Coyote Transforms

Inspired by the Wasco myth Coyote and Multnomah Falls, as well as other stories about coyote the shapeshifter from various Pacific Northwest tribes. In this story, coyote turns into a young man to propose marriage to a young woman.

The myth was set in "that long ago time before this time, when all the people and all the animals spoke the same language." The clothing references used for the illustration were from the 19th century. No claims are being made to cultural authenticity or period accuracy here ;-) The lives of Plateau people were already changed by indirect European influence long before anyone first set eyes on a person of European descent.¹ For example, horses broadened the trade network of tribes and spread fashion influences from the Plains to the Plateau.²

That said, The Museum at Warm Springs on the Warm Springs Reservation, where the Wasco tribe now lives, is an excellent resource.

The Fox Phonologist

Chen Pengnian (961-1017), Chinese courtier and scholar, was labeled a nine-tail fox.¹ The 11th century Chinese court history document Rulin Gongyi states: "Chen Pengnian had a talent for interpreting omens concerning the nation, and was skilled at flattering and misleading (the emperor), therefore people of his time saw him as a nine-tail fox."²

Print available.

The excerpt above probably refers to Chen's term as the vice-chair of the Department of Augury, the post he held prior to his death.³ The editor of Rulin Gongyi was Tian Kuang (1005-1063).⁴

Apparently, "nine tail fox", as used during the Song period, was not intended to be a flattering metaphor. But things had not always been so.

The 3rd century BCE text Annals of Lu mentions how Da Yu, founder of the ancient Xia Dynasty, encountered a nine-tail fox at Tu Mountain (in present day Henan, China); he regarded it as a good omen, and so married a woman of the Tu Mountain tribe.¹ During the Han Dynasty, the 9-tail fox was still seen as an auspicious creature, portrayed together with other mythical beasts in the entourage of the goddess Xi Wangmu.¹

Merfolk from non-European mythology

Was reading up on merfolk mythology from around the world while working on my series of three mermaids from non-European cultures. Here is a partial list of mermaids I encountered during my research:

Kshitigarbha Online

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The name of Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha / Ksitigarbha, aka Dizang (Chinese), Jizo (Japanese), Dia Tang (Vietnamese), Jijang (Korean), literally means 'Earth Store' or 'Earth Treasury.¹ This illustration combines influences from Shirow Masamune's Ghost in the Shell and traditional East Asian religious iconography, notably medieval Dunhuang Buddhist paintings that also show concentric rings within double halos.

According to the Ksitigarbha Sutra given by Sakyamuni Buddha, the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha was, in a past life, a Brahmin woman who sought to save her mother from hell.² The countless incarnated forms of the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha gathered in Trayastrimsa Heaven and coalesced into one form, vowing to Buddha to save all beings.³)

Myth of the Moon Toad

The Chinese belief concerning a toad in the moon predates the Warring States era.¹ Late Warring States era statesman and poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE) wrote of a toad in the moon in his Songs of Chu.²

Moon Toad may predate other Chinese moon myths such as the Moon Hare.¹ One version of the Moon Toad myth claims that the toad is the lady Chang E (aka Heng E) transformed. Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era (written between 977 and 983 CE³) quotes earlier works that mention a moon toad, including the astronomy book Ling Xian by Zhang Heng (78-139 CE)⁴:

Yi asked the Queen Mother of the West for the Medicine of Immortality. Yi's wife Heng E stole the medicine and flew to the moon. She installed herself on the moon and became a toad.

Guardian of the Gate

Background graphics combine influences from Shirow Masamune's Ghost in the Shell and decorative art from the Malay world.

Patterns on the outfit also inspired by (but not claiming to be an authentic representation of) fabric designs from Indonesia and Malaysia.

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The Delinquent's Desk

The writing on the page is an excerpt from "Song of My Hut Broken by the Autumn Wind". Du Fu (712-770 CE) , aka The Poet Saint, wrote this poem in Chengdu in 761 CE. Chinese-poems.com has the full text of the original poem with English translations. Du Fu's work remains popular in China and Japan today.

