#guyana folklore

[briefbestiary]

Disturb not the one who stares up at the luminous moon.

Some say that if one manages to distract him from his focused attention to the Moon, he will begin to chase them in order to suck out their brain using the palm of his hand.

[caribbeangirlfolkloring]

Illustration by Daniel B

The Moongazer is a well-known spectre in the folklore of Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and St. Lucia, each with its own version.

One thing they all agree on is that this spirit in the form of a giant man only appears on the night of a full moon and gazes at it as he walks or stands. Only his shadow can be seen by the light of the full moon. His long legs straddle either side of the road and if a passerby tries to walk between his legs, he closes them and crushes the person to death.

[havatabanca]

[beyonceisstraight]

something about how skin w-lkers are like, this funsie myth creature for a lot of online spaces like reddit doesn't sit right with me. granted i've had native friends share their knowledge with me including things their tribe shamans have told them. and like, there's the folklore from guyana as well that i've learned. and once more that was learned directly from native guyanese people.

[fatehbaz]

When Dr Harold Young [...] takes visitors on a journey around Belize City, the first stop is an unremarkable building, whose basement entrance is partly shrouded by creeping pink bougainvillea. Its padlocked gates and broken windows back on to a parking lot in the city’s historic centre. Most passersby ignore the innocuous plaque outside. Belize, a country of 400,000 citizens, is [...] a part of the English-speaking Caribbean. A former British settlement and then colony, it is one of the region’s eight remaining Commonwealth realms – independent countries where the monarch remains the head of state.

Belize is the only Commonwealth realm King Charles has never visited.

The building is blocked from public entry but is known locally as the former headquarters of a TV station [...] once owned by the Conservative peer Lord Michael Ashcroft, who has sprawling business investments around Belize. But for those who are aware, the building serves as a horrifying reminder of the brutality of British rule here. “It’s the last remnants of a holding dungeon for slaves,” Young says. “Before they were put out for sale.”��

Unlike the island states in the Caribbean, where plantation slavery underpinned the colonial economy, enslaved labour in Belize revolved around the logging of mahogany at camps in the country’s interior. [...] [T]he remnants of violent enslavement are now mostly absent from public view. The building’s story has been passed down for generations, and is noted in certain tourist literature. But the historic plaque outside, while acknowledging its use in the mahogany trade, presents its connections to slavery merely as “local folklore”. “When you live in a colonial environment, the colonialists don’t want you to prove what they were doing was a horrendous trade, right?” says Young, who is Belizean Creole, meaning of mixed African heritage. [...]

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History is still not fully told. Crimes remain unacknowledged. [...]

But as the United Kingdom prepares to crown its new king, the citizens of Belize are laying the groundwork for a similarly historic event: they could be the first nation to remove Charles as head of state. [...] The process, the prime minister [...] acknowledged in an interview [...] means it is “quite likely” that Belize will be the next country to leave the Commonwealth realm, following Barbados’s seismic decision to become a republic in 2021. [...] Belize is not alone [...].

[D]iscussions over the future of the British monarchy have accelerated throughout the region.

Now, officials in seven of the remaining realm countries in the Caribbean have indicated they will seek to follow the same path [...]. In Jamaica, [...] the government has committed to a vote before the next general election in 2025. In Antigua and Barbuda, the prime minister [...] said shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth that he would hold a referendum within three years. [...]

Such debate is far from new to the English-speaking Caribbean and did not begin with Barbados’s decision in 2021, nor the death of Queen Elizabeth last year. Carried by a wave of Black nationalism and socialism, three former British colonies, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and the newly independent Dominica, removed the monarch as head of state throughout the 1970s. Alternatives to the crown had been debated in popular circles long before even then. [...]

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Still, symbolism and imagery of the current moment [...] matter, particularly as relations between the English-speaking Caribbean and the UK fall to new lows in the aftermath of the Windrush scandal and both the government and the monarchy’s recent refusals to go beyond passive expressions of regret and offer a formal apology for the atrocities of slavery.

In March last year, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to the Caribbean marking the Queen’s jubilee was punctuated by a series of protests that cast a long shadow over the exercise in soft power. In Jamaica, photographs of the pair shaking hands with children through a chainlink fence and later parading in white clothing in an open-top Land Rover were decried as a throwback to colonialism.

