#Ghanian Mythology

[allmythologies]

30 days of horror myths: adze

in the wild, the adze takes the form of a firefly, though it will transform into a human shape upon capture. when in human form, the adze has the power to possess humans. the adze's influence would negatively affect the people who lived around their host. the adze's effects are generally felt by the possessed victim's family or those of whom the victim is jealous. in firefly form, the adze would travel through keyholes, cracks in walls, or under closed doors at night. once in the home, it would suck blood from people as they slept, making them fall sick and die.

[cucullas]

Favourite Spider associated myths | Anansi, Aracne, Jorogumo, Spider Grandmother | TW: Spider 

Feared and always present Spider had always fascinated me, and also many people in many cultures. Here are my favorite stories [beware a spider image below the cut]

Aracne |  At the origin of words like arachnid or arachnophobia is the Ancient Greek myth of the weaver Aracne. Renowed by her craft she boasted to be better than the Gods. Defied by Athena she does an admirable tapestry denouncing the Gods abuses to mortals (the rapt of Europa, or Leda) and refuse to bow to the Gods. Furious the Athena forces the girl to choke herself, then, having compassion for such a skilled weaver, transform her on the first spider. 

Anansi | The name comes from the Akan language of Ghana and means “spider” and his figure is know in West Africa. Anansi is a trickster, sometimes cruel but almost always witty and ressourceful. He is also a story teller who, like the spider, spins his story. In fact, he won with clever tricks the stories of the world from the Great God and share them with humanity so people had knowledge and are not longer bored. Brought by enslaved population his stories are also popular in the Antilles. 

Grandmother Spider | Variations of the myth exist in many parts of North America, from Northen Mexico to Southern Canada. On the culture of some Hopi and Navajo groups Grandmother Spider is a important benevolent figure. She taught people how to weave but also, associated with the Sun Tawa, teached humanity how to live and in some occasion, gives them souls, steals a bit of the sun to gives them fire or guides them to new worlds. 

Jorogumo | Born in Japan Edo period, the story of this creature (a “yokai”) has become popular in pop culture. It starts with a simple but interesting question: what if a female demon ate men like the Joro Spider eats males after mating? With tricks and lies the Jorogumo tries to attract young warriors or workers to mate with her. A shapesifter she can create webs and control smaller spider, specially the Joro Spider, one of Japan bigger species who share her name. 

+ Bonus 

Aerop - Enap | The Nauru creation myth follows and old spider who lived bored in a dark and lone worls. She set to correcy this and went to search for other beings. After being swallowed by a clam proceed to fight aided by other mollusc to open and kill the clam. She them proceeds to create the world with it’s shell while her snails friens become the Sun and the Moon. After she created the worls, she also made animals from mud and thus was not bored anymore. 

[sistahscifi]

Have you registered for a chance to win a hardcover copy of The Final Strife!?! Link in bio: @sistahscifi. Reposted from @jemofabook Do you have any anticipated releases for the rest of the year? • May I suggest The Final Strife by @saaraelarifi? I loved it so much that I preordered both the US and UK editions because I couldn’t decide which I wanted more. • The Final Strife is inspired by Ghanian folklore and Arabian mythology. There are strong social, economic, political, and class divisions amongst the people, but rather than being divided along the color of their skin, they are divided by the color of their blood. We follow the three POVs of young women in each of three different blood classes • My full review is up on Goodreads, so check it out for a detailed gush, but some a highlights: ❤️ The pacing was superb. I was invested from the very beginning. There were lots of twists and gasp-worthy moments 🏳️‍🌈 This is a queernorm world with three genders. All three of our main characters are representative of different queer identities (so it’s a perfect read for #pridemonth 🧡 The author also tackles difficult questions around colonization, privilege, power, rebellion, and even environmental issues.  💛 We have physical disability representation! And it’s bilateral upper limb amputations, which is near and dear to my heart. This along with removal of tongues is a punishment inflicted on one of the blood classes, so it’s dark, but very well handled 💚 The character arcs of our three MCs were phenomenal. I loved how one of the big things that two of our characters deal with is having to deconstruct childhood beliefs 💙 There are so many more things I love, like the worldbuilding, the storytelling aspect, the magic system, the romance, the exploration of addiction, the social commentary, the writing itself, and so much more • @delreybooks @penguinrandomhouse • #SistahScifi #thefinalstrife #saaraelarifi #bookreview #debutauthor #fantasybookreview #adultfantasybooks #fantasybookstagram #bookrecommendations #WestAfricanYAFantasy #YAFantasy #yabooks (at Sistah Scifi) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgLJnqnpupC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mythos-theos]

