M A C V A Y S I A

Those who have been reading my blog for a few years now might remember that back in 2007 I wrote a post calling out Malaysia’s Information Minister for things he had said about children of mixed parentage. Basically, the Minister at the time, Zainudin Maidin (aka ZAM), didn’t want to see such children in local advertising because they’re “not Malaysians”. The post I wrote in response to his ridiculous remarks generated a lot of comments; in fact, while there were posts in my old Blogspot days that had generated more (unfortunately those comments have been swallowed by the Internet), that particular post remains the most commented post since my switch to Wordpress. Most of the comments were equally critical of ZAM, but some displayed racism that matched and perhaps even surpassed the things he’d said.

Well, how have things progressed in the nearly three years since then? The Information Ministry has been merged with the former Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry to form the Information Communication and Culture Ministry (which can’t seem to decide whether it wants a comma after the word Information). The new Minister, Rais Yatim, who thinks Malaysians’ use of the Internet, social media, and ‘bahasa rojak’ (the mixing of Malay and English in daily speech) are all very bad things, is unfortunately no less an embarrassment to the country than ZAM was. And unfortunately Rais is no less racist.

Recently that bastion of Malay nationalist journalism, Utusan Malaysia, front-paged an article in which Rais made comments about mixed marriages, in response to a question about the marital troubles of Malaysian actress Maya Karin. Now before we move on to Rais himself, let’s all shake our heads at the fact that Utusan chose to put that as its lead article that day, and that the paper had even seen fit to ask Rais to comment on something which was none of their business, and certainly none of his. Shame on them.

Now, on to Rais. Like I said, what happens in Maya Karin’s marriage is really none of his business. Yet there he was, using the question to deliver a little rant about the perils of entering into a marriage with someone of another race and/or nationality. Not only that, he singled out westerners, particularly white westerners. As Utusan is a government mouthpiece, it’s unlikely they just asked him about this out of the blue and he was simply giving his opinion on the spot. When asked about the matter, Rais didn’t just give his opinion; he backed it up with results of a study undertaken by local sociologists in which it was found that seven out of every ten mixed marriages end in divorce.

Well, I have some big problems with not only what Rais said, but in the so-called evidence he put forth to back up his claims. First off, let me state that I’m not saying mixed marriages are all fine and dandy. There are bound to be divorces. Just as I didn’t completely disagree with ZAM’s criticism of the prevalence of so-called mixed-race actors in local advertising, I don’t completely disagree with Rais’ assertion that mixed marriages will fail at a higher rate than marriages between people who are from the same race/ethnic group/country. But having said that, I have big problems with what he said anyway, just like I had big problems with what ZAM said. Aside from what I’ve already mentioned, here’s where Rais went wrong:

The study he referred to is outdated. According to the Utusan article, the figure of only three successful marriages out of ten is based on research that covered only the years 1995 to 1998. That was 12 to 15 years ago. Not only is the research outdated, it wasn’t done long enough for researchers to come to any reliable conclusion.

The geographical scope of the study was even more limited than the temporal scope. It seems Rais was only referring to marriages in the state of Johor and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur. That’s a very insufficient sample.

‘Artistes’ are hardly representative of the general public. Everyone knows actors and singing stars generally go through spouses like Planters goes through peanuts. I’ll be the first to admit I have no hard statistics to offer up in support of my claim here, but I daresay this is the case in many countries, not just in the west. In pointing to failed marriages among Malaysian celebrities as proof that mixed marriages don’t work, Rais is really barking up the wrong tree. Sure, the study he’s relying on involves more than just celebrities, but highlighting them at all to prove his point is pretty silly.

He’s almost right, but completely wrong. I’ve long said that marriages between Malays and non-Malays can only work if both partners have similar ideas about religion and culture. Rais is saying the same thing, but I think he overstates the number of cases in which this doesn’t happen. Of course, considering the shortcomings of the study he uses to back that up, it’s almost impossible to say. So how can I say he’s wrong? Because since Leen and I moved to Malaysia from Canada we’ve come to know many couples in similar situations to our own. We have indeed met couples whose marriages were a bit rocky, and people whose mixed marriages had already ended. But those were the exceptions. Most mixed couples we’ve met were happily married at the time and remain so today. Sure, some of them will fail, but that is the case with all marriages. Actually, there may be higher rates of divorce with mixed marriages, but…well, see below.

For someone who doesn’t like things that are mixed, he’s sure got this mixed up. Rais actually acknowledges that one of the factors in the failure of mixed marriages is the difficulty foreign spouses — especially foreign husbands — have as immigrants in this country. He even acknowledges this is all due to rigid government policies. But here’s the thing: instead of saying Malaysians should avoid marrying foreigners because the government he’s a part of makes it difficult for them to live and work here, wouldn’t it be better for the government to actually make it easier for foreign spouses to live and work here? Oh, wait…

Rais is out of touch with current events and trends. The Malaysian government is, in fact, beginning to make it easier for foreign spouses to live and work in Malaysia. The government recently announced it would give Permanent Resident status to foreign husbands, something Malaysian women and their foreign-born husbands have long been hoping for (read here for my latest update on that). The advice Rais is doling out to Malaysians reflects either complete ignorance of his own government’s initiatives, or an unwillingness to accept them. Either way, Rais Yatim is not doing his job properly.

