From Al-Andalus and Qing China - 2 tales of lovesick men pining for male beloveds

 Parallels in homoromantic stories recorded in 11th century Muslim Spain and 18th century China.

From 16th c. China and 21st c. India, two accounts of virtuous transgender mothers who protected children

Meet You Ruiniang from 16th c. China and Gauri Sawant  from 21st c. India, 2 transgender women who devoted themselves to their adoptive children, protecting them from cisgender predators.

The ducks in the picture are Lesser Whistling Ducks, a species present in the India subcontinent, southern China and Southeast Asia. Female and male ducks are similar in plumage.

Read more LGBTQ history on our Substack

Happy Mother's Day to the trans moms!

Traditional societies that recognized non-binary children

International Non-Binary People's Day in July 14.  Many traditional societies recognized non-binary children.

Bad things happen to men who betray talking animals to the authorities

Similar motifs can be found in stories from around the world, but the differences are just as interesting:

The Chameleon Harpist (from the Fulani of Niger):

While hunting deep in the forest, a hunter came across a chameleon who could sing and play the harp beautifully. The chameleon made the hunter promise not to tell anyone about him. But the hunter was so excited at meeting a talking chameleon that he couldn't help sharing his story with other humans, including the king.

The king sent guardsmen with the hunter to confirm his story. "If there is such a chameleon, I will make you rich. But if there is not such a chameleon, you will pay with your life." When the hunter brought the guards to the chameleon in the deep forest, the chameleon kept silent. So the guards assumed that the hunter had been lying and killed him. After that, the chameleon spoke, "He brought about his own death. I told him not to tell anyone about me, but he had to tell the world because of his greed."¹

The Fiddler Tortoise (from the Ga ethnic group of Ghana):

Friendship and sisterhood: supernatural folktales of women helping each other

Women who make other women's lives miserable are disproportionately represented in folktales from around the world. Wicked stepmothers and cruel sisters drive the plots of countless fairy tales. Sometimes, the negative woman-woman relationships in the story are offset slightly by the presence of a wise crone or fairy woman who aids the heroine. But stories of mutually beneficial relationships between women who are peers are harder to find.

With that in mind, here are a few stories that meet the following conditions:

1. A woman protagonist but NO woman antagonist
2. Two or more female characters who help each other or work collaboratively (the typical fairy godmother intervention would not count because the giving is largely one-sided)

Stories of monkeys who save themselves from water-dwelling false friends

Two similar tales from different sides of the Indian Ocean. "Monkey and the Shark" from the Kamba ethnic group of Kenya:

A monkey who lived near the ocean decided to befriend a shark. From his tree, he threw fruits to the shark, who gratefully ate them. After many days, the shark invited the monkey to a feast at his home to meet his parents.

The monkey was persuaded, and the shark carried it off on its back. On the way, the shark revealed that his father was ill, and a monkey's heart was needed to cure him. The monkey then lied, saying that he left his heart at home. With that, the shark turned back and swam back to shore to pick up the monkey's heart. As soon as the monkey reached land, he escaped up a tree and threw a big branch at the shark, rebuking his false friend.¹

"Monkey and the Crocodile" from the Panchatantra Tales of India:

One day, a monkey living in a jamun tree by the river befriended a crocodile resting under the tree. He threw jamum to the crocodile. This went on for many days. Then the crocodile asked the monkey for some fruit to take home to his wife. The monkey obliged.

After eating the fruit, the crocodile's wife said that the monkey must be even tastier than the fruit. She demanded that her husband bring her the monkey's heart to eat. The crocodile was initially appalled, and refused to do this. But his wife refused to eat anything until she could eat the monkey's heart.²

So the crocodile invited the monkey to dinner at his home to meet his wife. After some persuasion, the monkey go onto the crocodile's back. Once in deep water, the crocodile revealed that his wife wanted to eat the monkey's heart. The monkey then lied, saying that he left his heart in the tree. With that, the crocodile swam back to the monkey's tree. After the monkey escaped into the tree, he scolded the shark for his deceit and faithlessness.

