Lex Parsimonious, May IV

 

QUESTION VI

Concerning Witches who copulate with Devils. Why it is that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions.

THERE is also, concerning witches who copulate with devils, much difficulty in considering the methods by which such abominations are consummated. On the part of the devil: first, of what element the body is made that he assumes; secondly, whether the act is always accompanied by the injection of semen received from another; thirdly, as to time and place, whether he commits this act more frequently at one time than at another; fourthly, whether the act is invisible to any who may be standing by. And on the part of the women, it has to be inquired whether only they who were themselves conceived in this filthy manner are often visited by devils; or secondly, whether it is those who were offered to devils by midwives at the time of their birth; and thirdly, whether the actual venereal delectation of such is of a weaker sort. But we cannot here reply to all these questions, both because we are only engaged in a general study, and because in the second part of this work they are all singly explained by their operations, as will appear in the fourth chapter, where mention is made of each separate method. Therefore let us now chiefly consider women; and first, why this kind of perfidy is found more in so fragile a sex than in men. And our inquiry will first be general, as to the general conditions of women ; secondly, particular, as to which sort of women are found to be given to superstition and witchcraft; and thirdly, specifically with regard to midwives, who surpass all others in wickedness.

Why Superstition is chiefly found in Women .

As for the first question, why a greater number of witches is found in the fragile feminine sex than among men; it is indeed a fact that it were idle to contradict, since it is accredited by actual experience, apart from the verbal testimony of credible witnesses. And without in any way detracting from a sex in which God has always taken great glory that His might should be spread abroad, let us say that various men have assigned various reasons for this fact, which nevertheless agree in principle. Wherefore it is good, for the admonition of women, to speak of this matter; and it has often been proved by experience that they are eager to hear of it, so long as it is set forth with discretion. For some learned men propound this reason; that there are three things in nature, the Tongue, an Ecclesiastic, and a Woman, which know no moderation in goodness or vice; and when they exceed the bounds of their condition they reach the greatest heights and the lowest depths of goodness and vice. When they are governed by a good spirit, they are most excellent in virtue; but when they are governed by an evil

sI?irit, they indulge the worst possible Vices.

This is clear in the case of the tongue, since by its ministry most of the kingdoms have been brought into the faith of Christ; and the Holy Ghost appeared over the Apostles of Christ in tongues offire. Other learned preachers also have had as it were the tongues of dogs, licking the wounds and sores of the dying Lazarus. As it is said: With the tongues of dogs ye save your souls from the enemy.

For this reason S. Dominic, the leader and father of the Order of Preachers, is represented in the figure of a barking dog with a lighted torch in his mouth, that even to this day he may by his barking keep off the heretic wolves from the flock of Christ’s sheep. It is also a matter of common experience that the tongue of one prudent man can subdue the wrangling of a multitude; wherefore not unjustly Solomon sings much in their praise, in Proverbs x. : In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found. And again, The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth. And again, The lips of the righteous feed many; but fools die for want of wisdom. For this cause he adds in chapter xvi, The preparations of the heart belong to man; but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. But concerning an evil tongue you will find in Ecclesiasticus xxviii: A backbiting tongue hath disquieted many, and driven them from nation to nation: strong cities hath it pulled down, and overthrown the houses of great men. And by a backbiting tongue it means a third party who rashly or spitefully interferes between two contending parties.

Secondly, concerning Ecclesiastics, that is to say, clerics and religious of either sex, S. John Chrysostomt speaks on the text, He cast out them that bought and sold from the temple. From the priesthood arises everything good, and everything evil. S. Jerome in his epistle to Nepotian says: Avoid as you would the plague a trading priest, who has risen from poverty to riches, from a low to a high estate. And Blessed Bernard in his 23rd Homily On the Psalms says of clerics: If one should arise as an open heretic, let him be cast out and put to silence; if he is a violent enemy, let all good men flee from him. But how are we to know which ones to cast out or to flee from? For they are confusedly friendly and hostile, peaceable and quarrelsome, neighbourly and utterly selfish.