In Belize, the couple were forced to abandon plans to visit a Mayan village in the country’s south, following protest. [...] “There’s only so much the fig leaf of public relations and exercises in ‘soft power’ can cover,” [...]. “These images and videos were widely shared on social media [...].” Outside St John’s Cathedral in Belize City, the remains of a semicircular brick wall mark the boundary from where, it is said, enslaved people were permitted to listen to services inside. The building itself was built by enslaved labour, but colonial authorities banned enslaved people from entering.

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Text by: Oliver Laughland. “‘Colonialism lingers’: Belize shrugs off coronation amid calls for repatriations.” The Guardian. 4 May 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[seewetter]

Mythic Creatures by Culture & Region

Part 2: Settler (Colonial) & Diasporic Tales of Australia & the Americas

Overview here.

• Australian Settler Folktales Drop Bear; Easter Bilby; Oozlum Bird (oozlum bird also in Britain)

Canadian Settler Folktales

Cadborosaurus B.C.; Cressie; Igopogo Barrie; Manipogo; Memphre; Mussie; Red Lady; Thetis Lake Monster; Turtle Lake Monster

USAmerican Settler folktales including African diaspora

Agropelter, Maine & Ohio; Alfred Bulltop Stormalong Massachussets; Altamaha-ha in Georgia, U.S.A, see Muskogee; Anansi is Akan (which includes the Agona, Akuapem, Akwamu, Akyem, Anyi, Ashanti, Baoulé, Bono, Chakosi, Fante, Kwahu, Sefwi, Wassa, Ahanta, and Nzema) also found in African American lore; Red Ghost (Arizona camel with skeleton on its back); Augerino western USA, including Colorado; Axehandle hound Minnesota and Wisconsin; Ball-tailed cat; Beaman Monster; Bear Lake Monster; Beast of Bladenboro; Beast of Busco; Bell Witch; Belled buzzard American South; Bessie northeast Ohio and Michigan; Bigfoot; Black Dog; Blafard; Bloody Bones; Bloody Mary; Boo hag; Br'er Rabbit; Brown Mountain Lights; Cactus cat American Southwest; Calafia Amazon Queen (Caliph) that California is named after; Champ; Chessie; Dark Watchers; Demon Cat Washington D.C.; Dewey Lake Monster; Dover Demon; Dungavenhooter Maine, Michigan; Emperor Norton; Enfield Monster (NOT Enfield); Flathead Lake Monster; Flatwoods Monster; Flying Africans; Fouke Monster Arkansas; Fur-bearing trout; Gallinipper; Gillygaloo; Glawackus; Gloucester sea serpent; Golden Bear; Goofus Bird; Gumberoo; Hidebehind; Hillbilly Beast of Kentucky; Hodag; Honey Island Swamp Monster; Hoop Snake; Hudson River Monster; Hugag; Jackalope; Jersey Devil; Joint Snake; Jonathan Moulton; Lady Featherflight; Lagahoo; Lake Worth Monster; Lava bear Oregon, appear to have been real animals but not a unique species; Letiche (Cajun folktale, from descendants of the Acadian expulsion) Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp; Loveland Frog; Ludwig the Bloodsucker; Mãe-do-Ouro; Mami Wata also African; Maryland Goatman; Melon-heads; Michigan Dogman; Milton lizard; Mogollon Monster; Momo the Monster; Mothman; Nain Rouge Detroit, Michigan; New Jersey folktales; North Shore Monster; Onza; Ozark Howler; Pope Lick Monster; Proctor Valley Monster; Railroad Bill; Red Ghost; Red Lady; Reptilian; Resurrection Mary; Sharlie; Sidehill Gouger; Signifying monkey; Skunk Ape; Snallygaster; Snipe Hunt; Snow Snake; Splintercat; Squonk; Tahoe Tessie; Tailypo; Teakettler; The Witch of Saratoga; Tuttle Bottoms Monster; Two-Toed Tom; Walgren Lake Monster; Wampus Cat; White River Monster; Wild Man of the Navidad

