What we now see as an abomination, not too many centuries ago was a relatively common practice. Without going any further, the royal houses of Europe were dedicated for generations to mix cousins with cousins, nephews with nieces… And so came more than one.
Fortunately, this practice is extinct today. Or, at least, in theory. While having relations with your relatives is legal, getting married is not, and this has made the former frowned upon in almost all cultures.
And today, straight from the United States, comes a reminder of how bad inbreeding is for genes. We should use Tinder more and family reunions less.
They speak in grunts and are called the Whittakers.
Redefining everything stays in the family. The howling of an inbred family sounds like something out of a B-movie. However, one photographer has proven that such communities do exist.
Mark Laita has documented the secret life of the Whittakers, also known as “America’s most inbred family,” whose members only communicate with grunts and bark at passersby.
Laita described his first encounter with the Whittakers, who live in the mountain town of Odd, West Virginia, home to 779 people.
This photographer has spent a lot of time with the clan, first visiting them in 2009 for his book Created Equal, and most recently in 2022 for an impromptu reunion in Appalachia.
Currently, the Whittaker family tree consists of siblings Betty, Lorraine and Ray, as well as cousin Timmy, after his brother Freddie died of a heart attack.
However, there is said to be an unnamed sister and other family members Laita never met.
The images, taken on a visit in 2021, show the family on the porch of their ramshackle home, their belongings strewn about the house.
The West Virginia family has a long and complicated history of inbreeding. Early reports stated that the mother and father of the three siblings, now deceased, were siblings.
Later, the family clarified that they were double first cousins, that is, they shared both grandparents.
Keeping it all in the family resulted in a series of mental and physical problems, as some members only communicated by grunting and squawking, as is evident in the videos Laita posts on her podcast.
Despite their communication limitations, the Whittakers seemed to understand the photographer’s questions. The videos are hard to watch in their entirety, as beautiful as West Virginia is, as John Denver said.
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