Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I am Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying And
Speaker 1: today we're going to have another listener request. Not long
Speaker 1: after we started working on this podcast, listener Carissa asked
Speaker 1: us if we could do an episode about the Carni
Speaker 1: Mata Temple in Deshnok, India, which is home to thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of rats. Naturally, there's a story there, and
Speaker 1: it's a story that's way more than just hey, rats,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of rats. That's a lot of rats,
Speaker 1: But sadly, a lot of the writing in the West
Speaker 1: is really about the rats. So there was a lot
Speaker 1: of picking through chaft to find the wheat. Doing doing
Speaker 1: the research for this episode, I found lots and lots
Speaker 1: of versions of the same story, lots and lots of
Speaker 1: contradictory information. So in sifting through all that, I think
Speaker 1: we've gotten kind of to the bottom of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it has one of your favorite subjects in it.
Speaker 1: It does medieval mystics. We have talked about medieval mystics
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. When we've talked about Marjorie Kemp,
Speaker 1: but this time the medieval mystic is from India, and
Speaker 1: all of this really starts with the Hindu goddess Durga.
Speaker 1: She is a goddess with several arms, and exactly how
Speaker 1: many varies from one depiction to another. Um Often she
Speaker 1: is riding on the back of a tiger or a lion,
Speaker 1: and in each of her many arms she has a
Speaker 1: different holy weapon. So when you look at depictions of her,
Speaker 1: she really looks like she could end you, but like
Speaker 1: with really righteous love, she's just going to take you apart.
Speaker 1: And the reason that she looks so completely dangerous is
Speaker 1: that she was actually created to defeat the buffalo demon
Speaker 1: Mahisha Sarah, who was invincible. The gods had been trying
Speaker 1: to defeat Mahisha Sarah, but they couldn't, so they combined
Speaker 1: all of their energy together to bring Drga into being,
Speaker 1: and each of the gods gave Drga their holy weapon
Speaker 1: to carry into battle against the buffalo demon. And Durga's
Speaker 1: battle with Mahisha Sura lasted for nine full days, but
Speaker 1: on the tenth day, she finally defeated him, and this
Speaker 1: brings us to Karni Mata. She was a fifteenth century
Speaker 1: sage and mystic who spent most of her life as
Speaker 1: an ascetic. Her followers believe that she is an incarnation
Speaker 1: of Durga. She reportedly lived to be a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years old, and when she died, she vanished into
Speaker 1: a flash of fire. She was born with the name
Speaker 1: Ri Dubai in seven in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan, India.
Speaker 1: This is northwest India and not that far from the
Speaker 1: border with Pakistan. She was the seventh daughter born into
Speaker 1: a fairly affluent Sharin family. The Sharons were known for
Speaker 1: their poets, bards, and story tellers. In the area where
Speaker 1: she lived was really mostly scrub land and desert. Most
Speaker 1: of the people who lived there were nomads who traveled
Speaker 1: from oasis to oasis, and they grew milliant and they
Speaker 1: herded sheep and goats and cattle. She's described as being
Speaker 1: really assertive starting in her very early childhood, which was
Speaker 1: not really acceptable behavior for girls in the culture at
Speaker 1: the time. She was also known for being a gifted poet,
Speaker 1: a powerful leader, someone who was extremely intelligent, and also
Speaker 1: extremely ugly. This last part sort of ties into the
Speaker 1: belief surrounding her. The idea is that Durga chose to
Speaker 1: be born into an ugly body, having had a beautiful
Speaker 1: face in a previous life. When Rido was a child
Speaker 1: about the age of six, her aunt was braiding her
Speaker 1: hair using just one hand, and Rido told her to
Speaker 1: use both hands, but the aunt said that she couldn't
Speaker 1: because her other hand was paralyzed, and Rido touched the
Speaker 1: paralyzed hand, and according to legend, her aunt was cured.
Speaker 1: This shows up in most counts as the first indication
Speaker 1: that she was a divine being, and that's when she
Speaker 1: began to be known as Carney. So Mada is an
Speaker 1: honorary title meaning mother, and Carney means miraculous or divine,
Speaker 1: So Carney Mada is a miraculous mother. And there's another
Speaker 1: similar story of Carney laying hands to cure her father
Speaker 1: of a snake bite, as well as other tales of
Speaker 1: miracles and divine deeds that she did throughout her life.
