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Jo Ann's avatar

Excellent post

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Tereza Coraggio's avatar

This is marvelous, Guy! You have a great story-telling voice with intimations of another era even while making a modern, urban version. Oh the psychoanalysis that could be done on this! And I love the transformation of the wolf into a guardian. It reminds me of the Creation Myth of the Jigonsaseh that I talk about in https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/when-mothers-ran-the-world:

"I’ll end with the creation epic called the Gayanashagowa of the League of Five Nations from The Dawn of Everything:

… what comes through most strongly in the text is its representation of a social problem with a social solution: a breakdown of relationships in which the country is plunged into chaos and revenge, spiralling to a point where social order has dissolved away and where the powerful have become literal cannibals. Most powerful of all is Adodarhoh, who is represented as a witch, deformed, monstrous and capable of commanding others to do his bidding.

The narrative centres on a hero, Deganawideh the Peacemaker, who appears from what is later to be the Neutral territory … determined to put an end to this chaotic state of affairs. He wins to his cause first the Jigonsaseh, a woman famous for standing outside all quarrels (he finds her hosting and feeding war parties from all sides of the conflict); and then Hiawatha, one of Adodarhoh’s cannibal henchmen. Together they set about winning over the people of each nation to agree on creating a formal structure for heading off disputes and creating peace. Hence the system of titles, nested councils, consensus-finding, condolence rituals and the prominent role of female elders in formulating policy. In the story, the very last to be won over is Adodarhoh himself, who is gradually healed of his deformities and turned into a human being. [483-484]

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