. C. Phelps. who lived at that time on E. Washington St. Mr. Phelps says he was sitting on the front steps that evening when "Eugene" passed by. For many years Mr. Phelps has lived at the comer of Elm and Jackson Sts. across from the Funeral Home and has witnessed the many thousands of people who came to see 'Eugene."

In the 35 years since, a conservative estimate would be that over a million and a half people came to see "Eugene" where be lay in state at the Funeral Home in his own little house in the side yard of the Littleton home. Nearly a million signed the many register books being kept at the building, a remodeled upground cellar. Many famous celebrities names are to be found among the signatures.

"Eugene" received a new suit almost every year and after a few years it was necessary to build a wire screen across the room to protect him from curiousity and souvenir seekers.

Frequently on holidays and summer weekends there were lines of people waiting to pass by the bier of this unknown man. Many large chartered buses passing through this town found their way to Littleton's and paused while the groups passed through the little house to see "Eugene".

As time passed "Eugene" became the object of pranksters and was taken from the building a few times, but was always quickly recovered. One time he was taken as far as the Ohio State Campus in Columbus.

Barth Littleton, present owner of the Funeral Home said Wednesday they just felt it was time to bury him. All the good reasons for keeping him having been fulfilled, and pranksters were detracting from the dignity of the home and "Eugene".

He was not buried in potters field. Mr. Littleton purchased a lot in the Sabina Cemetery and bore all the expenses incurred in the burial. "Eugene was fitted with a new suit and will be furnished with a marker (source).

When I was accepted to Miami University in November of 2009, my advisor told me that I needed a Biology with a 4-hour lab in order to fulfill the science requirement for one of my degrees. She gave me a class directory with a long list of Biology/Zoology courses that I could choose from. However, when I finally got a chance to register, all of the classes were closed out. Now I usually like getting as many of the core classes out of the way as I can, so I looked for another class that I figured would count if it fit the same criteria. I found one class that had a good time slot called Herpetology. I didn’t know what it was, so I looked it up. It’s the “study of creeping things” like snakes, lizards, salamanders, frogs, and turtles. I’ve always liked snakes, lizards, and frogs, so I thought the class would be perfect for me.

The first day of class rolled around in January of 2010 and I soon found out the class was a 400-level course for seniors about to graduate with their degrees in Biology/Zoology. It turns out the administrators were unaware that there was no prerequisite block for the class on the registration website, meaning anyone could sign up for it even if they were sorely under qualified like me. I am a sophomore with little to no scientific background, so it has been a huge struggle for me. On top of tests on the evolution, anatomy, and day-to-day life of Herps, we also had to learn the common name, family name, and Latin binomial for 88 different species living around the school. Here is an example of just one set:

Common: Eastern Hellbender
Family: Cryptobranchidae
Latin binomial: Cryptobranchus alleganiensis

Imagine trying to remember 88 different sets of these! And the worst part was, if we spelled it wrong (even one letter out of place), forgot to underline the Latin binomial, or didn't capitalize the first and lowercase the second words of the binomial we lost half a point for each infraction. You only had to miss a couple to get zero points.

Through out my time in the class, I did pretty crappy on the multiple mid terms. For instance, I got a 68 on the first midterm and a 73 on the second. After my disastrous performance on the first midterm, my teacher came up to me and actually asked: "Do you have any scientific background?" She probably thought I was some poor mentally challenged chap who had slipped through the cracks in the public education system. I even did really bad, at least in the beginning, on the weekly species quizzes. We ended up having 22 such quizzes (worth 5 pts each). But I did really well on our individual "practicals" for each of the snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, and salamanders (93 on the first and 97.5 on the second). I also did really well on our weekly research paper discussion (12.5 pts each) and the work sheets on the individual species under the snakes, lizards, frogs, etc (10 pts each).

Towards the end, the teacher assigned an in-depth research paper. We did several experiments to see how varying dosages of herbicides and pesticides effected the development, activity level, feeding, and overall survival of Spotted-Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) larvae. Once we handed in all of the numbers, the teacher input them into a program that came up with several sheets of complicated statistics. It was assumed that everyone had taken statistics and were able to understand the computations, but this was not so. Even though some people probably did have such a class, very few people could interpret the info into usable material for the paper. I never took statistics as my degree didn't call for any kind of advanced math, so I didn't understand it either. This sorely inhibited my ability to finish the paper. The only part of the paper that I did finish was the introduction, which talked about similar experiments completed by professional biologists, and the methods section, which described our own experiment. Unfortunately, I had to turn the paper in half finished. I ended up getting a 30 out of 50 for the effort that I put into it, not to mention the fact that they were aware I was in the class by mistake.