And in another place: Our bishops are become spearmen, and our pastors shearers. And by bishops here is meant those proud Abbots who impose heavy labours on their inferiors, which they would not themselves touch with their little finger. And S. Gregory says concerning pastors: No one does more harm in the Church than he who, having the name or order of sanctity, lives in sin; for no one dares to accuse him of sin, and therefore the sin is widely spread, since the sinner is honoured for the sanctity of his order. Blessed Augustine also speaks of monks to Vincent the Donatist: I freely confess to your charity before the Lord our God, which is the witness of my soul from the time I began to serve God, what great difficulty I have experienced in the fact that it is impossible to find either worse or better men than those who grace or disgrace the monasteries. Now the wickedness of women is spoken of in Ecclesiasticus xxv: There is no head above the head of a serpent: and there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman. I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman. And among much which in that place precedes and follows about a wicked woman, he concludes:

All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. Wherefore S.John Chrysostom says on the text;It is not good to marry (S. Matthew xix). What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an un escapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of

nature, painted with fair colours! Therefore if it be a sin to divorce her when she ought to be kept, it is indeed a necessary torture; for either we commit adultery by divorcing her, or we must endure daily strife. Cicero in his second book of The Rhetorics says: The many lusts of men lead them into one sin, but the one lust of women leads them into all sins; for the root of all woman’s vices is avarice. And Seneca says in his Tragedies: A woman either loves or hates; there is no third grade. And the tears of a woman are a deception, for they may spring from true grief, or they may be a snare. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil. But for good women there is so much praise, that we read that they have brought beatitude to men, and have saved nations, lands, and cities; as is clear in the case of Judith, Debbora, and Esther. See also I Corinthians vii: If a woman hath a husband that believeth not, and he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife. And Ecclesiasticus xxvi: Blessed is the man who has a virtuous wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled. And throughout that chapter much high praise is spoken of the excellence of good women; as also in the last chapter of Proverbs concerning a virtuous woman. And all this is made clear also in the New Testament concerning women and virgins and other holy women who have by faith led nations and kingdoms away from the worship of idols to the Christian religion. Anyone who looks at Vincent of Beauvais (in Spe. Histor., XXVI. 9) will find marvellous things of the conversion of Hungary by· the most Christian Gilia, and of the Franks by Clotilda, the wife of Clovis. Wherefore in many vituperations that we read against women, the word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh. As it is said: I have found a woman more bitter than death, and a good woman subject to carnal lust. Others again have propounded other reasons why there are more superstitious women found than men. And the first is, that they are more credulous; and since the chief aim of the devil is to corrupt faith, therefore he rather attacks them. See Ecclesiasticus xix: He that is quick to believe is light-minded, and shall be diminished.

The second reason is, that women are naturally more impressionable, and more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit; and that when they use this quality well they are very good, but when they use it ill they are very evil.

The third reason is that they have slippery tongues, and are unable to conceal from their fellow-women those things which by evil arts they know; and, since they are weak, they find a easy and secret manner of vindicating themselves by witchcraft. See Ecclesiasticus as quoted above: I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman. All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. And to this may be added that, as they are very impressionable, they act accordingly. There are also others who bring forward yet other reasons, of which preachers should be very careful how they make use. For it is true that in the Old Testament the Scriptures have much that is evil to say about women, and this because of the first temptress, Eve, and her imitators; yet afterwards in the New Testament we find a change of name, as from Evato Ave (as S.Jerome says), and the whole sin of Eve taken away by the benediction of Mary. Therefore preachers should always say as much praise of them as possible. But because in these times this perfidy is more often found in women than in men, as we learn by actual experience, if anyone is curious as to the reason, we may add to what has already been said the following: that since they are feebler both in mind and~ body, it is not surprising that they should come more under the spell of witchcraft.

QUESTION VI

Concerning Witches who copulate with Devils. Why it is that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions.

THERE is also, concerning witches who copulate with devils, much difficulty in considering the methods by which such abominations are consummated. On the part of the devil: first, of what element the body is made that he assumes; secondly, whether the act is always accompanied by the injection of semen received from another; thirdly, as to time and place, whether he commits this act more frequently at one time than at another; fourthly, whether the act is invisible to any who may be standing by. And on the part of the women, it has to be inquired whether only they who were themselves conceived in this filthy manner are often visited by devils; or secondly, whether it is those who were offered to devils by midwives at the time of their birth; and thirdly, whether the actual venereal delectation of such is of a weaker sort.

