Discovery Essay: Close Reading of “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”
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Week 13: Yemaja “Mother of Fish”
The reading regarding African Mermaids was very interesting and telling of how interconnected the African people are with their environment as all of their gods and deities are linked to some part of nature. The story I wanted to focus on specifically is the one regarding Yemaja the “Mother of Fish”. When we are first introduced to her we are told that she is a water goddess who married her brother Shango, God of Thunder, and that she is associated with women, family, motherhood, and the arts. When the people of Yoruba were taken into the transatlantic slave trade, they took their beliefs about Yemaja with them and she is not worshiped in Brazil, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and the United States. I found that to be very impressive, but also shocking due to the fact that she is very well known across many lands, even my own, yet this is the first time I am hearing her story; yet I’ve heard of the little mermaid a myriad of times. It simply goes to show the selectiveness in which stories are told and which are not. It’s important to represent every culture in the media so the rich history they bring with them are not forgotten.
On another note, I wanted to speak on the unsettling subjects within her story; maybe this is why Disney did not pick up this myth? In Yemaja’s story it is said that she marries her other brother, Aganju, and bores a child, Orungan. If the incest wasn’t unsettling enough, her son ends up having a lustful crush after her, and when her husband leaves, he takes advantage of her by force. She then runs away and he pursues after her, convincing her that he should be her husband sort of like the modern day side piece. Then basically with so much fear turns into an entire body of water which saves her from the current situation that she was in. I feel like as bizarre that it kind of does the same thing as when the women were thrown into the water were also saved by the water spirit. Although, Yemaja is the water spirit in this case, I can see how the water is a cleansing and safe environment through these lenses.
Aganju and Yemaja
The god of smallpox? As someone raised on a monotheistic religion, reading this story certainly brought forward some ideas that I’m not used to. I wonder why there might be a god of smallpox in this culture.
This wild story recounts the origin of a town and its religion, using some quite graphic imagery to portray it. I see a possible theme of fertility, with Yemaja as the mother of all things in this town.
What I find interesting is that when I tried to find the origin of the story online, I found multiple spellings of the story and even different recounts of it in different languages. It’s cool that the story was brought over to the New World from Africa, and survived many iterations. This again emphasizes the difference between traditional Western stories and ones that have been passed down orally, instead of on paper. It’s also cool that there’s some variation and individuality to each storyteller’s version. I would like to hear different versions of the story, I’m curious how this mother nature mermaid character is depicted in different cultures between Africa and Latin America.
I wonder if the god of smallpox has anything to do with the transmission of smallpox between enslaved people in cramped and unsanitary conditions.
Aganju and Yemaja
In this weeks reading, we learned about the origins and some of the stories of African spirits that fit in well with the stories we have read so far about mermaids and other natural spirits. For this reading, I found a lot of it interesting but I want to focus my close reading on the story of Aganju and Yemaja. The idea that so many different gods came from Yemaja, especially considering she is the “mother of fish”, is such a fascinating concept. I would have thought that her extremely traumatic experience with her son Orungan would lead to death and destruction, but instead, it led to creation. From her came fifteen gods that provide, whether it’s water, air, natural resources, or food. When reading the story, I thought it was comparable to the story of Jesus Christ. He was brutally sacrificed for the betterment of humanity. Although the intention wasn’t necessarily the same, the outcome basically is the same, humanity gets “saved” whether it’s from being given more resources to live, or to avoid Hell.
The fact that these Gods are still worshiped is a beautiful teller of how much respect African culture must have for nature. In the previous story of “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits”, we learn a lot about the beliefs that are still extremely prominent in Africa. Although tribes preside in areas that are not close to each other, they share a love and respect for nature which has “remained strikingly relevant” (3) throughout the generations. People believe in spirits that provide, and avoid building where Mermaids have been thought to potentially seen to live. I think that faith is the best thing that people can have in respect to nature. Faith teaches people to live a certain way, and when people believe something hard enough, they are willing to set aside their wants and needs for the greater good of their faith. By faith being intertwined with nature, people show more respect to it, as we have seen in this reading. This makes me wonder why people do not treat nature better despite it being such a prominent concept in almost every religion.
