Ibeji: Divinity in Twins

Hey guys!

I wanted to discuss a few things before I get started with the post.  First off, we passed 20,000 pageviews over the weekend!  This is a milestone I've been looking forward to, so it was very exciting.  Thank you so much to all of my readers!  When I started this blog almost two years ago, I never expected it to reach so wide of an audience.  It's amazing to see how many people remain interested in mythology.  Thank you, and I look forward to another 20,000!

Next: Today is going to be my last post about African folktales for the time being.  Next week I'll have a special announcement post.  After that, I plan to spend the month of October hopping between various mythologies and/or fairy tales.  Beginning in November I'll begin a series of posts about Polynesian mythology, which I am very excited to look into.  I hope you guys enjoy!

For today's post, let's take a look at an interesting practice in the Yoruba culture of Africa involving twins.

"Ibeji" is the name for the Yoruba god of twins.  It is also the Yoruba word for twins.  Because twins are so uncommon, they are seen as having a little bit of the divine within them.  The spirits of twins are said by the Yoruba to occupy both the mortal world and the realm of the animals.  Twins are said to share one spirit.

The rarity of twins is reflected in the attitude of the Yoruba towards them.  Childbirth is said to be twice as difficult for twins, but the fortunes of the family increase by twice as much as they would if only one child were born.  Because the Ibeji are considered semi-divine, great care is taken to not anger them.  Ibeji are doted upon and their whims are appeased by their parents.  If the twins are displeased, the god Ibeji might take note and cause the parents to become unlucky.

The most fascinating thing about Yoruba twins is the practice of ere ibeji.  An ere ibeji is a small statuette carved when a twin dies.  Should only one twin pass on, the living twin claims responsibility of the statue.  It is their job to care for the ere ibeji as if their counterpart were still living.  The statue is bathed once a day, and food is offered to its mouth with each meal.  Essentially, the surviving Ibeji lives the lives of both.

(The surviving twin, pictured with the ere ibeji of their deceased sibling.)

If both twins should die, two statues are carved, and it becomes the mother's duty to care for both of them as if her children were still living.

(Some museums keep old ere ibeji on display.)

This entire concept fascinated me as soon as I read about it.  I lucked out and found a number of articles about the Ibeji in my college's online database.  There the matter became even more interesting.  You might have noticed that I've been using the present tense when talking about the Ibeji - this is deliberate.  The Yoruba culture still regards twins as having control over a family's fortunes.  When an Ibeji dies, an ere ibeji is still created.  However, the Yoruba have begun using photographs in place of carvings in some cases.  The surviving twin is photographed twice, once as themself and once, mirrored, as the deceased Ibeji.  The photographs are then blended together to make it appear as though both twins are pictured.

What do you guys think of the Ibeji?  The thought of twins sharing one spirit (and of one having to live out the life of the deceased) made me think of the Weasley twins from Harry Potter.

I'll see you next week!

Anansi: Tricking His Way to Stories

There was a time before Anansi was the keeper of the stories. In fact, he had to undergo a series of trials in order to earn the role of storyteller. Let me tell you the tale:

In the beginning all of the stories of the world were kept by Nyame, the sky god. Anansi wanted to be able to tell stories, so he went to Nyame and asked to buy the stories from him. Nyame warned him that the price was steep, but Anansi still pushed for them. The sky god agreed that the stories would belong to Anansi if the spider could bring him a nest of hornets, a giant python, and a mighty leopard.

 

Anansi set out on his quest, confident in his abilities. He began with the hornets. First the spider found a hollow gourd and cut a small hole in it. He went to where the hornets lived and poured water all over the nearby trees and himself. Thoroughly soaked, Anansi incredulously asked the hornets why they were staying in the rain. He held up the gourd and offered it to them as shelter from the storm. The grateful hornets flew in one by one. When they had all filed in, Anansi plugged up the hole. He delivered the hornets to Nyame.

The next challenge was the python. Anansi greeted the enormous snake and struck up a conversation with him. The spider claimed that he and his wife had gotten into a debate – was the python larger or smaller than a pole which lay nearby? The snake obligingly offered to lay near the pole so that Anansi could measure him against it and see which was longer. The spider asked if he could tie the python to the pole, to make sure that both lay straight.

