In 1898 the Improvement Era introduced a three-page description of suttee with the following explanation:

In years past the Latter-day Saints were frequently referred to the suppression of the SUTTEE in India by act of the British Parliament, as a precedent and justification of certain congressional enactments?. [W]e thought perhaps a description?would be of interest to our readers. [1]

They weren?t kidding about the ?frequently.?

Neither Johnny Lingo nor the Eight-Cow Husband Fought in the Mormon Cow War

By Edje JeterAugust 13, 2009

Moving onward, ever onward, through the simile and metaphor zoo, we arrive at Bos primigenius, ?civilization?s most important animal,? the cow. [1] Mormonism?s pre-eminent bovine octet first lumbered across a public screen in 1969 when Johnny Lingo used them to buy a bride, perpetuate his culture?s patriarchal commodification of women, and teach us that if we?re nice and/or Machiavellian enough we?ll get a hot wife. Or something. [2] Fittingly for a Mormon-produced film, plurality dominated the plot.

Blue-bearded Mormons = Honor Code Conniptions

By Edje JeterAugust 1, 2009

In my effort to understand Mormons’ cultural position by studying names applied to them, I recently encountered an unfamiliar epithet:

Bluebeard asks for a seat in the Senate. He stands with one hand locking the door of his chamber of horrors, and with the other he knocks for admission to the supreme legislative assembly of the foremost Christian republic of all time….

How large is the territory over which the Mormon Bluebeard exercises sway? …[two paragraphs describing the Great Basin] …The American Bluebeard rules over the American Potosi. [1]

The flower genus Caryopteris goes colloquially by “bluebeard” (See Figure 1: C. incana). So far as I know, however, no one compared Mormons to vicious flowers. The name “Bluebeard” comes from a French fairy-tale, “La Barbe-bleue [The Blue-beard],” that Charles Perrault published in 1697. [2] In the story, a young woman marries a rich nobleman despite his cerulean whiskers, which make him “frightful and ugly.” [3] Afterwards, he gives her all the keys, forbids her to enter one particular room, and leaves on (supposed) business. Then, as later made into a nursery rhyme (!)

Twin Barbarians 2: Mormon Lice

By Edje JeterJuly 28, 2009

In a previous post, I quoted an entomologist who thought the name “Mormon Fly” was “an insolvable mystery.” [1] He went on to say that “there was somewhat more plausible ground for calling the Chinch bug the ‘Mormon louse;’ for that little pest really did swarm for the first time in Illinois about the same year that the Mormons settled there.”

Twin Barbarians 1: Mormon Crickets (Happy Pioneer Day!)

By Edje JeterJuly 24, 2009

A. simplex put the 'omni' in 'omnivore' and the 'can' in 'cannibal'

A. simplex cannibalizes another A. simplex

All that is green west of the Rockies quivers before that most fearsome of Mormon beasts, the Mormon cricket. It wasn’t always so. Before the 1870s (in the Anglo-European world), mesch, “a curious kind of cricket,” “an ugly cricket,” “a large kind of cricket,” the “mountain cricket” ravaged the left side of the American map. [1] Colonel Kane and the Mormons described it:

Wingless, dumpy, black, swollen-headed, with bulging eyes in cases like goggles, mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock-spring, and with a general personal appearance that justified the Mormons in comparing him to a cross of the spider on the Buffalo, the Deseret cricket comes down from the mountains at a certain season of the year, in voracious and desolating myriads. [3]

As you’ve probably grown tired of hearing, the Mormon cricket isn’t really a cricket. It’s a katydid sporting the genus name Anabrus, “in allusion to [its] unprepossessing appearance”; an + abroV = “not soft, delicate, tender, dainty, or beautiful,” which I think fits pretty well. [4] (Image: A. simplex cannibalizes [2])

What Put the “Mormon” in “Mormon Fly” Might Not Go Well with Breakfast

By Edje JeterJuly 21, 2009

An 1840s British visitor to Illinois noted that “among the novel discomforts of the West, that of insects is one of no trifling character. The whole earth and air seems teeming with them….” [1] A big bunch of them, including mayflies, teemed at Nauvoo.

For Chris: Two Anti-Anti-Mormon Miscegenation refs

By Edje JeterJuly 16, 2009

In a post earlier today, Chris asked about instances when Mormons defended polygamy by attacking sexual relations between races. I have been working on racial construction by Mormons and non-Mormons in the late 1880s to 1890s and happen to have two pieces ready to go. They would be too long for a comment, so I’m posting them here.

All God?s Creatures—Including Mormos, the Other Mormons

By Edje JeterJuly 15, 2009

Fraternity with monkeys was (and remains) a standard trope of racializing discourse. So, in my ongoing efforts to (a) understand late nineteenth-century Mormon identity construction and (b) graduate, I poked around for comparisons between Mormons and animals in the 19^th century. I was pretty excited when I found a baboon labeled “mormon.” I thought that, together with Mormon crickets, I had a high-protein entrée for my thesis. I mean, if I were manufacturing monstrosities for 19^th-century anti-Mormons, it would be hard to beat the prolific, ravenous, cannibalistic Mormon cricket and a certified Mormon, polygamous baboon.

A Preliminary History of the Phrase “Happy Valley”

By Edje JeterJuly 8, 2009

Almost everyone with the least smidge of north-of-the-Rio-Grande Mormon exposure knows that, in a Mormon context, “Happy Valley” means… well, not everyone agrees.

Brigham Young, Temple Capacity, and the Millennium

By Edje JeterJune 15, 2009

Apropos of nothing: some numbers about millennial temples. To justify its place at JI, let’s call it an exercise in evaluating an agent’s perspective.

Newer Posts | Older Posts

Articles by

Edje Jeter

Mormons and India in Representation: Savagery, Civilization, Empire