Just the other night I watched an interview Rais gave on TV3 and was treated to further proof that he 1) has a real dislike for westerners and their culture, and 2) is unfit to lead a government ministry. While he did make some valid points (advocating more parental guidance in children’s use of the Internet, for example), most of his comments were absolutely sickening. His skeptical comments about the Internet and social media were nothing new (he’s been saying those things for a while now, resulting in a hilarious backlash by Malaysian Twitter users and bloggers), but I have to admit I was taken aback by what he said about language. That was nothing new either (his preference for the Malay language was quite evident when he once arrogantly scolded a journalist for daring to ask him a question in English not long ago), but he somehow outdid himself this time.

When asked to comment on bahasa rojak (basically ‘mixed language’), Rais really made himself look foolish. Remember I said he doesn’t like things that are mixed? Well, here’s the proof. He looks back on a time when the Malay language — the Johor-Riau dialect, to be more precise — was untouched by other languages. Let’s put aside how ignorant that very idea is in and of itself (I mean come on, he thinks the Johor-Riau dialect was not itself a hybrid of various smaller local dialects, and that it wasn’t influenced at all by other languages? Seriously?). Let’s look at what he said next: He actually lamented the fact that there came a time (a long, long time ago in fact) when the pure, precious Malay language was poisoned by other languages. Yes, that’s what he said. He used the word diracuni — poisoned. This is what he thinks of the influence of other languages on the Johor-Riau dialect of Malay. He displayed a particularly sneering contempt of the English language and the growing tendency of Malaysians to inject it into their everyday speech. He made it clear that Malaysians who speak in Malay should not mix words from other languages into it.

Let’s not even get into the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to speak Malay these days without using at least some English loanwords. Let’s just look at the basic thrust of what Rais was saying. It is painfully obvious that the Minister of Information Communication and Culture harbours unrealistic fantasies of linguistic and cultural purity. It is also obvious that because of these delusions he is out of touch with the realities of language and culture. He is out of touch with the way this country’s national language and its culture are heading. He is even out of touch with the direction in which the government he is a part of appears to be heading, or at least claims to be heading. He is, therefore, unfit to occupy the post he now occupies.

Now, I can express my personal opinion all I want — that Rais should either resign or the Prime Minister should put him out to pasture — but I’m not Malaysian, so who am I to even suggest what the Malaysian government should do? In fact, it seems Malaysians who support the current government don’t take too kindly to foreigners telling that government what it should and shouldn’t do. Well you know what? Anyone who would rub that in my face now can just stuff it. When a Malaysian government minister uses his position to make bigoted comments about mixed marriages and/or mixed-race children, it concerns me because it concerns my wife and children. The sensitivities of Malaysians who dislike the intervention of foreigners into their affairs are duly noted, but the current government should bear in mind that while I can’t vote here, my wife can; our children, if they decide to stay here into adulthood, will be voters too. So will the spouses and children of a lot of foreigners in this country — maybe a lot more than Rais can imagine. And we’re not just talking about foreigners here. We’re talking about anyone who marries and has children out of their so-called race. Does Rais Yatim really think that he or anyone else in this country is “pure”? Please.

Just imagine if Malaysians actually follow the advice of their Minister of Information Communication and Culture. They might take his ’stick to your own kind’ rhetoric too far. Why, we might end up seeing disturbingly high numbers of incest cases among rural Mal…oh, wait a minute. I guess Rais should really be careful what he wishes for. And the people of Malaysia should be careful who they vote for.

On July 2nd, 1937, after school had finished for the summer, Susan MacLeod put her two eldest sons, nine-year-old Duncan and eight-year-old Hughie, on a train bound for Boisdale. The arrangement went something like this: they would spend a night with the Boisdale stationmaster, who lived above the station; the next day they would get back on the train and go to River Denys, where a man named Dan MacInnis would pick them up and take them to the home of their uncle, Donald Ignecious MacLeod — also known as Dan — on River Denys Road. Unfortunately for the MacLeod boys, things didn’t exactly go according to plan. I’m glad they didn’t, though, because what happened next is probably my favourite of all my grandfather’s stories.

Duncan and Hughie got off the train at Boisdale with a giant leather suitcase containing all their belongings, and slept above the station at the home of the stationmaster, as arranged by their mother and Uncle Dan. The next morning they got on another train and rode to River Denys Station. When they got off the train, there was no one there to meet them. They waited a while, then got hungry. So they went over to the local general store and bought orange pop and donuts. While they were outside enjoying their snack, an old man with a horse and wagon came by. Duncan asked him, “If someone was coming from River Denys Mountain, which way would they come from?” The old man told them the road up the mountain was just down the road and across the highway, near Melford.

“Come on,” said Duncan to his little brother. “I don’t want to wait here all day. Let’s start heading that way. Whoever’s coming to get us will see us on the road.” Reluctantly, Hughie agreed, and the boys started walking.