Speaker 1: Carney did not want to get married, but she hadn't
Speaker 1: yet convinced everyone of her divinity when she reached marriage age.
Speaker 1: In particular, her father and her uncle doubted her claims
Speaker 1: of being the reincarnation of Durga, and they forced her
Speaker 1: into an arranged marriage, and she obeyed um, but she
Speaker 1: really didn't have any intention of actually leading what would
Speaker 1: be a quote unquote normal married life. The story goes
Speaker 1: that her marriage was chaste, and when her husband came
Speaker 1: to their bed on her wedding night, he found instead
Speaker 1: of his side, a lion in her place. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize when I chose this that this was going to
Speaker 1: be the second of chased marriages that we would talk
Speaker 1: about in in our tenure on this podcast, and the
Speaker 1: second time that divine intervention prevented marriage from being consummated.
Speaker 1: So Connie didn't really want her husband to be saddled
Speaker 1: with this chaste marriage that he did not ask for,
Speaker 1: so she arranged for him to be married to her
Speaker 1: sister as well. Consequently, she may be the only example
Speaker 1: of a person believed to be the incarnation of a
Speaker 1: hinded goddess who was also married, which is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: that there's a sort of sweetness in it that she's like, why,
Speaker 1: I want you to be happy, but not with me
Speaker 1: as your wife. That's not going to work out the
Speaker 1: way you think. But I'll wear something you can also
Speaker 1: marry my sister, And this sort of this came to
Speaker 1: back back to bite them a little bit, and uh
Speaker 1: not in the way that you might immediately think. Carney's
Speaker 1: bargain with her husband and sister meant that her husband
Speaker 1: wound up with two wives and two really generous dowries
Speaker 1: of cattle. Because remember, they were from a pretty affluent family,
Speaker 1: Carney and her sister, So all of these cows put
Speaker 1: a huge strain on the local water supply and on
Speaker 1: the available grazing land. All of that together provided lots
Speaker 1: of reason for the community to really resent Carney's husband,
Speaker 1: So the three of them decided to move. The trio
Speaker 1: traveled north towards now Deshnoke in what became the Beaconeer district.
Speaker 1: This area was the frequent target of warlords from the
Speaker 1: wrath Or clan, who hoped to gain power over the
Speaker 1: tribes that lived there and establish a kind of feudal government.
Speaker 1: In fourteen fifty nine, a wrath Worm man named raw
Speaker 1: Bica enlisted Carney's aid in unine ing or perhaps subjucating,
Speaker 1: depending on which point of view you have and what
Speaker 1: historical sources you've read, the scattered tribes in the area.
Speaker 1: So he wanted her help to bring everyone together. The
Speaker 1: region was just way too big for a small army
Speaker 1: to be able to hold and secure, so Beaca knew
Speaker 1: that he was going to need something to give him
Speaker 1: a sense of authority. That's something turned out to be
Speaker 1: Carni Mata, who had developed a strong religious following in
Speaker 1: the area by this point. Beaka did two things. He
Speaker 1: consulted Karni Mata often on what his next move should be,
Speaker 1: and by following her advice, he gained her blessing. So
Speaker 1: one way to look at this is that Karni Mata
Speaker 1: helped a warlord invade and conquer a bunch of tribes.
Speaker 1: But the other is that she recognized that the only
Speaker 1: way to stop the fighting was too if that exact
Speaker 1: thing happened, and so she chose to support a man
Speaker 1: that she knew could do it and someone she could
Speaker 1: influence to make choices that would be better for the people. So,
Speaker 1: for example, she made sure that once Vica had taken
Speaker 1: over an area, the people who lived there would still
Speaker 1: have rights to their ancestral lands. And she also helped
Speaker 1: arrange marriages between plans to strengthen the ties between them.
Speaker 1: And it took about twenty years for Vica to complete
Speaker 1: his unification of the territory, and he continued throughout that
Speaker 1: time to seek Carney's advice and blessing. Becca's descendants continued
Speaker 1: to rule the area until the Indian Independence Act of
Speaker 1: n and Carney Matta became the Baconeer royal family's patron deity.