But we cannot here reply to all these questions, both because we are only engaged in a general study, and because in the second part of this work they are all singly explained by their operations, as will appear in the fourth chapter, where mention is made of each separate method. Therefore let us now chiefly consider women; and first, why this kind of perfidy is found more in so fragile a sex than in men. And our inquiry will first be general, as to the general conditions of women ; secondly, particular, as to which sort of women are found to be given to superstition and witchcraft; and thirdly, specifically with regard to midwives, who surpass

all others in wickedness.

Why Superstition is chiefly found in Women.

As for the first question, why a greater number of witches is found in the fragile feminine sex than among men; it is indeed a fact that it were idle to contradict, since it is accredited by actual experience, apart from the verbal testimony of credible witnesses. And without in any way detracting from a sex in which God has always taken great glory that His might should be spread abroad, let us say that various men have assigned various reasons for this fact, which nevertheless agree in principle.

Wherefore it is good, for the admonition of women, to speak of this matter; and it has often been proved by experience that they are eager to hear of it, so long as it is set forth with discretion. For some learned men propound this reason; that there are three things in nature, the Tongue, an Ecclesiastic, and a Woman, which know no moderation in goodness or vice; and when they exceed the bounds of their condition they reach the greatest heights and the lowest depths of goodness and vice. When they are governed by a good spirit, they are most excellent in virtue; but when they are governed by an evil

spirit, they indulge the worst possible Vices.

This is clear in the case of the tongue, since by its ministry most of the kingdoms have been brought into the faith of Christ; and the Holy Ghost appeared over the Apostles of Christ in tongues offire. Other learned preachers also have had as it were the tongues of dogs, licking the wounds and sores of the dying Lazarus. As it is said: With the tongues of dogs ye save your souls from the enemy.

For this reason S. Dominic, the leader and father of the Order of Preachers, is represented in the figure of a barking dog with a lighted torch in his mouth, that even to this day he may by his barking keep off the heretic wolves from the flock of Christ’s sheep. It is also a matter of common experience that the tongue of one prudent man can subdue the wrangling of a multitude; wherefore not unjustly Solomon sings much in their praise, in Proverbs x. : In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found. And again, The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth. And again, The lips of the righteous feed many; but fools die for want of wisdom. For this cause he adds in chapter xvi.

The preparations of the heart belong to man; but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. But concerning an evil tongue you will find in Ecclesiasticus xxviii: A backbiting tongue hath disquieted many, and driven them from nation to nation: strong cities hath it pulled down, and overthrown the houses of great men. And by a backbiting tongue it means a third party who rashly or spitefully interferes between two contending parties.

Secondly, concerning Ecclesiastics, that is to say, clerics and religious of either sex, S. John Chrysostomt speaks on the text, He cast out them that bought and sold from the temple. From the priesthood arises everything good, and everything evil. S. Jerome in his epistle to Nepotian says: Avoid as you would the plague a trading priest, who has risen from poverty to riches, from a low to a high estate. And Blessed Bernard in his 23rd Homily On the Psalms says of clerics: If one should arise as an open heretic, let him be cast out and put to silence; if he is a violent enemy, let all good men flee from him. But how are we to know which ones to cast out or to flee from? For they are confusedly friendly and hostile, peaceable and quarrelsome, neighbourly and utterly selfish.

And in another place: Our bishops are become spearmen, and our pastors shearers. And by bishops here is meant those proud Abbots who impose heavy labours on their inferiors, which they would not themselves touch with their little finger. And S. Gregory says concerning pastors: No one does more harm in the Church than he who, having the name or order of sanctity, lives in sin; for no one dares to accuse him of sin, and therefore the sin is widely spread, since the sinner is honoured for the sanctity of his order. Blessed Augustine also speaks of monks to Vincent the Donatist: I freely confess to your charity before the Lord our God, which is the witness of my soul from the time I began to serve God, what great difficulty I have experienced in the fact that it is impossible to find either worse or better men than those who grace or disgrace the monasteries.