In the end, of course, the python was strapped to a pole. It was all too easy for Anansi to carry him off to Nyame.

The last animal needed was the leopard. Anansi dug a deep pit in the ground, then covered it with branches and leaves so that it was invisible. When the leopard walked over it, the branches gave way and he fell. Anansi “just so happened” to be walking along, and offered to help rescue the leopard.

The spider bent a tree over so that its top touched the ground, and tied it off. He tied another rope around the tree and dropped the other end into the hole with the leopard. The cat, thinking it would lead to his freedom, followed Anansi's instructions and tied the rope around his tail.

 

As soon as he had, Anansi cut the rope holding the tree to the ground. It sprang back into the air – and it took the leopard with it!

Anansi found the cat dangling from the tree by his tail. It was a simple matter then to capture him.

When he returned to Nyame with the leopard, the sky god could not deny that Anansi had met all of his terms. He gave all of his stories to Anansi.
 

That is the story of how the spider got his tales.

Alright, I promised you guys I'd take a look at some of the appearances of Anansi in pop culture. He appears in some of the works by author Neil Gaiman (who's absolutely brilliant and you should totally check out if you haven't!). The books American Gods and Anansi Boys both deal with the spider trickster.

It's been years since I've seen it, but the Gargoyles animated television show had a few episodes where a spider named Anansi appeared. I hadn't realized when I watched it, but Gargoyles actually draws a lot from various mythologies and folktales. Avalon and the character of Oberon (most well-known for his Shakespeare character) both make appearances in the show. I'll have to go back and watch it again to see what else does!

The last set I'll mention in this post is comics. Both DC and Marvel have incarnations of Anansi. The DC version interacts with the character of Vixen, and his actions are pretty fitting for a (mostly) benevolent trickster. The Marvel version appears a few more times, and his appearances are frequently tied into the Spider Man stories. Though I haven't read it myself, I'm told Anansi was actually the first Spider Man.

Thanks for reading, guys! And, since I neglected to mention it elsewhere in my post...Arrr, maties! Happy Talk Like a Pirate day! I hopes ye're havin' a good time, and doin' somethin' piratical and awesome! Avast!

I'll see you next week!

The Buffalo Hide

Hey guys.

Today's post is shorter than usual, and I'm sorry, but it isn't about Anansi.  I had my wisdom teeth out a few days ago, and I appear to have misplaced my reference book that talks about the story I wanted to cover today.  Looking for it hurt, so I eventually settled on this story instead.  I'll do my best to find the book and have it prepared for next week.

I hope you all are doing well!

Today's story is a short folktale that has similarities to tales told in cultures all over the world.  Let me tell you the story, and then I'll look at some others like it.

Once there was a hunter who liked to lurk by a river, knowing that doing so would make the animals come to him.  One day he approached his usual territory and hid in the grasses.  To the hunter's surprise, he found a large number of people bathing in the water, with not an animal in sight.  These people looked a little bit different to him, though - they were big and burly, with dark brown skin.  The hunter knew of no such people in any village nearby, and wondered where they had come from.

Then the hunter noticed something.  On the banks of the river lay piles of buffalo hides, and very fine ones at that.  There were so many that the hunter thought he could take one without being noticed.  He snuck down to the river and grabbed a hide - judging from its size, it had come from a female buffalo.

Just then the bathers began to emerge from the river.  The hunter darted back into cover.

What he saw next left the hunter flabbergasted.  One by one, the bathers left the river and approached the pile of hides.  Each picked up a buffalo hide and shrugged it over their shoulders.  As they did so, a change occurred.  Each human transformed into a buffalo!

The hunter could only stare as a herd of buffalo marched away from him.

But one hide was missing, and so one human was left.  It was a female whose skin he had taken.  The young woman looked up and down the riverbank, crying when she could not find her skin anywhere.

The hunter fell in love with the buffalo woman.  He approached her and soothed her, then asked if she would be his wife.  He built her a house, and together they had a son.  He was big and brown, like his mother's people.

