Posted by:
PapaKen
(
)
Date: June 21, 2012 06:44PM
Last night I attended an event in Los Angeles for the Heritage Month Celebration: The City lit up City Hall with lavender lights in support of LGBTQ people in LA. They recognized and honored, among others, African Americans, Asians, LGBTs, and Native Americans.
There was a Native American woman at my table with whom I chatted for a while. She could have easily dressed in fringed leather and made a very convincing Pocahontas.
Her tribe, she said, is unique in that it has its roots on the West side of Los Angeles, and very few people are aware of them. She directs a small museum at a local high school.
I told her that as a former Mormon, I used to beleive that her people originally came from Jerusalem. She laughed and said, "There's no way. No way! All you have to do is look at the babies' butts."
"What?!" I asked for details.
She explained that true Native American infants, AND Asian infants are born with a blue/black mark on their butts. White people don't have it.
I marveled at what she said, because I'd never heard of anything like this. So I decided to research her claim, and here's what I found (from Wikipedia, under "Mongolian Spot"):
"A Mongolian spot, also known as "Mongolian blue spot", "congenital dermal melanocytosis",[1] and "dermal melanocytosis"[1] is a benign, flat, congenital birthmark with wavy borders and irregular shape, discovered on and named after Mongolians by Erwin Bälz.[2][3] It is also extremely prevalent among East Asians, South-East Asians, South Asians, Polynesians, Native Americans, and East Africans.[4][5] It normally disappears three to five years after birth and almost always by puberty.[6] The most common color is blue, although they can be blue-gray, blue-black or even deep brown.
"Rough estimates are that the Mongolian spots are most prevalent among infants of East Asian groups, although is present also among European infants 40-45%[citation needed], American Indian 80-85%, Roma 85-90% and black infants. Infants may be born with one or more Mongolian spots ranging from small area on the buttocks to a larger area on the back. They also occur in about 90-95% and about 80-85% of East African and Native American infants, respectively.[4] Approximately 90% of Polynesians and Micronesians are born with Mongolian spots, as are about 46% of Latin American children.[9] These spots also appear on 5-10% of babies of full Caucasian descent, Coria del Río in Spain has a high incident due to historic Japanese settlers."
So, that settles it. Native Americans came from Mongolia, NOT from Jerusalem.
Now, if we could just find some damn Lamanites..... and check out their babies' butts!