https://www.youtube.com/embed/u_Y-KHvI1eg
foreign I really appreciate that so many of our patrons have complimented Casey's hard work on our videos that we're making now yes yeah we have been recording video of us recording the episodes and then we just send it to Casey wonderful Casey and she makes the funniest clips for us she's so good at it she's so talented and some people will recognize Casey's name because she's been on the podcast more than once she came on to talk about the Winchester Mystery House with me which because of Casey I walk around with the absolute audacity and the Winchester Mystery House comes up more living in California right right and so I just dropped these facts that are 100 brought to me by Casey yeah yeah my favorite thing that Casey does is always brings a fun twist to the episode so Winchester Mystery House she pretended in the beginning that it was all absolutely 100 definitely ghosts and then broke it down for the next episode she did the Headless Horseman and she ranked them on how hot they were um the hot Headless Horseman the hot pumpkins so I'm really grateful that people are finding her humor as funny as we do yeah we should bring back the hot Pumpkins this Halloween rating fictional figures based on how hot and spooky they are yeah okay as we start covering spooky figures we'll we'll decide how hot they are very different opinion so I'm curious to see where you and I land ooh interesting I feel like sometimes we align so closely and other times we're on opposite ends of the hot pumpkin Spectrum speaking of hot pumpkins I was grocery shopping at midnight as everyone knows I do and the pumpkin spice creamer the non-dairy like I think it's by Silk or whoever came out like two weeks ago and it was restocked at midnight I bought three of them I would have bought more but there were only four on the shelf and I was like I will leave one one for someone else I've had a couple friends come over and be like that's a lot of creamer I imagine it amongst a mostly empty fridge with like ketchup and creamer how dare you be correct rejecting with my own fridge looks like I added an expired thing of like strawberries and that's my fridge oh my fridge is definitely Beverages and sauces only I have beverages I have I have to frequently just be like I want a fun drink and then I look like okay water is my fun drink I didn't plan well we gotta get you those Crystal Light packets that just live in the back of the pantry until yeah you cannot possibly ignore them any longer and they become a little bit solid yeah I used to use the liquid IB ones but they're just it's just pure sugar I love those and it I I live under the illusion that they do make me more hydrated they do help my headaches I will give them that yes oh a hundred percent uh not sponsored by liquid IV but if God I wish we were hi hello Daddy liquid IV Oh Daddy between one sentence and the next the liquid IV representative changed their mind absolutely I really meant for us hard Tracy you ruined nothing let me ruin this conversation hi I'm Rowan Hall and I'm Tracy Harrison and this is willing and Fable the podcast that brings you original retellings and in-depth research on the history mystery and mythology that makes the world so fascinating each week we research a topic from history or mythology and then we write an original story to go along with that topic so if you'd like to support our show you can think about becoming a patron you can find us at patreon.comwilling and Fable we have tons of fun parks including joining our favorite place on the internet the willing and fabled Discord Channel and a huge huge thank you to our blush of new patrons we've had so many fun people joining us over the last little bit so welcome to Irene d song J Morgan V Cassidy W Mark D and Lee B we are so gosh darn happy to have you truly truly happy to have you everyone in the Discord is so much fun you all know I love talking to everyone on Discord but also the patrons are the reason we get to do things like pay Casey to make videos for us and improve our equipment so because of you guys the show is just getting better and better and we thank you so much for that yeah we absolutely could not have a podcast without you so so thank you so much for joining our little willing and Fable family we we adore you and um if you are listening to us while you sleep we're tucking you in it in bed gently and lovingly the reason I specifically bring up the tucking people in is because we ask for it and we got it Mark D emailed us to say that they listened to us while they're falling asleep truly that makes me so happy because like I said it before I only listened to podcasts that I really like to fall asleep because I have to be engaged enough to then distract myself to fall asleep it's like when you watch TV and fall asleep so for us to be the ones that tuck people in as they fall asleep is so flattering we are worthy direct quote worthy of being on the playlist that they use to fall asleep they said that they sometimes saved the really spooky ones for daytime which I totally relate to as a person that researches them in the middle of the night yeah and and they also said that they listen to them again the next day oh they have joined the elite crew of also my mother who listens to us to fall asleep I love that like counting up in in listens thanks for doing it not once but twice you're a gem or if you want to support our show you can buy the scariest looking book you can find at your local bookstore read it and then tell us all about it but no matter what we're happy to have you here tell us about it only during the day time I really just want to make people give us spooky book reports you mean like we do most of the time yeah hey if someone wanted to give us a spooky book report or even just like a light review I would be so up for it same absolutely of course so what is your I think actually non-spooky book report this week yes my book report this week is not spooky at all I am covering Nana buloku also known as Nana buruku nanabuku or nanan boklo she is the female Supreme Being in the West African traditional religion of the Thon people and the ewe people so she is this mother goddess Supreme figure I know nothing about her and you've been pulling out these episodes where I know nothing and it's so fun because I'm basically an audience member at this point I didn't know anything about her I I did some research on possible topics and her name came up a few times and I was like you know what I don't know anything about West African religion mythology let's change that so I dove into this topic today I think that's actually worth pointing out because we haven't said it outright in a while this podcast 100 exists because we choose a thing we want to learn about and then we share what we've learned um I think it's maybe easy for people to forget that we are learning and are not experts really on anything in the world I'm not an expert on the one and only language I speak I'm not really an expert at walking I run into things all the time like there's no it's it's all enthusiasm and reading yes absolutely so we're gonna learn about Nana buloku today she's also called nanabuku among the Yoruba people and the oliso buluwa among Igbo people but she's described differently among different groups so some actively worshiping her While others don't worship her but they do worship the gods that she birthed interesting I know it's it we'll get into the religion but it's definitely a religion