Latin American Folklore

Aido Hwedo, Haiti & also in Benin; Alebrije (born from a dream, Mexican paper mache folk art); Baccoo could be based off Abiku of Yoruba lore; Bestial Beast bestial centaur; Boiuna; Boto and Boto_and_Dolphin_Spirits; Bruja; Bumba Meu Boi; Burrokeet; Cadejo; Camahueto; Capelobo; Carbuncle; Carranco; Chasca El Salvador; Chickcharney; Ciguapa Dominica; Cipitio; Damballa; Day of the Dead; Death; Douen; Duende; Duppy; El Sombrerón Guatemala; Folktales of Mexico; Headless Mule; Hombre Gato; Honduran Creatures; Huay Chivo; Ibo loa (also Igbo in West Africa); Jumbee; Kasogonagá (Toba in Argentina); La Bolefuego; La Diablesse; La Llorona; La mula herrada; La Sayona; Lang Bobi Suzi; Madre de aguas; Mama D'Leau; Minhocão; Mono Grande; Monster of Lake Fagua; Monster of Lake Tota; Muan; Muelona; Nahuelito; Obia also a word for a West African mythological creature (see article); Papa Bois; Patagon aka Patagonian Giant; Patasola; Phantome (Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana); Pishtaco; Princess Eréndira; Quimbanda; Romãozinho; Saci; Sayona ; Sihuanaba; Sisimoto; Soucouyant; Succarath; Tapire-iauara; Tata Duende; The Cu Bird; The Silbón; Tulevieja; Tunda; Zombie Bolivia; Abchanchu; Acalica; El Tío Colombia; Colombian Creatures; El Hombre Caimán; Tunda

Please note that some of these beings (those from Latin America or from diasporic African religions like Santeria, Vodun and Candomble) are sacred and be responsible about their use in art (writing etc.).

Notify me of any mistakes or to add disclaimers when something is considered sacred and off-limits.

[ainews]

In Guyana, the practice of using randomization techniques for chiffoniers, a type of furniture, is believed to be beneficial for faeries that exist in the local folklore.

According to Guyanese beliefs, faeries are mischievous creatures that reside in forests and help to maintain the balance of nature. They are highly sensitive to the energy and environment around them and can become easily displeased or agitated if their surroundings are not in harmony.

It is believed that the placement of furniture, such as chiffoniers, plays a crucial role in maintaining the balance and harmony within the faerie world. Therefore, randomization is seen as a way to appease and accommodate the faeries.

Randomization involves placing furniture in a seemingly haphazard manner, without any specific pattern or order. This is done to prevent the faeries from becoming attached to a particular furniture arrangement and causing havoc if it is disturbed or changed.

Additionally, randomization is believed to create a sense of unpredictability and excitement in the faeries, keeping them entertained and preventing them from becoming bored or restless. This helps to maintain a positive relationship between humans and the faerie world.

Moreover, faeries are also believed to be attracted to shiny and reflective surfaces, making chiffoniers with mirrors a popular choice. The use of mirrors in random patterns is thought to create a sense of magic and wonder, enticing the faeries to stay and harmonize with their surroundings.

In some cases, chiffoniers are also decorated with colorful fabrics, flowers, and other natural elements to further attract the faeries. This adds to the aesthetic appeal and brings a sense of beauty and serenity to the environment, which is important for the well-being of the faeries.

The belief in faeries and their connection to the environment runs deep in Guyanese culture, and the practice of randomizing furniture for their presence is seen as a way to respect and honor their existence.

In conclusion, the use of randomization for chiffoniers in Guyana may seem like a strange concept to outsiders, but for the people of this country, it is a way to maintain a harmonious relationship with the mystical beings that are believed to coexist with us in our world.

[gettinggraphical]

Growing Up Speculative: Comics, Spiders, and Child Subjectivities in Rabindranath Maharaj’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy and Imam Baksh’s Children of the Spider 

This chapter applies ideas from comic book studies and folklore to the young adult speculative fiction novels The Amazing Absorbing Boy, written by Trinidadian Rabindranath Maharaj, and Children of the Spider, written by Guyanese Imam Baksh. Each novel attends to experiences of migration, identity formation, and personal growth through narratives focalized on children. Whether it is Samuel of The Amazing Absorbing Boy migrating from Trinidad to Canada, or Mayali of Children of the Spider moving through the fictional portal of Zolpash to Georgetown, Guyana, readers are invited to consider the ways in which Caribbean children negotiate their belonging in unfamiliar worlds. The use of speculative fiction tropes such as shape-shifting and superhero personas allow the child protagonists of each novel to overturn power dynamics involving adults and children. Thus, the author considers the Caribbean speculative fiction genre to constitute a power that represents the world anew, empowering readers to appreciate the perspectives of Caribbean children in literature.