30 Days of Mythical Tricksters  → Day 1: Anansi

“Now, Anansi stories, they have wit and trickery and wisdom. Now, all over the world, all of the people they aren’t just thinking of hunting and being hunted anymore. Now they’re starting to think their way out of problems–sometimes thinking their way into worse problems.” ― Neil Gaiman

[harrelltut]

☥ JEHOVAH Occult Witness Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] ABOVE [JA = YAHWEH] EARTH [YE = JESUS]… since I BEE So Universally + Spiritually + Ancestrally [U.S.A. = GLOBALLY] Gold Coast Wealthy on Earth [WE] like Inner Earth’s [HADES] Primitively Ancient [PA = SUPERNATURAL] Afrikkan Islamic [A.I.] Ashanti Kingdom Ancestors [KA = KONGO] from Archangel SATAN’S Magnificent Utopian [MU] Economies of Paradisal ATLANTIS [Celestial EDEN]… MU:XIII Occult Illuminati ☥ 

[mythgends]

Abonsam Trailer(Ghanian mythology)

[ao3feed-mythology]

the farmer fucks the field

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2SkVGyF

by Bushwah

So you know how "affair with the ground" is a meditation on the ways in which marriage, sex, and reproduction are connected? And you know how "affair with the ground" uses "marriage" to cover, like, every reproductive and quasi-reproductive interaction, even when it's absolutely nothing like what you or I might think of as marriage, out of respect for the sensibilities of a notional child audience?

This is like that, except that instead of "marriage," the word of the day is "fucking." Other tonal attributes have been shifted accordingly. Strap in; it's a wild ride.

Words: 415, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi, African Diasporic Mythology, ghanian mythology (the mythology of the country ghana), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, the farmer in the dell (folk song)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Other

Characters: Ohene (Homegoing), James Junior (Homegoing), Abena (Homegoing), Original Non-Human Character(s)

Relationships: Ohene (Homegoing)/Abena (Homegoing), James Junior (Homegoing) & Abena (Homegoing), Ohene (Homegoing)/Original Non-Human Character, James Junior (Homegoing) & Original Non-Human Character, Original Non-Human Character/Original Non-Human Character, Original Child Character(s) & Original Non-Human Character

Additional Tags: Magic and Science, Worldbuilding, Archetypes, Infidelity, Marriage, Courtship, Monogamy, Sex Education, One Shot, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Disabled Character, Jealousy

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2SkVGyF

[nofomoartworld]

Crocheted Cowboys, Nature Nudes, and Elmo Wind Chimes: 9 Highlights from the Dallas Art Fair

Having spent a lot of time in mid-size American cities as of late, I posit the question: is there a corner of our United States where artists aren't fostering vibrant, exciting communities and doing vital, challenging work? Deep in the heart of Texas, at the Dallas Art Fair, that city's creative class was on resplendent display for members of the arts industry flown in from places as predictable as New York and Paris, and as unexpected as Puerto Rico, Dubai, and Guadalajara. 