It was slow going with the big suitcase, which was not only heavy but very awkward because the handle was only big enough for one boy to grip at a time. The boys tried various ways of carrying the suitcase, but no matter what they did, it was cumbersome. And the journey was about to get even more difficult: after they crossed the main road at Melford and got onto River Denys Road, they began the ascent up River Denys Mountain.

It didn’t take long for the boys to get frustrated with the big suitcase. They couldn’t just leave it, since it contained pretty much everything they owned. But they couldn’t keep carrying it the way they were. That’s when Duncan got an idea. He found a large stick and put it through the handle, and he and Hughie each held one end. Now the going was much easier. But the road was getting steeper.

After some time they finally saw a house. Hughie was afraid to go near it, so Duncan walked up to the front door alone. The lady who answered the door was surprised to see a little boy standing there, especially one she didn’t recognize. Duncan introduced himself and pointed out Hughie, still standing next to the big suitcase down by the road. The lady said her husband, Mr. MacPhail, was the mail driver; when he returned home from his mail run, he could take the boys to their uncle’s house. Duncan went out to tell his little brother, but Hughie was still too afraid to go into the house. When Duncan told the lady they just wanted to continue on, she gave him some water, and some to give to Hughie. The boys had a drink and set out again.

Following directions the mail driver’s wife had given them, when they had reached a hairpin turn they left the main road. The road to Uncle Dan’s place was barely a road, just wagon ruts with a hump in the middle. To make matters worse, it was getting dark, and Hughie was getting scared. This was just the perfect time for the handle to break off the suitcase, sending the heavy bag to the ground with a thud. The boys jerked and teetered and then stayed very still. Duncan wouldn’t admit it to his little brother, but he was a little scared too.

In those moments of silence, their ears probing the woods for any sound that might signal the approach of friend or foe or ferocious animal, they heard a dog barking. That made Hughie even more afraid, but to Duncan it meant there might be a house nearby. Sure enough, off in the distance ahead of them, somewhere through the trees, there was a light. As the boys continued their climb and went around bends in the road, the light would blink out of view, then reappear. They were practically pushing the bag now instead of carrying it; in fact, they left the bag behind three times, thinking they’d go back for it later, only to change their minds and get it right away when they remembered it contained all their earthly possessions.

Finally they got close enough to the light that they could see a house. It was a small house, on a small hill. The dog was still barking, like it wanted to eat the boys whole. Hughie was terrified, but not Duncan. No, Duncan had been putting on a brave face for his brother, but he was more afraid of what might have been out in those ink-black woods than he was of a barking dog. Duncan walked right up to the dog, reached out a hand, and patted the dog on the head. The animal immediately stopped barking and followed Duncan to the steps of the house, and watched in silence as the little boy knock on the door.

Dan MacLeod was a little worried. Why hadn’t Dan MacInnis brought the boys over yet? He would have picked them up hours ago, and should have brought them right up. Were they going to spend the night at the MacInnis farm? That seemed like the most logical explanation. Anyway, Dan MacLeod had bigger things to worry about. One of his cows had just given birth to a calf, and he was afraid bears might come after it. The woods in that area were full of bears. Sure enough the dog, Tupper, had started barking late in the evening. So Dan had put a light on outside, hoping he’d be able to catch any predators that might decide to make a try for the calf. Tupper had barked for hours, but nothing had come into the yard, so Dan figured maybe the dog was doing a good job. Still, he couldn’t go to bed as long as Tupper was still barking. So he sat awake in his kitchen. Then he heard a knock at the side door.

When Dan opened the door, there was his nephew, Duncan MacLeod, standing out on the steps, with Tupper sitting next to him, and little Hughie standing at the edge of the yard, behind a big leather suitcase. It was quarter to two in the morning.

“Ios’, Ios’!” yelled Dan. (The boys would soon learn that Jesus in Gaelic was called Iosa.) “Maggie!” he bellowed, “Come quick!”

Soon the whole family was up and standing at the little side door. Dan’s sons, John Duncan and Angus, who were about the same ages as Duncan and Hughie, helped their city cousins lift the big suitcase into the small house. The MacLeod family stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, marveling at the fact that those two little boys had just walked up over River Denys Mountain. It’s not really much of a mountain, at only 200 metres high, but for two small children, dragging a huge suitcase, in the middle of the night no less, it was quite a feat. They had passed several houses, but because it was dark they hadn’t seen them. If not for the light Dan had left on to protect his calf from bears, they probably wouldn’t have seen his house, either.

The next day they learned that the Ford Model A belonging to Dan MacInnis had broken down. Somewhere along the line there had been a communication breakdown as well, and each Dan had ended up thinking the other Dan was going to pick the boys up at River Denys Station.

Thus began Duncan MacLeod’s summer on River Denys Mountain, just down the road from his grandfather’s house at MacLeod Settlement and the community of Glencoe. The people there would never forget the story of the two MacLeod boys who had walked up over the mountain. Duncan MacLeod would never forget it either, nor would he forget the experiences he had and the interesting characters he got to know during that first summer and the one after it.