of hierarchies is said to have created the universe and given birth to the Moon and the Sun the moon is known as the divine feminine Spirit mawu and the Sun is the Divine masculine Spirit Lisa according to the Encyclopedia of African religions quote the vodan religion of Buffon people has four overlapping elements public Gods personal or private gods ancestral spirits and magic or charms in this traditional religion of West Africa creation starts with a female Supreme Being called nanabuaku who gave birth to mauu and Lisa and created the universe end quote so if it's a vote on religion presumably unless they are are practicing differently it is a religion that practices fetishism like we talked about in our haunted dolls episode yes and as you've talked about in your episode on vodu this is where most of that comes from oh don't you just love it when the episodes connect I got so excited and we'll dive into it but this is the origin of a lot of things you see in other religions especially in South America and the Caribbean that makes sense in many folk songs and tales that give an account of her story nanabuluku retired after her hard work and left the world in the hands of her twin children mawu and Lisa to date because of this account many traditional societies fear and respect twins especially those that come as a boy and a girl Tracy I fear and respect you thank you I wish someone would I've been saying it all these years I mostly respect you I only fear you when the anxiety is bad okay I can understand that I fear and respect you too all right so in the Fawn belief the feminine deity mawu had to work with the trickster legba and the snake Ida huedo to create living beings a method of creation that imbued The Good The Bad and The Destiny for every creature including human beings the soul is called the mawusei the mauu within a person and at first small we made people out of clay but after running short she began to make them out of reused bodies hence why we can see resemblances in different people oh that's so cool isn't that so cool oh I got so excited when I was reading about that that's just such a good detail and not when you see very often no it's always like clay clay is infinite or mud or you know usually Earth something right also let's talk about for a moment why it humans all across the world have been so insistent that we come from the earth and the gods come from the sky well yeah and the same thing of uh often the deity associated with the sun is male and the Moon is female there's so much in what you've said so far that resembles so many stories from around the world yes it's I find it so fascinating when I was researching this how many times I've seen similar Concepts come up but that was a really unique one the idea that she reused bodies which means certain people look more like each other it's just so visual it's so visual in like one sentence you can imagine this goddess creating people and the the moment that she runs out and how she figures it out oh I love mythology I do too so in font theology only by appeasing lesser deities and legba can one change their Destiny because remember you are born with good bad and a destiny inside of you this appeasing requires rituals and offerings to the Lesser gods and ancestral spirits who are believed to have the ability to do favors for the human beings so you interact at different levels with the different gods and they go all the way up to mawu and Lisa as kind of these Supreme Beings so we're gonna move on and talk more about the vote on religion itself voting cosmology centers around the vodan spirits and other elements of Divine Essence that govern the Earth these Spirits form a hierarchy that ranges in power from major deities governing the forces of nature and Human Society to the small spirits of individual streams trees and rocks as well as dozens of ethnic rodent Defenders of certain Clans tribes or nations again this Probably sounds similar to when you talked about in episode 11 on Baron samity yeah I mean the truth of the history is that when people were taken from Africa and enslaved and brought to America of course they brought their religion with them and these practices grew and some stayed the same and some changed and some stayed mostly the same with tweaks so like the name legba is familiar because Papa legba exists in American vodu or vodan practices yeah and we will dive into the impact that the transatlantic slave trade had on these religions you're so prepared thank you oh thanks so the voden are the center of religious life perceived similarities with Roman Catholic doctrines such as the intercession of saints and Angels allowed vodan to appear compatible with Catholicism and helped produce syncretic religions such as Haitian voodoo vodin represents a religious syncreticism which is the blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system or the incorporation of beliefs from unrelated Traditions into a religious tradition this can occur for many reasons and happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious Traditions exist in proximity to each other and actively function in the culture however it can also occur when a culture is conquered and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them but they do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or especially the old practices I think it's easy for Americans to forget at least Americans kind of where we grew up that like I mentioned talking about the fetish Market in the haunted dolls episode people would go to the market and shop for these fetish items for their personal practices regardless of their religion it specifically said in the article from the guardian regardless of their religion because it is very possible to blend things from all sorts of belief systems into a communities practice or your own personal and when you have a culture like American culture that's very indoctrinated in a religion that says you know no other gods before me it's very easy to forget and also it is the presence of saints that causes a lot of people to say no Catholicism is polytheistic not monotheistic that's a big discussion it is because of the idea of idol worship adherence of vodin also emphasized the importance of ancestor worship and hold that the spirits of the Dead live side by side with the world of the living each family of spirits having its own female priesthood sometimes hereditary when it's from mother to blood daughter the queen mother is the first daughter of a matriarchal lineage of a family Collective she holds the right to lead the ceremonies incumbent to the clan marriages baptisms and funerals she is one of the most important members of the community she will lead the women of the village when her family is the ruling one meanwhile priestesses take part in the organization and the running of markets and are also responsible for their upkeep this is vitally important because marketplaces are the focal point for gathering in Social centers and communities in the past when the men of the villages would go to war the queen mothers would lead prayer ceremonies in which all the women attended every morning to ensure the safe return of their men folk how cool is that I know I'm sitting here going oh if I like say how cool I think this is it's probably gonna sound saccharine but yeah we live in a patriarchal society where it is so hard for so many women especially women of color to just get basic respect so sitting here hearing you say this talking