A Most Majestic Fly Whisk

  Medium of the ghost-god-community Mukasa, Bubembe Island "Mediums and interpreters used metaphors of descent, of eating as power—the transformative potential of assembling to feast and debate the future—to organize ordinary people’s creative belonging with clanship…They might never encounter through possession all who had come before them, whose accomplishments and skill made different places rich and safe in the present. Yet with mobile mediums and local pythons, they could imagine the others whom they  would never meet doing as they did." - David Schoenbrun, The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930  "Since he filled the glass to the brim, he had to tread softly so as not to pour the juice, so he arrived unnoticed by both the ghost and his wife. You can imagine the shock as this man watched his deceased mother-in-law singing, dancing, and cultivating while the good daughter sat around relaxing in the sun!" - The Tale of Njabala the Beautif...

 Mulugeta Tafesse - The medicine man 1  New job, finals, and now prepping for dungeon23! Stress! Lots of stuff going on, so I've been finishing up some older writing as a relaxation thing.  These two stories are in-universe "texts" from my Kubalubalundaland setting (the name is being workshopped but it gets a little closer to being official every day) focused on the Forest Peoples. They're roughly contemporaneous - both are told during the iron-hearted years of the Many-Quilled Paramount's incessant wars. The first is taken from the long claw of the Recollection Society elder From-The-Village-Of-Wealth, a kind and curious memoryman who came of age during the Hunter Paramount's reign; the Forestophile fad at court back then was more than a fad to him. Village-Of-Wealth doesn't quite get it but he's pretty close for someone born an aristocrat. The second is a story told by Isn't-It-Obvious-To-You, a Forest Woman scholar (all the people of the Forest ...

  from A Dictionary of Sandawe: The Lexicon and Culture of a Khoesan People of Tanzania , compiled by Chris and Patricia Ehret from Eric ten Raa's field notes Really out here doing anything and everything to avoid finishing almost-done posts.  A couple of hours ago, I came across an extremely interesting entry in A Dictionary of Sandawe (shown above) while looking for another word. It was v. striking to see the mantis come up in this way, bc - as those even a little familiar with the religion of the San* peoples prob know - the mantis (and The Mantis) is really important in the worldview of Southern Africa's autochthons. There's been mentions of a special role for mantids in Sandawe thinking that I've seen before, but tbh it was just the kind of passing mention that I didn't credit with much beyond over-excited folks seeing a relationship where there might not be any; there's very little outside of these notes from ten Raa on what exactly that role was, frex.  ...

  A Hunting Scene , from Sammy Baloji's Hunting and Collecting Working on both my " A Dance -" readalong and a post about three related books on Malagasy cultures that I think make a compelling basis for a setting, but I've been having an INTRUSIVE (gaming) THOUGHT. I recently read some good advice from the maestro Nick Whelan on how to banish these from their hiding places in your brain: So that's what I'm doing.  Currently at a crossroads for a thing: I've been running a NooFutra game set in the current day DR Congo. This was another setting that grew out of a triad of books - Rainforest Capitalism: Power and Masculinity in a Congolese Timber Concession by Thomas Hendriks, The Eyes of the World: Mining the Digital Age in the Eastern DR Congo by James Smith, and Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo by John Janzen - and it's been so much fun. The main draw of Noofutra imo besides the general traits of Mothers...