17 November 2007

161 Meme: Tracing the Tribe tagged

Jasia at Creative Gene was tagged by FootnoteMaven for the 161 Meme, and Jasia tagged me. Those tagged are supposed to open up the book we're currently reading to page 161, share the sixth sentence on that page, and then tag five other bloggers!

Jasia, you asked for it! I'm a voracious reader. Lucky for you, I'm reading only two books concurrently - the other eight gathered on my recent Barcelona trip haven't yet arrived!

The two current reads are Jon Entine's Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People - a fascinating read - and Stanley M. Hordes' solidly researched (historically and genealogically) To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews in New Mexico.

Entine's sixth sentence down on page 161 is a bit cryptic: "But our noses and skin (color) are different." This has to do with the African Lemba tribe DNA study and specifically about the Buba clan. I wish it were the 11th sentence instead: "The Lemba study, published in February 2000, directly assaulted anthropological orthodoxy."

In Hordes' book, the sixth sentence is really a paragraph of testimony by prominent New Mexicans before the Inquisition in Mexico City on May 3, 1666:

Item - he also says and declares that in August of the previous year [1665], in the pueblo of Sandia, having complied with the order that he had brought from the Holy Tribunal, Don Fernando de Duran y Chaves said to the witness that he had taken back that which the Holy Tribunal had ordered, to which the witness responded to him, I, too, take back what I said so that the people should not be saying what is being said, that perhaps they arrested me for practicing Judaism, which was said before Don Agustin de Chaves, Padre Fray Raphael, and Dona Catalina Vasques, from which I also ask for mercy as a Catholic Christian [emphasis added].

And I'm tagging Hsien at Eye on DNA, Steve at Steve's Genealogy Blog , Janice at Cow Hampshire, Chris at The Genealogue, and DearMYRTLE.

3 comments:

  1. Schelly:

    I am a more than one book at a time person, unless I have a fever, and enjoy finding someone else that's a two fisted reader as well.

    I'm really enjoying the 161 Meme and getting to know the literary tastes of my fellow bloggers, yours in particular.

    fM

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  2. Thanks, fM

    I have piles of books all over the place. Wherever I sit down, there's another one. Can't wait until my other books arrive from Barcelona.

    While these current two don't exactly prove it, my reading is always eclectic and esoteric, covering myriad subjects.

    Someone once said that if I didn't have a book, I'd start reading the label on a ketchup packet!

    GREAT meme idea! And I'm looking forward to learning what our colleagues are reading!

    Schelly

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  3. Schelly, thanks for the tag! I've posted a response here

    Janice

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