One day, the buffalo woman found her skin, kept carefully by the hunter for all of their years together.  That night she told him that she wanted to return to her people, and that she wanted him to come with her.

(I had a very hard time finding pictures for this story.  There's a Native American tale with a similar name, and all the images I could find were for it.  Still, this was one of the first pictures to pop up when I searched for "Buffalo Bride".  It was too cute to not include!)

 

The woman put on her buffalo skin and led her husband to her family.  When they heard how kindly he had treated her, they accepted him as one of their own.  A buffalo skin was sewed for the hunter, and he became a buffalo himself.

The hunter and the buffalo woman had many other children, but all of them were buffalos.  Only their first son remained a human.  The story goes that he married into a chieftain's family, and that all of his descendants were strong and stubborn...just like the buffalo.  To this day, that tribe will not eat buffalo meat.

What do you guys think?

There are a number of stories I can think of in which similar occurrences happen.  A female animal sheds its skin and becomes human to bathe.  That skin is found by a mortal man, who the woman marries.  Eventually, she reclaims her skin and returns to her people.  This one is different in that I haven't read many versions where the husband and wife stay together.

What interests me is the disparity between cultures which have this story.  This African version has a buffalo.  The Scottish Selkie is a seal version.  There's a Japanese version involving a crane which I'm very fond of.  Several Eastern European countries have variations on the tale with the animal involved being a swan or a dove.  It's fascinating to me to see how many cultures have a tale so similar.

I hope you guys were interested too.  I'll see you next week!

Chosen of the Gods: Treebound Sneak Peek!

Hey guys!  I promised you something special this week - here it is!  Without further ado, I give you chapter one of my upcoming book, Treebound!

Day 188295

Tom had seen some pretty curious things in his days as a relic bearer. He had witnessed the Norse apocalypse. He had watched a power-hungry goddess try to frame her husband for her son’s kidnapping. He had seen relic bearers try to recreate the fictional game of Quidditch (successfully), cosplay as superheroes (powers and all), and attempt to use their abilities to rig the results of the Super Bowl (which the Council quickly prevented).

All of that paled before the curious nature of what he was currently watching.

Tom ran a hand through his curly black hair, openly staring at the horde of cats sitting on the rooftops of the street across from him. Most of them seemed focused on a single building – a jewelry store about a block away from the alley where Tom was observing from. A few minutes ago he had watched the cats cross the rooftops to take up their current positions, their movements almost perfectly in sync with the young woman who had just broken into the store with quick efficiency.

He was fairly certain he had found his relic bearer.

Tom jumped at a soft sound behind him. He whirled around to see a sight nearly as unexpected as the militant formation of the cats. A man with short cropped red hair and a gently bristling beard stood a few steps away, a broad smile on his face. He wore blue jeans and a dark t-shirt, and his jacket mostly concealed the gun holster he wore with confidence.

“Liam?” Tom whispered, not quite believing it.

“Sup?” his friend replied, still grinning. “What are you doing here, Tom?”

The redhead stepped forward to join Tom as the former butler turned, once more focusing on the jewelry shop down the street. “Thought I’d actually do some work,” Tom answered quietly. “Word is there’s a new relic bearer in this area, and I think I’ve found her. What’re you doing here?”

Liam frowned slightly, his trained gaze taking note of the unusual behavior of the multitude of cats on the rooftops. During his day job, Liam was a police officer – and he used those same skills to aid the Order of relic bearers. “The Order thinks there’s a bearer using their relic for crime. I’ve been sent to stop them. Is the Order running short on Seekers or something? I thought you were too important for field work now.”

Tom’s face flushed at his friend’s words. “I needed a break. Being Ambassador for the Norse and Greek gods is killing my head, especially now that the other pantheons are chiming in. Besides, I miss being a Seeker.”

“Gotcha,” Liam replied, his eyes still roving the street. “What are the odds that we’re here for the same relic bearer?”

“Given that I just saw her break into a store, I’d say pretty good,” Tom replied wryly. “What is it with you and catching cat burglars?”