Keywords: Caribbean speculative fiction, comic books, Caribbean folklore, Migration, young adult literature

[thegemchem]

Blog Post #6

For this week’s blog post assignment, I decided to review the short story “Greedy Puppy Choke” by Nalo Hopkinson. I have always enjoy folklore mixed with the short stories so I was really excited to talk about the mythology behind the creatures in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. The main story is about a grandmother and her granddaughter going through their daily routines and relating with each other in midst of revisiting the lore of local creatures as such as the Soucouyant and Lagahoo. It took me by the surprise, the stillness of the story as I wasn’t quite sure how the story was going to reveal itself. But I love there is an undercurrent of the Creole based vampire that preys on young babies, Soucouyant, peeking through passages echoing her thoughts and with passages that describe the myth. It serves as a sense of creeping in on the story much like a Soucouyant stalking and praying on a baby. I appreciate the drawing from the legend to center the narrative around the actions of a woman as a lot of tales are very male-centered. They tend to look at male socialized qualities like isolation, masculinity, aggression, and being stoic and centralized those tales in an adventure or quest. With that in mind, I relish in the angle that they decided to settled on: the aging and deterioration of the female anatomy and what happens to the woman once society deems her useless as in her youth and beauty is gone. I also really like the vengeance and the angle that writer takes that in exploring a woman’s rage and when it is in effect, it just doesn’t affect her but it brings down the community with the reaping of babies. It demonstrates the very cyclic natural of motherhood with woman being able to bring life into this world and therefore she should be the only one to be able to take life. On the note of the male qualities, I think that greed is not really attributed to female as they are community orientated and having to contribute a society and home environment. To include the story about how a puppy chokes on its greed, it parts a huge part in foreshadowing the latter half of the story as the grandmother tells her daughter that her mother was too greedy in her sneaking of the food in pots and warns her of the danger of being too greedy. It was a really surprising to have the concluding scene ends with the granddaughter being figured out as a Soucouyant and so was her mother and her grandmother and having her grandmother “kill” her for being too greedy.

[fardell24b]

7th January 2023 Writings

7th

 Excerpt from: The Youngest Barksdale

“That’s not much evidence against the Principal though.”

 “It certainly isn’t,” Daria admitted, “although it is against Val’s character.”

 “She’s certainly vain and narcissistic,” Helen said. “Tell you what I can tell you what I know about the Modelling incident as we prepare dinner.”

 “Deal!”

  Ten Months Earlier

“Mom! Dad! Guess what? I've been accepted into a really exclusive modeling class!”

 Words: 61

  Excerpt from: Legacy of Westchester Map Game

A kaiju is discovered in a remote area of Guyana.

  The Liberals win the most seats due to the leadership problems of both Labour and the Conservatives.

 Shortly after the election, the Government establishes a Commission to investigate every site in Britain with significance in Folklore.

 Words: 46

  Excerpt from: 406 Remeetings – 21st

Becki arrived at Talbragar Baptist Church.  The year away with her family was worth it. She hoped that the Church would be as she left it, that it would still be holding to the truth of the Gospel. That the new pastor would not be compromising. That there wouldn’t be false teachings. She shook her head as she entered the building. She knew that false teachings there weren’t likely. She saw some of her friends nearby.

 Words: 76

 Total: 183

[legend-collection]

Soucouyant

The soucouyant or soucriant in Dominica, St. Lucian, Trinidadian, Guadeloupean folklore (also known as Loogaroo or Lougarou) in Haiti, Louisiana, Grenada and elsewhere in the Caribbean or Ole-Higue (also Ole Haig) in Guyana, Belize and Jamaica or Asema in Suriname ), in The Bahamas and Barbados it is known as Hag. It is a kind of blood-sucking hag.

