4- Wednesday, April 2, 1986 - North Shore News

Bob Hunter

® strictly personal ® :

I TRUST you caught that story about the researchers
whose study of DNA — the stuff that makes up the
blueprint fora human being — led them to the con-
clusion that sometime a couple of hundred ‘millenia

ago, there

was a mutant post-ape woman in whose

loins the emtire future human race was nestling. -

According to three American
sci¢ntists, who used new
biotechnological methods to sep-
arate and catalogue DNA from
tissues in placentas, it is possible
to measure how long since the
essential ‘*‘*‘human’’ DNA
blueprint appeared,

The relatively precise answer:
140,000 to 286.000 years ago in
Africa. There were other nearly
human forms of life around, in
places like Indonesia, China and
Greece, but they were eventually
-wiped out by the children of the
“African Eve.’”

If the results of this research
are at all trustworthy, it means
we are descerided, brothers and
, sisters, from @ common mother.
Just like we heave been told so
many times, in so many different
Ways. Hallelujah!

‘like this theory, This is one of .

those rare new ideas -that fits in
nicely with philosophy, religion
and politics alike. Also, it is sure
to enrage anybody who. sces
“race’’-as being ‘significant in the
scheme of things. except as Of-
namentation.
Whatis scary about this notion
[| is the suggestior: that humanity’s
genes, might have all been in one

basket for a-certain critica) mo- _

“ment. in history. .
At. has a wonderful old Testa-

- profile about her, but since we're

ment ring — while at the same
time approximating all those
religions with themes about an
Earth Mother.

What this theory doesn’t do is
tell us much about the first lady's
hubbie, except — by implication
— that he was just your usual
semihuman ape man. An animal,
yet. He happened to mate with a
mutant and — boom! Human
history begins!

Of course, you could take any
modern femate of child-bearing
age and dump her on another
planet, cross her with some kind
of biologically compatible native,
and, boom, some other kind of
history begins!

The point is, women really. are
a miracle.

Iive known that all along. But
the idea that there indeed might
have been just ONE fully human
woman whose. dominant genes
went on to take over the world

-Teally brings the point home.

If. we use. the mean figure on
those estimates of when the orig-
inal Mom popped up, as it were,
it means we are looking back
something like 7,000 generations.
So .that
Great-Great-Great- and- on-and-
on Grandma.

Difficult to build up much of a

_ female relationships that

would) make her our .

talking family here, it might be
worth the try.

She probably had a name that
sounded a bit like “Ugh."’ Was
probably rather short, a bit
hairy, with terrible skin and
breath. And somehow { imagine
a terrible temper — given the sit-
uation she found herself in as the
first woman.

Can you imagine cleaning
house and cooking for a
semihuman ape? Even sleeping
with him? Sure you can!

When ! think of the dear old
original lady T see a punk hairdo,
a flower lip) samewhat like
Princess Ann’s, and | imagine
she was likely a bit on the bossy
side. No doubt talked to herself a
lot — at east until the kids arriv-
ed.

Feminists should love — this
theory, After all, it) turns the
Adam and Eve myth on its head.
Instead of EVE growing out of
Adam's rib, EVERYBODY
grows out of Eve's ovaries. The
firs) Adam — that is, true man
~— in this scenario becomes Eve's
son, since we're not going to
count poor old Dad, the monkey,
are we?

This throws an Ocdipal slant
on everything, doesn’t it? Is
muankind’s conquest’ of Nature
therefore really an age-old sub-
conscious impulse to rescue Mom
from the ape she was stuck with?
Come on, it rings a bel! and you
know it.

I'm certainly not going to stake

my academic reputation on so
wild a theory as this one, but ata
gut level | have to admit, it ad-
dresses a lot of issues in male-
have
always filled me with curiosity.

Such as: the obvious lack of
awe with which most women
regard men in general, that air of
looking down their genetic noses
at us, and, worst of all, that
TONE,

‘You realize, if this theory is
true, it means the first human be-
ing was) a WOMAN. Yeh,
brothers. Yeh, sisters.

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NOT a
man! And what does this suggest;
‘about God, in. Whose Image.;...? |
, Whoops!

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