Cephalopods 2 of 4: Devil Fish and Octopuses

Last week I posted on the cuttlefish and a few weeks ago I posted on the upas tree. The upas post was prompted by a line from Edgar Folk: ?[Mormonism] is the Upas tree of our civilization, the octopus of our political life.? [1] Having treated the vegetable, I now turn to the animal.

The octopus has had a long career as a symbol. [2] Beginning in the late nineteenth century and persisting to the present, various factions have used the octopus to represent their (almost always) enemies (see images below and Vulgar Army). [3]

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Baptizing the royal family

This post is part of International Mormonism month.

A little over a year ago, newspaper headlines in the Netherlands read:

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Guest Post: Audrey Bastian, From Siamese Prison to Mormon Memory

Note: This post is part of our international Mormonism month.  Audrey Bastian is a freelance writer and interpreter speaking Mandarin, Arabic and American Sign Language.  She lived in various countries in Asia eight years and received her masters degree in International Law and World Order from the University of Reading in England.  Her bachelors degree is in History with a minor in Arabic.  She won an honorable mention in 2006 in the Writer?s Digest 75th Annual Writing Competition for a memoir entitled, ?Japanese Carp?.  She currently owns her own business and resides in Washington, DC.

?…the King confined bro. [Trail] 71 days in a Siamese prison, 14 feet square, with 50 other prisoners, some were confined for debt others for stealing &c several ware put to the rack to draw out a fu [teekals (tikal money)]…?  –Elam Luddington April 1854

A day after Elam Luddington baptized his first and only convert in Siam, Captain James Trail, the King of Siam thrust the convert into a debtor?s prison without food.  The captain?s crime was misunderstanding a command and firing a salute from his ship in the rhodes of Singapore.  

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From the Archives: Joseph H. Dean and Joseph F. Smith on Mexico/Polygamy

On September 24, 1890, Joseph H. Dean returned home from Samoa, where he had been serving as mission president. He returned to Salt Lake City to report on his duties to the First Presidency. After briefly speaking to Wilford Woodruff and George Q. Cannon, Dean sat down with Joseph F. Smith. Dean knew Smith from Smith’s time in the South Pacific.[1] “At his invitation,” Dean wrote in his journal, “I took supper with him, just he and I alone.”During supper, they spoke about:

“nearly every subject, among other things the advisability of my going to Mexico. The Church a ranch or rally there, where a member of the Church in good standing can settle and have all the land he can take care of. He [must][2] till the land, however, but pays a nominal [fee] for the payment of the interest in the money invested. That is so that no outsiders can get footing there and also so that an apostate could not stay there, as the laws of the state give the owners of the land the privilege of “firing” any renter that doesn’t suit them. A many can have as many wives there as he pleases so long as he only acknowledges one as such, that is, there is a tacit understanding between the church and the Mexican government, that we only practice plural marriage but must outwardly appear to have by one wife. Good land, delightful climate, and all together a desirable place to locate. I fell favorably impressed with the idea of going there.”[3]

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An American in Brazil

As a contribution to this month?s topic of ?International Mormonism,? I agreed to write about my experiences as a missionary in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1996-1998, which agreement I now sort of regret, since I?m not sure what to say. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sends out missionaries, and a significant percentage of them go to countries other than their own. [1] I was one of them—and I wasn?t kidding about not knowing what to say. Since my scheduled post time has come, I?m going to put bullet-points on my brainstorming and pretend that this is a carefully designed exercise to provoke discussion about international and inter-cultural aspects of Mormon missionizing.

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Guest Post: Russell Stevenson, The Prophetess: Rebecca Mould and the Origins of Mormonism in Ghana

Note: This post is part of our series on International Mormonism.  Russell Stevenson is a freelance writer born and raised south in rural western Wyoming. He received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University and his master?s degree in history from the University of Kentucky. He has taught history and religion at Brigham Young University and Salt Lake Community College.  He has a forthcoming biography on Elijah Ables, which will be available this afternoon.

In 1964, Abraham F. Mensah, a schoolmaster visiting Great Britain from Ghana, first came into contact with the Mormon church through literature given to him while he was visiting a Sufi friend living in St. Agnes, England.[1]

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Cephalopods 1 of 4: Cuttlefish

Octopuses, squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids make up the class Cephalopoda (Greek: head-feet). Cephalopods appear in oceans, horror stories, nineteenth-century polemical literature, and—in their Mormon instantiations—in my next four posts. [1] I begin with the cuttlefish.

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Guest Post: David Michael Morris, United Kingdom Mormon Demographic Survey 2013

The Mormon Temple in Surrey

One of the most significant discussions of religion and politics during 2012, was the dynamics of the US presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and his religious affiliation to Mormonism. While the presidential race was watched globally, within the United Kingdom, it remained mainstream news throughout and Romney received close examination of his history, religion and policies.  For many in the United Kingdom, they knew little of him except him being a Mormon, and a rich one at that, which seemingly concentrated their curiosity. However, during a goodwill visit to London, he successfully undermined his own standing with both the British political establishment and public at large by making ill-informed statements and swimming in blind ignorance.

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Wife… Mother… And…?

Let me be blunt. This makes me mad:

A seemingly innocent advertisement…

I walk home from work most days and on a one mile stretch of that walk, on Western Avenue in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, this ad appears on no fewer than three bus stop shelters. One of these bus stops is only a quarter of a mile from a playground and little league baseball diamond. It?s across the street from a grocery store. It doubles as a stop for school buses for children of various ages. And in a city where people routinely walk and use the public transit system, you can bet it gets seen. I?ve been contemplating it for weeks.

Why does this advertisement make me mad, you ask?

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International Mormon History Month at JI: A Tahitian, Mormon Indian Scout

Grouard as a young man

Frank Grouard was something of an enigma in the nineteenth century.  In 1876, he had become a Chief Indian Scout for the United States Army, helping General George Crook locate and fight bands of Sioux who were refusing to stay on their reservations.    On June 25, 1876, he saw smoke signals rising from the Battle of Little Bighorn, rode to the scene of the battle where he discovered the bodies of the dead, and reported the death of Custer to the General Crook.  He also interpreted during peace negotiations between Crazy Horse and the American government and was present at the Battle of Wounded Knee.  For much of his life, Grouard lived in relative anonymity but a series of newspaper articles and the publication of an as-told-to biography in in 1894 catapulted the Indian scout to fame.

In spite of his newfound renown, however, certain parts of Grouard?s life remained mysterious.  One of the most interesting and perplexing for those at the time was Grouard?s racial background.  At various times, he was identified as a Lakota Indian, as a mulatto, as a French-Creole, and as a half-breed.  Throughout his life, however, Grouard claimed to be the son of Benjamin F. Grouard, a Mormon missionary who had traveled to the South Pacific in the 1840s and had married an indigenous Maohi woman.  It is the latter story that the archival record bears out.

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