Speaker 1: And you might have noticed we haven't talked about rats
Speaker 1: at all yet. No, we have not, But now we're
Speaker 1: going to use it. Starts well, we're going to in
Speaker 1: a moment that does bring us to the temple. The
Speaker 1: first temple was built in Carney's honor in the fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: and her husband's descendants were given the honor and responsibility
Speaker 1: of managing it. As each new ruler came to power,
Speaker 1: he would give gifts to the temple and make some
Speaker 1: payments for its upkeep. And this is unique for temples
Speaker 1: of this type because it's not actually a temple to
Speaker 1: a deity. It's a temple to a human believed to
Speaker 1: be the incarnation of a deity. The innermost areas of
Speaker 1: the temple were built hundreds of years ago, possibly when
Speaker 1: Carney Matta was still alive. Under her direction, Beca's grandson
Speaker 1: built a courtyard around the original structure, and that courtyard
Speaker 1: was embellished as new leaders came to power, until it
Speaker 1: was replaced entirely in the nineteenth century. That outer structure
Speaker 1: was replaced again by the one that exists today in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. The current exterior to the temple
Speaker 1: was built by Maharaja Ganga Singh, who ruled beacon Air
Speaker 1: from the late eighteen eighties to nineteen forty three. He
Speaker 1: was a follower of Karni Mata and he built the
Speaker 1: current simple exterior as a tribute to her, but he
Speaker 1: also ended the practice of the government giving patronage to
Speaker 1: the temple and the interest of modernizing the government. The
Speaker 1: outer temple was built in the Late Mughal style of architecture.
Speaker 1: This is a style of Indian architecture from the sixteenth
Speaker 1: to eighteen centuries and it's uh you would recognize it
Speaker 1: in a building like the taj Mahal. It has lots
Speaker 1: of carved marble on the walls, marble tile floors, lots
Speaker 1: of artis and columns, and silver and gold accents. So
Speaker 1: while it's a relatively new structure, it looks pretty old
Speaker 1: and historic. It has a very classic look to it.
Speaker 1: In the context of other Indian architecture, and the artwork
Speaker 1: there includes bas relief carvings of Carni Mata and of
Speaker 1: the Hindu god Ganesh with a mouse at his feet,
Speaker 1: as well as other statues. The courtyard is also covered
Speaker 1: in netting up at this sort of ceiling level to
Speaker 1: keep predators away, and there are holes and tunnels built
Speaker 1: into the temple for rats to scamper through and run
Speaker 1: around in, as well as areas for people to live
Speaker 1: in and to prepare food for the rats, which finally
Speaker 1: brings us to these twenty thousand rats that live in
Speaker 1: the temple. Uh And the reason that the temple is
Speaker 1: home to so many rats is actually tied to another
Speaker 1: of the stories around Carney's life. There are several versions
Speaker 1: of the story, but they all have some common elements.
Speaker 1: The first is that a child had died. Some accounts
Speaker 1: say that it was Carney's own child, although that contradicts
Speaker 1: the idea that she had a chasted marriage. Other stories
Speaker 1: say that it was the child of another clansman, or
Speaker 1: maybe a particularly important clansman, or perhaps it was one
Speaker 1: of her husband's children by her sister, but regardless, the
Speaker 1: commonality is that there was a dead child, and Carney
Speaker 1: wanted to return that child to life, but Yama, the
Speaker 1: god of death, told Carney Matta that the child had
Speaker 1: already been reincarnated, so she couldn't bring it back. There
Speaker 1: are also several versions of exactly what happened next. One
Speaker 1: is that Carney Mata struck a bargain with the Yama
Speaker 1: that all of her kin would be reincarnated as rats
Speaker 1: before then being reincarnated back into the clan. Another is
Speaker 1: that Carney, who had a really infamous temper, was so
Speaker 1: angry at her failure that she sort of sentenced to
Speaker 1: the tribe to be reincarnated as rats. A third version
Speaker 1: is that Karney had her ken reincarnated as rats to
Speaker 1: get them out under the control of Yama, so sort
Speaker 1: of a reincarnation loophole to get everyone related to her
Speaker 1: out from this god who had not given her what
Speaker 1: she wanted. But the bottom line is that the end
Speaker 1: result is the same Carney's clansmen, through one way or another,
Speaker 1: would be reborn as rats, and the rats that live
Speaker 1: in the Karney Matta temple, known as Kabbas, are believed
Speaker 1: to be incarnations of Carney Mada's clan. They're treated with
Speaker 1: great reverence and respect, and they're worshiped because they're believed
Speaker 1: to be reincarnated people. This includes the handful of white
Speaker 1: rats who live in the temple who are believed to
Speaker 1: be the incarnations of Carney Matta herself and her immediate family.