(Those of you who know your paper folding will probably point out that some of those 'animals' must have been created from pieces of paper larger than what could be torn from the book ;-) Let's just assume there's a bigger book sitting right outside the picture plan, lol.

Just who exactly is Moon Hare / Jade Rabbit anyway?

This character from Chinese folklore is known as 月兔 (usually translated as Moon Rabbit) or 玉兔 (commonly translated as Jade Rabbit). But while researching animal references for this illustration, I realized that the Chinese 月兔 was most likely NOT a rabbit ;-) Why? Because rabbits are not indigenous to China.¹ There are rabbits in Southeast Asia and parts of Japan though.¹

China, however, does have a number of native hare species.² The rabbit/hare confusion in translation started with people applying the term 兔 tu to both indigenous hares and imported rabbits.³

Third century Chinese statesman and author Fu Xuan wrote about the Moon Hare in Ni Tian Wen: "What is in the moon? A white hare pounding medicine with a pestle." ⁴ Of the indigenous hare species living in/near China, only Lepus Timidus (aka Mountain Hare, Blue Hare, White Hare) has a white coat. (in winter)²  So this species conveniently became my reference for the Moon Hare.

So who exactly is Moon Hare/Jade Hare?

There seems to be no consensus, not even about the animal's gender. In one Beijing legend, Jade Hare  engages in repeated 'cross-dressing', casually switching between male and female attire (but more on that later ;-)

Some different versions of the Jade Hare myth:

Through the Gate

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Influences: Ghost in the Shell meets Mangbetu style ;-)

Background graphics inspired by Mangbetu mural painting; character design inspired by (but not intended to be an authentic representation of) Mangbetu body painting and hairstyling.

Duyung

Mermaids appear in the folklore of the Malay world:

• Pulau Duyung (Mermaid Island) in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. According to tradition, mermaids once appeared there.
• A folktale from Sulawesi, Indonesia about how mermaids came to be.(CeritaRakyatNusantara.com)
• The Sundanese and Javanese myth of Nyai Loro Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Sea of Java, a deity who can appear in mermaid form.

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Kadal Kanni

Was inspired to draw a South Asian mermaid after looking at Southeast Asian paintings of mermaids from the Ramayana epic, in which merfolk were deployed to destroy the bridge that Rama was building to Lanka.¹ According to tradition, this bridge started in Rameswaram in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.²

Rama's ally Hanuman and his monkey army laid the bridge. In Indian tradition, Hanuman is celibate,⁴ but in the Thai retelling of the Ramayana, Hanuman fathered a son with Ravana's mermaid daughter,⁵ who had been ordered by her father to destroy the bridge.¹

Sri Lankan author Nadishka Aloysius's YA story Raavana's daughter centers the mermaid princess character from the Ramakien.

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Jengu

The inspiration for this illustration came from a Cameroonian friend who told me fascinating accounts of the worship of miengu (singular 'jengu'), mermaid-like water deities of the Duala and related ethnic groups in Cameroon.¹ My friend also mentioned a similar Mami Wata tradition in neighboring Nigeria.²

Mermaid's accessories are inspired by (but NOT claiming to be an authentic representation of) Duala jewelry from Cameroon and Yoruba jewelry from Nigeria. Marine life in mermaid's environment inspired by (but not intended to be a scientifically accurate representation of ;-) species of underwater life in the Gulf of Guinea.

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"Tiger Tears" and "Resurrection of Third Prince Nezha" prints

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Longevity and Luck Greeting Card

Southern Mountain, Eastern Sea

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See below for the sources of the text and symbolism used in this piece.

Eastern Sea, Southern Mountain

The expression "longevity compared to the Southern Mountain, luck as (vast as) the Eastern Sea" was recorded in a short story from the Ming Dynasty compilation "Tales from Qingping Mountain Hall".¹

The idiom "longevity compared to the Southern Mountain" can be traced back further to "The Book of Odes", a compilation of poems and songs dated between the 11th - 7th century BCE.²

What's the deal with peaches?