The soucouyant is a shapeshifting Caribbean folklore character who appears as a reclusive old woman by day. By night, she strips off her wrinkled skin and puts it in a mortar. In her true form, as a fireball she flies across the dark sky in search of a victim. The soucouyant can enter the home of her victim through any sized hole like cracks, crevices and keyholes.

Pic by gemgfx on DeviantArt

Soucouyants suck people's blood from their arms, necks, legs and soft parts while they sleep leaving blue-black marks on the body in the morning. If the soucouyant draws too much blood, it is believed that the victim will either die and become a soucouyant or perish entirely, leaving her killer to assume her skin. The soucouyant practices black magic. Soucouyants trade their victims' blood for evil powers with Bazil, the demon who resides in the silk cotton tree.

To expose a soucouyant, one should heap rice around the house or at the village cross roads as the creature will be obligated to gather every grain, grain by grain (a herculean task to do before dawn) so that she can be caught in the act. To destroy her, coarse salt must be placed in the mortar containing her skin so she perishes, unable to put the skin back on. Belief in soucouyants is still preserved to an extent in Guyana, Suriname and some Caribbean islands, including Dominica, Haiti and Trinidad.

The skin of the soucouyant is considered valuable, and is used when practicing black magic. Many Caribbean islands have plays about the soucouyant and many other folklore characters. Some of these include Trinidad Grenada and Barbados.

[naamayehuda]

Land Of Water

Photo: Guyana, by Joshua Gobin on Unsplash

  “Have we always been here?”

“‘Always’ is a long-winded word,” Papa’s melodic voice told me a story was coming. “Some people lived here before our ancestors. Some had come after we’d already been here. The land and the water were here before any humans had come. The word ‘always’ does not mean one thing.”

“Moses said we’re not from here. That we were…

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Time to provide more cursed folklore for the Phandom because I am sleep deprived and do not need more nightmare fuel to keep me awake.

Meet the Moongazer from Guyana folklore.

Per the name, it is attracted to moonlight, and is usually only seen on the nights of a full moon. Some stories do say bonfires can also attract it.

It is usually described as an unnaturally tall and muscular humanoid male. Regarding coloring, it can be light or dark, and is most often seen straddling a road or on the edges of a cliff staring at the moon. But, it’s also reported to walk along shorelines l.

If you try to pass under it, it will crush you to death. If you catch it’s attention, it will kill you and suck your brains out through its palms. If it steps on you, you’ll fall into madness.

In Trinidad, there is a similar creature they call Phantome. This version tends to stand at the crossroads as opposed to the shore or cliffs. This one will make a shrill whistle if it decides to attack and is known to leave a thick vapor when it disappears.

[witchyfashion]

Monstrous Tales is a collection of traditional folktales about bewitching and bloodthirsty creatures. Translated and transcribed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these tales celebrate the diversity of—and surprising resonances among—folklore traditions around the world. Welcome to a world of magical adventure: a mysterious wolf pursues a bridegroom through a dark forest, a princess is trapped in a monster's body, and a dragon is coming with a storm in its wake. • The tales come alive alongside spellbinding contemporary art by Chinese illustrator Sija Hong. • Each story transports readers to a different enthralling world. • Part of the popular Tales series, featuring Tales of Japan, Celtic Tales, and Tales of India As readers roam from Japan to Nigeria and Ireland to Guyana, they'll witness deadly pacts, heroic feats, and otherworldly journeys. Features tales from Australia, China, Estonia, Finland, France, Great Sioux Nation, Guyana, Iceland, India, Inuit Nunangat, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, Philippines, Pueblo of Isleta, Scotland, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, and Ukraine.

https://amzn.to/2XxBxcF

[fatehbaz]

Ghosts of the plantation; strangeness of the sentient jungle; haunting in Guyana; terror of the sugar industry; legacy of Netherlands/Dutch slavery; phantasmagoria, extra-human agency, and the Gothic in the Caribbean.

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[In Mittelholzer’s novel] the reworking of Euro-American Gothic tropes in a Caribbean context [...] illuminate the particular inflection of capitalist modernity in Guyana. [...] Mittelholzer’s text [...] registers in striking fashion the felt experience of the restructuring of ecological regimes at local and global scales, a process that in Guyana is inseparable from the development of the sugar frontier.