Liam blinked. He looked at the cats calmly surveying the area, then back at Tom. His blue eyes sparkled. “Pun intended, I assume?”

Tom grinned, and let that be his answer. He had missed his friend. Work kept them both so busy that they rarely had time to catch up. Getting to see Liam, if only for a few minutes in the field, was a joy.

A sharp shattering noise far off drew their attention back to the store. Liam hissed softly. “Sounds like a broken counter display. She’s definitely stealing.”

Tom caught his elbow as his friend moved to exit the alley. “Hold on. I’ve never seen cats act like this before. I’d rather know what she can do before we confront her.”

Liam glanced at the rooftops, and blinked when he found two of the cats watching him, their eyes glowing yellow in the streetlights. He carefully stepped back into the shadows Tom stood in. After a moment the cats looked away, but their ears remained turned towards the human duo.

“Maybe you’re right,” Liam replied softly. Almost all of the cats he saw were street cats – huge, tough things covered in scars and used to rough living. Hardened street cats could be vicious and dangerous on the best of days, when acting alone. But multiple cats acting under the direction of a bearer? Liam shuddered at the thought. He could see half a dozen cats from where he stood, and he was sure that more lurked in the shadows where human eyes couldn’t penetrate.

Movement drew he and Tom’s eyes back to the store, where the girl was emerging. She looked to be in her early teens, with her curly hair cropped in a short black bob. Sparkling jewels hung from her neck in large quantities – she seemed to be wearing the spoils of her night’s work.

Liam glanced towards the rooftops as the girl began to prowl down the street away from them. He sucked in a breath. “Tom. The cats are gone.”

The butler looked up and blinked. Sure enough, all of the felines seemed to have silently vanished. The girl continued moving away, this time without her protective detail of cats. After a moment, a large figure detached himself from an alley ahead of the two men and began to follow her. Something metallic in his hand glinted as he passed under a light, and Liam hissed as he recognized a knife.

Without a word Liam left the alley and broke into a soft run, followed immediately by Tom. Downtown LA was dangerous at the best of times, and that girl – criminal or not – looked too young to be on her own.

Some sound seemed to alert her to her pursuer. She turned around and caught sight of the man behind her. Her eyes were large, almost feral looking, and she immediately broke into a run. The man let out a harsh curse and began a sprint of his own, rapidly gaining ground on her. Liam and Tom were still a ways away when she turned down a back alley, the man right behind her.

Tom quickly grabbed Liam’s arm. The dizzying blur that accompanied the use of the butler’s relics left them standing in an alley across from the one the girl had ducked into. Liam moved to run towards it, but Tom’s arm stopped him.

“Look up,” he breathed.

Liam followed his friend’s gaze and saw what had made Tom stop. The six cats they had watched earlier stood on the rooftops surrounding the alley.

Every one of them was focused on the ground below.

It was too dark in the alley for Tom and Liam to see what was happening, but they heard a man scream in sudden agony. After a moment his footsteps pounded and he raced out of the alley, one hand held to his face with blood gushing through his fingers.

A score of cats, all of them fierce and large, chased after him.

Tom and Liam watched as the man raced down the street, the cats easily keeping pace. Two of the cats continued to swat at his heels as he ran. Judging from his yelps, their claws inflicted some wounds.

After a minute the man disappeared from view, and the street was silent once more.

The duo let out a soft breath. “I’m very glad we didn’t try and stop her,” Liam whispered, his voice stunned. “I’ve never seen anything like that. What sort of relic does she have?”

Tom shrugged. “The Order wasn’t sure. I’m guessing some sort of animal deity – Dionysus and Artemis are both popular with cats, and Freya’s chariot is pulled by them. Most pantheons have at least one god associated with felines.”

“Dionysus? I thought he was the god of wine?” Liam replied. His voice was still soft, but it also sounded incredulous.

“Wine. Partying and general debauchery. Leopards.” Tom was still watching the alley the girl had run into, but there was no sign of movement.

“Leopards. Good Lord, she chased a man off with tom cats. Can you imagine what she could do with leopards?” the cop said, horrified.

“Interesting idea,” a soft voice purred above them. “Maybe we should visit the zoo.”