Although the two folktales are structurally similar, there are some differences in interpretations. In the Indian version, the crocodile is described as actually enjoying the fruits. In the Kenyan version retold by Dr Vincent Muli Wa Kituku, the shark's acceptance of food outside of its natural diet is interpreted as a pretense to win the monkey's friendship.¹ Dr Kituku equated the shark to people who present a fake lifestyle in order to win a relationship, only to show their true colors later. (I think we've all met that sort of person at some point)

Notes

1. "Monkey and the Shark", East African Folktales, Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku
2. The Monkey and the Crocodile, Cultural India. Web. 31 October 2017

Tales of married women murdered by their stepmothers even after they moved away from their abusive step-family

These 3 folktales from Armenia, India and Vietnam share strikingly similar motifs - and not just because a fish has a role to play in all three tales.The differences are just as interesting:

The Golden Maiden (Armenia):

There was a young woman who whose father married a widow who mistreated her and her younger brother. The stepmother pressured her husband into abandoning his two children in the mountains. The siblings managed to find their way home, but not before the brother had been magically transformed into a lamb. The stepmother wanted to eat the lamb, so the maiden took her brother and fled once more into the mountains. There, she met a fairy crone who took pity on her and changed her into a golden-haired fairy maiden with golden garments.

The golden maiden returned home with her brother and hid her golden garments. But she could not hide her golden hair. Her stepmother, on hearing how her stepdaughter came by her golden hair, sent her own daughter from a previous marriage to the mountains. But the fairy crone disliked the stepsister and turned her into a hideous being. Because of that, the stepmother hated her stepchildren even more.

Animals that attack their own reflections: Tales from Africa, Asia and Europe

From the Avatime ethnic group of Ghana:

A dog got into its master's house when its master went out and left the door open. It took meat from the table. Then it saw its own reflection in the large mirror in the room. Seeing another dog with meat in the mirror, the dog attacked it to get the other dog's meat. The mirror fell on the dog and killed it.¹

From India:

In the Foolish Lion and the Clever Rabbit from the Panchantara tales, an old rabbit saved itself from becoming the lion's meal by setting the lion against its own reflection in a well.

From Greece:

The Dog and Its Reflection" is one of Aesop's fables.

Notes

1. "The Greedy Dog", West African Folktales, translated and collected by Jack Berry

How NOT to choose a husband: Fairy tales about willful maidens who pursue handsome strangers without parental approval

A recurring theme in supernatural folktales from various ethnic groups in West Africa is an arrogant maiden marrying a good-looking young man who turns out to be a disguised serpent, devil or big cat:

From the Mende ethnic group of Sierra Leone:

There was a young woman Magotu who said that she would only marry the most handsome man in the world. Her parents were worried that she was refusing all her suitors.

A devil, having heard of the matter, disguised himself by borrowing the best features from the handsomest young men. Magotu accepted his proposal and left the village with him. Before long, the devil gave up his borrowed features and showed his true form. A small dog that had followed them along the way encouraged the woman to run away before the devil ate her. The devil pursued them, but the dog and the maiden met a human ally who told them how to shake off their pursuer. They returned to Magotu's village where the elders concluded that "It was not good for a woman to be so particular in the choice of a mate". ¹

From the Fon ethnic group of Benin:

The price of giving false alarms: cautionary tales from three continents

From the Kamba ethnic group of Kenya:

A man named Ndothya would go out drinking every night. On his way home, just before reaching his house, he would call out to his wife Mbuti, yelling that a hyena was attacking him. His wife would come running with fire to drive off the hyena. Instead, she would find her drunk husband and no hyena.

One night, the man really did run into a hyena on the way home. He called for his wife, but Mbuti, thinking that it was one of her husband's usual lies, ignored him. Ndothya was bitten by the hyena.¹

From China:

The 8th century BCE King You of the Zhou dynasty was a debauched man. He divorced Queen Shen in order to install a beautiful lower-ranking consort, Bao Si, as queen in her place.

Now Bao Si had never smiled since the day she arrived at the king's palace. King You a offered thousand taels of gold to anyone who could make her laugh. The evil courtier Guo Shifu suggested lighting the alarm beacons that summoned the king's vassals to defend the capital in event of an attack.