about women's roles that are powerful but respected I'm just sitting here like oh my God that sounds amazing it's amazing these women are the ones that lead and take charge and run the community and it's a respected position and it is passed down from mother to daughter you so rarely see matriarchal anything in what we research Yeah Yeah the more modern it is the more European American you just don't see it as much pre-christian religions usually you just have to go back a little further even then it's hit or miss on how well the women are treated really depends but in this case The High Priestess is the woman chosen by the Oracle to care for the convent priestesses like priests receive a calling from an oracle which may come at any moment during their lives they will then join their Clan's Convent to pursue spiritual instruction it is also an oracle that will designate the future high priest and high priestess among the new recruits establishing an order of succession within the convent only blood relatives were allowed in the family Convent strangers were forbidden in modern days however some family members enter what is described as the first circle of worship strangers are allowed to worship only the spirits of the standard Pantheon so it's pretty closed religious practice that makes sense in the way that it's structured and with it being so family based it makes a lot of sense patterns of vote and worship follows various dialect Spirits practices songs and rituals the Divine Creator variously called mawu or mahu is a female being she is an elder woman and usually a mother who is gentle and forgiving she is also seen as the God who owns all other gods and even if there is no Temple made in her name the people continue to pray to her especially in times of distress in one tradition she bore seven children the vodun of the earth voden of Thunder also associated with Divine Justice the vodun of the Sea vodun of iron and War vodun of Agriculture and forests voting of air and finally the vodun of the unpredictable I feel like it went really clear-cut through most of those and like got it thunder Earth Justice war and then unpredictable I like that one it feels like their way of becoming a mischief a little Mischief fella yeah I do too it's Trace it's clear-cut the clear-cut thing is just no predictions allowed yeah yeah never let them know what you're doing so let's talk about mawu and Lisa after creating the Earth in all life and everything else on it Nana buloku became concerned that it might be too heavy so she asked the Primeval serpent Ido huedo to curl up beneath the Earth and thrust it up into the sky when she asked away a monkey she had also created to help out and make some more animals out of clay he boasted to the other animals and challenged mawu gabadu the first woman mabu had created saw all the chaos on Earth and told her children to go out among the people and remind them that only mawu can give secpoli the Breath of Life gabadu instructed her daughter Monona to go out amongst the people and teach them about the use of palm kernels as Omens from mawu when are we the Arrogant monkey climbed up to the Heavens to try to show mauu that he too could give life he failed miserably made him a bowl of porridge with the seed of death in it and reminded him that only she could give life and she could also take it away oh yeah it's pretty Savage that whole story is just women supporting women it is right it starts out with her saying the Nana buluca says the world is too heavy let me give it to my kids after I have a snake lifted up in the air hey monkey why don't you go make other animals and he got all arrogant and then the first woman was like okay kids go fix this and the monkey's like I'm gonna be even more arrogant and Mamu was like actually I'm gonna give you the seed of death the best part is for me it's a metaphor and like build up other women because Maui was like I'm gonna make a woman I'm gonna build her up literally from the earth and then she passed it along it's the gift that keeps on giving support other women feed monkeys the seed of death wait that's not a part of the metaphor that's not what we're supposed to be learning yeah that's Mama we'll let Mom while we'll handle that but your job is to support other women it's ice cold it's such a good move it's a good move according to Oxford reference quote Nana buloku is the supreme god and the Divine couple mawu and Lisa oh its existence to this archaic androgyny it was she who prefabricated the universe leaving her two successors the task of its completion to mawu the woman was given command of the night to Lisa the man command of the day mawu therefore is the moon and inhabits the West while Lisa is the Sun and inhabits the east at the time their respective domains were assigned to them no children had yet been born to this pair though at night the man was in the habit of having a rendezvous with the woman and eventually she bore him offspring this is why when there is an eclipse it is said that the celestial couple are engaged in love making end quote which again such a fun story for why there are eclipses good for them truly pretty rare though moon eclipse and sun eclipse are two different kinds still yeah sorry Maui and Lisa maybe maybe there's something about like a new moon or something I have to We're just trying we're like trying to give them more we're like come on you guys spice up your lovely right there's a a proverb of sorts that says when Lisa punishes mawu forgives uh he's definitely the like fiery passionate son and she's the forgiving calm Moon that is not how I experience Womanhood personally yet honestly not also how I experience day and night um does is night when your rage comes out yeah I guess I guess night is when it's I I feel to me night feels harsher but it also depends like think about where this is happening this is happening on the western coast of Africa so the sun being extremely hot and severe does make sense yes I have been known to say with great frequency anything that could happen during the day could happen at night and be better yes that is something I've heard you say many times writes that that Dahomey now been in Republic is the same spiritual principle or entity as ODU DOA also known as Olu adawa among the Nago and the Yoruba of Nigeria so this concept is not just for the fun people it's amongst many different other types of groups but like I said earlier sometimes it's a little bit different with different names or different ways the hierarchy is structured sometimes you don't even worship nanabulaku or Mawa you would worship more of the lower rung deities and other ones you worship them directly so let's get into the kind of complicated nature of Mamu and Lisa because you'll often see him described as mawulisa as kind of one entity that's because this is the Supreme entity it's seen as a complementary sexual pair that is merged into one force and is referred to as mawu that is God in a general sense among the Fawn of dahome and the ewe of Ghana and Togo among the Fawn The Cult of Maui Lisa was centered in abomay the capital of the Old Kingdom of tahome U is depicted as an elder female figure in conjunction with Lisa a younger male consort other complementary qualities are seen in them for example whereas Maui is associated with the moon and is cool gentle and forgiving leases associated with the sun and his hot Fierce and punitive sometimes even their actions are complementary in one Mythic tradition mawu created the