Saturday, 25 April 2009

Trickster's Penis (§7 of the Trickster Cycle): taken from The Encyclopedia of Hočąk (Winnebago) Mythology


retold by Richard L. Dieterle


As Trickster was walking along, he came to a particularly scenic land. Since he was getting sleepy, he decided to lay down and take a nap, so he laid under his blanket and went to sleep. After awhile, he woke up and as he looked up he could see something floating above him. He thought to himself, "Ah, yes! It is the chief's banner — they always do thus when they are about to give a feast." Then he noticed that his blanket was missing and he suddenly realized that it was the blanket that was floating above him. It was high in the air because Trickster had had an erection during his sleep. He said to himself, "Thus it always is with me." Then he addressed his penis, "Younger brother, bring the blanket back before you lose it." Trickster took his penis in hand, and as it got softer, the blanket finally floated down. He took out the box in which he kept his penis and began to coil his member up and pack it away. Only when he had reached the tip did he finally retrieve his blanket. Trickster carried this box on his back.

Trickster once again set out on his travels. As he wandered aimlessly, he descended a slope until he came to a lake. On the opposite shore a group of pretty young women, a yųgiwi (princess) and her friends, were skinny dipping in the lake. "Ah yes," Trickster said to himself, "my chance has come — now I will get some sex." He took his member out of its box and gave it clear instructions: "My younger brother, you are to go straight for the yųgiwi and pass by the other women. Lodge right in her and no one else." Then he dropped it in the water, but it slid across the surface of the water, so Trickster called to it, "Little brother, come back! If you come up to them like that, you will scare them off." Trickster pulled his penis back and tied a stone around its neck and launched it again, but this time it dropped to the bottom of the lake, so he had to reel it back in again. Once again he tried, this time by tying a lighter stone to it, but the penis was too close to the surface and created a wake as it moved. "Come back, little brother, come back," Trickster shouted. Once he had reeled it in, he attached a stone of just the right weight, and sent it on its way again. This time his penis went right for the mark, but on its way it just barely grazed the other women. They yelled to the yųgiwi, "Get out of the water! Get out of the water, quick!" but the yųgiwi was just to slow to move and the penis lodged right in her just where Trickster wanted it. As the princess came out of the water, the penis was lodge right in her, and the other woman tugged hard to get it out, but could not dislodge it. The young women, who had no idea what had attacked their friend, ran to the village and returned with the strongest men they could find. These tried very hard to pull it out, but they could do nothing. However, one of the men said, "An old woman lives near here and she has knowledge of many things. Perhaps she can do something." So they ran off to get her. When she arrived, she immediately knew what was going on and told them, "This is Kunu, the one that they call 'Trickster.' He is having sex with her, and all we are doing is intruding." She left, but came back soon after with an awl. She straddled the penis and pushed the awl in and out several times while she sang,

Kunu, if it is you;
Pull it out,
Pull it out.

Then, unexpectedly, the penis jumped out with such force that the woman was thrown through the air. The woman was in a state of shock, but managed to get to her feet. As she stood there, Trickster laughed from the opposite bank and shouted, "You nasty old woman, why have you spoiled my fun? I was trying to have sex, but now the moment is ruined!"

http://hotcakencyclopedia.com/


Wednesday, 22 April 2009

English Graveyard: Native American Mass Grave


At death we are;

Laid to rest, and gone forward,

Joined with God when fallen asleep,

Answering the call heard whilst resting in peace,

Departed from this world, carried away from us,

With our names and deeds and a loving memory set in stone;

Anything but dead.



In death they were;

Laid to rest atop each other in a shallow pit,

Gone forward but pushed down,

Joined with God, but forgotten by man,

Answering the call from those lost before them,

Resting in peace after dying in slaughter,

Carried away upon a tide of violence,

Departed from their world so that others may rape it.


Even in death, only the victor's voice can be heard.

