Ogion in the Valley of Yaved

Fanart for Usrula Le Guin's short story "The Bones of the Earth", collected in Tales From Earthsea.

The story takes place before the time of A Wizard of Earthsea. Ogion was in his 40s then.

Cultural inspirations used for envisioning Gontish clothing styles: Navajo, Tibetan, Uzbek, Kazakh. See earlier post for why these inspirations were chosen.

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

Mermaid series prints now available on Storenvy.com

See more prints on storenvy.com.

Cat in Chinese Rock Garden

Available on cushions, laptop skins and more products!

Inspired by Chinese garden rockeries.

Same-sex unions in Earthsea

An interesting excerpt from "A Description of Earthsea" in Ursula Le Guin's Tales from Earthsea :

"Women who work magic may practice periods of celibacy as well as fasting and other disciplines believed to purify and concentrate power, but most witches lead active sexual lives, having more freedom than most village women and less need to fear abuse. Many pledge "witch-troth" with another witch or with an ordinary woman. They do not often marry men, and if they do, they are likely to choose a sorcerer."

I wonder if this aspect of Earthsea was inspired by some Native American societies, considering that Le Guin's parents were anthropologists who studied Native Californians.

• Masahai, a 19th century shaman and witch of the Mohave Tribe (whose reservation is in California, Nevada and Arizona), was serially married to 3 women and also had male lovers.¹
• A report from the 1890s mentions a Quechan kwe'rhame (female-bodied person with non-cisgendered status) married to a woman. The Quechan live on Fort Yuma reservation in present day California and Arizona.²
• An anthropologist recorded reports of a lesbian couple among the Apache imprisoned at Fort Sill, Alabama in the late 19th century.³

For more on two-spirits in indigenous North America, check out NativeOut.com.

Notes:

Fantasy, Mythology and Folklore art inspired by Southeast Asia

Click below to view Illustrations, fine art, and graphic novels created by artists from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States:

Tehanu

Detail from "Therru's Star", Fanart for Ursula Le Guin's "Tehanu". The titular character Tehanu (aka Therru), is a survivor of horrific childhood abuse.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading "Tehanu". The pages provide continual reminders of the ever-present threat of rape and torture directed towards women of all ages and social circumstances: innocent children born into abusive families; young women who run away from home, only to run into abuse and exploitation; and middle aged widows whose only crime was to be female.

You don't have to read a fantasy novel to see stories like these. Just read the news from around the world.

On a more positive note, you don't have to read a fantasy novel to find people who triumphed over their experiences of childhood abuse. Here are some real life Tehanus. Some transcended their trauma and went on to impact the lives of many other people in a positive way. Some may be more controversial figures. But none of them allowed the rest of their lives to be defined by past victimhood. Like Tehanu, they became dragons, each in their own way :