Earth and then retired to the heavens when she saw that things were not going well with men she sent Lisa to make tools and clear the forest so that men could farm and live a civilized life it's important to know that the duality of mauu and Lisa is more important in their depiction than their sexuality they are defined by their Unity admits Duality more than their gender or sexuality when mauu and Lisa are seen separately which they occasionally are it's only Lisa who becomes a separate deity that is worshiped like all other vodun Lisa has shrines priests and priestesses as well as rituals dedicated to him thus the add-ups of Lisa are known as lisasi wives of Lisa conversely there is no separate vodun called mawu who was worshiped and has shrines priests and priestesses and rituals dedicated to her really yeah okay when the two are combined into one it's sometimes called maolisa but it's also very often just called mawu and that is recognized as the combination of the two when split apart Lisa gets his own identity but Maui was always the Supreme Being got it and the Supreme Being is only in combo yes and no because there isn't mauu without Lisa got it okay the renovo duncy add-ups of the vodun known as mawusi people do bear the name mawusi among the Fawn but it's pronounced differently as to mean all power belongs to mawu since Maui Lisa is viewed as a two-in-one force The Entity then is known as mawu and it's all other vodun or divinities who are worshiped as they are the ones who intervene for humans with mawu which is why again you see that hierarchy if you scroll down a little bit Rowan I have a beautiful piece of art here by Cynthia St James it's a painting titled maulisa dual deity of creation oh this is fantastic so this is a modern piece of artwork and it is bright Rich colors I want to say true colors and by that I mean just making up phrases apparently but I mean like you cannot see the blending happening on the canvas or the digital art or what have you it is like this space is this color fully saturated and it is a the figure of Lisa so masculine looking looking at the figure of mawu feminine and she has uh what I would presume to be like a scarf tied up around her head and he has kind of a squared off at the top hat and they are both dressed in these garments they look like robes by the way they're flowing around the piece but it could just be this just flowing movement of them it's very abstract piece for sure yeah and I really like there are basically dozens and dozens of little differently colored shapes making up both of their garments and it looks like they are both blending together and very separate beings it's it's good the motion of this piece like what causes you to move your eye around the space is is my favorite part personally it's really beautiful and I love specifically the Maui's in front and your eye trails along her figure to the back where Lisa is yeah and she has kind of what could be arms that like clasp and flow in the middle or it could just be the gesture of her clothing on her it's really intriguing yeah if you want to see this you can find it on our Instagram so now that we've talked about mawu Lisa and Nana buloku it is time for my original story this week amazing I am primordial I am nothing I am everything I am mother I am father I am life and I am death I was around before anything existed I was there at the beginning and I watched as the universe crashed into existence clumsy and new and I stood by and breathed in the Stardust from their explosions for Millennia I watched as each and every star was born grew lived and died without ever knowing me I was everywhere I was everything and I was alone at first the loneliness was a small aching thing it lived somewhere deep inside of me and rarely showed its face But as time solidified itself into reality I felt it's a facts weigh on me time was born after me but it would control me as it did all other things and so gracious as I am I bowed my head towards its power and let the waves of time crash over me as it does all things but in doing so I allow that aching feeling to grow time feeds loneliness like a mother feeds her babe and there's nothing so delicious or destructive in all the universes the wear and tear of time on a soul and so the ache inside me began to grow into this dull throbbing thing there was a need inside of me that I could not seem to fill and what shocked me most of all is that it hurt no longer was it a dull distant feeling that I could ignore now it was a painful and angry need something clawing at my insides demanding to be seen commanding my undivided attention I was beholden to this feeling and there was nothing else in the world that mattered it screamed at me you are alone in this world there is no one else like you in all of existence you want for something you cannot possibly have and yet the aching need for it is eating you alive time it seemed in her infinite and unknowable wisdom had given me a gift and a curse I was aware of the changing and malleable nature of the universe but I was alone to experience its beauty I trailed my hand across the dust and Ice of a nebula shaping and twisting the clouds into forms I imagined all sorts of new creatures in this way trailing stars in the shape of a horse or a tree or even a child the universe was my Symphony and I was merely the conductor I lost myself in the music of it all the push and the pull and the rhythm of the universe did you know that the Universe has its own song it lives and breeds and thrives to a rhythm that only few can hear but it's out there moving and changing and flowing to that ever-present beat and that music is a cacophony of perfection I moved in a daze something inside of me taking control as my hands pushed and pulled and formed a new world into existence it was not that I was out of control but more that something else took control of me I was a tool through which the universe put its plan into motion I was the conduit for creation and so it was through me that the Universe gave birth to the Sun and the Moon new and writhing and forming a shape all their own I watched exhausted and elated as my children became real and my Lisa my moon and my son with shaking hands I reached out and touched their perfect faces I would not change a single thing about them they were the two most perfect things to ever exist in the universe to look upon them was to feel the joy of a thousand stars burning in exhilaration at something new that was the moment I realized that the overwhelming aching need that once lived inside me had been replaced by a world-shattering sort of love it was the kind of love that would burn down the sky just to keep my children warm for the night the sort of universe altering love that a parent has for their child even the Stars envied what I had created I held my children close to me whispering to them the secrets of the universe I laughed at their joy and I cried at their sadness I taught them about life and death and all the things that happened in between I gave them all the tools I had kissed them atop their perfect heads and I sent them out into the world I was always there however in the background ready with a kind word or a stern lecture if needed but I had done my part my role in this story was over I was nothing and then I became everything and now it was my children's turn to become gods and gods they became I love what you did creating the voice of this God in the horror genre the way she operates in your story would