#The Bearded Theory Festival

[thesoulofaclown]

Bearded Theory 23-26 May 2024

Bearded Theory 23-26 May 2024 It must be a festival organisers nightmare when the country is hit by a ridiculous spell of wet weather. For Bearded Theory they faced the major issue of rain and floods the preceding days to the festival. To the extent that they had to put out a notice asking people to consider arriving on the Friday rather than Thursday. Fortunately, we were able to get on site…

[yamayuandadu]

"A god of tengu-warding": uncovering the connection between Okina and tengu

There’s something uniquely magical and captivating about Okina’s dialogue in HSiFS that neither subsequent final bosses nor even her own subsequent appearances manage to capture. Probably no other character managed to directly reference quite as many myths and religious concepts in her debut game appearance. And yet, without context many of these probably seem borderline nonsensical. Interviews and supplementary material sometimes help, but even that isn’t guaranteed. This article will focus on only one such instance, the notoriously mystifying exchange between her and Aya which simultaneously casts her as a “god of tengu-warding” and implies a degree of kinship between them. What does this mean? Why does Okina have something to do with tengu in the first place? Where do tengu come from, anyway? Why crow tengu aren’t necessarily crows? Why is it possible to make a case for Byakuren being a tengu? This - and more - will be explored under the cut.

Matarajin and tengu, from tengu odoshi to Hidden Star in Four Seasons

In Aya’s route in Hidden Star in Four Seasons, Okina calls herself “a god of tengu-warding”. This is actually not something ZUN invented. Matarajin was the focus of a medieval Tendai Buddhist ritual known as tengu odoshi (天狗怖し) - “placating the tengu”. He was most likely himself understood as a tengu in this context. As such, he had to be placated by the monks performing the ritual, whose chaotic actions - chiefly noisy recitation of random sutras coupled - were meant to imitate his own behavior. 

This approach is somewhat unusual: in many other similar ceremonies an appropriate deity or deities would simply be invoked to get rid of demonic interlopers. Here the risk of obstruction is so great that only by pretending to play along with it victory can be attained. Or, alternatively, perhaps to get rid of Matarajin and other tengu, the monks had to beat them at their own game by creating an even more disorderly display. Yet another option is that Matarajin had to be attracted with the ritual in order to ward off other, lesser tengu. No matter which interpretation is correct, it is evident there was a direct connection between them.

Matarajin and his attendants (Rhode Island School of Design Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only) As a curiosity it’s worth pointing out that it has been suggested that tengu odoshi and other similar rituals and festivals might have resulted in the development of Matarajin’s well known role as a deity of the performing arts, especially noh, exemplified by his equation with a stock character from sarugaku, Okina, an auspicious old man represented by a characteristic bearded mask. Comparisons have also been made between the tengu odoshi and rituals involving Matarajin’s attendants Chōreita Dōji (丁令多童子) and Nishita Dōji (爾子多童子). Fittingly, one of the spell cards of their Touhou counterparts Mai and Satono is named Mad Dance "Tengu-Odoshi".

Shizuka Gozen performing in typical shirabyōshi attire, as depicted by Hokusai (wikimedia commons)

While this is only tangentially related to Matarajin, it’s worth pointing out that according to Yasurō Abe, it was also believed that tengu were enthusiasts of the performing arts in general. However, while Matarajin was associated with noh, tengu favored an earlier form of entertainment, shirabyōshi (白拍子). This term refers to a type of female dancer who performed in male formal wear. The reference to tengu enjoying their dances and songs might be an allusion to emperor Go-Shirakawa, who was known for similar artistic tastes and was commonly represented as a tengu in legends.

The association between Matarajin and tengu was also present in shugendō. In Kumano, local shugenja apparently perceived him as a tengu-like deity comparable to Iizuna Gongen (飯縄権現). It’s worth noting this is in theory who Megumu is based on, but tragically ZUN didn’t want to do much with the irl background in her case, so I doubt we'll ever see a reference to this in canon media.