But those are stories for another day.

Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod is a series of posts on my MacLeod ancestors. Some are based on information I dug up myself but most are stories told to me by my grandfather, Duncan MacLeod. Here are the other posts in the series:

The Swans of Eigg
The Gardener’s Crossing
The Kilt
Crooked-Neck MacLean
One Eye, Two Guns, Three Tunes & Twenty-five Cents
Hold Fast

The death of her husband at noon on the 2nd of June 1937 was a harsh blow to my great-grandmother, Susan MacLeod. But if she thought that day couldn’t possibly get any worse, she was wrong. After the funeral, Father MacGillivray showed up at the door of her small apartment on Intercolonial Street with two nuns and several large paper bags.

“We’ve come for the children,” he said. “They belong to the Church.”

The death of John Rory MacLeod meant Susan was left to care for not only the several children they’d had together, but also John R’s two children from his first marriage (though the elder of the two, Donald, was in his teens and just about ready to fend for himself) and Big Jim, the mentally-challenged brother of John R’s late first wife. To top it off, Susan was heavily pregnant. Suddenly she was left to care for a double-digit family all by herself.

They belong to the Church. The words reverberated in Susan’s head like heavy rocks thrown down a dry stone well. As she stood there trying to come to terms with what was happening, the two nuns went around the apartment stuffing whatever items of children’s clothing they could find into the paper bags. Big grocery bags, with handles. They belong to the Church.

Susan, daughter of a fishing boat captain from Fogo Island, Newfoundland, was Anglican like her father, and had never become Catholic. The Church had permitted John R to marry her, but she’d had to sign papers guaranteeing their children would be raised Catholic. Now that John R was gone, the Church wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.

They belong to the Church. The echo in Susan’s head finally faded from a deafening roar to a faint whisper. Not one to yell or make a scene, she quietly walked to the door of the apartment, opened it, turned to father MacGillivray and said, “Get out. Now.”

Father MacGillivray was about to put up a fight. How could she possibly ensure the children would be brought up as good Catholics? Would she actually take them to church? How did she expect to care for such a large family by herself anyway? How could she? How could she? Those children belonged to the Church!

“These are my children,” she said, her eyes fixed on his. “Now get out.”

Maybe it was the look in her eye. Maybe it was her stance. Maybe Father MacGillivray knew the motto of Clan MacLeod was ‘Hold Fast’. Whatever it was, he could tell she was serious. He walked past her and out through the door, followed closely behind by the two nuns, who still hadn’t spoken a word. Their brown paper bags, the big ones with the handles, were empty again. Before Susan could close the door, Father MacGillivray turned to face her.

“We’ll be back,” he said. He pointed at her round belly. “And we’ll be coming for that one too.”

He made good on that promise. Father MacGillivray and the two nuns came back on more than one occasion. Each time, Susan would send the children running off in every direction. Father MacGillivray never got any of them. Susan MacLeod held fast.

When Susan MacLeod gave birth to her youngest child, Jackie, mere weeks after her husband’s death, she knew she was in real trouble. She had managed to prevent the Church from taking her children away, but knew she couldn’t keep that up for long. Her relatives could help out, but they could only do so much. She needed help.

Susan’s brother-in-law, Donald Ignecious MacLeod, known to all as Dan, stepped in to help. He and his wife Maggie (the former Margaret Sarah MacDonnell) agreed to take Susan’s two eldest boys, Duncan and Hughie, for the summer.

Susan MacLeod struggled and suffered great hardship, with the family never far from excruciating poverty, and sometimes neck-deep in it. My granduncle Hugh MacLeod once said they were so poor that “on Christmas morning if you woke up without a hard-on you’d have nothing to play with.” But Susan raised her children. She held fast.

My great-grandmother, Susan MacLeod

Ironically, years later, she became Catholic. She never wavered from her determination to protect her children, though, right till the end. For Susan MacLeod, the end came on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1968. She was crossing Prince Street when she was hit by a drunk driver. The force of the impact killed her instantly and threw her from one corner to another. The driver of the car, a prominent local politician, was never punished.

The end of her life was tragic, just like that of her husband. But while she was alive she was not only a great mother to her children, but a shining example of quiet determination, of tenacity in the face of adversity. I’m glad Susan MacLeod held fast. And I’m glad she sent her two eldest sons, Duncan and Hughie, up to River Denys Mountain that summer after John R died. That was the start of an annual tradition of sorts, one which provided my grandfather — and me — with lots of great stories. In fact, the story of my grandfather’s first trip to that side of the island is one of my favourites.

But that’s a story for another day.

Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod is a series of posts on my MacLeod ancestors. Some are based on information I dug up myself but most are stories told to me by my grandfather, Duncan MacLeod. Here are the other posts in the series:

The Swans of Eigg
The Gardener’s Crossing
The Kilt
Crooked-Neck MacLean
One Eye, Two Guns, Three Tunes & Twenty-five Cents

My great-grandfather, John Rory MacLeod, was born in July 1889 in the area of Cape Breton island which contains the small communities of Glencoe and Upper Southwest Mabou. (There are several distinct places up there associated with my family, such as Glencoe Mills, MacLeod Settlement and Upper Southwest Mabou, but my grandfather always refers to them collectively as Glencoe.) The island had seen several waves of immigrants over the years, mostly Scots. But in the early 20th century, long after the last ships full of Highland settlers had arrived on its shores, Cape Breton began to see more and more outmigration, as men from the island went off in search of work elsewhere.

Some only went as far as the island’s industrial western edge, to work at the newly-built steel mill or in the coal mines. Some went down to what they called “the Boston states”. Others went to work as lumbermen in New Brunswick. Many went further west to Ontario, a province whose mines and factories would claim the lives of two of John R’s brothers in 1928: John ‘Mor’ (Big John, who died in Windsor) and Duncan (who died in Cochrane, about an hour’s drive from Timmins). John R worked in many of those places; from New Brunswick’s forests, he ventured up into the Yukon, where he worked in mines and searched for gold. The great Klondike gold rush had long since ended, but there was still gold to be found and fortunes to be made, and the Yukon was still a very rough-and-tumble place. According to my grandfather, John R carried a revolver on each hip during his time up north.

Fortune eluded John R, however, and he returned to Cape Breton, where on 12 April 1915 he married Mary Gillis, daughter of farmers Archibald and Mary Ann Gillis of Grand Mira. John R and Mary began having children (a son named Donald and a daughter named Jessie) and John R did his best to make a living. He briefly worked as a fireman, but he was fired when his superiors learned he was blind in one eye. I’m not sure if he was born that way, or if he was injured during his time working away from the island. I suppose the reason didn’t matter at the time. John R was out of a job. Lucky for him, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company was always looking for labourers.

Life had more tests for John R, though. Only a few years into his marriage, his wife Mary died of cancer, leaving him to care for his son, his daughter, and his mentally-challenged brother-in-law, Big Jim. John R soon married again, this time to Susan Powell, from the small island of Fogo, Newfoundland, daughter of Eliza Leyte and a fishing boat captain named Nathaniel Powell. John R and Susan welcomed their first child together on 22 November 1927 in the house they lived in on Townsend Street. It was a boy; they named him Duncan.

John Rory MacLeod

Duncan MacLeod, my grandfather, has happy memories of his father. He told me he had to read the Saturday morning paper to his father because John R was illiterate. Duncan — Papa — would even read the little speech balloons as he and his father looked at the comics. Papa told me his father had a fiddle and claimed to know three tunes, though he only ever played one, Red Wing (here’s a video of someone playing that tune).

Something else Papa remembers about John R is that he and Susan never fought, never argued at all. Papa only ever saw his mother, a very quiet person, get angry at his father once. It was just after a blizzard, and John R left the house to make the long, difficult walk to the steel plant to shovel snow. He’d been gone a long time but suddenly reappeared at the door. When Susan asked him what he was doing home, he said he’d got halfway to work when a drunk asked him for money; he didn’t have any so he’d come home to get a quarter. That was the only time Duncan MacLeod ever saw his mother get angry at his father.

John R and Susan had several more children and, though every extra mouth to feed meant life would be more difficult, they were happy. But at the beginning of June, 1937, all that came to an end. John R was walking home from work on June 1st when a truck carrying a full load of hot slag (the stuff left over when coal is burnt) lost control and crashed, dumping its contents right on top of him. He suffered horrific burns from the waist down and was rushed to the hospital. His boss sent someone to his home (at the time the MacLeods were living in a 2nd-floor apartment on Intercolonial Street) to tell Susan that John R had had a “little accident”. Susan was told there was no need to go to the hospital. The next morning, however, Father MacGillivray came to see Susan and told her she needed to go to the hospital right away.

When Susan got to the hospital she was told she could talk to her husband but couldn’t look behind the curtain that was draped between them. So she sat and talked with John R, who asked her if the children were okay. “Make sure the boys are in by seven,” he said to her. Then he died, just as the church bells were ringing at noon. John Rory MacLeod was just shy of his 48th birthday.

Life was hard while John R was alive; now that he was gone, Susan and her children were about to find out just how hard it could be. But that’s a story for another day.

Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod is a series of posts on my MacLeod ancestors. Some are based on information I dug up myself but most are stories told to me by my grandfather, Duncan MacLeod. Here are the other posts in the series:

Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod: The Swans of Eigg
Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod: The Gardener’s Crossing
Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod: The Kilt
Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod: Crooked-Neck MacLean

As I’ve been interested in history and genealogy for many years now, I’ve often found myself wishing I had a time machine, to see places as they once were and meet the people who contributed to my eventual existence. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, what if I told you I could do it?