Made From Fire

Inspired by the Qu'ranic account of how God created humans from clay and djinn from smokeless fire.¹

Character's clothing is referenced from (but by no means claiming to be an authentic representation of) men's attire from northern Cameroon and northern Nigeria, including, but not limited to, Hausa attire.

The djinn (genies) originated from Arabic folklore²; the spread of Islam circulated the mythology of genies beyond the Arab world, with non-Arab Muslim cultures applying the concept of djinn to native spirits from pre-Islamic traditions.³ The Hausa pronunciation for djinn is 'aljan', a term that is also applied to the Bori spirits of pre-Islamic Hausa religion, giving traditional spirits an Islamic context.⁴

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Interactive Flash environments

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Gulf of Guinea

Penglai, Isle of the Immortals

Resurrection of Third Prince Nezha

哪吒Nezha (Chinese) / Nataku (Japanese) is a child god in Chinese folk religion and Taoism.  One version of his origin myth is found in The Great Compendium of Deities of the Three Religions (a 7-volume work dated to the Ming Dynasty) :¹

Nezha was an immortal spirit in the service of the heavenly Jade Emperor. Because the mortal world was plagued by demons, the Jade Emperor commanded him to take birth as the third son of Li Jing, the Pagoda-Carrying Heavenly King. The child Nezha battled the dragons of the Eastern Sea and the armies of the demon queen Shiji.  

When Nezha’s father blamed him for bringing the wrath of the demon hordes upon his family, Nezha returned his flesh and bones to his father.  He took his immortal soul to Buddha, who resurrected him in a body made from parts of the lotus plant. With this new immortal body, Nezha continued his battle against demonic forces.

The Chinese deity Nezha traces his origins to the character of Nalakubara, a son of the god Kubera (also known as Vaiśravaṇa), from the Hindu epics.² In the Buddhist pantheon, Nalakubara’s father Vaiśravaṇa is one of the Four Heavenly Kings. Known as 毗沙門天 Pishamentian in Chinese Buddhism (Bishamonten in Japanese), the pagoda-carrying Vaiśravaṇa crossed over into Chinese folklore as Li Jing, the Pagoda-Carrying Heavenly King.³ His son’s Chinese name Nezha is a contraction of the Sanskrit name Nalakubara. Nezha’s personality and backstory evolved in a very different direction from original Indian Nalakubara. 

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Notes

1. “哪吒” “Nezha”. 三教源流搜神大全 The Great Compendium of Deities of the Three Religions, vol.4
2. Shahar, Meir. (2014). Indian mythology and the Chinese imagination: Nezha, Nalakūbara, and Kṛṣṇa. Tel Aviv University
3. 郭绍林 Guo, Shaolin (2002). “托塔天王何以是李靖” “Why is Li Jing the Pagoda-Carrying Heavenly King?”. 洛阳大学学报 Luoyang University Xuebao, 2002 Issue 3.

Tiger Tears

Inspired by a weird dream in which I saw a tiger bawling.

To answer the question of why he was crying, here's the dream's story :-)

Three friends - a tiger, a human and a donkey were crossing a desert. By the dress and looks of the human, the setting was probably somewhere in South Asia, maybe the Indian state of Rajasthan, which does have a tiger preserve, btw.

Fox spirit, mid-metamorphosis

Grew up reading Chinese folktales about fox spirits/fairies/demons. In Chinese mythology, practically any animal or inanimate object can, after an extensive period of meditation, acquire the spiritual power to shapeshift into human form.¹ Foxes seem to be the most popular subjects of shapeshifter lore.

Saw many beautiful illustrations for these fairy tales done in classical Chinese style, but none of them showed fox spirits in the process of transformation. The fox fairies were either portrayed in fox form or in full human form. (Not counting modern animation/comic book fox fairy characters drawn as humans with fox ears and tails.) Thought it would be interesting to visualize a fox spirit in mid-metamorphosis and in contemporary garb.

The reference used is an Arctic Fox, which has a shorter muzzle than the red fox.

Male fox spirits in Chinese lore