Speaker 1: And sometimes uh you'll hear the rats described as reincarnated storytellers.
Speaker 1: And this goes back to Carney being one of the
Speaker 1: Sharons who are known for being storytellers and bards. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the rats in the temple are cared
Speaker 1: for today by descendants of Carney Mada's tribe and her devotes. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are lots of rules and traditions around these rats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if a visitor kills a rat, he or she
Speaker 1: has to replace it with a golden rat statue. It's
Speaker 1: considered to be extremely auspicious if you see one of
Speaker 1: the white rats, or if a rats campers over your
Speaker 1: feet while you're there, your feet will be bare if
Speaker 1: this happens, because visitors are required to take their shoes
Speaker 1: off before entering the temple, and there's no real distinction
Speaker 1: between the rat areas of the temple and the people areas.
Speaker 1: Rats and people live and eat together. And it's also
Speaker 1: considered to be extremely auspicious to eat or drink after
Speaker 1: a rat. I suspect that makes some of our listeners
Speaker 1: cringe a little bit. Yeah, And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the many reasons why so much of the writing
Speaker 1: about this temple in the West is sort of focused
Speaker 1: on oh, rats, not freaky, But that's really not the
Speaker 1: tone in the temple at all. It's a place where
Speaker 1: newlyweds often go after their ceremonies to be blessed. Uh
Speaker 1: sometimes grooms to be will go to be blessed before
Speaker 1: the marriage actually takes place, and this may tie into
Speaker 1: a number of fertility miracles that are attributed to Carni
Speaker 1: Moda during her life. So the rats have a huge temple.
Speaker 1: It's full of tunnels and little hidie holes that would
Speaker 1: be perfect for rats. And they get a really um
Speaker 1: lovely diet. They get milk, they get a sweet food
Speaker 1: called proissan, they get coconut and other delicacies. They're sheltered
Speaker 1: and protected from predators. Tracy mentioned that knitting that keeps
Speaker 1: predators away up at the top. And so they're living
Speaker 1: a pretty privileged life, particularly for a rodent. They are
Speaker 1: really pampered and and people try to look after them.
Speaker 1: So I think while many listeners may kind of go
Speaker 1: reincarnated as a rat does not sound like a good deal,
Speaker 1: but these particular rats are pretty pretty well cared for.
Speaker 1: The health aspects of this whole practice are a little
Speaker 1: bit up for debate. Um. There are visitor reports from
Speaker 1: people who have gone to the temple who say that
Speaker 1: some of the rats that you see out and about
Speaker 1: during the daytime are obviously old and sick, and presumably
Speaker 1: have been pushed out of the nests and tunnels by
Speaker 1: the healthier rats. There are also reports that no one
Speaker 1: has ever seen a baby rat in the temple, although
Speaker 1: in photographs you can see juvenile rats, and logically we
Speaker 1: know babies would probably be tucked away in a nest
Speaker 1: in one of the deeper hidy holes, just as a
Speaker 1: protective measure. I mean, that's right, how rodents. Even if
Speaker 1: you have seen pet rats who have had babies, usually
Speaker 1: the babies are tucked away in a little tiny corner.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't get out and run around until
Speaker 1: they are bigger and have for There are reports from
Speaker 1: believers that no disease has ever been tied to the
Speaker 1: temple or its rats, But in the nineties there was
Speaker 1: a plague outbreak in India and reports that health officials
Speaker 1: were having a hard time controlling its spread due to
Speaker 1: quote rat worship. Those are mostly reports from Western newspapers.
Speaker 1: Rat worship is not really a Hindu trait. It's particular
Speaker 1: to this temple and the story behind it. Typically in India, rats,
Speaker 1: as in a lot of the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: falls somewhere on the spectrum between dirty disease carrier and
Speaker 1: innocuous but also sometimes annoying rodent. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I mean many Hindus are reluctant to harm living things,
Speaker 1: so that would make it preferable to relocate a pest
Speaker 1: rather than kill it. Also that this is not the
Speaker 1: only place where rats appear in the Hindu religion. We
Speaker 1: talked a little bit earlier about how there are carvings
Speaker 1: of the god Ganesh in this temple, and he is
Speaker 1: a Hindu god, most recognizable because he has an elephant's
Speaker 1: head and he's often depicted as riding a mouse or
Speaker 1: a rat, or with a rodent at his feet. But
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that the rats and this temple
Speaker 1: are not being worshiped because their rats. They're being worshiped
Speaker 1: because they are people, and specifically this mystics people. That
Speaker 1: is the whole story of Carni Mata and the rats temple.