Set in the 1930s, My Bones and My Flute revolves around a cursed manuscript belonging to an eighteenth-century Dutch planter, Jan Voorman, who died during the Berbice slave rebellion of 1763. Voorman dabbled in magic and occultism, and succeeded in using his flute to summon up a cluster of demons. After coming into contact with Voorman’s manuscript, the narrator, Milton Woodsley, and his friends, the Nevinson family, find themselves haunted by the ghost of the planter, whose spirit remains tormented by the demons. In order to exorcise the evil forces, Milton and the Nevinsons must [...] travel up the Berbice River to Goed de Vries, near where the ruins of Voorman’s old plantation lie subsumed by the forest. [...]

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Nevertheless, in the use it makes of Guyanese folk beliefs, the novel does gesture towards a transition from the colonial Gothic into something like a [...] [locally-specific] magical realist aesthetic [...].

The allusive presence in My Bones and My Flute of local supernatural traditions complicates the novel’s Gothic register, pushing the narrative towards a form of the fabulous or marvellous grounded in the specific inflection of capitalist modernity in Guyana.

Sylvia Wynter’s analysis of the plantation and plot as contrasting organizational models for Caribbean literature is helpful in understanding this movement. For Wynter, the rise of the capitalist world-economy, as both cause and effect of the region’s plantation-societies, marked “ a change of such world-historical magnitude that we are all, without exception, still ‘enchanted’, imprisoned [...] in its bewitched reality.” In fact, she argues, history in the plantation context is “fiction” [...]. In other words, where Caribbean peoples lack autonomous control over the production of nature, and hence over the production of social reality, this reality appears illusory or irreal since it is authored and manipulated by outside powers. [...] Wynter cites the magical realist style of Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias, but we might also read those writers referred to earlier in connection with the reworking of the Gothic mode (Harris, Frankétienne, Brodber, Carpentier) in this light. [...]

Wynter’s argument has the great benefit of problematizing what Jennifer Wenzel calls the “empty globalism of the label magical realism, in which the magical might be anything unfamiliar to a European and American reader.” On a Wynterian reading, the ‘magic’ in magic realism is to be equated not only with the folkloric traditions and magico-religious practices of the colonized, but also with the unreal reality produced by the socio-economic  pressures of the plantation regime and the disjunctive, alienated relationship to the land it installs. The irrealist tonalities of Mittelholzer’s novel might be understood as mediating this  plantation-induced bewitchment. More particularly, they might be understood in relation to the contradictory social reality engendered by the political ecology of the dominant plantation crop in Guyana — King Sugar. For the ghostly Voorman can be read as a metonym for this tyrannical monarch, the spectre of which saturates the text in a manner akin to some ectoplasmic miasma. [...] The Gothic mannerisms and local supernatural traditions on which the novel draws, then, could be read as encoding the deformation and ‘ enchantment ’ of Guyanese society by the sugar frontier. [...]

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The story itself is structured around an inversion of the developmental pattern of the  plantation complex in Guyana [...]. The Dutch were the first European colonizers to establish durable plantation settlements in the Guyana region. Initially, their agricultural activities were focused “within a belt that lay between approximately thirty to one hundred miles upriver.” By the second half of the eighteenth century, however, many planters had shifted operations to the more fertile soils of the coast. Because Guyana’s coastal zone is below sea-level, a massive land reclamation scheme had to be initiated. Through the work of enslaved labourers, swaths of mangrove forest were cleared and the area drained and empoldered with a system of dykes, dams, canals, and sluices. Meanwhile, the plantations upriver fell into decline and were lost to the jungle. This dynamic of coastal development in tandem with interior underdevelopment was reinforced throughout the nineteenth century [...] due to active resistance on the part of planters who, as Walter Rodney notes, “viewed the hinterland as a potential competitor for labour and sought to dissuade free blacks from moving in that direction.” [...] Such spatial uneven development was just one manifestation of the way in which the demands of sugar came to dominate over society. Focusing on the post-emancipation period, Alan H. Adamson provides an excellent summary of the impact on Guyana of the industry’s monopolistic power [...]. This skewed pattern of development persisted well into the twentieth century, with the colonial government continuing to support sugar [...].