The 2017 fair had the tastefully-assembled panache of The Armory Show or Art Basel, with works by Juergen Teller and Catherine Opie among the heavy-hitters. But it was the fair's relatively small size, the presence and openness of artists, and supplementary studio visits and fetes thrown by local institutions that fostered an intimate, convivial vibe. The by-no-means exhaustive list below highlights artists from all over, but the Dallas scene deserves some extra shine: Arthur Peña's kaleidoscopic paintings mine the artist's emotional landscape. Michelle Rawlings excavates memory and identity through painted, collaged, sculptural works. Studio-mates and frequent collaborators Jeff Gibbons, Jesse Morgan Barnett, and Greg Ruppe dream up esoteric, gritty, musical artworks that defy categorization and even documentation. (One of their projects last year involved inviting the Dallas arts community to a mysterious, one-off game of laser tag.)

Dallas is establishing itself as a hotbed for art, turning what most people think about the city—oil money, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Cowboys—on its head. The Dallas Art Fair is at the forefront of spreading the word in that regard, and these were a few of our favorite works on view:

1. Nina Chanel Abney at Night Gallery

Nina Chanel Abney Untitled, 2017 Diptych, acrylic on two panels 110 x 52 in. Images are courtesy of Night Gallery

Few works on display were as viscerally arresting as Nina Chanel Abney's diptych of bold paintings confronting race and power in America. For her senior thesis show at Parsons in 2007, the artist painted herself as a white, gun-toting prison guard and her classmates, who are all white, as black inmates wearing orange jumpsuits, commenting on both the lack of diversity in academia as well as the overwhelmingly African-American prison population in the US. Her subsequent work is equally vital and searing.

2. Jonathan Rajewski at Reyes Projects

Installation view of Jonathan Rajewski's work in the Reyes Gallery booth. Photo by Daniel Driensky

I'll be honest: I didn't expect Garfield and Elmo wind chimes to be this dynamic, but Detroit-based artist Jonathan Rajewski's playful mobiles fixed me in their googly muppet eyes and handily dispatched my assumptions. The artist was showing work in the booth of newly-minted Michigan gallery Reyes Projects, whose debut exhibition Undercover Boss opens April 21.

3. Derek Fordjour at Luce Gallery

Derek Fordjour, 'No. 73,' 2017 and 'What will you do to help us Win?' 2017. Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery

Born in Memphis, TN to parents of Ghanian heritage, Derek Fordjour was one of the artists selected by the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program, which chooses a handful of works from the fair each year to join the Dallas Art Museum's permanent collection. His nuanced, textural paintings and sculptures are literally multilayered; words on yellowed pages peek out beneath the paint. He's an artist of unique perspective, and certainly one to watch.

4. Emmanuel Van der Auwera's Study for Shudder VideoSculpture XIV

"Study for Shudder" VideoSculpture XIV, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Harlan Levey Projects

This work stopped me in my tracks and made me WOL—"Woah" out loud. What looks like a blank white screen, on further inspection, reveals itself to be a coded video message discernible only when viewed in reflection upside down.

5. Caroline Wells Chandler at Roberto Paradise

Caroline Wells Chandler's crocheted cowboys and other motifs of the American West were sprinkled throughout this San Juan-based gallery's booth. The characters' goofy, 8-bit grins and technicolor skin belie the work's progressive take on the classic cowboys-and-indians motif. They present a sex-positive, intersectional version of themes heretofore whitewashed by the patriarchy.

6. Jakub Nepras at Waldburger Wouters

Jakub Nepras, Meadow, 2012, video sculpture, plexiglass, natural stones, 4min30s/loop. Courtesy the artist and Waldburger Wouters

The Brussels-based gallery's entire booth was dedicated to the work of Jakub Nepras, a Czech multimedia artist whose video collages projected on unexpected surfaces, like painted drywall and plexiglass embedded with stones, dissect commerce, human interactions, and the flow of energy.