liken her to like an Eldritch Horror something that you cannot understand that is unfathomable but you presented it in this soft loving way and it's so intriguing to me the fact that time was born after her and she allows it to affect her and then she begins speaking in song which you know is the art of time you did such an excellent job thank you I really I struggled I sat down I was like what am I gonna write for the story I can't figure out how I want to translate everything that I've learned do I do something modern do I do a story from her point of view do I do it from do I retell a myth of mawu and Lisa how do I want to do this and then the second I sat down the words I am promoted primordial I am everything I was nothing like all of that just flowed out and from there it was just like she told her story through me I like the whole part of I was the conduit for creation just came from how I was feeling when writing that story because I know you and how you research and how you think about things I can see the way everything you've read affected the story you wanted to tell I like opportunities where we get to try to understand the way a god might perceive the universe and People based on what we know about their Pantheon that's especially intriguing to me so I'm really glad that you did that especially because as you pointed out so much of her existence I guess is like understanding her children right I really wanted to capture the feeling of uh how how loneliness can start so small and so unnoticed and as time goes on it can grow into this painful thing that you you can't ignore and I wanted to to capture that feeling and then also translate how um the just the love that a parent has for their child and a fraction of it that I felt when my nephews were born and I just looked at them and was like they are the most perfect things I've ever seen and wanting because she is this mother Supreme goddess she is known as the one that created everything wanting to really capture that undying love that translates from her all the way through to the people who worship her isn't that just the way of it I think it could be phrased either way depending on how you look at it but either isn't that just how people create Gods to interpret things or isn't that just how people interact with the gods and based on what they need just trying to experience and understand our own Humanity through these figures that are so much larger read it again Tracy's like absolutely not no I absolutely not you can hear rewind and listen to it again so we're going to move on to America and talk about how this religion came over to South America nanabulaku is well represented in the Caribbean islands Haiti and Suriname after surviving the Atlantic slave trade and passing from generation to generation among enslaved people who were taken there she's also very present in South American communities such as Cuban Santeria and in Brazil where she celebrated as Nana in Brazilian kendomble where her image Still Remains as a very old woman and the mother of creation candombe is the result of African and Brazilian cultures blending after the slave trade it is still a very vibrant and thriving religious practice today so I have a picture here for you Rowan of Nana buloku as depicted in kendomley and this is pretty much how she's depicted in many many images in a very similar fashion to what you see here oh okay so there is a solid Periwinkle background and this woman is standing just in the middle of a solid background and she's wearing this very highly decorated dress so the first layer is floral it's white with the periwinkle flowers and then the next kind of layer that goes Midway down is these Periwinkle and indigo and violet stripes and then there's ribbons with bows and then her top is a different floral pattern and she has a I think maybe a bow on the back of a like hat it has kind of the shape you'd think of with maybe like the top of a chef's hat in that it is Fabric and it is allowed to kind of like Billow and then Trace do you know what she's holding in her hand I don't I I think it might be wheat or sugar cane but I can't tell from this message it's a bundle it's golden it's wrapped up and it's hooked at the end and then she has these things on her forearms that like if you were going into battle they'd be bracers but I don't actually know what they are her in this shape of this kind of Half Moon shaped dress is very common and um her depiction is like an older woman a little bit um like she's not usually depicted as like a frail older woman it's very much like a very comforting motherly figure like I just want to hug this woman you know she gives the best hugs she does look very huggable you know when huggable people clearly either purposefully or it's just like in them that they wear clothing that is also huggable mm-hmm so let's take a look at how and why these cultures merged and to do that we need to look back at the transatlantic slave trade the transatlantic slave trade was the longest long-distanced forced movement of people in recorded history from the 16th to the late 19th centuries over 12 million though some estimates run as high as 15 million African men women and children were enslaved transported to the Americas and bought and sold primarily by European and euro-american slaveholders as cattle property used for their labor and skills according to the UN quote the Caribbean was at the core of the crime against humanity induced by the transatlantic slave trade and slavery some 40 percent of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Caribbean islands which in the 17th century surpassed Portuguese Brazil as the principal market for enslaved labor the sugar plantations of the region owned and operated primarily by English French Dutch and Spanish and danish colonists consumed black life as quickly as it was imported critically the Caribbean was where chattel slavery took its most extreme judicial form in the instrument known as the slave code which was first instituted by the English and Barbados passed in 1661 this comprehensive law defined Africans as quote heathens and brutes not fit to be governed by the same law as Christians the legislators proceeded to Define Africans as non-human a form of property to be owned by purchasers and their heirs forever the slave code went viral across the Caribbean and ultimately became the model applied to slavery in the North American English colonies that would become the United States end quote whenever we explore world religions you and I always end up uncovering how beliefs moved around because of War famine General human movement and in this case the slave trade and it is so eye-opening to see the way that people interacted with their gods based on what they needed because of how poorly other people were treating them yeah and it's it's really interesting to see how these cultures came and moved and how people clung onto the religion and the gods and and translated that into a new form of communicating that experience once they got to the Caribbean islands especially when religions are forced to become secretive as you pointed out earlier vote on practices often could Blend or operate under the radar in Catholic societies because it was easy to say oh well it's really just this Catholic saint and we see that um sometimes in Irish cultures we talked about it in our brownie episode I think just a little bit but when people need to make their own religious practices covert it is just one small piece