by Dorthea Calverley
Trifles may give clues to age-old mysteries. The characteristics of the wax in a human ear may be no trifle in unlocking the mystery of the origin of the Indian. In his 1972 book, Strong Medicine, Dr. Robert E McKechnie wrote:
“There is some medical evidence of the Siberian origin if the American Indians… the so-called Mongolian spot has been confirmed among the coastal tribes. (It is also reported among the Peace River Indians). Unfortunately, the prevalence of the dark pigmented area in the skin of the backside of the children is common to all dark-skinned races and so can only be used as presumptive evidence of the American Indian’s Siberian origin,”
When this “spot” was discussed with a local Indian, he smiled lightly, and asked pertinently, “Who’s to say they didn’t get it from us?” This writer suspects that there is a fairly common belief among Indians that they “didn’t come from anywhere, but were always here” like the bison.
However Dr. McKechnie, second-generation medical practitioner in Vancouver adds: “There is, however, another and more specific linkage between the two groups–the inherited character of their ear wax. Caucasians and Negro’s have an 80% or greater probability of having a honey-colored, wet, sticky ear wax, whereas the American Indian mimics the Mongoloid’s 90-95% tendency toward a characteristically dry, gray, brittle, ‘rice bran’ type of wax.”