Now the wickedness of women is spoken of in Ecclesiasticus xxv: There is no head above the head of a serpent: and there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman. I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman. And among much which in that place precedes and follows about a wicked woman, he concludes: All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. Wherefore S.John Chrysostom says on the text;It is not good to marry (S. Matthew xix). What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an un escapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colours! Therefore if it be a sin to divorce her when she ought to be kept, it is indeed a necessary torture; for either we commit adultery by divorcing her, or we must endure daily strife.

Cicero in his second book of The Rhetorics says: The many lusts of men lead them into one sin, but the one lust of women leads them into all sins; for the root of all woman’s vices is avarice. And Seneca says in his Tragedies: A woman either loves or hates; there is no third grade. And the tears of a woman are a deception, for they may spring from true grief, or they may be a snare. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil. But for good women there is so much praise, that we read that they have brought beatitude to men, and have saved nations, lands, and cities; as is clear in the case of Judith, Debbora, and Esther. See also I Corinthians vii: If a woman hath a husband that believeth not, and he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife. And Ecclesiasticus xxvi: Blessed is the man who has a virtuous wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled.

And throughout that chapter much high praise is spoken of the excellence of good women; as also in the last chapter of Proverbs concerning a virtuous woman. And all this is made clear also in the New Testament concerning women and virgins and other holy women who have by faith led nations and kingdoms away from the worship of idols to the Christian religion. Anyone who looks at Vincent of Beauvais (in Spe. Histor., XXVI. 9) will find marvellous things of the conversion of Hungary by· the most Christian Gilia, and of the Franks by Clotilda, the wife of Clovis. Wherefore in many vituperations that we read against women, the word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh. As it is said: I have found a woman more bitter than death, and a good woman subject to carnal lust. Others again have propounded other reasons why there are more superstitious women found than men. And the first is, that they are more credulous; and since the chief aim of the devil is to corrupt faith, therefore he rather attacks them. See Ecclesiasticus xix: He that is quick to believe is light-minded, and shall be diminished.

The second reason is, that women are naturally more impressionable, and more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit; and that when they use this quality well they are very good, but when they use it ill they are very evil.

The third reason is that they have slippery tongues, and are unable to conceal from their fellow-women those things which by evil arts they know; and, since they are weak, they find a easy and secret manner of vindicating themselves by witchcraft. See Ecclesiasticus as quoted above: I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman. All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. And to this may be added that, as they are very impressionable, they act accordingly. There are also others who bring forward yet other reasons, of which preachers should be very careful how they make use. For it is true that in the Old Testament the Scriptures have much that is evil to say about women, and this because of the first temptress, Eve, and her imitators; yet afterwards in the New Testament we find a change of name, as from Evato Ave (as S.Jerome says), and the whole sin of Eve taken away by the benediction of Mary.

Therefore preachers should always say as much praise of them as possible. But because in these times this perfidy is more often found in women than in men, as we learn by actual experience, if anyone is curious as to the reason, we may add to what has already been said the following: that since they are feebler both in mind and~ body, it is not surprising that they should come more under the spell of witchcraft.

Lex Parsimonious, May III

Russian Criminal Tattoos

The Russian criminal tattoo is a means of secret communication, an

esoteric language of representational images which the thief’s body

uses to inform the world of thieves about itself. This language resembles

thieves’ argot and it performs a similar function – encoding secret

‘thieves’ information’ to protect it against uninitiated outsiders Ifraera).

In exactly the same way as argot endows standard, neutral words with

’strictly professional’ meanings, the tattoo also conveys ’secret’ symbolic

knowledge through the use of ordinary allegorical images which at first

glance seem familiar to everyone. Even the tattoo ‘Hei! Hitler!’, when

applied to the body of a Russian ‘legitimate thief’ (vorvzakone) may have

absolutely nothing to do with Hitler or National Socialism in general. As

a rule it is a sign of a thief ’s attitude of denial (otritsalovka) or the

symbol of a refusal to submit to the prison and camp administration and

also, in a broader sense, a total refusal to cooperate in any way with the

Soviet authorities.

The meaning of Russian convict tattoos is thus determined in a rather

complex manner at the interface of linguistic, visual, social, communicative

and psychological contexts. Criminal tattoos are an object of communicative

speech which possesses both artistic-representational and psychophysiological

aspects.

Obviously, understanding texts of this kind is extremely difficult.

