Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Learned something new....

My mother is fond of saying, “you learn something new everyday.” Today she is right on the money. I was reading a speech given by Russell Means in 1980 and actually learned something. Mr. Means is an American Indian activist from way back but a lot of people know him from his acting. He played Uncas’s father in “Last of The Mohicans”, he was the last Mohican at the end of the flick.

In his speech Mr. Means talks about Christopher Columbus discovering America and how the American Indians got their name from him. We’ve all been taught in school that Columbus was actually looking for India when he landed in America in 1492.
Mr. Mean states that during that time India was actually called Hindustan . Columbus called the natives he met “Indio,” coming from the Italian (Spanish too!) in dio, meaning “in God.” I looked it up and he’s right during the era the Columbus sailed here there was no India, there was Hindustan.


Oh yeah and today I discovered that one of my oldest friends is distantly related to me on my mother’s side.. lol My mom’s last name is Quiles and she’s been doing some research that basically claims that all the Quiles people in Puerto Rico are actually related to each other. They are all descendants of this one branch of Quiles that immigrated to Puerto Rico from Spain in the late 1800’s, and before that they had immigrated to Spain from France centuries earlier. It turns out my friends ½ uncle is a Quiles from Puerto Rico.. lol



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