I was talking about family history with my grandmother the other day. It was her 80th birthday, so I made sure to call her. Nana usually confines herself to her room, but on that day she’d sat herself near the phone to field numerous calls from family and friends. She was having a great day; better, she said, than the deafening silence that usually fills the house. So while we were talking, we got onto the topic of genealogy. I told her she was related to Celine Dion, Madonna, and Camilla Parker-Bowles (all her tenth cousins, once removed), which surprised her and made her cackle (yes, she cackles). I also asked her about things she remembered that I didn’t know, things that birth records, marriage records, death records, cemetery inscriptions and census transcriptions can’t tell me. I know a lot about my ancestors, but the further back I go the less I know about who they really were. It’s difficult sometimes to imagine these people from way back as anything more than names and dates. But they were more. Anyway, Nana told me a bit about her childhood.

My grandmother, Mary Theresa (Martell) MacLeod, at age 17. The baby is my uncle Brian.

One anecdote that I found interesting was about Nana’s visits to her father’s birthplace. My grandmother, Mary Theresa Martell, is the eldest daughter of Wallace Abraham Martell and Mary Jessie MacDougall, both long gone. I remember them from my childhood, though, and called them Papa and Mama (which sounded like Puppa and Mumma). Papa Martell was from a French-speaking family on Isle Madame; Mama Martell came from a Gaelic-speaking family that was based up in Judique Intervale and Port Hastings (and later Sydney). As each had a different native tongue that the other didn’t speak, Papa and Mama Martell spoke only English to each other, and when they had children English was the only language of the home. Nana didn’t grow up speaking either French or Gaelic, but she does remember hearing both languages spoken, especially when she and her parents would go to visit relatives outside of Sydney.

Nana remembers going with her parents to visit her father’s relatives in Poulamon and Petit-de-Grat when she was six years old, which would have been in 1936. I believe it was summer. She remembers finding the place a bit strange, like a different country. The people were very conservative and somewhat old-fashioned; the women all covered their hair, and the men all wore hats as well. Both sides of her family were Catholic, but her father’s family seemed very different from her mother’s people, who were more boisterous and never said anything that didn’t come out riding on a laugh or a song. Even when the MacDougalls spoke Gaelic there was a familiarity about them that comforted young Mary Theresa Martell. But the Martells, though not really that far from the industrial center of the island, were in a world of their own.

While her father was in the house speaking French with his relatives, little Mary Theresa was outside playing. Back in those days, if the weather was nice, the kids would be booted out of the house in the morning and wouldn’t be expected back inside until suppertime. Mary Theresa was relieved to be out of the strange world of strict adults who dressed like people from books and spoke a slurring language she didn’t understand. She could play outside, a cool breeze off the water picking up her little light-coloured hair as she skipped around the yard, playing in her own little world, where everyone was happy. Not that the Martells weren’t happy, but to a six-year-old used to a less-restrained atmosphere, they seemed rather serious.

But she wasn’t alone in that little world of sin-kissed flowers and gentle sea breezes. Her cousin, I think her name was Phyllis, about the same age, would spend the entire day out there with her. There was only one swing hanging from one of the big trees in the yard, so the girls had to share. They played together for the whole day, making a little world together.

“It was funny,” Nana said to me over the phone. “She didn’t speak a word of English, and I didn’t speak any French. But we played together all day. We’d be put outside together like that every time I went there, and we always played together. We shared the swing, played games. We didn’t understand each other but it wasn’t a problem at all. We just played all day.”

When she was telling me that story, I was there, in that yard, on that summer day in 1936, watching two little girls playing on a swing. Maybe you were there too, just now. See? That’s time travel.

When you see old photographs, you travel back in time. You look upon a person or a place as they once were. It’s amazing. But when you talk to someone who can tell you about a time when you hadn’t yet been born, or even when your parents hadn’t yet been born, well now that’s real time travel. Old photographs can show you how something looked, but nothing beats a first-hand account for its ability to show you how something sounded, smelled, felt. Stories of yesteryear aren’t always accurate, especially if they’re stories someone got from someone else. But they’re all glimpses into another world. The genealogical research I’ve done over the years would be nothing but a skeleton without all the stories and information I’ve gotten from elderly relatives. Even if you’re not into genealogy, I think you should talk to the oldest members of your family, listen to the stories they have to tell. You might end up with stories you want to pass on to those who come after you. Even if you don’t, at least you can tell people you’ve traveled through time.

Most people who know me (and probably most people who read my blog) know that it really annoys me when someone spells my last name wrong. Actually, it annoys me a little less these days, just because I’m so used to it. But it’s still annoying. No matter how many times I tell people it’s M-a-c-V-a-y, I still see all sorts of different spellings. Probably the most common misspelling is the use of Mc instead of Mac. But while I’ve always found it somewhat irritating to see my name spelled M-c-V-a-y, lately I’ve been thinking it might be just as correct — or at least almost as correct — as the way I currently spell my name.

First things first: Both Mac and Mc mean exactly the same thing. Mac means son in both Scottish Gaelic and Irish. Contrary to popular belief, if does not mean son of. Instead, the word mac before a name places that name in the genitive case, which in Gaelic necessitates what’s called lenition or aspiration. In plain terms, that means the first letter of the name changes a bit. Names beginning with B, for example, will become Bh, which sounds like V. Hence beatha, meaning life, becomes bheatha (which is, interestingly enough, very similar to words for life in Latin languages), so that the family name becomes MacBheatha, which is pretty much pronounced the same as MacVay.