Especially since it is in general difficult to break down visual objects

themselves into separate signs and interpret them. All these images

(for instance, the combination in a single tattoo of a rose, barbed wire and

a dagger) may seem comprehensible, but in reality tattoos of this kind

have nothing to do with flowers or cold steel. They form a unitary

statement that is not divisible into its constituent elements, conveying

the information that the thief came of age in ‘places of confinement’. The

images in convict tattoos only appear to be ’separate’ and understandable.

In reality these complex combinations of symbols are inseparable from each

The Russian criminal tattoo is a means of secret communication, an esoteric language of representational images which the thief’s body uses to inform the world of thieves about itself. This language resembles thieves’ argot and it performs a similar function – encoding secret ’thieves’ information’ to protect it against uninitiated outsiders (fraera). In exactly the same way as argot endows standard, neutral words with ’strictly professional’ meanings, the tattoo also conveys ’secret’ symbolic knowledge through the use of ordinary allegorical images which at first glance seem familiar to everyone. Even the tattoo ‘Heil! Hitler!’, when applied to the body of a Russian ‘legitimate thief’ (vorvzakone) may have absolutely nothing to do with Hitler or National Socialism in general.

 As a rule it is a sign of a thief ’s attitude of denial (otritsalovka) or the symbol of a refusal to submit to the prison and camp administration and also, in a broader sense, a total refusal to cooperate in any way with the Soviet authorities. The meaning of Russian convict tattoos is thus determined in a rather complex manner at the interface of linguistic, visual, social, communicative and psychological contexts. Criminal tattoos are an object of communicative speech which possesses both artistic-representational and psychophysiological aspects. Obviously, understanding texts of this kind is extremely difficult.

Especially since it is in general difficult to break down visual objects themselves into separate signs and interpret them. All these images (for instance, the combination in a single tattoo of a rose, barbed wire and a dagger) may seem comprehensible, but in reality tattoos of this kind have nothing to do with flowers or cold steel. They form a unitary tatement that is not divisible into its constituent elements, conveying the information that the thief came of age in ‘places of confinement’. The images in convict tattoos only appear to be ’separate’ and understandable. In reality these complex combinations of symbols are inseparable from each other.

The minimal semantic unit in the world of the tattoo is the entire complex of images that has been applied to the body of an individual thief. Moreover, these tattooed symbols are regarded by the thief himself as real aspects of his life. This is the world in which the thief lives, it is his ’reality’. For the thief, all his tattoos become ‘meaningful things’. The world of tattoos is one of symbolic sequences that are accepted as reality and which consequently shape the consciousness of the thief himself, because the tattoos are regarded by the thieves themselves as the effective constitution of the world of thieves, i.e. the fundamental law of thieves’ society.  A ‘legitimate thief’ (vorv zakone) is the executor of injunctions that have been determined in the reality of the tattoos, which are not only the thieves’ ‘constitution’, but also a set of instructions for implementing this ‘fundamental law’ . The entire world of thieves ensures that the ‘law’ is applied. In this world, false tattoos are not permitted, the punishment for them is death. The thief’s socialisation, his rise up the thieves’ professional ladder, requires the unconditional implementation of absolutely all the symbolic ‘instructions’ contained in tattoos. In other words, it is not the criminal boss (pakhan) or the thief himself who stands at the centre of the thief’s world, but a code of laws.

The tattoos drive and guide a thief’s career, they ‘appoint’ him to new positions. They ‘make’ him take certain decisions, perform precisely regulated actions, carry out an entire complex of ‘ritual’ activities. The tattoos ’shape’ the daily life of the thief, they subordinate his entire life to themselves. The reality of the tattoo is the symbolic basis of the world of thieves. The thief lives through his tattoos, he is mentally immersed in this reality, that is, he dissolves into the symbolic world of his own body. Like the Herman Hesse character who gets into the last carriage of a train and rides away – a train that he himself drew on the wall of his prison cell.

Lex Parsimonious May II

The Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies) – Extinct.

A hundred years ago, on dark nights, a peculiar laughing cry could be heard over the open rocky country of New Zealand. The mournful song of two laughing owls calling to each other frequently came minutes before rain. These white-faced owls were often languid during the day, which made them easy to capture.

