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!

Epidemic Fairytale: Gay lovers move a god to intervene in a pestilence

A same-sex happily-ever-after story was recorded in Volume 29 of Canghai Shiyi (“Picking up things left in the blue sea”) a collection of stories and poems edited by 19th century scholar Lin Weicheng.

A Tale for the Year of the Tiger: Guardians of the Gingko Forest

The legend of a 3rd century doctor/social entrepreneur and a team of tigers :-)

The Black and White Impermanences: a queerplatonic bond that moved the King of the Underworld

Xie amd Fan were a pair of sworn brothers who died for love. Because of their dedication to each other, they were immortalized as the soul collectors that every human will face at the end of life.. 

Jade Hare manifests as genderfluid healer to battle epidemic

Last April, when I posted the old Beijing legend of Sir/Dame Hare stopping an epidemic, I didn't think that the pandemic would still be with us now. This illustration is dedicated to the non-binary and transgender healthcare workers, health officials, community organizers and frontline workers who are working hard to support our communities during this pandemic, often in the face of prejudice from an unappreciative society. Here are a few of them:

• Chennai's hijra community organized to distribute relief during COVID-19 lockdown
• Lorena Borjas, a community activist who spent decades advocating for immigrant transgender women in NYC, passed away from Covid 19 in March 2020. Before her passing, Lorena Borjas had started a fundraising campaign to support transgender people who had lost their incomes during the pandemic.
• Dr Rachel Levine, as Health Secretary of Pennsylvania, led the state's COVID-19 response.

Sir/Dame Hare: The gender-fluid deity who saved a city from an epidemic

The legend behind a Beijing custom dating back to before the 17th century:

"So it was said, in a certain year, a sudden epidemic swept through Beijing. Almost every household was struck, and there was no cure for the disease. [The moon deity] Chang' E saw what was happening, and being very grieved, she sent her companion the Jade Hare to Earth to heal the people.

Jade Hare transformed into a teenage girl, and went from house to house curing patients. The people, in their gratitude, offered many gifts to them, but Jade Hare wanted none of that. They only took from each household a set of clothing, changing their outfit each time they moved on to a new location. Sometimes they appeared as a man; sometimes they appeared as a woman.

To reach more people, Jade Hare rode on a horse, a deer, a lion and a tiger. They covered all of the capital and its suburbs. Jade Hare returned to the Moon Palace after the epidemic was eradicated.

From then on, people made clay idols of Jade Hare, some riding a deer, some riding a phoenix, some dressed in armor, some dressed as artisans and tradespeople. On the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, each household lays offerings of fruit, vegetables and legumes on the deity's altar, to thank them for bringing blessing and happiness to the human world. The people fondly address them as Sir Hare or Dame Hare."

A cartoon retelling of the legend. ("Sometimes it is a man, sometimes it is a woman")

Seydou

Detail from The Djinni's Tune.

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

Fantasy and mythology art inspired by the Middle East

Click image below to view Art from animation, book illustrations and graphic novels, produced by artists from diverse locales, including Turkey, Iran, Europe and North America:

The Djinni's Tune

Inspired by, but NOT claiming to be an accurate representation of, the story behind The River Tune from the album Segu Blue by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba.

According to the album literature, Bassekou Kouyate's ancestor, the griot Jelimusa Wulen Kouyate, met a djinni playing the ngoni on the bank of a branch of the Niger River. The griot asked the djinni for a gift: the instrument and the tune that the djinni was playing.

The supernatural adoptee in West African folklore

Those of you who have been reading the myths behind the last two illustrations probably noticed the similarities (and differences) between the story of the Pineapple Girl and the story of the Calabash Child. Both tales contain a childless couple, a magical child transmuted or transformed from plant material, a villain (or villains) who insults the child's non-human origins while the parents are away, setting off events that disrupt the once happy family. While reading up on these two tales, I came across other West African folktales that have a similar theme.

Calabash Child

Inspired by, but not claiming to be an authentic representation of, the Igbo/Ibo folktale The Calabash Child, retold by Buchi Offodile in "The Orphan Girl and Other Stories, West African Folk Tales".

 
Synopsis:

The diligent wife of a childless Igbo king (Eze) managed a farm. One day, she met a little girl among the calabashes that she cultivated. Before the queen's eyes, the child changed into a calabash and reverted back into human form. Delighted that her prayers for a child had been answered, the queen asked the child to accompany her back home. The child agreed on one condition: no one should ever call her a calabash child.

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

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

Li Ji Slays the Snake

The tale Li Ji Slays the Snake (a more literal translation of the title is Li Ji Cuts Down the Snake) appears in "In Search of the Supernatural", a collection of ancient folk legends compiled by Chinese historian Gan Bao (?-336 CE).

Translation of original text:

In the Minzhong region of Eastern Yue, there was a Yong Mountain spanning a few dozen li. On its northwestern face was a crevice, in which dwelt a large snake about 15 to 18 meters long and more than 10 spans in girth. The natives were accustomed to fearing it. Many of Dongzhi County's governors and the mayors of its cities had been killed by it.

People sacrificed oxen and sheep to the snake, but received no respite. The serpent appeared in dreams to people and revealed to witches and wizards that it wanted to eat girls of about 12-13 years of age. The county governor and his district officials were troubled by this. But the severity of the snake problem persisted. Together, they procured a house-born slave or the daughter of a criminal, keeping the girl until the 8th month, at which time they delivered the sacrificial victim to the mouth of the snake's cave. The snake would come forth and devour the victim.

This went on year after year, until 9 girls had been sacrificed. There came a time when they sought a sacrificial victim in preparation for the annual event, but failed to find a candidate. In the Jiangle District lived a Li Dan who had 6 daughters and no sons. His youngest daughter was named Ji.