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The journey Milton and the Nevinsons make upriver in My Bones and My Flute replays in reverse the migration of the sugar estates to the coast. On arriving at the cottage in Goed de Vries, Milton tries to imagine what the landscape “must have looked like two centuries ago when it was a flourishing sugar or coffee plantation under the Dutch” [...].

If he thereby conjures up a spectre of the plantation system’s past and of the impact of the dynamics of uneven development, he also, in the particular way in which he perceives the re-conquest of the former plantation grounds by the jungle, summons up a spectre of the sugar industry’s future, of its potential decline and fall. 

Crucial in this respect is the manner in which the novel registers a disruption to the dominant forms of appearance of nature and space under capitalism. The latter, in divorcing the labourer from the means of production, posits the radical separation of the human from the extra-human.

The isolated individual of capitalist modernity now confronts the natural conditions of production as “ alien property, as value for- itself, as capital.” [...] Guyana’s coastal plantations in fact provide a striking illustration of this relationship between abstract space and the capitalist production of nature. [...]

Thus, we might read the atmosphere of strangeness and terror evoked in My Bones and My Flute as mediating an anxiety over a confrontation with a world in which nature and space do not possess such reified or abstract forms of appearance. Milton’s observations on the way the jungle has swallowed up Voorman’s old plantation are not simply musings on the passage of time. They are made in the context of a general unease with the dynamics of the interior environment, which, in contrast to the landscape of the coast, is perceived not as a passive, ‘given’ object but as an adversary with an agency all of its own [...].

The threatening, phantasmagoric quality of the jungle lies in the way it blurs the boundary  between the human and extra-human. As its “vegetable miasma” seeps into and penetrates the protagonists’ bodies, the landscape disrupts the radical separation of nature and society imposed by capitalism. The fear induced by the forest, then, is a fear of the consequences of a breakdown in the production of nature [...].

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My Bones and My Flute would seem to fit this pattern, its publication in the 1950s coinciding with the transition between the end of the ‘long’ nineteenth -century cycle of accumulation and the beginning of the post-war global economic boom. In the Caribbean, the pressures of this transitional period were manifested in massive economic and political upheaval, including crisis in the sugar industry, widespread labour unrest, and — in the 1950s — the introduction of modernization programmes in many areas.  [...]

As the existing ecological regime is overturned, the anamorphic and catachrestic features of Gothic texts register the feelings of rupture, strangeness, and irreality engendered by the transformation of stabilized structures of nature-society relations. [...] One could draw an analogy between upsurges [...] in magico-religious beliefs and practices and the mobilization of Guyanese supernatural traditions in My Bones and My Flute. Crucially, the 1930s-1950s period spanned by the novel was marked by a revolution in the world-ecology, the ecological surplus this generated fundamental to the post-1945 global economic boom. In the Caribbean, perhaps one of the most obvious manifestations of the collapse of the existing ecological regime was the crisis in the sugar industry. [...]

Against this backdrop, the novel’s references to Guyanese ghosts and spirits can be viewed as a response to the need to find a symbolic register [...].

The sense of irreality Milton describes — his perception of the world as something phantasmal — suggests the scrambling of the space-time sensorium induced by the disjunctive transition between ecological regimes.

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All text above by: Michael Niblett. “Specters in the Forest: Gothic Form and World-Ecology in Edgar Mittelholzer’s My Bones and My Flute.” Small Axe 18. 2014. [Bold emphasis, some paragraph breaks/contractions, and italicized first paragraph/heading added by me.]

[earthpkmnheadcanons]

Legendary #16: Mew

Where can I find it? No one knows. Mew have been spotted all around the worldwide, and feature in folklore and mythologies from practically every culture on the planet. While major sightings, such as one in Guyana, have led Mew-spotters to rush to certain areas of the world, most sightings are so randomly placed that finding a definitive home for Mew may prove to be impossible. 

What should I know about it? Mew is believed to be able to learn and use every move. How exactly this ability works is a mystery to scientists, as most moves have a biological basis that allows for their use. Mew is a helpful Pokemon, but it’s also playful, and it loves to play tricks on trainers on their journeys. Mew is incredibly adaptable, and has been seen both high in the sky (out of airplane windows) and below the water. 

Has it ever been caught? No. According to an urban legend, when Mew is first caught the world will end. Fortunately, it seems we won’t have to worry about that happening - Mew is not going to be caught anytime soon.