They fed on a native rat, the kiore, whose extinction may be the reason for the laughing owl’s disappearance by 1914. Sir Walter Buller, a New Zealand ornithologist, recounted the story of a settler in 1905: “It could always be brought from its lurking place in the rocks, after dusk, by the strains of an accordion . . . the bird would silently flit over and face the performer, and finally lake up its station in the vicinity, and remain within easy hearing till [the music] had ceased .”

Lex Parsimonious May I

Some of the etymologies still floating for the word “Yankee” are the following:

1. That Yankee is derived from the name of the Yankos, a tribe of Massachusetts Indians. In their language Yanko meant invincible, and they transferred it to the New Englanders on being defeated in battle by them. Unfonunately, no such tribe is recorded by the early historians, nor is any word resembling Yanko found in any known Indian dialect.

2 . That Yankee comes from yonokie, an Indian word signifying silent, and was bestowed upon the whites satirically because they seemed very garrulous to the reticent Indians. No such word can be found.

3. That Yankee comes from a Cherokee word eankkle, signifying coward, and was bestowed upon the New Englanders by the Virginians on the failure of the former to lend aid in a Cherokee war. No such word is in the Cherokee language.

4. That Yankee was derived from the adjective yankee. The latter word was made popular among the Harvard students of c. 1713 by a farmer of Cambridge named Jonathan Hastings, who used it so often, e.g., in yankee horse, yankee cider, etc., that he acquired Yankee as a nickname.

5. That Yankee represents an Indian attempt to pronounce the word English. The Indians, in fact, did not use English, but had a much different word of their own to designate Englishmen.

6. That it represents an Indian attempt to pronounce the French Anglaise. See NO.5.

7. That it is a Lincolnshire dialect word meaning gaiters or leggings made of undressed leather, and was brought in by the immigrants from that region.

8. That it is a Scots dialect word, yankie, signifying  a sharp, clever, forward woman.”

9. That it is from a Scots word, yanking, signifying “active, forward, pushing.”

10. That it is from Janke, a diminutive of the Dutch given-name Jan. But, as Logeman shows, the Dutch diminutive for Jan is actually Jantje. “This Janke,” he says, ” is most likely, like the famous Peterkin of ‘ Hohenlinden ‘ fame, nothing but the product of the brain of the author, who fondly imagined he was using a Dutch name.”

11. That Yarnkee comes from the aforesaid Jantje.

12. That it comes from the Dutch janker, signifying, “howler, yelper, whiner, squaller.”

13. That it comes from the Swedish enka, a widow, and was applied to the English because they had either been banished from England or had left” for political or religious reasons.” 

14. That it comes from the Danish janke (pronounced yank-keh), a word used to designate “the savage habit some mothers have of jerking or lifting unruly babies by their hands or wrists.”

15. That it comes from the Dutch jonkheer.

16. That it comes from the Persian word jcrnghe or jenghe, meaning a warlike man or a swift horse.

The last etymology, though it has been taken seriously, was actually proposed as a hoax. It first appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review for 1810, where it was presented in the form of a letter allegedly copied from” the Connecticut He1′ald, a paper printed in New Haven,” and signed W. It was intended to be a burlesque upon the philological writings of Noah Webster, and the Monthly Anthology pretended to be ” credibly informed” that it was” from the pen of N–W–, jun., Esq.” himself. It was as follows: As the origin of the word Y crnkee has been a subject of much inquiry, and no satisfactory account of it appears to have been given, I send you the following history of the word. 

Yankee appears to have been used formerly by some of our common farmersin its genuine sense. It was an epithet descriptive of excellent qualities – as a Yankee horse – that is a horse of high spirit and other good properties. I am informed that this use of the word has continued in some parts of New England till within a short period.

In the course of my inquiries I have discovered what I presume to be the same word in the Persian language, in which the whole family of words is preserved. It is a fact well known that the people of Europe, from whom we descended, are the posterity of the tribes which emigrated from the ancient Media, and northern part of Persia – and if not known, it is a fact capable of being proved. In the Persian language, let it be observed that in the place of our y authors write letters whose powers correspond nearly to the English j and ch, as in joy and chess. Thus the word which we write yoke, which the Latins wrote jugum and the Greeks zeugus, and which without the final article would be jug and zeug, the Persians write chag, and it may be equally well written jag; for throughout the Persian these sounds are used promiscuously in words from the same root. Hence we see the name of the Asiatic river Yenesei written also Jenesei, and we write the word, from our Indians, Gennesee. Thus also the name of the great Asiatic conqueror is written Genghis Khan or Jenghis Kban, and Tooke 1 writes it Tschingis Khan. Thus Jenghis is not his name, but a title.