King You did as Guo suggested. When Bao Si saw that the dukes and marquises of the vassal states had rushed to the capital with their armies only to find no threat, she started laughing. In this manner, King You made fun of his vassals multiple times.²

One day, the father of Queen Shen, angry at the way his daughter had been treated, attacked the capital with the military support of Quanrong nomads. The king tried to summon aid using the alarm beacons, but the vassal lords ignored him, thinking it was another trick. King You was killed by the Quanrong, who looted and burned his capital.³

Note that this story is probably more legend than history. Historical records have a different narrative of the conflict between the Lord of Shen (the deposed Queen's father) and King You. False alarms were not part of the historical account.⁴

From Greece:

The Boy Who Cried "Wolf"

Notes

1. "Ndothya and Hyena", East African Folktales, Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku
2. 烽火戏诸侯, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
3. Bao Si, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
4. Guo Shifu, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017

Who is calling you when you sneeze?

Interesting similarities in sneeze-related superstitions from Oceania, Africa and Europe:

Country: Solomon Islands

If you sneeze, someone is speaking badly of you, cursing you, or bidding his personal ghost to eat you.

What to do after sneezing: Summon your own personal ghost to counter-attack the person who cursed you.¹

Country: Nigeria

If you sneeze, someone is calling for you, possibly with evil intent.

What to do after sneezing: Tell the sneeze that you are not the only person with your name, in the hope that the sneeze will move on to look for its real target - another individual who has the same name.²

Country: Greece

If you sneeze, someone is talking about you, possibly someone who has cursed you by casting an evil eye on you.

What to do after sneezing: Spit thrice down your chest to ward off the effects of the evil eye. There are also ways to determine the identity of the person who was speaking of you.³

Banana tree spirits in Chinese and Southeast Asian oral tradition

Interesting similarities and differences between concepts of banana tree ghosts in various countries:

Pontianak/ Kuntilanak

Region: Malaysia/ Singapore/ Indonesia
Origin:
Ghosts of women who died during pregnancy, pontianaks are believed to reside in banana trees¹

Appearance and behavior:
A pontianak manifests as a white-skinned, long-haired woman. Dressed in white, she flies about in the night.² She can also take the appearance of a normal, attractive woman to entice men.³

The pontianak devours the organs of their victims.¹ Pontianaks also haunt pregnant women and cause miscarriages.⁴

Nang Tani

Region: Thailand
Origin:
A nature spirit that lives in Kluai Tani, a species of wild banana, she is also known as Phi (Ghost) Tani or Phrai (Nymph) Tani.⁵

Appearance and behavior:
Nang Tani manifests as a green-skinned young woman in green Thai traditional dress. She appears on full moon nights. Nang Tani is thought to be a gentle spirit that a man can summon through ritual to become his wife. But conjugal relations with her will drain a man's vitality.⁶

Ba Jiao Jing /Ba Jiao Gui (banana demon/ ghost)

Region:China
Origin:
One regional tale attributed this demon's origin to the grisly murder of a woman by bandits. Her parents buried her dismembered body under a banana tree.

Appearance and behavior:
The woman's vengeful spirit would leave the tree at night to suck the blood of her killers.⁷

Ba Jiao Jing can be summoned by tying a red string to the banana tree. According to rural oral lore, placing the other end of the string under the bedchamber window of one's enemy would lead the banana spirit to him. After nights of carnal relations with the blood-sucking demon, the man would wither and die.⁷

Modern accounts from Chinese communities in Southeast Asia tell of men blackmailing/ torturing banana tree spirits into divulging winning lottery numbers.⁸ Such acts by humans don't always go unpunished. Not all accounts of human-banana spirit relations are negative. Here are a couple of stories that provide a different take on banana spirits:

Part 1 of How NOT to Get a Wife: Stealing Wings

A recurring theme in myths and folktales from very different cultures is the earthly or mortal man acquiring a wife of non-human origin by stealing her property, deceptively withholding information from her or otherwise limiting her options. Four stories from Vanuatu, Philippines, China and Pakistan all share these elements:

