Tag Archives: smallpox

12/16/12

The Coracle, Prince Madoc, and the Mandans

Mandan NDLewis and Clark trekked up the Mississippi river in 1804 and spent the winter of 1804-05 at Ft. Mandan (present day Washburn, North Dakota).  Lewis believed that the Mandan people were descended from Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd, who purportedly sailed from the new world in 1170 after the death of his father, and to escape the murder and infighting among his brothers for the throne of Wales.  Given that all but one of his brothers ended up dead within 5 years, this might have been a good plan, all around.

Now, if Madoc’s family hadn’t been associated with the Danes of Dublin, the notion of such an expedition would have been even more far-fetched.  Madoc’s great-grandmother was Ragnhild, “the daughter of Olaf of Dublin, son of King Sigtrygg Silkbeard and a member of the Hiberno-Norse Uí Ímhair dynasty. Through his mother, who appears in the list of the fair women of Ireland in the Book of Leinster.”  His grandfather, Gruffydd, “claimed relationships with many of the leading septs in Ireland. His great-great grandparents on his mother’s side include the High King of Ireland, Brian Bóruma, and the King of Dublin and King of Northumbria, Olaf Cuarán, and Gormflaith.”  (Hudson, Benjamin T.  (2005). Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in the North Atlantic (Illustrated ed.). United States: Oxford University Press).  The norsemen had landed in North America over a hundred years before, stories about which Madoc would have heard.

Welshmen were not the same kind of sailors as the Danes, but one of the pieces of evidence that Meriwether Lewis and others (George Carlin) hit upon that made him think that the Mandans were indeed descended from Welshmen (in addition to their anomalous hair and eye color), were their coracles, round boats not unique to Wales, but used in the British isles for thousands of years and not found elsewhere in North America.  See http://www.data-wales.co.uk/coracle1.htm for a description.  And here for a long discussion about this issue:  http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bowen/mandans.html

That this story is anything more than a myth remains unlikely.  The origin of the story is not known, but it rose to prominence during the Elizabethan era, when England was competing with Spain for the conquest of the New World.  That a Welsh explorer had come to America first . . . well, that would strengthen the claim.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but as with Arthur, propaganda is a powerful tool.  “The earliest certain reference appears in a cywydd by the Welsh poet Maredudd ap Rhys (fl. 1450-83) of Powys, which mentions a Madog who is a son or descendant of Owain Gwynedd and who voyaged to the sea. The poem is addressed to a local squire, thanking him for a fishing net on a patron’s behalf. Madog is referred to as “Splendid Madog… / Of Owain Gwynedd’s line, / He desired not land… / Or worldy wealth but the sea.”   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc

The Mandans as a people, did not survive the 19th century and there is no other evidence that might help us.  “The great plague of smallpox struck the Three Tribes in June of 1837, and this horrible epidemic brought disaster to these Indians.  Francis A. Chardon’s journals state that on July 14, a young Mandan died of smallpox and several more had caught it.  The plague spread with terrible rapidity and raged with a violence unknown before.  Death followed in a few hours after the victim was seized with pain in the head; a very few who caught the disease survived.  The Hidatsa scattered out along the Little Missouri to escape the disease and the Arikara hovered around Fort Clark.  But the Mandan remained in their villages and were afflicted worst; they were afraid of being attacked by Sioux if they ventured out of their villages.  By September 30, Chardon estimated that seven- eighths of the Mandan and one-half of the Arikara and Hidatsa were dead.  Many committed suicide because they felt they had no chance to survive.  Nobody thought of burying the dead, death was too fast and everyone still living was in despair.  The scene of desolation was appalling beyond the conception of the imagination.  The Mandan were reduced from 1800 in June to 23 men, 40 women, and 60 to 70 young people by fall.  Their Chief Four Bears, had died. (Shane, 1959, p. 199).” http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bowen/mandans.html

07/13/12

The History of Chicken Pox

Sadly, this post is relevant because my youngest son, who is eight, came down with chicken pox two days ago.  I have no idea where he got it and even worse, he has had it before, though as a five month old child, which seems to be why he was able to get it again.  I’d hoped that having it a second time might mean a milder infection, but it’s not looking good right now.  He has spots in some VERY uncomfortable places.

Chicken Pox, so named, has been around for a long time.  From the CDC:  ”Chickenpox, also known as varicella, is an infectious disease. Chickenpox is highly contagious and spreads from person to person by direct contact or through the air from an infected person’s coughing or sneezing. A person with chickenpox is contagious 1-2 days before the rash appears and until all blisters have formed scabs. It takes from 10-21 days after contact with an infected person for someone to develop chickenpox.”  http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/pregnancy_gateway/infections-chickenpox.html

My son exhibits the classic chicken pox blister, which his doctor describes as ‘a water droplet on a rose petal’.  That sounds better than it is.

Historically speaking:  ”There was a description of an affliction similar to chicken pox more than 2,000 years ago in ancient Babylonia. In the late 800’s/early 900′s AD, Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi, also known as Razi, recorded some of the first known information on chicken pox and noted the differences between measles and small pox. Later in the 1500′s Giovanni Filippo was able to give a more detailed description of chicken pox.” http://www.thechickenpox.com/history-of-chicken-pox.php

“Numerous explanations have been given on the emergence chicken pox, as the name. The English literary critique recommended that disease was not more dangerous than small pox. It got the name chicken pox because the blisters that appeared seemed like the skin that has been pecked by the chicken. Another theory is that the blistered that appeared looked like the chickpeas and was similar to the size of a seed. The term chicken pox is derived from an Old English term called “giccin”, meaning itching. During the medieval period, the word “pox” meant curse. People believed that chicken pox was a curse, which was brought down on children with black magic.”  http://www.chickenpoxsymptoms.info/history-of-chicken-pox/

“Giovanni Filippo (1510-1580) of Palermo gave the first description Chicken Pox. In 1600s, English Physician named Richard Morton mistook this disease with small pox he thought it was a milder form of smallpox.

In 1767, William Heberden, English physician became the first person demonstrated that small pox was different from chicken pox. Heberden showed how chicken pox was a mild disease and stressed that a person who has had chicken pox remained immune.

In 1875, a scientist discovered that chickenpox was caused by an infectious agent. Rudolf Steiner, took fluid from the chickenpox blisters of an infected person and rubbed it on the skin healthy volunteers. They too developed the itchy, bumpy rash.

In 1909, Von Bokay suggested that chickenpox and shingles were related infections, and idea that was confirmed in the 1920s and 1930s when children inoculated with fluid from zoster vesicles were shown to contract chickenpox.”  http://historyshortnotes.blogspot.com/2011/08/history-of-chickenpox-disease.html

Update 1/11/2013:  as it turned out, all three of my boys came down with chicken pox, even though the middle one (15 years old) already had it, and we thought the 19 year old had as well. The 15 year old had been infected when he was 4 years old by a preschool classroom of vaccinated kids, every single one of whom came down with chicken pox. Guess it wasn’t a strong enough strain to provide a longer lasting immunity. My nineteen year old had such a serious case that he had upwards of fifty pox on each forearm. Hideous. Thankfully, they all recovered well.