Pyramide humaine
Léo Fournier, 1924-
Circa 1985
Québec, Canada
Cedar
Collection: Musée canadien des civilisations, Québec, Canada
91-108
Photo: Ross Taylor

This human pyramid is an example of erotic folk art. It evokes the men and women who, since the dawn of time, have joined, reproduced and transmitted some of their genetic traits to succeeding generations.
 

Doll
1979
Naskapi, Kawanachikamach, Québec, Canada
Caribou hide
Collection: Musée de la civilisation, Québec
80-11561

The birth of a child is one of the great moments in the cycle of life. Every culture has its rituals marking this event. The very continuity of humanity is embodied in the newborn who is a link between ancestral inheritance and the promise of the future.
 

Twin dolls
1940
Québec, Canada
Fabric and straw
Collection: Musée de la civilisation, Québec, Canada
1992-1641

Identical twins are the object of marvel and fascination. They are the only creatures on earth having the identical genetic code

I am unique. No one is, will be, or ever has been me. Yet I share my genetic baggage with the rest of humanity. The gene lottery can come up with billions and billions of unique combinations, and has done so since the first man and the first woman. Life patches us together out of recycled material, probably dust from the stars. Human beings dovetail, and I’m probably made from bits of everything else. There’s no use searching for real mothers or real fathers, my lineage disappears into the great infinitude. Is it not enough that I have been given life itself? We are neither pure nor impure. We’re the offspring of all of humanity that has preceded us, and we are the ancestors of all humanity to come.

 
Metissage – ancestors

The individual, that unique blend of progenitors, brings together the genes of two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents, and so on back to the first human beings.

The origin of metissage between individuals is the fusion between a sperm and an egg, sexual cells with 23 chromosomes each. This results in a new cell made up of 46 chromosomes. A successful fusion leads, nine months later, to the birth of a boy or girl.

These children’s new assortment of chromosomes makes them different from their parents. Each one of the mothers’ eggs and father’s sperm is genetically different. Fertilization results from the chance meeting of two cells, one from each batch.

Since the beginning of humanity about 80 billion people, similar but also different, have lived successively on the earth.