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Most of us think that some of our relatives are a little bit batty, but now it seems there might be some literal truth to that idea. Scientists mapping human DNA have discovered that our genetic material is remarkably similar to other animals - and not just other primates. Worms, even. Maybe that is not so remarkable considering how we sometimes behave. However, unlike those who feel that Darwin’s theory of evolution demeans their unique God-given human qualities, I feel enriched by knowing that each cell in my body carries fundamental links with other life forms.
Naturally, then, I was intrigued by a
recent article in The New York Times entitled “When Bats
and Humans Were One and the Same.” It described research at the University of
California in Santa Cruz designed to reconstruct the genetic code for a tiny
shrew-like animal which lived 80 million years ago and is believed to be the
common ancestor of human beings as well as bats and various other mammals.
Through computer analysis of the similarities and differences among modern day
people and animals, the scientists hope to identify this original ancestor’s
genetic composition and trace the ways it mutated to produce different
evolutionary branches.
We in the ‘me’ generation do not tend to
venerate our ancestors, but when I was volunteering at the Cinnamon Bay
archaeological dig I heard a lot about ancestor worship among the Taino, who
were the original settlers on St. John. Bats, which were the only mammals
indigenous to the islands, were viewed as physical manifestations of dead
tribal ancestors, connecting the natural world of the living with the realm of
the supernatural.
At the time, I thought the Taino bat
imagery was just based on the spooky way they fly around at night when you
can’t see them. You know they are there when you can feel the air moving as
they fly by, or you hear them squeaking and rustling in the dark. Certainly the
Taino were not the only people who associated bats with ghosts, or the
‘undead’. But maybe the Taino sensed intuitively that the bats actually were
their closest relations in the islands, linked by common genetic bonds going
back millions of years. Bat-like images in cave petroglyphs and pictographs
suggest that the Taino saw a remote kinship between bats and early people
living in caves.
In his report on the findings at the
Cinnamon Bay dig, National Park archaeologist Ken Wild indicated that over a
period of 500-600 years Taino culture evolved from a simple communal culture to
a more complex hierarchical structure. Over time, communicating with the
spirits of the ancestors became a selective rather than a commonly practiced
activity. In later years, bat imagery in religious symbols or ‘zemis’ was used
to legitimate the power of elite leaders. Through offerings and rituals (often
involving purging by vomiting and ingestion of hallucinogenic substances to
achieve trance-like states), chiefs and priests purportedly obtained advice
about politics, war, harvests and weather from the bat-faced ancestral deities.
European Christians, however, associated
bats with satanic powers and witchcraft. The Spanish invaders, with their
Catholic missionary zeal, sought to save the Taino from their pagan ancestor
worship, though few survived long enough to actually enjoy the benefits of
conversion, at least in this world. More recently, evolutionary theory has also
been viewed as heretical, in part because it undermines the concept of human
beings made in God’s image, as distinct from the ‘lower’ animals. We know now,
however, that animals are not merely machines, as Descartes thought, but only
slightly different in their genetic structure from ourselves.
Even though bats may not actually represent
the souls of our ancestors, maybe we should think about them as wild and crazy
cousins who took a slightly different evolutionary turn. If we view them in
that light, we may find that they in fact have insights to offer us about
living together in peace, dealing with the weather and improving harvests. If
only we could learn how to communicate with them better.