of how people need to bury their own identities yes absolutely and and to see it power through and come out the other side where they're enabled to bring those religions back to life I think it's something we're seeing a lot more and and it's it's good to see that not everything has been lost yeah it's generational and learning about a religion that is fundamentally based in generational practice seeing how entire generations of people were murdered and then how that practice a not only continues to exist but has adapted to Modern the modern world is just I hate to say a testament to human endurance because that it's just such a pathetic sentence for what actually had to happen I get the mentality behind it I also understand the feeling of it doesn't capture the the horror that occurred for them to have endured there just aren't words for it but the the sentiment of the religion surviving through that and coming out the other side and people still getting to embrace their culture and their Heritage is is something that's really you know it's a small good thing amongst a the greatest tragedy imaginable it's especially interesting hearing you talk about this what you've learned while I am also reading a lot about the way Americans over extended periods of time have willingly sacrificed their own personal beliefs to kind of take on the larger identity of what is American and what is American is fundamentally white male and Christian and yes the dichotomy of being forced to sacrifice what you believe and choosing I don't want to either willingly or unwillingly kind of adopting or casting aside is is very frustrating and similar and distinctly different ways so estimates vary widely but most Scholars agree that native Caribbean populations exceeded several million before contact and declined rapidly perhaps as much as 90 in some places within the first century after European arrival 90 in a hundred years yes horrible Warfare accounted for some of this decline but the primary cause was the unintentional introduction of pathogens like influenza and smallpox to name only two so facing an insufficient indigenous labor Supply Europeans began to import African laborers through the transatlantic slave trade a significant African descended population is another feature of the Caribbean over the long course of the slave trade slave Merchants delivered more than 4 million Africans to the Caribbean these populations led the growth of multi-racial societies in the region many of which have hybrid African European indigenous cultural traits now Rowan I can't put it any better than they do so I'm gonna go on with another quote from the same un article it's funny I was thinking that the person who wrote it did a really great job laying it all out in the previous quote it was a really good article and this quote in particular dives into the lasting impacts of the slave tree that is still felt in the Caribbean today quote there are concerns regarding the standard markers of economic underdevelopment such as widespread illiteracy endemic hunger systemic child abuse inadequate Public Health Facilities primitive Communications infrastructure widespread slum dwelling and chronically low enrollment and student performance at all levels of the education system the Caribbean has the lowest youth enrollment in higher education in the hemisphere an indication of the hostility to popular education under colonialism that is resilient in recent public policy extreme social and racial inequality is a legacy of slavery in the region that continues to haunt and hinder the development efforts of regional and Global institutions colonialism has persisted for over a century after the ending of formal slavery leaving black communities to deal with economic Despair and the emerging political class to clean up the inherited Colonial disarray black slavery was a modern form of racial plunder and the obvious consequences of this economic extraction are seen in structural underdevelopment the Caribbean is home to some of the most economically and socially exploited people of modernity before the arrival and Devastation of the covid-19 pandemic the Caribbean region was buckling under the strain of proliferating chronic non-communicable diseases the rate of increase in the occurrence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension within the adult population mostly people of African descent was galloping this other pandemic is discussed in terms of the racist culture of colonialism in which the black population is generally considered addicted to foods containing high levels of sugar and salt it is frequently observed that 60 of the black population in the region over the age of 60 years is Afflicted with type 2 diabetes and hypertension Jamaica and Barbados the two historic Giants of Plantation sugar production and slavery now struggle to avoid amputations that are often necessitated by medical complications resulting from uncontrolled management of these diseases it is for these and related reasons that the Caribbean has emerged as an epicenter of the global Repertory Justice movement its campaign for reparations for the crimes of slavery and colonialism has served as a template for the global South in Seeking a Level Playing Field for development within the international economic order and quote it's wild to me that you just mentioned diabetes and hypertension because I was just listening to uh documentary where they were talking about communities that have in their history racial groups at one point in their history have experienced salmon or starvation so it could be like the Irish Potato Famine was one example that they used right and how that related to colonialism um not specifically the Caribbean but locations like this now Generations later the children that were born during this time their bodies adapted to deal with famine and their children's children and on and on and on and now when there is no famine they develop these diseases because even still their bodies are adapted to deal with famine and that is why craving things like sugar and salt is especially Insidious because four generations your body is saying we are going to starve like you have to give me these things now and that's yeah a very physical example of generational trauma absolutely there's the other side of it too sugary salty foods are cheap cheap they're so cheap they're easy to make McDonald's is cheap the fast food that you get at the grocery store the fact like it's all so much cheaper so much more affordable to eat healthy to eat organic to eat in whatever way that dietitians will say is the most healthy it's expensive it's really expensive and it's not even always available to everyone let alone affordable so the combination of those of course you're leaving these people with nowhere to go for help and then you have poor medical infrastructure so when they need the help they can't get it it's just it's systemically putting them down well it's it's a food swamp what they're describing and that's a term so a lot of people know what a food desert is it's an area where you can't find healthy nutritious food let alone often any food that is easy to get in the way you can just pop over to a grocery store um a food swamp is an area where only unhealthy foods are available and or affordable so very often you're in affluent gentrified communities in the U.S and you see Whole Foods and you see sprouts and kind of all these places that are known for having very nutritious fruits vegetables