The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (22 page)

Thus on the Vineyard, the overtly Deaf person must have felt a part of a rather extended family that included numerous hearing people in his or her immediate family and numerous hearing relatives. That Deaf person may not have felt like a crucial link in the chain of Deaf heritage from the past down to the future, as in dominant transmission.

The numerous hearing children of Deaf parents (Codas) on the Vineyard would be likely to acquire sign language as a native language; they and their Deaf siblings would thus form a critical mass within the family for sign language use. The Deaf children of hearing parents would learn the language from their parents, if they knew it, or, if not, from Deaf peers, elders and Codas, and they would seek to use sign language with their own parents and hearing siblings. Numerous hearing relatives on the island might also be motivated to master the sign language, at least to some extent, to communicate with their Deaf relatives. Thus the difference between Henniker and the Vineyard in the spread of sign language into the hearing environment may be traceable, in part, to the difference between them in genetic patterning. One Vineyard "old timer," interviewed in the 1950s, gave this account of the spread of sign language over much of the island:

We would sit around [the post office-general store] and wait for the mail to come in and just talk. And the deaf would be there, everyone would be there. And they were part of the crowd, and they were accepted. They were fishermen and farmers and everything else. And they wanted to find out the news just as much as the rest of us. And often times people would tell stories and make signs at the same time so everyone could follow him together. Of course, sometimes, if there were more deaf than hearing there, everyone would speak sign language-just to be polite, you know.4

Recall that the incidence of mixed hearing and Deaf marriages on the Vineyard was more than triple that on the mainland. This difference may be attributable, at least in part, to the more widespread use of the sign language among hearing people on the Vineyard. Vineyarders born Deaf encountered a much lower communication barrier then their mainland peers. Since a common language greatly facilitates meeting one's life partner in the first place and then developing a deep interest in and affection for that person, it is not surprising that mixed marriages were common on the Vineyard.

Table 7.1 Factors in Ethnic Consciousness in Two Deaf Enclaves

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Finally, we hypothesize that the differences in language use and marriage practice, which are underpinned in part by the differences in genetic patterning, mediate in turn differences in ethnic consciousness. Table 7.1 schematizes this line of reasoning.

What we are suggesting is that it takes a "them" for an "us" to develop, and the blending of hearing and Deaf lives on the Vineyard, because of shared family life and language (underpinned by genetics), discouraged the construction of hearing people as "them." Conversely, many members of the Henniker Deaf enclave had parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents in whom the Deaf trait was expressed, and the boundary with the surrounding hearing population was rather sharply demarcated. That said, other factors may also have fostered Chilmark blending, such as a sense of isolation on a remote island and an awareness of shared ancestry. Blending is a matter of degree. No matter how cohesive and ethnically conscious Henniker's Deaf community, for example, its members interacted with their hearing siblings and other relatives, and with hearing officials and commerce in the town.

THE BALI EXAMPLE: DESA KOLOK

Findings concerning the Deaf and hearing residents of a village in Bali help to evaluate the claim that Deaf genetic patterning, marriage and language practices, and ethnic consciousness are related. (Additional studies of assimilating sign-language communities are cited in the notes.5) A 1995 report states that there were 2185 people in this village, of whom 2.2 percent were Deaf.6 The genetic patterning in "Desa Kolok" (not its official name) is recessive as on the Vineyard and, as on the Vineyard, marriages between hearing and Deaf people are completely acceptable.? There were sixteen families in Desa Kolok with two hearing parents and at least one Deaf child, so it is clear that there was more blending of hearing and Deaf lives in the Desa Kolok nuclear family than in Henniker where there were no families with hearing parents and Deaf children. However, the blending of hearing and Deaf lives in Desa Kolok may not have been as great as on the Vineyard, since, in Desa Kolok, the twenty families with a Deaf parent (or two) had 75 percent Deaf children. Thus, there were more Deaf families with a Deaf parent than without, and the children in those Deaf families predominantly expressed the trait.

Beyond the blending of hearing and Deaf lives within the nuclear family in Desa Kolok, there are also cultural and social forces there that ensure widespread contact between Deaf and hearing people. Of particular note, Balinese villages are kin based and Deaf people grow up in house yards shared with their hearing relatives. Thus, with respect to the mixing of hearing and Deaf lives, the extended family of the Desa Kolok house yard may be more like Vineyard families than Henniker families. Perhaps for this reason, the use of a sign language in Desa Kolok is nearly universal and Deaf people are integrated in many facets of social life including groups organized for work and for some religious practices. Moreover, hearing attitudes toward the Deaf, many of whom are relatives, are generally positive.8 Thus, the evidence from Desa Kolok suggests that the mixing of hearing and Deaf people in the family determines their mixing in community life, as we hypothesize was the case on the Vineyard.

