Ancestor

“ The men visit him and subject him to all sorts of indignities, in order to impress him with the necessity of absolute obedience to the society.... They believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor, when it has been properly prepared, becomes the residence of the ancestor. ”

“ Each of their represents a long line of ancestry, and often a particular parent may be chosen, not for anything that he is or has in himself, but because of some quality which appeared to an unusual degree in one of his ancestors — because he possesses a power which he has not used, though it is latent in his physical body because it is physically descended from that ancestor. ”

“ Where descent is in the female line, as it was universally in the archaic period, the gens is composed of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the children of her female descendants, through females, in perpetuity; and where descent is in the male line—into which it was changed after the appearance of property in masses—of a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the children of his male descendants, through males, in perpetuity. ”

“ The remotest known ancestor of each compounding group, at once the most ancient father and the god of the compound group, being continuously represented in blood, as well as in power, by the eldest descendant of the eldest, it happens that this patriarch, who is head not of his own group only but also of the compound group, stands to both in a relation analogous to that in which the apotheosized ancestor stands ”

“ The proper method of Genealogy consists, it will be seen, in the more or less complete recovery of the texts of successive ancestors by analysis and comparison of the varying texts of their respective descendants, each ancestral text so recovered being in its turn used, in conjunction with other similar texts, for the recovery of the text of a yet earlier common ancestor. ”

“ Those who display portraits of their ancestors in their halls, and set up in the entrance to their houses the pedigree of their family drawn out at length, with many complicated collateral branches, are they not notorious rather than noble? The universe is the one parent of all, whether they trace their descent from this primary source through a glorious or a mean line of ancestors. ”

“ And every time that a common pair of ancestors appears in any generation, the number of ancestors in that generation must be reduced by two from our original figures, or if it is only one common ancestor, by one, and as we go back that reduction will have to be doubled, quadrupled and so on. ”

“ The truth is that all ancestors are remarkable persons. In the first place they are our ancestors, and in the second place it is a noteworthy fact, as mysterious as delightful, that every homely feature about them wears a wondrous glamour and dignity. Their homesteads, their property, their church affiliations, their signatures, any little act of barter or sale,—all these items create an absorbing interest as they stand recorded in old archives. ”

“ These ancient peoples, at any rate those who were our direct ancestors, or who were closely related to them, are thus, in the language of evolution, which takes no count of time or of the number of generations, our very near relations. The generations which separate them from us and the few hundred generations between them and those of their direct ancestors, who were at the same time ours, represent a limited period from the point of view of the ethnological history of mankind. ”

“ Within a clan, or gens, everyone was, or was supposed to be, descended from a common ancestor, and thus related to all the others—in the former the line of descent being traced through the female, and in the latter, through the male. ”

“ As the inheritance of a fighting ancestor it is the result of millions of years of fighting in prehistoric times, and, like any other over-developed part or organ, it has an intense urge to express itself. ”

“ Our ancestors—some of whom, my son, as I have often told you, lived the bosom friends of conjurors and soothsayers—were, as many of their descendants are at the present day, to be met with amongst fortune-tellers and gypsies—our [Pg 20] ancestors had the gift of following a dream in all its zig-zag mistiness. And the wisdom of our ancestors”—and here the flea raised itself upon its legs, and looked with a serene pride about it—“the wisdom of our ancestors has come down in its fullness upon myself; to be left, my dear child, whole and unimpaired, and I may add, unimproved to you.” ”

“ You are acquainted, not by hearsay, but by actual evidence, with our family history, having seen what sort of figure our ancestors cut, and being infinitely better aware of the peculiarities of the genealogical shrub than we can ever be. ”

“ I have thought sometimes that the explanation might be found in heredity,—in a deep-seated habit of the human mind descending from parent to child through countless ages and generations. Far back of history, in the dim twilight of primitive life, we may imagine our ancestors living in such wildness as can scarcely be found on earth to-day even among the lowest savages ”

“ Since the features of the parent tribe are handed down from one generation to another, there is nothing more natural than that we should retain the historical features of our ancestors, viz., the stamp of gravity which the events of their time impressed upon their faces. ”

“ But, as character is not exactly isolated and independent of ancestral fountains, from which the innate impulses, capacity, and tendency to good and evil have flown, the subject of ancestry justly belongs to the history of every man's mind and life. Our ancestors flow in our veins. We retain them more or less in our characters always, so that the great stress which different countries have put upon this theme, rests on other than artificial and ostentatious reasons. ”

“ But they are to be read by the light of the earlier one—placed as a lantern to the wary upon the threshold of his work in 1753—to the effect that a single, well-substantiated case of degeneration would make it conceivable that all living beings were descended from but one common ancestor. ”

“ It is true, that if we consider the triumph and delight with which most of those recount their ancestors, who have ancestors to recount, and the artifices by which some who have risen to unexpected fortune endeavour to insert themselves into an honourable stem, we shall be inclined to fancy that wisdom or virtue may be had by inheritance, or that all the excellencies of a line of progenitors are accumulated on their descendant. ”

“ Ancestor-worship, an ancient and widespread practice, displayed in its most characteristic form in modern China and ancient Rome, which apparently was based upon the belief that dead parents or ancestors, represented by images or 'ancestral tablets', could be revived by appropriate ceremonies, such as burning incense or offering libations, and give the benefit of their wisdom to their descendants who performed the vitalizing ritual and asked for their advice upon, or their sanction for, actions affecting the welfare of the family. ”