Now in the Persian language, Janghe or Jenghe – that is, Yankee – signifies ”a warlike man, a swift horse; also, one who is prompt and ready in action, one who is magnanimous.” This is the exact interpretation as given in the lexicon. The word is formed from jank, jenk, battle, contest, war; and this from a like word signifying the fist, the instrument of fighting; like pugna, from pugnus, the fist. In Persian jankidan (yankidan) is to commence or carryon war.

We hence see the propriety of the use of yankee as applied to a high spirited, warlike horse.

The word Yankee thus claims a very honorable parentage; for it is the precise title assumed by the celebrated Mongolian khan, Jenghis; and in our dialect his titles, literally translated, would be Yankee King, that is, Warlike Chief. This is not the only instance in which one of the oldest words in the language has lost its dignity. We have many popular words which have never found admission into books, that are among the oldest words ever formed. I can prove some of them to have been used before the dispersion of men; for they are found in Asia, Africa and Europe, among nations which could have no intercourse after that event.

New Haven, March 2,1810.

Lex Parsimonious, April V

Their Own Name

Children attach an almost primitive significance to people’s names, always wanting to find out a stranger’s name, yet being correspondingly reluctant to reveal their own. They have ways of avoiding telling their name. They answer, ‘Haven’t got a name, only got a number’. They say, ’Same name as me Dad’. ’What’s your Dad’s then?’ ’Same as mine.’ And there is the recurrent set-piece:

‘What’s your name?’ ’Sarah Jane.’ 

‘Where do you live?’ ‘Down the lane.’

‘What’s your number?’ ‘Cucumber.’ 

‘What’s your shop?’ ‘Lollipop.’

‘What’s your town? ‘ ‘Dressinggown.’ 

It can be a blessing to a new child to know a formula like this. Girls circle round a new girl, crying ‘What’s your name? What’s your name?’ and the circle will disperse only if the untrue ritual answer is forthcoming. Sometimes a game can be joined only if the correct response is made to ‘What’s your number?’ ‘Cucumber.’ Real Sarah Janes, Mary Janes, and Elizabeth Janes are teased with the pointless questions. And sometimes children recite the curious catechism, or catechize each other, for no reason except that children have been doing so since time long ago.

Lex Parsimonious, April IV

Among other African-American magicians who chose to pose as “Hindus” in order to get work was Clarence Hunter.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 7, 1920, Hunter began performing in 1940. When club owners objected to booking a black performer, he transformed himself into a “Hindu.” He wore a turban and took the stage name Chandu the Magician from a 1932 movie of the same title. His first work was in carnivals, where he chose tricks that befitted a Hindu sorcerer like fire-eating and walking on broken class. By the early 1940s, he had his own radio show in Pittsburgh, a fifteen-minute dail, show that brought him local renown and bookings in nightclubs and theaters. By the late 1940s, he was touring the East Coast. Horror movies had become all the rage by this time, and Hunter foun work at theaters, performing a brief midnight magic show before the screening of horror films.

Hunter relocated to San Francisco, California, around 1950. He found a ready audience on the West Coast for his fire-eating act, and got bookings at hotels. The media soon discovered him, and he performed on NBC-TV’s Breakfast in Hollywood show in 1954 and appeared as an extra in several Hollywood films. “I bathe, eat and play in fire,” he boasted to interviewers. “I play with hot lead in my mouth, take baths in gasoline and set myself on fire. I can step in a red-hot oven and roast a pound of meat in it but I will emerge as cool as ice.” Shaving with an acetylene blowtorch was one of his specialties. So was fire-walking in a box of broken bottles soaked with burning gasoline.

The trick of stomping out the fire with his bare feet took him three months to perfect. Hunter suffered third-degree burns on several occasions. Once, he even set his own face on fire. In 1957, Hunter was performing in a nightclub in Detroit when a traumatic incident occurred that he would never discuss, other than to describe it as an instance of racism. Perhaps as a result of this incident, he changed the direction of his life. He quit acting the part of a Hindu. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio, married, and went to work as a building maintenance man at a YMCA branch.