Mc is simply a contraction of Mac. There are all sorts of theories out there about the difference between Mac and Mc, the most common being that Mac is used by Protestant and Mc by Catholics (and also that Mac is Scottish, Mc is Irish; from these two misconceptions we get the origins of Irish Catholics being called Mickeys in America), but while that may be true in some cases (more on a possible example below), in most cases Mc is nothing more than a contraction of Mac. Here’s a better explanation than mine, an extract from a book called Tartan for Me! by Philip D. Smith, Jr. (which I found here):

Mac, Gaelic for “son”, is the most common element of Scottish and Irish surnames. In both countries, Mc is always an abbreviation of Mac. There is absolutely no truth to the American myth at Mac is Scottish and Mc is Irish. Mac used to be abbreviated M’ although this spelling is not common now. At times, all three versions can be seen. in an early book on Highland music, the author spelled his own family name three different ways on the first two pages — “MacDonald”, “McDonald”, and “M’Donald.”

Black’s The Surnames of Scotland and MacLysaght’s The Surnames of Ireland both treat Mac in the same way — as the only and original spelling. Persons seeking a name spelled “Mc” are expected to know that it is a conventional abbreviation for Mac. This same approach is used in Tartan For Me! To find “McDeal” look for “MacDeal.”

Mac is always considered an addition to a name. Before there was a “Donald’s Son” there was a “Donald”. In both Scotland and Nova Scotia, names beginning with Mac were traditionally alphabetized under the first letter of the second name — MacArthur under “A”, MacZeal under “Z”. Many Scots dropped “Mac” as they became Anglicized or emigrated, “Mac Wyeth” becoming simply “Wyeth”. “Kinzie” is from “MacKenzie”. The one notable exception is the Innes and MacInnes families, each quite distinct. The Innes family have Pictish roots and are from the east coast of Scotland with a red tartan. The MacInnes are of Gaelic origin from the west coast and wear a green tartan.

Mac takes a variety of pronunciations. In Islay Gaelic, Mac is pronounced like /mek/. In the United States one hears it as “mick”. Preceding a /k/ or /g/ sound, the final /k/ of Mac disappears. It became the practice in both the south of Scotland and in Ireland to write two words as one (MacGill to Magill; MacHale to Makale). In other names the /k/ sound of Mac is duplicated and attached to the front of a following word if it begins in a vowel (MacArter to MacCarter). The reverse also occurs. If the second name begins with a /k/ or /g/, producing two /k/ sounds together, one may disappear (MacGill to Magill; MacKenzie to MacEnzee). Mac is at times pronounced “muck” and written that way (Mac ‘il Roy to Muckleroy).

There’s also an interesting bit about the Anglicization of Gaelic names being helped along by the fact that a lot of Gaelic speakers could not read or write Gaelic (this one’s debatable) and would therefore just write names in English as they sounded in Gaelic.

Anyway, I’ve always taken it for granted that my family has used the MacVay spelling for a long time, beginning way back in Scotland, before my family moved to Ireland in the 17th century. Sure, the name was always recorded as McVay (or McVey, McVea, McVeigh, McVeagh, etc.) on old documents from Scotland, Ireland and Canada…but I know my MacVays have always spelled the name M-a-c-V-a-y, at least in Canada.

Or have they?

The grave of Alexander and Elizabeth MacVay

When I posted my family’s history a few months back, someone noticed the McVay spelling on my great-great-grandfather’s gravestone and asked in the comments if the family name had once been spelled that way. Here’s what I wrote in reply:

I’ve seen the name spelled McVay on documents, and of course on that gravestone. As far as I know, in my family it’s always been MacVay. Some members of the family got used to the McVay spelling and stuck with it, but most continued to use MacVay, even when they were still in NB. It would have been MacVay originally anyway, ‘Mc’ just being a contraction.

One interesting thing is the presence of the lines under the ‘c’ in ‘Mc’ on the gravestone. Alexander’s name was also spelled that way on the birth certificate of his daughter Isabella in Scotland in 1855. The clerk who copied down the name didn’t spell other ‘Mc’ names with the little lines. I know the lines were used to signify a raised ‘c’ (and therefore ‘Mc’ as a contraction of ‘Mac’); I suspect they were also used to show that a name spelled with the contraction ‘Mc’ was actually spelled ‘Mac’, whereas ‘Mc’ names without the little marks were always spelled ‘Mc’. That’s just a theory though. The short version of all this: I’m pretty sure we’ve always spelled it MacVay.

I now know that all of the descendants of my great-great-grandfather used the MacVay spelling, but in spite of that, I have to admit there’s another possibility besides what I wrote in that comment. That possibility is that my great-great-grandfather, Alexander MacVay, may have actually spelled his name Alexander McVay. The 1855 Scottish birth record of Isabella MacVay that I mentioned in that comment provides another clue: it appears to contain my great-great-grandfather’s signature, which reads Alex McVay. It looks like it may have actually been written by the clerk, because it looks suspiciously like the other signatures on the page. But if it is indeed my great-great-grandfather’s writing (the only example of it I have ever seen), then it appears the family name may have actually been McVay.

