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?Easter Island Fingerprints
By Richard Unger
Reprinted from the Hand Analysis Newsletter Vol. 5 Issue 3
Would you like to visit the Easter Islands? Ever since Captain Cook landed there in the early 1800's, these small Pacific islands with their big eyed, long eared monoliths have captured the world's imagination. There they are, almost two thousand granite giants, standing silent guard for centuries. Who built them and why? How could a small, non-technological culture move such massive amounts of stone such great distances? Is there any connection to other ancient monuments around the world? Researchers are just now beginning to unlock these mysteries.
Illustration by Mary de Lave
Surprisingly, however, these were not the questions on the mind of the fingerprint experts who landed on the Easter Islands over sixty years ago. To them, one of many scientific teams of the era conducting 'superiority' research, the isolated Easter Islands presented a novel opportunity.
All the Brahmin castes were having their fingerprints taken, analyzed, cataloged and compared.; as were
North American "Negroes," North American Caucasians, Pygmies,and numerous other population sub-groups. Because Europeans had landed on the Easter Islands only a few generations ago, it was easy to determine who had 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% European genes.
Selective data from these fingerprints were compared to the fingerprints of gorillas, lemurs, and orangutans. The more the statistical factors matched the Simian population, the lower on the evolutionary scale the population in question was thought to be.
Guess what? Easter Islanders with greater amounts of European genes were found superior. Son of a gun. All over the world, scientific teams were getting similar results: 'they' are inferior, 'we' are superior. This study stands as a classic example of how a built-in bias can skew the data of the most scientifically conducted experiments.
Through the telescope of time, the prejudices of the researchers are embarrassingly obvious. Then, the boiling stew of racial and ethnic hatred soon to erupt as World War II was already bubbling over the sides of the cauldron. But, will current blind spots seem just as self serving a generation or two from now. And if so, will our errors be ones we can already guess at (environmental, political, racial)? Or, is some minor character, quietly waiting for events we can hardly imagine, poised to claim center stage? At that time, who will appear the heroes and heroines, and who the villains?
Important PS: Although some anthropological research of this era was biased, these and other studies set the stage for more objective studies of more recent times and also accumulated data that produced more constructive results.
Current Research
Moving from the South Pacific closer to home, current medical research has produced some very interesting findings that raise exciting possibilities.
Appearing in Oncology (32: 27-33, 1975) and Cancer Investigation (6[1], 15-27, 1988), among other reports in medical journals, doctors have reported finding statistically significant markers associated with breast cancer. Quoting from the latter article, Digital Dermatoglyphics in Mammary Cancer (Howard Bierman, M.D., Michael Faith, Ph.D., and Morgan E. Stewart, Ph.D.):
"If these [fingerprint] findings are confirmed, the prints described will represent a noninvasive anatomical marker of breast cancer risk."
Think of the possibilities. I can imagine a time, hopefully in the not too distant future, when doctors have a dermatoglyphic (fingerprint) diagnoser in their office. Patients put their hands on a scanner, the attached computer analyzes the hands looking for high risk indicators. Out from the printer comes an in depth evaluation.
But let's go a step further. Although over 6,000 articles have appeared in medical journals (in English alone), every report I've read studies either hand shape, lines, or fingerprints; none incorporate all three at once. And none offer a psychological profile to go with the statistical research on diagnostic indicators. For instance, if the most current research is correct, the appearance of six or more whorl pattern prints occurs approximately ten times more often in breast cancer patients than the population at large. In the IIHA system, this marking indicates a high propensity toward burdensome relationships, Servitude instead of Service.
Is it possible that by examining other markings in the hands, fingerprints can be correlated with a more detailed holistic profile to separate those with a genetic predisposition toward breast cancer from those with behaviors that add to its likelihood? Type A behavior, now well known, is associated with heart disease. Is there a "Type BC" behavior, (inappropriate self sacrifice), as yet to be identified, associated with breast cancer?
The purpose of the International Institute of Hand Analysis is to further the use of Hand Analysis as a tool for personal and planetary growth. It feels to me that things are moving swiftly in that direction.
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