He also worked as a photographer for the Cleveland Air Show and for attorneys representing accident victims. Under his own name, Clarence Hunter, he continued to perform magic, including his fire-eating act, at schools, nightclubs, and parties, and also worked trade shows. In addition, he taught magic with a fellow magician named Bob Wheeler, whom he had met at Snyder’s Magic Shop in Cleveland. A young man named Jack Vaughn was one of his students. Vaughn later became famous as the magician Goldfinger. Another student was Arsenio Hall, who started his show-business career doing magic tricks but later switched to comedy and hosted a long-running late-night television talk show.

Clarence “Chandu” Hunter retired from maintenance work in 1990, at the age of 70. He continued performing magic at hospitals and benefits until cancer forced him to curtail even those activities. He died in January 1993. Hunter was probably the last of the well-known Hindu Fakirs. By the time he quit performing as an East Indian mystic, the racial climate in the United States had undergone a radical change. Federal laws had ended legal segregation, and although blacks still met with racial barriers, they no longer felt the need to pose as members of another race to get work.

Lex Parsimonious, April III

“The church, landlord and moneylender posses half of Mexico.

The other half belongs to a handful of gentlemen and Indians penned up in their communities. The proprietor of the presidency is General Lopez de Santa Anna who watches over public peace and the good health of his fighting cocks.

Santa Anna governs with a cock in his arms. Thus, he receives bishops and ambassadors, and to tend to a wounded cock he abandons cabinet meetings. He founds more cockfight arenas than hospitals and issues more cockfight rules than decrees on education. Cockfighting men form his personal court, along with cardsharps and widows of colonels who never were.

He is very fond of a piebald cock that pretends to be a female and flirts with the enemy, then after making a fool of him slashes him to death; but of them all he prefers the fierce Pedrito. He brought Pedrito from Veracruz with some soil too, so Pedrito could wallow in it without nostalgia.

Santa Anna personally fixes the blade on the spur. He exchanges bets with the muleteers and vagabonds, and chews feathers from the rival to give it bad luck. When he has no coins left, he throws medals into the cockpit. “I’ll give eight to five!” “Eight to four if you like!” A lightning flash pierces the whirl of feathers and Pedrito’s spur tears out the eyes or opens the throat of any champion. Santa Anna dances on one leg and the killer raises his crest, beats his wings and sings.”

-Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay.

 

Lex Parsimonious, April II

“Wanted—A intelligent, lame lad is wanted in this office as an apprentice.

He must be intelligent, as we do not expect such to join the ‘secesh,’ and we would like it very much is he was a cripple so there would be no danger of him enlisting in Uncle Sam’s army—Whoever is selected will in consideration of his being a cripple be paid in United States money. All others will be paid in Succession scrip.”

November 9, 1861. Stars & Stripes. Bloomfield, Missouri.

Lex Pasimonious April I

 

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

‘Entities ought not to be multiplied beyond necessity.’ These words, known as ‘Occam’s Razor’, enshrine the principle that, in explaining anything, no more assumptions ought to be made than are necessary.

The principle is also known as the Law of Parsimony. The words in which the principle has become established are not found in William of Occam’s works, though similar contentions are found in the works of other philosophers such as his master, Duns Scotus (1266-1308), and are in fact found in William of Occam’s own works in the form ‘Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.’ Sir Isaac Newton was of a similar parsimonious cast: ‘Hypotheses non jingo.’ However, in the form quoted above, ‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,’ the principle has become known – and famous – as ‘Occam’s Razor’.

William of Occam (or Ockham) (1285-1349), an English philosopher and Scholastic theologian who was the leading Nominalist philosopher ‘of all time’, was known as Doctor Invincibilis, ‘Unconquerable Doctor’, and Venerabilis Inceptor– ‘Venerable Initiator’. His school of Scholastic Philosophy, the Nominalist School, was in essence a co-equal rival of the Thomist and Scotist schools.

The principle underlying Occam’s Razor, as is the case with so many other aspects of Mediaeval philosophy, appeals directly to the bedrock of common sense that underlies the thinking of those of our contemporaries who choose to think.