The Weathered Gravestone

I don't know you and I never will. As time worked on you, brought you inevitably to death, it now works upon the memory of you; flaking your name from the stone pages of past time, and drawing those who spoke of you up the highest hill to lie by your side; trapping with them your name, sealed within their still lip's, as they are sealed within wood. The same fate awaits me; though I never believed it when I was younger, not as I do now; I am not immortal. The ground that covers me will sink down, burying what remains of me beneath six foot of earth and generations of new blood, and in time I will fade from the world completely.

Heat shimmers off the hillside in the distance, carrying the cooler moisture trapped in the damp earth that surrounds you into the atmosphere; ascending into the sky like a spirit, forming a heaven of clouds carried across the world on a high wind to an unknowable place, only to return again to help bring new life; dropping into the ocean, the evolutionary Eden of our world. The splintered sheets that hang from the front of your gravestone are the living space of a plethora of spiders; their tiny hairs finding purchase on the smooth sides of your domed sheet of rock; perhaps they cling to your name, so worn away I cannot see it; I only know that any part of what was once you lies here from the sinking ground, like the only scar your passing left was marked in dirt. The Earth remembers you, the stone recalls you, the animals know you, the rain and wind carry you; you are welcomed too both sea and soil. What's a memory or a name too you now?


Meeting William Fry: Died on the Ninth of April 1885.

I lie down in the rich grass next to William; six foot and ninety-eight years stretch between my life and his death. We share a common journey to this point, up a steep hill to rest amongst the trees and a crowd of other souls. The hill wares this resting place like a crown; each gravestone a peak around its rim, each soul a gem glinting in the warm sun; as if the hill had been inaugurated into a deathly monarchy; a silent, stationary king of death, looking out in all directions across sea and land, searching for the points where life vanishes. I lay my hand upon the relief that marks where William's remains lie beneath the soil, a hillock of earth upon a hill, a reflection of its surroundings; a mimicry reflection of the life around it. I imagine how his hand would have felt to have held, what his life would have been to have lived. I know nothing of him save the sparse epitaph engraved upon his stone; "In loving memory of William Fry; Died on the 9th of April 1885. " In the midsts of life we are in death."" I am in the midsts of death, with my hand resting on what is left of the life of William Fry. I begin to feel the cold set in with the fall of the sun over the shifting water; I walk back down the slope; this is my journey, not William Fry's; his journey has just begun.


In Memory of William Fry: Died on the Ninth of April 1885.

From Memory's of Peter Peasey: Born on the Ninth of April 1983.

Graveyards, Boatyards, and the Waters of Chaos

Many meters bellow me, the sea that brought us life laps at the shore that sustains us; its gray water like the fur of Coyote; randomly ruffling in the high winds. Each eddy and twist claims more of the beach and leaves behind a fragment of a distant land's soil and spirit; how often does each grain undertake this voyage, and how long does each stay on the shore? A voice that fades with the waves tells me that this is the seas secret; these decisions lie in its hands, whilst its fingers stroke unthinkingly at the land. To the right of me are the ordered lines of buildings and roads, a patchwork of civilisation laid across an uneven bed. I pull a blanket round my shoulders for security and protection from the wind, but somehow it works its way through the quilt, cutting at me with a terminal chill. Up here I am like God looking out over Chaos and Order, and like God I am surrounded by the dead; souls on a voyage back across the same waters that gave birth to them, each in a wooden vessel beneath the shovelled earth, their tomb stones masts erected to catch the inescapable, unending wind. Looking out I try to grasp a vision of what lies across the water, but I am denied understanding by the uncertain weather of these days; gray clouds fill my eyes, winning the battle against the Suns efforts to illuminate; a soft brick wall between man and angles. I think I hear footsteps in the water far bellow; an ambivalent foxtrot of soft pads against the surf, (the Devil and God have four feet between them), but when I listen again all I can hear is the creaking sound of the boats in the yard, straining at their moorings with the pull of the tide. Like my companions, I will one day take up that voyage, part-exchanging my stone house for a stone sail, leaving my shore and myself like casting off ties, to follow those padding feet to the embrace of the creator.