The two men looked up as a loud meow answered the girl. She was perched on the rooftop above them, crouched on the very edge with seemingly no care for its height. A cat, black and white with a stub of a tail, arched his back and bumped into her side, his wide blue eyes fixed on the men below even as he purred.

Tom noticed that Liam was careful to not reach for his gun.

“Hello,” the butler said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’m Tom, and this is Liam. What’s your name?”

The girl jumped lightly to the ground before them, then sprang up and held out her arms to catch the cat who followed her. “Cas. This is Stubby.” The cat mrowed at them cheerfully, nuzzling into the girl’s face before hopping to the ground. “What do you want?”

“We’d like to talk to you about the gods,” Tom replied. He watched as the cat patrolled around he and Liam, sniffing curiously at both of their legs.

Cas broke into a hearty laugh. “A little late for missionary work, don’t you think?” She frowned at Liam as the cat continued to sniff his shoes. The cop held very still, and swallowed as the cat looked up at him with disdain. “You’re a dog person. We don’t like dogs.”

“I like cats too,” he assured her, reaching out a careful hand for Stubby. The cat regarded him for an instant before his eyes softened, and he leaned into Liam’s hand with his head, arching his back and flumping his rear into Liam’s leg as he did so. He maowed again, very loudly, and Cas relaxed a little.

“I suppose you’ll do,” she said, looking curiously at the two. One hand sat impetuously on her hip as the other fingered the diamond necklace that dropped to her waist. “Follow me.”

She breezily stalked past the two, Stubby following her cheerfully. Tom and Liam exchanged an incredulous glance, then moved after her. Cas moved as gracefully as any cat they had ever seen. Her footsteps were silent as she prowled through the streets. In contrast, Liam and Tom’s footsteps rang out loudly on the pavement. She looked back and flashed a very feline smile, then sped up slightly, forcing them to jog to keep pace.

After a few twists and turns through back streets they finally reached her destination. When Liam and Tom rounded the last corner they found Cas stretched out on a cushy couch, battered and torn but still comfortable looking. The couch rested in the dead end of an alley, and multiple crates and boxes had been stacked all around it. Soft, warm blankets filled most of the boxes, and several were draped upon the couch itself. Liam noticed that the crates made an effective stairway up to the surrounding rooftops, allowing Cas several easy escape routes.

Cas gestured for the duo to sit, and they settled onto crates that proved surprisingly comfortable. Liam and Tom exchanged glances, unsure how the girl had wound up in control of the situation. She lounged on her couch, looking as luxurious as a queen holding court. Stubby hopped up next to her and gave a soft yowl. Cas reached out and began to pet him. She scritched his back all the way to the stub of his tail, and he mrowled again as he stretched his rump as high into the air as it would go, eventually falling over onto the cushions.

“Now,” Cas said, still petting the cat, “I believe you said something about leopards?” Her tone was curious, and Tom felt his eyebrows climb at her calm reaction to their presence.

“Uhh,” he replied, thinking quickly. “Well, it depends on what god your relic is from.”

“God?” she interrupted. “Relic?” Stubby yowled sadly as her hand paused in its petting, and Cas quickly resumed rubbing his back.

“Maybe this would be easier if we found out what you know,” Liam replied. “How do you control the cats?”

Again Cas laughed at them, her white teeth flashing against the darkness of her skin. Her teeth, Tom noted, looked rather sharp. “You don’t control a cat, silly. They do what they want.”

Liam blinked. “Then how did you make them chase off that mugger?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t. They chased him off because they wanted to.”

“Why would they want to do that?” Tom asked. “For that matter, I’ve never seen a group of cats that large. Why were they there in so many numbers?”

“We have an arrangement,” the girl replied, still languidly petting her cat. “They work as lookouts for me. They keep me safe. In exchange, I pay them.”

“You…pay them.” Liam looked rather confused, and Tom didn’t blame him at all.

“Yes. What, you think that’s all for me?” Cas gestured towards a large barrel full of salted fish behind the couch, and the two men took note of it for the first time.

“Ah. So, you feed the cats, and in exchange they help you?” Tom asked. “I just want to make sure I’ve got this right.”