7. Maryam Eisler's Eurydice in Provence and Searching for Eve in the American West

Maryam Eisler, Odina (Mountain), 2015. Giclée print, 112 x 79 cm, edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs. Courtesy Tristan Hoare

Maryam Eisler's black-and-white photographs of nudes in arid landscapes are damn sexy. The contrast of smooth flesh and coarse stone is reminiscent of Bernini's textural masterpiece, Daphne and Apollo. Born in Iran but now based in London, Eisler's striking compositions are inspired by mythology and its application to reality. With two series on view in Dallas, the photographer imbued the proceedings with a welcome dose of divine feminine energy.

8. Jose Dávila and Jorge Méndez Blake at Travesia Cuatro

Installation view of Travesia Cuatro's booth. Photo by Daniel Driensky

First off, Travesia Cuatro, a gallery with outposts in both Madrid and Guadalajara, wins for exuding chic minimalist vibes the entire fair. Their carefully considered selections highlighted four Mexican artists with work exploring themes of physics, literature, and psychology. Jorge Méndez Blake's Dearest Max, My Last Request is a meditation on Kafka's dying wish for all his unpublished manuscripts to be burned. (That request was ignored.) And in Jose Dávila's Joint E ort, a concrete block balances at a precarious angle, tethered by a stone and precise geometry.

9. Summer Wheat's Bread Winners

Summer Wheat, Bread Winners, 2017. Acrylic on aluminum mesh, 144 x 68 in. Courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery

Another Dallas Art Fair acquisition, Summer Wheat's Bread Winners is an accomplishment of experimental figurative painting. The Oklahoma artist's unconventional aesthetic, achieved by pushing layers of acrylic paint through a mesh screen, appears fiber-like, almost like a carpet or tapestry.

What were your favorite works at the Dallas Art Fair? Let us know on Twitter: @CreatorsProject

Related:

Here's How Post-Election Anxiety Took Over Art Week Miami

The 17 Sexiest Works of Art at NADA

Our 11 Favorite Works from the Dallas Art Fair

from creators http://ift.tt/2pFcqyw via IFTTT

[ao3feed-mythology]

the farmer fucks the field

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2SkVGyF

by Bushwah

So you know how "affair with the ground" is a meditation on the ways in which marriage, sex, and reproduction are connected? And you know how "affair with the ground" uses "marriage" to cover, like, every reproductive and quasi-reproductive interaction, even when it's absolutely nothing like what you or I might think of as marriage, out of respect for the sensibilities of a notional child audience?

This is like that, except that instead of "marriage," the word of the day is "fucking." Other tonal attributes have been shifted accordingly. Strap in; it's a wild ride.

Words: 415, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi, African Diasporic Mythology, ghanian mythology (the mythology of the country ghana), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, the farmer in the dell (folk song)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Other

Characters: Ohene (Homegoing), James Junior (Homegoing), Abena (Homegoing), Original Non-Human Character(s)

Relationships: Ohene (Homegoing)/Abena (Homegoing), James Junior (Homegoing) & Abena (Homegoing), Ohene (Homegoing)/Original Non-Human Character, James Junior (Homegoing) & Original Non-Human Character, Original Non-Human Character/Original Non-Human Character, Original Child Character(s) & Original Non-Human Character

Additional Tags: Magic and Science, Worldbuilding, Archetypes, Infidelity, Marriage, Courtship, Monogamy, Sex Education, One Shot, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Disabled Character, Jealousy

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2SkVGyF

[ao3feed-mythology]

affair with the ground

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2rc20co

by Bushwah

"Plants are made from the marriage of an adult plant to the earth."

Words: 437, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Homegoing (book by Yaa Gyasi), African Diasporic Mythology, ghanian mythology, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Abena Chapter (Homegoing)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Other

Characters: Ohene (Homegoing) - Character, James Junior (Homegoing) - Character, Abena (Homegoing) - Character, Farmland (Character)

Relationships: Ohene (Homegoing)/Abena (Homegoing), James Junior (Homegoing) & Abena (Homegoing)

Additional Tags: Magic and Science, Disabled Character, Worldbuilding, Archetypes, Infidelity, Marriage, Courtship, Monogamy, Sex Education, One Shot

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2rc20co