Mongrel

The concept of mongrel (of the Latin word * mixtīcius , < mixtus which means mixed/mixed) indicates the mixture of two distinct elements. As from the 13th century, it indicates the crossing of two animal species or vegetable different (a mestis ). In 1615 the word “métice”, borrowed from Portuguese, nominates a person born then parents belonging to Population S presenting of phenotypical differences important (like the pigmentation of the skin). This term was in particular used to indicate the many descendants of European parents and “Indigène S” resulting from the Colonisation. Lastly, one speaks about mongrel for fabrics (e.g. mongrel fabric), metals (e.g. mongrel iron), words, etc resulting from the mixture of two distinct elements.

The interbreeding in the world

The phenomenon of interbreeding appears in all the companies which are not geographically isolated from the others, but it can have a different width according to the historical times and circumstances.

When the south of the Spain was under domination Moor, for example, the interbreeding of the Spanish people, Moors, and Juifs were relatively current. The Brésil is today a country from which the population results from an interbreeding between the Amerindians, the Blacks and the White, and even if one can find communities formed according to the origin, the interbreeding is regarded there as a national value, like an emblem of the countries, in the same way that the Latin Musique is the resultant of the African influences, European and indigenous.

The North America and the Western Europe are other zones of human settlement where the interbreeding has a considerable influence. Contrary, the marriages mixed, that it is between national groups, ethnic, religious or racial different can be discouraged by the social pressure, by the law (with Athens, only that was citizen whose two parents were to it themselves), even simply prohibited (thus in South Africa during the Apartheid, in certain States of the the United States until in the current of the 20th century, in China during the Manchu period between Chinese and Manchus). The Universal declaration of the human rights interdict in its article 16 any restriction on the right to the marriage for reasons of race, nationality or religion.

Contrary, certain countries knew interbreeding little, for geographical or historical reasons. The China, separated a long time from the rest of the world by deserts and insuperable assembly lines, is today one of the country ethniquement homogeneous, especially if one considers the coastal and central provinces and that one excludes the vast mainly populated autonomous regions from ethnic minorities.

Besides some possible traditional cultures hermetically isolated on islands from the Micronesia, there however does not exist people which are not the result of a certain interbreeding, going up sometimes very far in time, nor of culture which was not influenced by external elements. Along the Silk route, the Roman Empire communicated already with the the Far East.

In France, the population is initially an interbreeding of various people, a “crossroads of civilizations”, which was formed with the liking of the migrations and the invasions (Celtic, Romains, Germains, Normands, Huns, Moors…) and of the wars. This interbreeding continued in the recent history with the Colonisation and the migrations economic or political, voluntary or forced: Italians and Pole for mining industry, Italians and Spaniards fleeing the Fascism and the Francoism, German occupation and release by the American , English troops and of overseas, need for labor for the rebuilding, and the facility of circulation enters the countries. Some do not hesitate to speak about France “black, white, Beur” to indicate this recent multiethnicity, and to stress that with the “first, second, third generation, we all are of the children of immigrants”. This assertion of mongrel France is transcribed in a political model called of “integration”, which currently encounters a rise of the “Communautarisme S”.

Ethnic and cultural aspects

In the imaginary one of many people, the ethnic unit is symbolized by the Sang as in the expression “blue blood” of noble the French, the interbreeding is then regarded as a mixture of blood, the mongrels are “blood mixed”. One speaks thus about the “right of blood” when a country grants the Nationalité only when one of the parents has already the nationality (in opposition to the “right of the ground” which grants nationality to the individuals born in the country).

When there is tension between ethnicities, it happens that the mongrels are rejected by their two communities of origin. It goes from there differently from the cultural interbreeding which often opens new possibilities, in particular in the artistic field.

The interbreeding of the people is accompanied sometimes by a cultural interbreeding of which it results from new lifestyles or expressions istic Art. However, the simple cultural exchanges, which can be of strictly abstract nature, are not defined as the products of the interbreeding. This one proceeds of a true emulation from which it results a new culture with its own modes of expression.

One can quote among the areas of the world characterized by this mongrel culture the countries of Latin America or the the Caribbean. The interbreeding, so much of the culture than of the people, fact integral part of the History of these areas and is asserted like an cultural identity.

The Country-blues, music very popular in the rural America, is the product of the interbreeding between the Irish music, brought by the Irish fleeing repression to the 19th century, and the Blues of the slaves black American.

Ideological approach

With the development of the pacifist ideals, the end of the 20th century was marked by a strong valorization of the interbreeding. It becomes a gun of beauty and one observes indeed the election of the first Signal-model S mongrel. But also, the interbreeding forges a musical identity with the popularization of the World music, while the vestimentary fashion knows a vagueness of the “ethnic style”.

From an ideological point of view, the stakes are deeply enracinés in the debates on the Racisme. The defenders of the interbreeding between the people and the cultures propose the values of tolerance and of opening which it incarnates, while its detractors insist on the concept of race and consider that the purity of a race is a sign of its superiority or its specific nature.

According to many geneticists whose Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, the descendants of individuals of different origin, or even of deeply different races, seem more robust and to ensure a fertility and a health normals, it is necessary to avoid the marriages between close relations.

The Racialisme, theory considered not scientist by his detractors, subdividing the mankind in Race S definitely distinct, names mongrel a person whose parents are different races. This definition was applied in certain countries carrying out an official classification their nationals in term of Race, for example the South Africa at the time of the Apartheid. To the the United States, on the other hand, even if the parents belong to different ethnic classifications ( Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, African American ), the children were attached to only one of these categories in the questionnaires of census. Since the Census 2000 , the categories " Multiracial" , " Two gold more races" and "Other" is proposed.

Great mongrel groups

Mongrel of Canada

With the Canada, Métis (with capital letter) indicates a indigenous Peuple living mainly the west of the country, descendants of the women shouts S , Ojibwé S , Saulteaux and French men, or Scottish and English come to exploit the Pelleterie. The origin of these people goes back to the 17th century. There are also Mongrels in Ontario, with the Quebec, and the Labrador.

The most famous Mongrel of Canada east Louis Riel which negotiated with the Canadian government the creation of the province of the Manitoba and which carried out two “rebellions” (regards several them as legitimate resistance movements, and the first accepted the title of rebellion only after its conclusion) against the governments British and Canadian. After the second rebellion, speculators succeed in dispossessing the Mongrels of their grounds by exploiting a program established by the Canadian government to buy these grounds.

The Canadian government does not recognize the Mongrels like “first nation”, but the Canadian Constitution of 1982 recognizes them like populates indigenous, which enabled them to regain traditional rights, for example the hunting rightses.

Various mongrel communities speak various languages. Some speak a variety about métchif French named (mitchif, mechif or michif), but that the linguists name French mongrel, to distinguish it from the French mixed language/cry from the same name spoken by other communities and often mistaken for a Langage. Other communities speak mongrel English, the saulteaux/ojibwé mongrel cry or mongrel one. The schools established by the Catholic church were devoted to replace this language by standard French, and few people speak it still today. Currently, English is often employed by the Mongrels.

Because of a definition little specifies of the mongrel people, the population concerned is not easily estimable. The estimates vary from 300.000 to 800.000 people.

Mongrel of Latin America

In Latin America and in French-speaking, mongrel /mongrel North America ( mestizo/mestiza in Spanish) more particularly nominated in the beginning a person born of an indigenous father and a European mother or a European father and an indigenous mother. Indeed, the people resulting from a African relative were called Zambo S or Creole. Although the term is generally still used for the children of which one of the parents is of European type, the interbreeding relates to overall all the couples of the obviously different type.

Mongrel of Mexico

Many a Mexicains is mongrel, i.e. they have ascending European and native. Among the famous Mexican personalities of mongrel origin:

• Porfirio Díaz

• Emiliano Zapata

Mongrel of Brazil

• Caboclo