“Yup! That’s it exactly.” Once again Cas had begun to play with the necklace hanging from her slender neck. Similar sparkles drew Liam’s attention to jewels all over the girl’s lair, mixed in with the blankets and crates. Some were obviously fake theater jewelry, but others appeared to be actual jewels. Miscellaneous shiny pieces of metal, including quite a few coins, also caught the dim light that illuminated the area. Liam was abruptly reminded of a magpie’s nest, full of random shiny trinkets.

Tom’s voice drew Liam’s attention back to the conversation. “Most people can’t…create working relationships with cats,” he explained to the girl. “How do you talk with them?”

She yawned, once more showing her pointy teeth. “I don’t. I just know what they want, and they know what I want. When do we get to the part about the leopards?”

“Again, it depends on your relic,” the Seeker answered. “If it’s a relic of Dionysus, you might be able to…interact with leopards.”

“Who’s Dionysus?” she asked, curious.

“He’s one of the Greek gods,” Liam replied.

“Oh. And what’s a relic?”

“A relic is something one of the gods used to possess,” the cop explained. He was somewhat disturbed by how calmly Cas was taking all of this; she seemed only vaguely interested. Her curiosity reminded him of nothing so much as a cat. Liam’s gaze flicked from Cas down to Stubby, and then back up to the young woman. It was her eyes, he realized with a start. The pupils in her gold-brown gaze weren’t round, but slit – exactly like a cat.

“Why would I have a relic?” she asked, stretching.

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “Sometimes the gods give them to mortals. Sometimes they’re just found by us. Do you have anything that you acquired around the time you started working with the cats? Something that’s on you at all times?”

She frowned. For the first time Cas seemed to completely focus on the conversation. Her hand stopped petting Stubby, who was purring in a near-slumber. She gazed at the cat in wonder. “Maybe,” she replied hesitantly. “Why do you care?”

“We represent an Order of relic bearers,” Tom answered. “We seek out new bearers, explain their relics to them. We also explain the god it came from. We want to help relic bearers understand their new powers, and how to use them without harming anyone, or disrupting the normal world.”

She looked up, her gaze sharp. “What about him?” she asked, eyeing Liam suspiciously. “I know a blue when I see one.”

“I’m part of the Order, but yes – I am also a cop,” he replied honestly. “The Order sometimes sends me to stop bearers who are using their relics for crime.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it increases the chance of normal people finding out about relics,” Liam answered. “And because most cops can’t keep up with a criminal who has a relic.”

She grinned at that. “So what, you’re here to arrest me? Take away whatever relic I have? ’cause I won’t let you do that.”

Tom shook his head. “We’re just here to tell you about the Order, and to let you know that there are people like you out there.”

Cas frowned at that. “But what if I want to keep stealing?”

A thought struck Liam, and he followed his instincts, attempting to play to her curiosity. “Wouldn’t you rather do something more challenging? More…unique?”

“Like what?” Her feline eyes focused entirely on him, and Liam fought an unnerved shiver.

“Come see the Order,” he suggested. “See what we do. Learn about us. Then decide whether or not you might want to help us. We could use someone like you.”

She eyed him for a moment, then Tom. Cas looked down at Stubby. “What do you think, boy?”

His sleepy eyes were immediately clear, and the fully awake cat also eyed the two humans. Then he gave a long, loud mrowl. Cas nodded, apparently satisfied.

“Alright,” she told Liam. “Show me.” She stood with feline grace and vaulted over the couch, opening the barrel of fish – and sending a very strong aroma over the little alley alcove. Stubby hopped after her and waited as she offered him one.

Liam and Tom also stood, a little uncertain. “Now?” Liam asked.

“Yes, now.” She turned towards them, wiping off her hands. “The cats will have their payment when they come, so there’s nothing else for me to do. Show me. I want to see this Order.”

The two men exchanged another glance, then nodded. “Alright,” Tom replied. “Have you ever traveled by rainbow, miss?”

Treebound, the final book in my Chosen of the Gods trilogy, comes out in October.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week with a return to African folktales!