While the whole Scottish/Irish/Protestant/Catholic explanation of the difference between Mac and Mc may not be generally true, interestingly enough it may have been the reason behind the spelling change (if indeed there was one) in my family’s name. When my family arrived in St. Stephen, New Brunswick in the early 1860s, they found a number of McVays already living there, all Irish Catholics who had been in the area for many years. My family had lived in Ireland for several generations but didn’t consider themselves Irish. They were Ulster Scots who were fiercely proud of their Scottish roots; they were also staunch Presbyterians. Had my family settled in Cape Breton straight off the boat, I might just think they changed the spelling to fit in with their neighbours (who mostly used Mac). Instead, it seems like my family may have been trying to do the opposite.

Sure, it’s possible the spelling was MacVay all along. Like I said, maybe that signature wasn’t really written by my great-grandfather. And maybe the name was spelled wrong by whoever made that gravestone. All possible, but I’m not sure. After all, Alexander’s eldest son, my great-grandfather William MacVay, was an expert stonemason and may have made that gravestone himself, or at least had a hand in it.

Whatever the case, the name is MacVay now and my kids will be at least the fifth generation to spell it that way. But when I see our name as McVay (when, not if, because it’s pretty much inevitable), maybe I’ll be slightly less annoyed than before. Maybe. But only slightly.

Last night, after a good workout at the gym, Leen and I were on our way home when in the course of a conversation about post-workout close physical proximity I joked, “Well, it’s not like you have cooties.”

I expected her to ask me something like, “What the heck are cooties?” But instead she said, “I had that once when I was a kid, actually.” I was surprised to hear someone say they’ve actually had cooties, considering it’s an imaginary affliction, used by kids in the west as an excuse for shunning and/or teasing other kids. But Leen wasn’t talking about that. She was talking about the very real skin infection known in Malay as kudis.

So we talked about kudis for a bit and it seemed quite plausible to me that the imaginary western affliction known as cooties came from kudis. But I’ve been wrong about stuff like this before (after hearing several times from several sources that the word bogeyman had something to do with colonial powers’ fear of the Bugis, I wrote about it and was corrected by those who knew the word actually had English origins from way back; one of those who corrected me was a linguist who seemed really annoyed by the perpetuation of the Bugis myth). Whatever the case, I wanted to check it out.

The Wikipedia article on cooties is a mess. There’s no mention of Malaya/Malaysia, but that’s not necessarily a refutation of the kudis connection, considering how dodgy the etymology section of the article is. There is, however, an external link at the bottom of the article that goes to a page at The Straight Dope. There, in a piece from 1985, someone replies to a question about the origins of the word cooties by saying:

Cooties in the sense of “an intangible profusion of vileness emanating from an especially loathsome individual” is probably peculiar to this country. However, cooties in the original sense of body lice is known to most speakers of English. According to Eric Partridge, whose knowledge of things linguistic is almost as awesome as my knowledge of things in general, the word cooties, and probably the reality as well, was picked up by sailors from the Malayans, who had a similar word meaning dog lice. A possibly related term is kutu, a Polynesian word meaning lice of any kind.

So there is a known connection between cooties and kudis. A quick look at some entries at Dictionary.com reveals this as well:

coot⋅ie1  [koo-tee] Show IPA
–noun Informal.
a louse, esp. one affecting humans, as the body louse, head louse, or pubic louse.
Also, cooty.

Origin:
1910–15; perh. < Malay kutu biting body louse, with final syll. conformed to -ie

Another mention of Malay origins. Fair enough, but hold on: why is it attributed to the word kutu, which generally refers to lice and other wingless biting insects? Did cooties really come from kutu?

I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate (I’m no linguist, after all) that cooties did actually come from kudis, not from kutu. The association with lice may have something to do with the fact that a certain kind of kudis (kudis buta, known in English as scabies) does involve mites. People I’ve asked about kudis have all told me it’s not contagious, but scabies certainly is (at least through skin contact); if regular kudis is the same as impetigo (it is according to the Malay Wikipedia article on kudis), a bacterial infection, then it can be spread through contact as well. Ease of transmission aside, kudis would be repulsive enough that children afflicted with it would be shunned by their peers, or at the very least teased. We all know how cruel kids can be sometimes. Considering its repulsiveness, and its prevalence among children (like the imaginary cooties, kudis is more common in children than adults, whereas kutu refers to lice and fleas more generally), it makes sense that it would develop into an insult to be used against someone who might not even have the condition (”Stay away from her,” the class jock said, pointing at the nerdy girl, “she has kudis!”).

Cooties could very well be from kutu — after all, the people who wrote that dictionary thought so — but I’m not so sure. Even if kudis is the real origin of cooties, it might be something linguists already know — but again, I’m not so sure. I guess I’ll just have to keep scratching…er, digging.