your classic food pyramid and then you go to areas that are more impoverished or less developed usually statistically black latino that have easy access only to very processed foods absolutely and not to mention the inherent assumption that you have the time to cook the healthy foods a lot of people have to work two or three jobs just to survive you're not also going to then take an hour two hours every night just to cook a very healthy meal for in your family when you can put something in the oven for 30 minutes and have food for everyone it's just the most realistic option and it's not a laziness Thing by any means it is a time management thing trying to get by and that's missed a lot when you see a lot of the like white influencers like here's my five to nine for my nine to five my healthy lifestyle healthy this like that is a privilege that you get to have that and recognizing that you have the time to do that and that time doesn't have to translate directly into dollars because of your circumstances yeah I think social media like Instagram really tries to ascribe this morality to food that is like what should make you feel guilty what should not there is no morality like that but between one food and the next and that you should feel guilty for having a cookie that is not how Food Works that is not what morality is there is a lot of morality that is put on food when people try to say that the infrastructure that keeps people poor I can't I don't know if you and I just talk about this all the time off podcast or if we talk about it all the time on podcast I can't discern anymore I truly can either always talking because we're always almost always talking over a video screen anyway so it's like what was what were we recording when that video screen was on or weren't we I don't remember I'm glad that you brought this up it's so frustrating to see this these effects are so long term in that it's spanning generations and yet it hasn't been that long and no living in both of those realities at the same time is not as mind-bending as it should be maybe and whenever people talk about specifically sugar and the slave trade I always think of the shelleys as in Mary Shelley of Frankenstein Fame and how they gave up eating sugar because you know they said this is immoral food morality slavery think about that one that this is immoral we shouldn't be supporting this and everyone in their Community affluent British laughed at them scoffed right said it was a ridiculous behavior and for some reason that always sticks into my mind because that isn't I think the only example I have of a figure that I feel like I know from history acknowledging the way that's specifically sugar but capitalism affected the slave trade and that they were responsible for it on a daily level yes it in real time having that reaction so rare in in the moment in the history or perhaps I I just don't encounter it but I think of that all the time yeah so if you want to learn more about everything we just talked about you can check out the UN article in our show notes titled the legacy of slavery in the Caribbean and the journey towards Justice Rowan the last thing I have for you here is an image from the Arc of return the permanent Memorial honoring the victims of slavery in the transatlantic slave trade located at the UN headquarters in New York it was put up in March of 2015.
oh interesting do you have any idea how big this is no I couldn't find details I imagine it's on a big wall but it looks like it's on a big marble wall when you walk in so it's top looking down blueprint style of a ship shape so you know you're looking at the interior and it is the relief carvings into the marble of human bodies just every single possible space that could be filled is filled with people just laying end to end it's really haunting it's really impactful and it is technically such a simple image in that it doesn't have very many parts and pieces but it's it does the trick yes so this image as well will be on our Instagram if you want to get a good look at it so knowing what you know about mythology being like 91 episodes in and you and I having these discussions and being able to point to episodes where we've touched on these topics and see point to other world religions that have similarities can you talk about how frustrating it was for you to try to research this and get information because you and I talked multiple times about this specifically I was really concerned at one point I'd have to scrap this episode because I just could not get enough information and then I got very indignant because that's exactly the kind of episode that I want to do one where there isn't a lot of information and and put that information out into the world so there was no way I was going to scrap this episode but I did want to figure out how I can get enough information and accurate information to everyone and Rowan Rowan had to listen to me rant and Rave because I search in every way I knew how to find information about votin and nanabulaku and Maui and Lisa specifically they were the ones I really wanted to focus on and it's that example we see when we talk about myths of color where there's one source of information and every other website has just copied and pasted that one source of information that unfortunate reality where there is even less information than you were able to find for this episode has stopped us dozens and dozens of times from being able to do episodes and sometimes that's why we cover multiple Topics in an episode it's there are a lot of closed practices in the world where people have every right to keep their practice closed there are so many people in the world working to put information out about the smallest handful of religious groups uh Community all of that I I just want to grab experts and be like hey could you just please write an article so that we can know what you know so we can so everyone can just have an idea because over the course of these 90 odd episodes you and I have learned so much are opinions on things have changed our understanding of things have changed and it's it's just research it was deeply frustrating having to just dive and change up the way I was searching and search in different terms and look through different ways and try and figure out what was real versus what was just so many of like people's personal blogs we're popping up for this and as much as I would love to pull information from them I just couldn't verify the writer and I'm not trying to present to everyone things that are wrong obviously we get things wrong all the time but we do our best to find reliable sources and there was just not a lot of information for this episode people just weren't interested in diving into it meanwhile you type in a Greek god and you get 958 000 results yeah the big joke is when we say we have a mythology podcast and people think it's only about the Greek gods because people think mythology only applies to the Greek and Roman pantheons or when I say the phrase Christian mythology in people's head spins around yeah um yes and you and I talk a lot about personal blogs and how we utilize them and how on the one hand it's very helpful to cite personal blogs in saying this is someone who practices this and this is what information they put out about their personal experience versus those blogs that you just can't can't verify I I get excited when we cover votin religions or religions that practice fetishism in general because like for example we just