• An earthbound or mortal man.
• Celestial women or fairies who come to earth to bathe.
• The man steals the wings/clothing of one of the women, preventing her from returning to the heavens.
• Lacking other options, she stays and becomes his wife.
• The wife eventually returns to her home.
• He finds a way to follow her. (Outcomes vary)

Parallel experiences in Kazakhstan and Navajo Land

While working on Ged the Goatherd, I looked at real world societies to help give form to the people of Gont in Ursula Le Guin's fantasy world of Earthsea

Did some reading on Kazakh people in Central Asia and the Dine (Navajo) people in North America and found interesting similarities in the history of these two very different regions:

Crossing the water on the backs of beasts

Filipino, Malaysian and Japanese tales about a small clever animal who tricks dangerous creatures into serving as its "bridge" :

Region	Small Trickster vs Big Predators	Tale
Malaysia	Mouse-deer tricks Crocodiles	Sang Kancil, startled by a crocodile on a river bank, talks his way out of danger by claiming to be taking a crocodile census on the order of the king. When the crocodiles line up on the surface of the water, Sang Kancil crosses to the other bank by hopping from one crocodile's back to another's.1,2 The animal kancil, pronounced 'kanchil', is also known as the lesser mouse-deer or lesser Malay chevrotain.3
Philippines	Mouse-deer tricks Crocodiles	Pilandok wanted to cross a deep river, so he calls out to the crocodiles, pretending that he needed to count them. After stepping across their backs to the other side, Pilandok mocks them and flees.4,5 The animal called pilandok is also known as the Philippine mouse-deer or the Balabac chevrotain.6
Japan	Hare tricks Wanizame	A hare wanted to cross from an island of Oki to Cape Keta, so it lied to a clan of wanizame about counting them to see whose clan was bigger.7 (Wanizame are variously interpreted as sharks, soft-shell turtles, or crocodiles.8) Although the hare managed to cross the sea by stepping on the backs of these creatures, the trickster of this tale fared much worse than its counterparts in Southeast Asia.9

Notes:

Henna Art from Around the World

Been listening to Rango, and their rendition of Henna Night is stuck in my head. :-) Hence the inspiration for this post:

henna-decorated foot in Morocco

henna-painted hands in India

Click thumbnails to view larger images on source pages.

Some African and Asian cultures that decorate brides (and, in some cases, grooms) with henna:

Cheetah Weeping

Inspired by the Zulu folktale concerning the origin of the black lines running down a cheetah's face from its eyes. These lines were the tear tracks of a mother cheetah weeping for her lost cubs. The young cheetahs had been stolen by a hunter who wanted to train them to hunt for him.

When the mother's grief came to the attention of an old man from the hunter's village, he informed the village elders of the hunter’s conduct. The villagers expelled the hunter. The old man returned the cheetah cubs to their mother, reuniting the family. But the tear tracks remained on the cheetah’s face as a reminder to hunters not to do wrong again.

The moral condemnation for keeping hunting cheetahs is certainly not universal. Listed here are a few (not all) of the peoples that had tamed cheetahs for hunting:

Sand painting in Asia and North America

Click thumbnails to view larger images on source pages.

Navajo sand painting

Indian kolam

Some cultures that practice impermanent sand painting:

Lattices (and other parallels between Qing-era China and Mughal-era India)

Inspired by latticework designs from China and Mughal India:

For beardless versions of these gentlemen, see Portrait of an Official and Portrait of a courtier. :-)

Some random (or not so random) parallels between the Qing period (1644-1912) in China and the Mughal period in India (1526-1857):

• Both dynasties were established by non-indigenous rulers:
  • The Mughal Dynasty was established on the Indian subcontinent by Turko-Mongols from Uzbekistan.¹
  • The Qing Dynasty was established in China by Jurchens from Manchuria (present-day Northeastern China).²
• The capitals of both the Qing and the Mughals experienced repeated slaughter of their populations, looting of cultural treasures and destruction of exquisite architecture:

Skull modification around the world

Arawe skull lengthening in Papua New Guinea 

Mangbetu skull elongation in DRC

The scifi illustration Through the Gate was inspired by elegant Mangbetu head shapes and hair-styles.

A (non-exhaustive) list of cultures that practiced head shaping for aesthetic or social reasons: