Very recently someone asked me where we, the bloggers of Sepia Mutiny, find all our news stories from. How are we so on top of things? I told him that it was a trade secret but that it involved a few dozen well-trained chimpanzees sitting in front of computers in a basement in North Dakota, twenty-four hours a day. If PETA ever found out… You think that’s farfetched? Well, more about that in a moment.

The New York Times reviewed a book this past Sunday titled, THE RISE OF THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History.

When John Elbert Wilkie died in 1934, he was remembered for his 14 years as a controversial director of the Secret Service, during which he acquired a reputation for forgery and skullduggery, and for masterly manipulation of the press. But not a single obituary cited his greatest contribution to the world: Wilkie was the inventor of the legendary Indian Rope Trick. Not the actual feat, of course; it does not and never did exist. In 1890, Wilkie, a young reporter for The Chicago Tribune, fabricated the legend that the world has embraced from that day to this as an ancient feat of Indian street magic.

How did a silly newspaper hoax become a lasting icon of mystery? The answer, Peter Lamont tells us in his wry and thoughtful ”Rise of the Indian Rope Trick,” is that Wilkie’s article appeared at the perfect moment to feed the needs and prejudices of modern Western culture. India was the jewel of the British Empire, and to justify colonial rule, the British had convinced themselves the conquered were superstitious savages who needed white men’s guidance in the form of exploitation, conversion and death. The prime symbol of Indian benightedness was the fakir, whose childish tricks — as the British imagined — frightened his ignorant countrymen but could never fool a Westerner.

When you’re certain you cannot be fooled, you become easy to fool. Indian street magicians have a repertory of earthy, violent tricks designed for performance outdoors — very different from polite Victorian parlor and stage magic. So when well-fed British conquerors saw a starving fakir do a trick they couldn’t fathom, they reasoned thus: We know the natives are too primitive to fool us; therefore, what we are witnessing must be genuine magic.

The Times also publishes the first chapter (expiring link) of Peter Lamont’s book, which immediately seems like a fun read. Among other things, I learned a fascinating story about a very clever ape:

Some of these tales are little known today, such as the story of the great ape who could ‘divine and prophesy’. This remarkable primate was owned by a Bengali juggler, and the miracle reported by Sir Thomas Roe, British Ambassador to India in the early seventeenth century. Sir Thomas had been sent by King James to the court of the Great Moghul Emperor Jahangir at Ajmere. He had hoped to win concessions for English merchants, but could not resist reporting ‘an apish miracle which was acted before this King’. According to Sir Thomas, the clairvoyant ape was tested three times by Jahangir. At first, the Emperor hid his finger ring when the ape was not looking, but the ape had no trouble in divining its secret location. This aroused the curiosity of the Emperor, who decided on a more fitting test for the company, which included both Christians and Muslims. He had the names of ‘twelve lawgivers’, including Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, written on twelve pieces of paper, and these were placed into a bag. The bag was shaken, and with the papers thus mixed, Jahangir ‘bade the beast divine which was the true law’. The ape promptly reached into the bag and picked out the paper inscribed with the name of Jesus. Puzzled, but now suspicious that the ape was somehow being cued by his owner, the Emperor wrote out the names again, this time in a code known only to himself. Yet the ape was not to be defeated, and once again it chose the name of Jesus. The ape’s success deeply angered a senior Muslim courtier present, who suspected this might be part of a Jesuit plot to convert the Emperor to Christianity, and who demanded one last trial, ‘and offered him selfe to punishment if the ape could beguile him’. This foolhardy courtier wrote out the names of the twelve prophets, but placed only eleven papers into the bag, keeping the one with Jesus’ name to himself. When the ape was offered the bag, however, he refused all the papers inside. Jahangir, unaware of the circumstances, ordered the ape to remove a slip of paper, but ‘the beast tore them in fury, and made signes the true lawgivers name was not among them’. Precisely what these signs were, we are not informed, but the Emperor clearly understood them, because he demanded to know where the twelfth paper was, grabbing the courtier by the hand, and discovering the piece of paper on which was written the name of Jesus. What punishment was bestowed upon the beguiled courtier is not explained, but Jahangir decided to keep the great ape who, clairvoyant or not, was most certainly ‘a good Christian’.

If ANYBODY knows that ape’s agent, PLEASE let them know that Sepia Mutiny is interested in contracting his services. How much more interesting would we be if we were actually predicting Desi related news?