Week 13
When reading the different stories in The Penguin Book of Mermaids, I felt that all of these short stories and folklore were quite intriguing. The different descriptions of African mermaids and water spirits was interesting to read about. I did not know that there was that much folklore, specifically of African mermaids/spirits I liked how this specific reading said “African water spirits often personify the sources of water which they live and sometimes bear the same name as the river in which they dwell.” (165) I thought this aspect of personifying the water in which they live was interesting, as I wouldn’t have thought of the spirits or mermaids connecting with where they live. This honestly does make sense though, because of the connection with mermaids and the ocean, it adds a deeper level of understanding them as creatures of the ocean as well. This aspect of they personifying the ocean, brings them closer with their connection with nature and animals, as aspect in which humans often miss I believe, me included. Besides this folklore/history, I also found the story “Aganju and Yamaja” to be interesting. This story was literally about two generations of incest, as Aganju and Yamaja were brother and sister and got married, and then the son Orungan became infatuated with his mother. Not only was this storyline absurd, but also fascinating to see how the folklore played out. After her son took advantage of her, Yamaja’s body streamed and rushed with water, separating her into “Ife.” I felt that this was the most interesting aspect in this tale, as she became and entity or holiness in the city from then and on. The myth that Yamaja became the origin for several Gods, was also very interesting. This aspect of the swelling and the “Ife’ was very intriguing, I have heard nothing about it, and it made me think further about our connection with water and the ocean. Instead of condemning her to a life of her son harassing her with his love and demands, it seemed his “Ife” or swelling might have saved her from this misery. Overall, all of the stories we read this week in the Penguin was quite interesting to read about, but these two stuck out to me the most..
Week 13: Aganju and Yemaja
In the reading of African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits as well as Aganju and Yemaja, I found it extremely interesting how strong the belief in water spirits is. I noticed that there is a lot more emphasis placed on water spirits than land spirits. Though I am sure land spirits hold importance in African culture, it is repeated that water spirits are still worshipped a bit more than the land spirits are. In Aganju and Yemaja, it’s mentioned that “the worship of Aganju seems to have fallen to disuse, or to have become merged in that of his mother” (p.168). Granted it is mentioned that this story was collected from the 1800s, so this may not be relevant to today’s beliefs but at this time it seems that the belief in Aganju was not made as clear as the belief in Yemaja. Aganju is said to represent Land and his mother represents Earth, so it is understandable that the worship would be tied together, but the fact remains that the belief in Yemaja has expanded to many different countries and is still relatively prevalent.
This story also makes me think about how in indigenous cultures the respect given to water and land was equal and how all aspects of nature were celebrated, not just the aspects that benefit the people. It reminds me of the discussion we had about the blue humanities and how indigenous people are not given consideration when we discuss the creation of the field. These stories about water spirits show a culture centered on respect and acknowledgment for the environment as a whole. There is both something to fear and to appreciate about the water spirits which represents a fear and admiration of the bodies of water that these water spirits represent or inhabit.
Week 13: Ti Jeane
The story of TI Jeane was particularly striking to read because it both contains traces of the folklore elements present within western mermaid folklore but The mother of the water has a much more active role as a protector of the forest. Much like how mermaid stories of the west are full of history of the christian culture that shaped them so to does this story tells us of the markedly different relationship that the native people’s of the caribbean had with the environment.
I appreciate that the text preceding the story explains Mother Water as being a “transnational Deity”. We have been considering mermaid folklore stories to be an archive that can teach us of the cultural history of a group of peoples. Since this story is widely known amongst the Caribbean and through many different language we can imagine how the trafficking of enslaved people across the ocean contributed to the creation of this transnational deity. As we know how Christianity sought to break people’s ties to their cultural beliefs through conversion, to have this story survive and spread can be considered as an act of resistance. Here then we can also see the ocean acting not as a barrier to the spreading of this story but rather as the vessel through which this story is carried and spread.
Blogpost Week 13 – Aganju and Yemaja
The reading I wanted to write about this week was ‘Aganju and Yemaja’. I found it particularly interesting and quite frankly depressing. The first part that stood out to me was in the first line that, “[t]he name Aganju means uninhabited tract of country, wilderness, plain, or forest” (Penguin, 168). This reminds me of our class discussion around the definition of nature, but again it is something that we have made up and created through the use of literature. I think it is something important to recognize, but at the end of the day each and every part of the world has been inhabited by some person or animal at one point in time; everything has been habited. However, I do find a large amount of beauty in the name, it resembles a sense of purity and beauty in the natural world. The second part of the story that I found interesting was the fact that Orungan means, “[i]n the height of the sky” (168, Penguin), which typically resembles a higher power similar to the Christian/Catholic belief in God being in the sky, or Zeus the god of the sky being the most powerful as well. However, Orungan commits a serious and awful crime in sexually advancing on his own mother. This is quite contrary to what I would believe a god of the sky would be portrayed as, but might serve as a reflection of different perspectives that I have grown up and understood in the west. What I also found to be particularly disturbing is that after the fact, he unveiled some weird Oedipus complex towards his mom, which is rather weird from my perspective. However, this might have been a bit more ‘typical’ in historic times as the idea of an Oedipus complex is quite old and to my knowledge, not necessarily socially acceptable in today’s day and age. The next part that I found a bit confusing was how if she was running away from her son, she fell backwards. I have fallen a million times while running and never have I been able to fall backwards, your momentum typically drives you forward and hence the idea of ‘eating concrete’. My confusion lies around the fact as to whether she stopped and fell backwards, or perhaps as he reached out he pulled his mother backwards, but either way I am a bit confused and curious as to if that confusion might mean or symbol something as I have realized it typically does. Although maybe this is just a simple misunderstanding or perhaps something that got confused in translation.