Two additional assignments that we completed were a life history on a chosen Herp and a cartoon. The idea for the life history was to create a flashy, yet informative handout that could be given to the general populace. I chose the Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta) because I used to see them climb the trees around my house when I was younger. I got a 50 out of 50. The idea for the cartoon was to incorporate stuff that we had learned in the class. Here is mine:

(I actually drew this in bitmap format because the colors are smoother, but I had to convert it to jpeg in order to post it here. That is why some of the colors look blotchy. Note the red shirt for example.)

I have to explain a few things in order for people to fully appreciate the strip. First, the principal's name "Bufo" is the genus name for the American Toad (Bufo americanus). The mother's name "Necturus" is the genus name for the Mudpuppy Salamander (Necturus maculosus). Second, the stuff the principal is saying about Billy not wanting to leave the pool or his refusal to mature has to do with the Mudpuppy's biology. Being aquatic salamanders, they never leave the water for life on land. Because of this, they retain their childhood characteristic of external gills (that is what those purple things are on the sides of Billy's head). So, basically, even in their adult state, they look just like their children, only bigger. Therefore, Billy's refusal to mature can be taken as both his mental maturity level and his physical growth. Third, amphibians can become cannibals in environments with low food resources.

I got a 25 out of 25 for the cartoon.

For all of our past practicals, we were mainly tested on the specimens housed in the classroom and a few supplemental pictures for the specimens that we didn’t have.

For our finally practical, the teacher decided to throw us a loop and test us entirely on brand new pictures for everything, even the specimens we did have. The problem with this is that our specimens look nothing like their living counterparts as the preservative mutes their colors and the pictures we did have were not necessarily representative of the general populace. While individuals may fall under the same family, their color changes according to what region they live in. For instance, the pictures of the Upland Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata) that we were used to depicted them as being light brown with dark brown stripes, but the picture used on the final practical was jet black with bright green stripes. How crazy is that?!? I ended up getting the equivalent of an 89 on this.

The circumstances for the final were not all that great. I was horribly busy the prior week with trying to write several lengthy papers for all of my classes. I, of course, had to work over the weekend, so I didn’t have time to study for it. I had a Chinese final on Monday and then I had to go home and get some sleep before working all night into Tuesday morning. I was able to study a little bit on Monday evening, but not much. My final wasn’t until 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, so I knew I could get some sleep after work. I only intended on sleeping for a couple of hours and then studying from 8 a.m. until I had to leave at 10:50 (because of the 45 min. drive to school). But, I was so tired from work that I turned off the alarm and didn't wake up until a little after 10. This gave me little time to study. I studied during my drive into school and finally took the test. I would say a good 85% of the test was stuff that we had recently gone over and the remainder was cumulative. I figured that if I got at least 60 out of the total 150 pts that I could miraculously pass the class with a (B-). You can only imagine how happy I was when I saw that I got a 128 out of 150, the equivalent of an 85.

The final grades recently came out for all of my classes and I ended up getting a (B+) in Herpetology. The two universities that I have attended seem to drop the lowest grade in the class, so this is probably how I got the grade that I did.

I feel pretty good that I was able to pass such a class. Now all I have to do is petition the class to count as one of the core biology courses that I was originally supposed to take. The head of the Zoology department signed a petition form for me sometime ago and noted that a previous class that I took at the University of Cincinnati and this class more than made up the class. She was totally amazed that I was passing the class with no scientific background.

Out of all of the stuff I have learned in my Herpetology class, the neatest thing by far is this: Amphibians can chose to become cannibals and change their bodies to accommodate larger prey. This change includes a restructuring of the jaw, a widening of the mouth, enlarging of the head, and, in frogs especially, the lengthening and increase of Vomerine teeth. According to my teacher, Cannibals even have a meaner-looking appearance. Here is a drawing that compares three different Salamanders’ normal states (top) with their cannibal forms (bottom):

Notice how different the mouth looks and the pissed off continuance. It is believed that cannibalism is caused by environments with low food sources. Laboratory experiments have shown cannibals are less likely to eat their own family. Crazy, right? My teacher tells me the theory is that they pick up on genetic chemical cues that let them know to stay away from their own children or siblings. However, this doesn’t always work. When you’ve gotta eat, you’ve gotta eat!

Now, you may be wondering what this all has to do with a good story. Well, legends abound throughout history about people resorting to cannibalism to survive. Imagine if such a change were to happen to a person once they tasted human flesh. This could be some type of an alternate explanation for vampirism, lycanthropy, or zombification. Unlike the traditional stories, it’s simple phenotypic plasticity (a sort of self-initiated micro evolution) at work and not a demon. You could use the example of amphibians to give a scientific reason for the change. And there is no cure either. Once a cannibal, always a cannibal. The inflicted person would have a larger mouth, powerful jaws, and longer teeth. Not to mention a meaner overall look to them. Even without the demon part, a writer could easily put an evil spin on this. Thoughts?