talked about what fetishism really is for the first time a couple episodes ago and I was someone who for years only had the understanding of voodoo that Hollywood put out right um because you know it didn't occur to me that it would be wrong and it or the research that I got was not good because I didn't know how to look for it really and from Myriad of reasons absolutely it's what's fed to you and if you don't have a reason to look into it further then you don't always look into it further that's what we're constantly learning and it's it's really we've said on this show before we're always surprised by what is and isn't easy to cover and I truly with how many times not abulaku came up when I was looking up different deities that I could cover I was specifically looking at different mother deities I was really interested in finding a topic about that and not abulaku came up all the time as this is a very famous mother deity and I thought great I can't wait to cover this and then there was just nothing it was just nanobuluku as a mother deity she gave birth to the Sun and the Moon end of Entry everywhere yeah listicles we love them for inspiration sometimes they're the bane of our existence I do want to point out um because we're talking about ease of information in Hollywood that Tracy and I are we're talking about how excited we are for this movie to come out um the woman King which is the Viola Davis movie that is coming out and it's about the African female warriors as it's often headlined or the African Amazons there are a lot of kind of names that are thrown around I think I might pronounce this incorrectly um but it is the women of the kingdom of dahome in the 1800s which is what we had talked about in this episode exactly so there this movie is of course a fictionalization of a very real historical event so historical fiction the team behind it talks so much about the effort that they put into it but do go see this movie you all know that I'm deeply entrenched in Hollywood but it is a fictional movie designed to get you excited and keep you entertained and engage you and pull on your heartstrings where people are trying their utmost to honor real history and these women that they're depicting are the women who practice the religion that Tracy just talked about so that is so cool that did not exist five years ago not at all so I'm really excited for that film to come out and Rowan and I plan to do a whole other episode on on that story and dive into that more and the oh the stunt work is gonna be so good y'all I can't wait I listen I'm obsessed with stunt work I think it's so fascinating there's a great documentary about stunt women that I watched on my flight to Portugal it was amazing the thing that I'm most excited about is Viola Davis is 56.
You look a decade ago long I don't know roughly where like if you were over the age of I don't know 35 you just didn't weren't allowed to exist in Hollywood as a woman unless you were the the kind mother figure and Viola Davis in this movie is a woman who kicks ass literally yeah you couldn't have made it a few years ago I'm excited about this I'm really excited about this movie aging is cool aging is cool aging is good and it's a freaking privilege yes all right Rowan yeah so that was and Lisa and the story of the votin religion of Western Africa now that I've covered all of that it is your turn to tell me something good my something good this week just arrived today um I got myself a copper electric kettle it's like stainless steel designed to look copper but the reason that I like it so much a I need an electric kettle I want to be able to heat up my water for tea and then walk away and know that it will turn itself off and I can have the hot water when I remember again in like 30 minutes if it's on the stove I get so stressed out oh yeah I switched an electric kettle forever ago I use the fellow one that's one that I love but what is what is yours I think mine's Hamilton Beach okay I don't know it's beautiful but the reason that I got a copper one is because Kaylee and I uh who both have Conservatory training um there's this rhyme that we both learned in acting school and it's all I want is a proper cup of coffee made in a proper copper coffee pot I may be off my DOT but I want a proper coffee and a proper copper coffee pot watched a word at the end but that that is infused into my brain and it's longer and Kaylee and I we'll just say this to each other randomly at different points so now every time I see this Kettle even in just the day it makes me smile and think of like a a goof and a gaff with my friend I love that yeah buy stuff that makes you happy oh God yes absolutely absolutely so Tracy tell me something good my something good is a book that I just read called The Stand in by Lily Chu it is a rom-com You can predict absolutely every single beat that's gonna happen in the entire book and I read the whole thing in a day and a half and I loved it so much and it just kicked off my love of like rom-com and romance books again it's just a very fun enjoyable rom-com like it is just the stand-in by Lily Chu got me through some long nights at work it was great can I quickly mention a book that Kaylee just told me to pick up and I am it's boggling my brain how much I love it yeah I just started I'm listening to the audiobook because you all know I I constantly have an audio book going um It's The Once and Future witches it's by Alex e Harrow oh this book it's the premise is basically Salem the witch trials happened Salem was burned to the ground and now you're in New Salem and it's post-industrial Revolution and it's this a aggressively Puritan town and instead of fairy tales they're all called witch tales and all of the stories are slightly different and in everyone like the bad person is always a witch and they're all written by women and if you know in those stories there are spells and it is about oh that's these are cool women trying to reclaim being witches and also gain suffrage it's bananas that sounds really interesting so both of these will be on our recommendations page on our website yay we did it yeah this was a delight thank you for doing the hard work I got to hear you be frustrated a lot which I always am happy to do but I am extra happy to hear that you you made this episode thank you thank you thank you for listening it's been a delight to have you and remember that stories grow with the telling so if you like what we do tell a friend or tell a foe and we'll see you soon okay thank you so much for joining us for the Willing and Fable podcast this episode was written and produced by Tracy Harrison and Rowan Hall that's me our music was written and performed by Taylor Ash and our logo is by Jamie Harrison if you ever want to watch or read what we're reading head over to willingandfable.com for our show notes and custom merch or find us at willing and Fable on Instagram Twitter and Tick Tock to join the discussion we hope you'll rate review And subscribe to our podcast using your favorite listening source and check out willing and Fable on patreon where we have more than a few surprises for you including custom artwork stories and access to our secret Discord Channel and of course join us next time for another round of original retellings and in-depth research on the history mystery and mythology that makes the world so fascinating foreign
https://howtoplaythedjembedrums.com/willing-fable-ep-91-nana-buluku-west-african-mother-supreme/
No comments:
Post a Comment