Amputees & Status

[RENARDWC at ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu]

One fine day Al Pike looked backward:

AP> Historically in many societies including our own the disabled
    (amputees) are seen as "second class citizens" therefore
    professionals working with the disabled are see as "second class"
    also...Status rub off.

Historically speaking, it is my understanding that once upon a time
amputees were also venerated...sometime as gods...(the cult of the
amputee, as it'were :) Goes to show you that the more things change, the
more they remain the same.

I know you have read the long historical document on Northwestern
University's site [I have it in a text file if anyone wants it--happy to
e-mail] that appears to be part of someone's graduate thesis. From
it--the amputee as, well, god:

       Amputee gods can also be identified. The primary Peruvian jaguar
       god, Aia Paec (Ai Apec), was an above elbow amputee.
       Tezcatlitoca, the Aztec god of creation and vengeance, was a
       right foot amputee. The Celtic Irish god, New Hah, was a left arm
       amputee with a four digit silver prosthesis (7) .

Of course, the god-awful fear of amputation, as George Boyer reminded
us, is also part of that history:

         Some social attitudes toward amputation an amputees remain to
         this day, while others have changed. Congenital deformed babies
         may have been killed or ostracized because they may have been
         judged a functional liability or spiritually unclean. However,
         King Montezuma II, an Aztec ruler, established a special, albeit
         degrading, compound for the disabled between the royal zoo and
         botanical gardens.(4)

         Amputation was often feared more than death in some cultures.
         It was believed that it not only affected the amputee on earth,
         but also in the afterlife. The ablated limbs were buried, and
         at the time of the amputee's death, disinterred and reburied so
         the amputee could be whole for eternal life. Many cultures had
         a very physical subsistence and any handicap might have
         affected an amputees ability to provide for themselves and
         contribute to the tribe.(8)

AP> Remember the Titanic "First class", "Second class", "Third class".

Uhhhh, I am not quite that old. :) But, the class above refers
exclusively to economics and not to physical wholeness or lack of...it
had nothing to do with amputation, which covers all economic classes. If
you had big bucks, you could have purchased a first-class Titanic ticket
regardless of the number of limbs you possessed. And the trouble with
the recent movie is that it had too much water in it. Way too much.

Joy Y: How is our newest amputee doing? Your husband, whose name is?
       Pain getting a bit less each day? That 'jerking' of the leg you
       mentioned...does that ever bring back memories...


Wayne Renardson