“ Articles on the Sun-Ray origin of the Pyramids and Cuneiform Character
[Image] Edinburgh Castle, From the Vennel
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER 1. My Ancestry Our history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race, and our ancestors virtually live in us. The sentiment of ancestry seems to be inherent in human nature, especially in the more civilised races. At all events, we cannot help having a due regard for the history of our forefathers. Our curiosity is stimulated by their immediate or indirect influence upon ourselves. ”

“ The mythical divine ancestor, the founder of the race, is frequently supposed to have been originally a king also, and it is usual for the reigning line of sovereigns to trace their descent more especially from him. ”

“ Ancestry a Network.—From the fact that each child has all of the ancestors of its mother as well as of its father, arises the great complications which are met with in determining the lineage of an individual. [Pg 4] A person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and thus following out pedigree it is plain to be seen that through this process of doubling in each generation, in the course of a few centuries one’s ancestry is apparently enormous. ”

“ You are speaking of parents who have long since left their native land. The ancestor need not be indignant with his descendants when they use the language of their new home, so long as they continue to act in accordance with his spirit. ”

“ Our ancestors listened to the same legends, ballads, and mythical tales while gathered as children about one and the same mother, and they have handed them down to this generation of the descendants of each so little changed as to furnish ample proof of family relationship. ”

“ We see that our ancestors were no savages, but agricultural nomads, that they laboured, made roads, possessed the art of weaving and sewing; they built towns, kept domestic animals, lived under a kingly government, and counted at least up to one hundred. We learn this not only from the words father, mother, son, daughter, heaven, earth, but also from house, town, king, dog, cow, hatchet, and many others, which are found to be the same in the German, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit. ”

“ If we go back ten generations, we have over a thousand ancestors in our line of descent. Each of these people was, in some measure, different from the others. Our inheritance comes from all of them and from each of them. ”

“ Among the Laplanders of Europe an ancestral spirit tells the mother that he has come into the child, and directs her to call it after his name.6 Another variant of the same belief is that common among some of the Drâvidian races that the ancestor is revived in a calf, which is in consequence well fed and treated with particular respect. ”

“ Strong hereditary dispositions of character may be recognized in early infancy. When the ancestry of a man is well known the roots of his recent phylogeny may be traced to his ancestors. Here we observe the effect of crossing between varieties or different races, or on the contrary that of consanguinity. ”

“ So have we been prepared to become the ancestors of a glorious and ever unfolding race. And now, within the short span of half a dozen years, we are given over to every terrible doubt and misgiving. Ours has been, were we but so minded, the wonderful privilege of continuing to select the ancestors of America's future. ”

“ Coming into their heritage, which is the accumulated knowledge and experience of their ancestors, before they have acquired a direct and profound grasp of life, they seem to enter the world full-fledged, while it is only that ancestral heritage that works through the impressions of the youthful brain and gives them the color of age. ”

“ I know a good deal about their life after I was born and their life before I was born. I have a fair notion of my grandparents' parents, and I know something of the way of life of the generation behind that one. I have been told and I have read. Of course there are presently ancestors of whom I have been told nothing, and behind these countless others. Of course I know that people often imaginatively share the experience of [Pg 99] parents and kindred. They say: 'It must have been so and so with my mother and my father—or with my grandparents—or my ancestors generally. ”

“ Above all, is the coracle of rare historic interest—as the first venture upon water of a people—the ancestors of a nation that now rules the sea—their descendants proudly styling themselves its "Lords"—not without right and reason. ”

“ For just as in the case of plants it is natural that their qualities should be transmitted for a long time, or rather that, in general, the succeeding generation should resemble its ancestors; so too in the case of human beings it is natural that the morals of descendants should resemble those of their ancestors. ”

“ In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin,— seven or eight ancestors at least, — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is. ”

“ In those organic individuals, of which we know that they are descended from one and the same common form of ancestors—in which, therefore, their common ancestry is empirically proved—there can be no doubt that they belong to one species, whether they differ much or little from one another, or whether they are almost alike or very unlike. ”

“ Although we find the brilliant branch of the family very largely represented in the pedigree as more remote ancestors, there was no such selection as would require heredity to place genius on the heads of any of the direct descendants. ”

“ But that over, the relapse into stolid indifference is as complete as before. Good or bad, the gentle, trusting, superstitious, timid, easily yielding nature of the ancestors is continued in the descendants. They could be led to noble ends: they have been driven to base uses. ”

“ Kind Determined by Origin.—It is inheritance in the sense of community of origin that determines whether a given living creature shall be man, beast, bird, fish, or what not. A given individual is human because his ancestors were human. In addition to this stock supply of human qualities he has certain well-marked features which we recognize as characteristics of race. That is, if he is of Anglo-Saxon or Italian or Mongolian parentage, naturally his various qualities will be Anglo-Saxon, Italian, or Mongolian. ”

“ Hence in primitive religions, in which an endless variety of modifications of these more ancient beliefs has arisen, ancestor-worship may take the form of pious devotion to an actual ancestor or to a supernatural deity. As many of the most ancient gods were identified with animals, the dead ancestor, or his soul, is believed by many peoples to become incarnate in the appropriate animal, which is accorded the special veneration of a god or supernatural adviser, and set apart as sacred. ”