It is not clear to us whether Deaf people in Desa Kolok lack ethnic consciousness, as we hypothesize was the case on the Vineyard. On the one hand, certain activities in Desa Kolok are associated with Deaf villagers who also have specific roles with regard to certain festivals and musical events. These distinctive activities would presumably be conducive to ethnic consciousness. On the other hand, as on the Vineyard, "the Deaf villagers interact freely and equally with other villagers."9 Perhaps the mixed evidence for ethnic consciousness is a reflection of an intermediate status for Desa Kolok between Henniker and the Vineyard with regard to the blending of hearing and Deaf lives.

Although our inquiry has focused so far on southeastern New Hampshire and the Vineyard, there were many other clusters of Deaf people in other New England towns in the early years of our republic. We selected for a case study of Deaf ethnicity and ancestry the state of Maine. Part II examines Deaf families in a northern grouping of towns and Part III in a southern grouping.

Notes

Part II

Chapter 4

1 Works consulted for Chapter 4: "Settling the New World": S. Brant and E. Cullman, Small Folk: A Celebration of Childhood in America (New York: EP Dutton, 1980); D. B. Danbom, Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); M. B. Davidson, Life in America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1951); B. Farber, "Family And Community Structure: Salem In 1800," in M. Gordon, ed., The American Family in Socio-Historical Perspective (New York: St. Martins, 1973), 100-110; J. A. Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalite in Pre-Industrial America," William and Mary Quarterly 35 (1978): 3-32; C. M. Jedrey, The World of John Cleaveland: Family and Community in Eighteenth C. New England (New York: Norton, 1979); E. B. Jones, The Brewster Genealogy (New York: Grafton, 1908); A. Kulikoff, "The Transition to Capitalism in Rural America," William and Mary Quarterly 46 (1989): 120-144; J. Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790-1840 (New York: Harper Row, 1988); K. Lockridge, "Land, Population, and the Evolution of New England Society: 1630-1790," Past. and Present 39 (1968): 62-80; J. C. Nylander, Our Own Snug Fireside: 1760-1860 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994); J. G. Palfrey, History of New England (Boston: Little Brown, 1877); B. H. Pruitt, "Self-Sufficiency and the Agricultural Economy of Eighteenth Century Massachusetts," William and Mary Quarterly 41 (1984): 333-364; J. O. Robertson and J. C. Robertson, All Our Yesterdays (New York: Harper Collins, 1993); H. S. Russell, A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1976); D. S. Smith, "The Demographic History of Colonial New England," in Gordon, The American Family, 397-415; P. Smith, As a City Upon a Hill (New York: Knopf, 1971); L. Sprague, Agreeable Situations: Society, Commerce and Art in Southern Maine 1780-1830 (Boston: Brick Store Museum, Northeastern University Press, 1987); L. T. Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based On Her Diary 1785-1812 (New York: Knopf, 1990).

2 Palfrey, History. The first English colony in New England, Popham Colony, built a fort at the mouth of the Kennebec River, Maine, in 1607. However, after a year of many hardships, the settlement was abandoned and the surviving settlers returned to England. J.P. Brain, "Popham, Colony: The First English Colony in New England," New England Ancestors (2007): 31-33.

3 Henretta, "Families and Farms."

4 Danbom states that milk was not included in the diet but other authors disagree. Danbom, Born in the Country.

s S. Brant and E. Cullman, Small Folk: A Celebration of Childhood in America (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980).

6 Smith, As a City Upon a Hill.

7 A. J. Boyce, C. F. Kuchemann and G. A. Harrison, "Neighborhood Knowledge and the Distribution of Marriage Distances," Annals of Human Genetics 30 (1967): 335-338.

8 R. Wright, Hawkers and Walkers of Early America (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1927).

9 "Report on an Exploration and Survey of the Territory on the Aroostook River" (Augusta, Me.: Smith and Robinson, 1839).

10 Robertson and Robertson, All Our Yesterdays.

ii Ulrich, Midwife's Tale.