Week 13: Aganju and Yemaja
This week I found the story “Aganju and Yemaja” from the Penguin Book of Mermaids particularly interesting. Aganju and Yemaja are deities from the Yoruba religion and mythology of West Africa. Yemaja, the goddess who “presides over ordeals by water,” marries her brother Aganju, a god representative of Land. The couple then have a son named Orugan, whose name references the “apparent space between the sky and earth,” or in other words, Air. Orungan falls in love with Yemaja, eventually leading to the goddesses’ fate of swelling and bursting into water, and the creation of several gods.
I found it interesting that Orungan “stretching his hand out to seize [Yemaja]” is what led to the goddess falling “backward to the ground,” swelling, and then ‘bursting’ into streams of water. Perhaps this is meant to show the dynamic balance present in nature. There is an attraction of opposites in this story as Orungan’s symbolic representation of air can be interpreted as chaos in nature. Air creates the heavy storms associated with destruction. On the other hand, as a female figure, Yemaja embodies nurturing and protective qualities that are aligned with the Yoruba’s beliefs regarding the ocean. In Yoruba mythology, the ocean is thought to provide sustenance for life. Perhaps the relationship between Orungan and Yemaja is meant to symbolize the interplay between destructive and nurturing forces in the natural world. Just as storms can bring forth destruction, they can also create room for new growth and regeneration. Therefore, this story may highlight the importance of balance and reciprocity in maintaining harmony with the natural world.
Week 13: Maman Dlo’s Tales Addressing Sound Pollution
The stories of Ti Jeanne, Ma Dolly, and their relationships with Maman Dlo greatly intrigued me. Both stories have a heavy emphasis on sound, and the way the protagonists navigate it elicits different reactions from Maman Dlo. This reminds me of the issue of sound pollution, and how it is just as ecologically disturbing to biodiversity as other forms of tangible pollution—though many neglect to recognize it. Sound pollution interferes with individuals of a species communicating with one another, disturbs reproductive and migratory patters, and overall chases terrified species out of their home. Maman Dlo’s response to the different girls in her habitat reflects lessons in creating disturbances where you do not belong, and warns readers/listeners to be careful of their impact when visiting ecosystems.
In TI Jeanne’s story, Maman Dlo turns her into a mermaid servant because she heard her singing and splashing in the river. TI Jeanne’s loud singing is an act of irreverence, and her splashing shows a lack of care for the ecosystem she is a guest of. The disturbance of the water and human voice mixing with the cacophony of forest sounds, notably interfering with birdsong, draws the attention of the water deity, who witnesses TI Jeanne’s celebration of her own vanity. Upon being caught, TI Jeanne states “I haven’t hurt anything”, which shows a grave misunderstanding of the impact her play has had. The price for her invasion is a life spent in service to the ecosystem she disturbed—a fair means of making reparations.
Mama Dolly, unlike TI Jeanne, was always careful to be quiet when visiting Mama Dlo’s forest, even before she knew the water deity inhabited the river. She recognizes nature as something greater than herself, something to learn from and appreciate without imposing. For her respect, Maman Dlo welcomes her presence with a gift, and allows the girl in her youth to be a returning visitor.
These stories in combination teach the conduct with which humans should act while in the natural world. Local fear of Mama Dlo’s power incites those who know these tales to be careful not to draw her anger; not to make a sound or a splash. The mantra “leave no trace” comes to mind, as that is the rule all ecologists and visitors to ecosystems are taught before they enter. This is in order to preserve the natural state of the ecosystem and not alter it by leaving “traces” we were there. Mama Dlo enforces the rule of “leave no trace”, as anyone whose presence creates a ruckus in her habitat will have to answer for it.