Speaker 1: If you see pictures, the rats are all they're all
Speaker 1: brown rats. They all are They look a lot alike.
Speaker 1: They're all about the same signs uh, And you'll you'll
Speaker 1: see lots of pictures of them running around and drinking
Speaker 1: milk and being fed delicious food. Are there any photographs
Speaker 1: of any of the white rats that you found? I
Speaker 1: found really kind of grainy, blurry ones that tourists had taken. Um.
Speaker 1: We have made an image gallery on the website of
Speaker 1: lots and lots of pictures of the temple and the
Speaker 1: rats in it, and I don't think there are any
Speaker 1: white rats in those pictures that were taken by professionals.
Speaker 1: They're only reported to be a handful of them, really,
Speaker 1: about five, while the reported number of rats and the
Speaker 1: rest of the temple is twenty thousands. So I just wonder,
Speaker 1: since it's so auspicious to see one, how rare it
Speaker 1: is for people to get an eyeball on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the people that are the caretakers of this this temple
Speaker 1: and the rats, and it's they know where they are
Speaker 1: likely to hang out because as many animals, they all
Speaker 1: sort of have their own little corner and territory that
Speaker 1: they like the most. And so if the if the
Speaker 1: caretakers know where they are, they can usually point people
Speaker 1: in the right direction. But still, if there are so
Speaker 1: many more brown rats than a white one, the odds
Speaker 1: are not in your favor. Not really, It is much
Speaker 1: more likely that rats will run over your feet. Since
Speaker 1: they are around humans so much, they don't have fear,
Speaker 1: They're not really afraid and even you know, I used
Speaker 1: to have a pet rat a very long time ago,
Speaker 1: and tame rats are not really scared of people. No,
Speaker 1: like any tame animal, they don't mind being held and
Speaker 1: picked up and all of that. So that is the story.
Speaker 1: As I was getting into research, I was afraid I
Speaker 1: was not going to be able to find enough information
Speaker 1: written in English that was not whoa rats, because so
Speaker 1: much of it is really just the shock that there's
Speaker 1: a huge rat colony that's cared for, right, and a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, misunderstanding about what that is all about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yes, I also have some listener mail, please share it.
Speaker 1: I have a couple more letters about our Loving Versus
Speaker 1: Virginia episode. Again, because we talked about that for two episodes,
Speaker 1: I've got a whole lot of mail we did, indeed,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of really interesting mail. This first one
Speaker 1: is from Alexandra, who says, Dear Tracy and Holly, your
Speaker 1: recent podcast on the Loving Versus Virginia case inspired me
Speaker 1: to dig a little into the anti assgination laws. In
Speaker 1: my home state of California, interracial marriage was banned until
Speaker 1: ninety eight here, but there was a brief conundrum for
Speaker 1: Filipino and white marriages from nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: since it was unclear and the anti assination law whether
Speaker 1: Filipino people could be categorized as part of quote the
Speaker 1: Mongolian race, which was prohibited from intermarrying with white people.
Speaker 1: A small number of interracial couples received court mandates to
Speaker 1: issue legal marriage licenses. After Filipinos were ruled by a
Speaker 1: court to be part of the quote melee race, the
Speaker 1: legislation that outlawed interracial marriage was amended to include quote
Speaker 1: melee persons like Filipino. This topic holds a soft spot
Speaker 1: in my heart because I've come from a Filipino American
Speaker 1: family that seems to have dodged this antime sag nation
Speaker 1: bullet by only one generation. My grandparents married in the
Speaker 1: Philippines and night and promptly moved to the United States.
Speaker 1: My mother and all but one of her siblings have
Speaker 1: married Caucasian people. My father included. I myself unmarried to
Speaker 1: a wonderful man who has colonial Scott's Irish ancestry, and
Speaker 1: it's just about as quote white as they come. And
Speaker 1: it just breaks my heart to think that a couple
Speaker 1: like us only seventy years ago would have been unable
Speaker 1: to spend their lives together just because lawmakers wanted to
Speaker 1: preserve a quote pure white race. Thank you very much
Speaker 1: for that. Oh Holly is making them not a not
Speaker 1: a sad face. This whole thing is to be very
Speaker 1: choked up. I know. We we had to compose ourselves
Speaker 1: several times while recordings. When there are chunks of the
Speaker 1: podcast for only Tracy talks, it's because I was crying
Speaker 1: too much. It's okay though, that Yeah, that was definitely
Speaker 1: material that that was close to both of our hearts.