12 Larkin, Reshaping.

13 Jedrey, World of John Cleaveland.

14 Ibid.

Chapter 5

T. W. Jones, "America's first multi-generation deaf families (A genealogical perspective)," Deaf American Monographs 46 (1996): 49-54; T. W. Jones, "Deafness-Focused Records for Genealogical Research," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 81 (1993): 5-18.

2 A. D. Smith, Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), quotation from p. 49.

3 For the methods employed in researching the pedigrees, see Appendix C, Pedigree methods. In this and all other pedigrees, the following conventions are observed. Squares represent men; circles women; diamonds, individuals without regard to gender. Filled symbols indicate Deaf. Double bars indicate a consanguineous marriage. Dates are given in the form birth-death. "AA" indicates that this person attended the American Asylum. A superscript 0 indicates the person is not an ancestor of a Deaf person.

4 Wilson, John Gibson of Cambridge, Mass and his Descendants 1634-1899 (author, 1900).

5 E. P. Thwing, "White Mountain Memories," National Deaf Mute Gazette 16 (April 1868): 8-9.

6 Ibid.

7 G. C. Braddock, Notable Deaf Persons (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet College Alumni Association, 1975); L. Cogswell, History of the Town of Henniker (Concord, N.H.: Republican Press, 1880. Reprinted, 1973: Somersworth, N.H.: New Hampshire Publishing Co.)

8 T. Brown, [Sketch of Nahum Brown], Gallaudet Guide and Deaf-Mutes' Companion 1 (3) (1860): 12.

9 N. Groce, "Hereditary Deafness on the Island Of Martha's Vineyard: An Ethnohistory of a Genetic Disorder" (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1983).

10 T. Brown, [Sketch of Nahum Brown]; W. B. Swett, "Obituary of Nahum Brown," American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 11 (1859): 237-240.

11 T. L. Brown, In Memoriam: A Tribute To the Memory of Thomas Brown (Flint, Mich.: School for the Deaf, 1888)

12 S. Childs, [Sketch of Nahum and Thomas Brown], Gallaudet Guide and Deaf-Mutes' Companion 2 (4) (1861): 14-15.

13 H. Lane, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf (New York: Random House, 1984.)

14 B. Mottez, "The Deaf-Mute Banquets And The Birth Of The Deaf Movement," in R. Fischer and H. Lane, eds., Looking Back: A Reader on the History of Deaf Communities and their Sign Languages (Hamburg: Signum, 1993), 143-155.

15 W. M. Chamberlain, "Proceedings of the Third Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes," American Annals of the Deaf 10 (1858): 205-219.

16 Groce, Everyone Here, p. 73.

17 Anon. (1869). [Annual fair]. Deaf-Mutes' Friend 1 (11) (1869): 344.

18 W.M. Chamberlain, "Thomas Brown," American Annals of the Deaf 31 (1886): 204-210.

19 Anon., "In Memoriam" [Thomas Brown], Gallaudet Guide and Deaf Mutes' Companion 2 (4) (1861): 14.

20 Cogswell, Henniker.

21 R. E. Colby, "On The Thomas Brown Place" (Handwritten Ms., Henniker Historical Society, 1961).

22 Anon., Letter from New Hampshire, Deaf-Mutes' Friend (1) (1869): 26-27; Anon. "A Festival of Deaf-Mutes" Literary Budget 1 (1) (1874): 3; J. Turner, "Biographical Sketch of Thomas Brown," Deaf-Mutes' Journal 9 (43) (1880): 2.

23 A. G. Bell, Unpublished Notebooks (Washington, D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1888).

24 L. Rae, "Presentation of Silver Plate to Messrs. Gallaudet and Clerc," American Annals of the Deaf 3 (1851): 41-64. "It also bespeaks a critical mass of people, and a level of achievement to have the resources of time and money to conceive of and implement such a gathering" (Theresa Smith, personal communication, 2009). In this period farmers earned about fifty cents a day, artisans three times as much. Six hundred dollars in 1850 corresponds to $15,000 in 2007 according to the Consumer Price Index.

25 W. M. Chamberlain, "Proceedings of the Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes," American Annals of the Deaf 9 (1857): 65-87.

26 Romans regarded Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus as a model of Roman virtue and simplicity. George Washington was often referred to as the Cincinnatus of the Americans.

27 Anon., "Fourth Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes," American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 12 (1860): 236-243; W. M. Chamberlain, "Proceedings of the Fourth Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes, Gallaudet Guide and DeafMutes' Companion 1 (10) (1860): 1-2.