Speaker 1: So um, thank you very much for providing that perspective.
Speaker 1: Really a lot of what what we were covering, just
Speaker 1: because of what was being discussed at the time was
Speaker 1: about African Americans and white Americans, and so hearing how
Speaker 1: that also related to people of other cultures and races.
Speaker 1: I really yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Um. We also got
Speaker 1: a message from Tom who says I've been enjoying the
Speaker 1: latest two episodes on Loving versus Virginia. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Central Virginia, where Loving is a common last name,
Speaker 1: and was completely unaware of the Lovings until the last
Speaker 1: ten years or so. You made a reference to Caucasians
Speaker 1: being able to marry Native Americans with no more than
Speaker 1: one sixteenth Native American blood at the time of the
Speaker 1: court case. This goes back to Virginia's Racial Integrity Act
Speaker 1: of nine The one sixteenth provision was put in place
Speaker 1: to appease the descendants of Pocahonas and gen Rolfe, who
Speaker 1: otherwise would have been listed as colored under the provisions
Speaker 1: of the Act. A lot of the racial purity work
Speaker 1: in Virginia was by Walter Ashby Plecker, who, along with
Speaker 1: the Racial Integrity Act, the Sterilization Act, and the eugenics movement,
Speaker 1: may make a good subject for a future podcast. The
Speaker 1: effects of the racial Purity Law are still being felt today.
Speaker 1: Native American tribes in Virginia have been unable to obtain
Speaker 1: federal recognition because in order to do so, tribe members
Speaker 1: need to be able to trace the tribal lineage. Since
Speaker 1: Native Americans were classified in Virginia as colored or even Negro,
Speaker 1: they have been unable to trace continuous lineage. And then
Speaker 1: he sent us some helpful links on this subject. So
Speaker 1: I had two thoughts, uh from this letter. The first
Speaker 1: is that the Pocahontas exception had come up in the
Speaker 1: research of m of the episode, and it was one
Speaker 1: of those things that I wanted to confirm before we
Speaker 1: talked about it in the episode, and then I got
Speaker 1: derailed and all of the other material in the episode. UM,
Speaker 1: so thank you for bringing that up. UM. The other
Speaker 1: is that I I was intrigued by this idea of
Speaker 1: Native American tribes in Virginia being unable to trace their
Speaker 1: lineage because of being classified as colored or Negro. I
Speaker 1: have an aunt who has a long Native American history
Speaker 1: and is also extremely interested in the family genealogy, and
Speaker 1: she has talked about being able being unable to trace
Speaker 1: her own ancestry beyond a certain point, not because they
Speaker 1: were classified as a particular race, but because the government
Speaker 1: in the areas where she is from just basically stopped
Speaker 1: keeping up with Native American birth and death records, and
Speaker 1: so if the tribal records no longer exist, there's definitely
Speaker 1: not anything. There's a huge gap. Um. So I didn't
Speaker 1: I did not realize that there were other reasons as
Speaker 1: well that Native American people and people with various ancestry
Speaker 1: would not be able to trace their lineage back. So
Speaker 1: thank you very much for that new That's a cool
Speaker 1: insight into what was to be an incredibly frustrating situation
Speaker 1: to be trying to track things down that you just
Speaker 1: can't because they got kind of rubber stamped in a
Speaker 1: kind of inappropriate way, or not rubber stamped at either case,
Speaker 1: it's an unfortunate aspect of American history. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us about this or any other topic,
Speaker 1: you may at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're
Speaker 1: also on Twitter at Misston History and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash history class Stuff. You can find
Speaker 1: us on tumbler at miss in History dot Tumbler dot
Speaker 1: com and we're on Pinterest too. We have made an
Speaker 1: image calorie full of images of this temple and some
Speaker 1: of the other Indian culture related to it, and you
Speaker 1: can go to our website type in the word wrap
Speaker 1: Temple and you will find that can a whole lot
Speaker 1: more at our site, which is how stuff Works dot com.
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