An Edo period depiction of the ox festival of Matarajin (wikimedia commons)

It seems the only other possible reference to Matarajin as a tengu is a depiction of the famous (relatively speaking) Kōryū-ji ox festival from the Edo period Miyako Meisho Zue (都名所圖會) in which the person playing his role wears a tengu-like mask. 

Considering ZUN has to be aware of at least some of the scholarship pertaining to Matarajin and tengu - tengu odoshi is not exactly a famous ritual, and most of the search results today are just Touhou - it seems safe to say that he had this very connection in mind. Aya mentions a category of beings she refers to as “people of impairments”, which according to her encompasses both the tengu and their metaphorical relatives who “hid behind Buddhas”, like Okina. This neatly corresponds to their shared role of their counterparts in medieval and early modern Buddhism.

In addition to the connections between Matarajin and tengu discussed above, there are multiple other instances of identifying him as a member of a category of beings usually perceived ambivalently, if not outright negatively, specifically because of their ability to impair the pursuit of enlightenment. If you read my previous post focused on Okina-adjacent topics, you already know that Matarajin was closely associated with dakinis, for instance. It’s worth noting that as an extension of this connection, he could also be associated with foxes. The Edo period treatise Inari Jinja Kō (稲荷神社考, “Reflections on Inari Shrine”) outright says that matarajin, treated as a generic term, not a given name,  is one of the the terms which can be used to refer to supernatural foxes.

The oldest presently known reference to Matarajin describes him as a “yasha deity” (夜叉神, yashajin). This term is a loan from Sanskrit yakṣa, and refers to a class of nature spirits or low-ranking deities incorporated into Buddhism from preexisting tradition of India. They are portrayed as generally benevolent and protective. To be a yaksha in origin is no shame for a deity, despite their low status and occasional ambivalence. Bishamonten, who needs no introduction, as well as Konpira, the foremost of the Twelve Heavenly Generals, are both portrayed as yakshas who embraced Buddhism. Even the bodhisattva Kannon seemingly was portrayed as a reincarnation of a female yaksha named Cundī early on. In both China and Japan, the most widespread image of a yaksha is ultimately that of an armed, protective figure.

However, sometimes negative traits can be ascribed to yakshas too. For instance, the Tang period Buddhist scholar Guifeng Zongmi maintained that yakshas are child-eating demons - though he also recorded a custom of dedicating children to them in order to prevent them from harm. The tenth century Tendai monk Genshin stated they were among demonic beings who could potentially obstruct rebirth in a pure land. However, it was possible to solve this problem with the right rites.  The examples listed above are just a few glimpses of one of the most recurring topics in historical Japanese Buddhist literature: there were demons, and even deities (障礙神, shōgejin) keen on impairing the pursuit of enlightenment unless properly placated. This would either ward them off, or even turn them into fierce protectors of Buddhism instead (what ZUN presumably meant by Aya’s comment about “hiding behind Buddhas”). However, most of such beings originated in India and spread alongside new religious movements. How did tengu join their ranks? To answer this question, I will need to go beyond Matarajin and further back in time, to the Heian and Kamakura periods.

Makai, the realm of tengu

A group of Tengu constructing a temple in the tengu realm (wikimedia commons)

The emergence of tengu as a well defined class of beings is fundamentally tied to portraying them as a source of hindrances for practitioners of Buddhism. In the twelfth century, they came to be identified with the concept of ma (魔), a loanword from Sanskrit māra. In this context, it is to be understood as obstruction of enlightenment, or opposition to the Buddha, his teachings and the Buddhist law. There are both internal sources of ma, like doubt and worldly attachment, and external ones. Tengu, generally speaking, fall into the second category.

Tengu were believed to be reincarnations of those who lack bodhicitta (菩提心, bodaishin), the mindset necessary to pursue enlightenment. Those who become tengu at least nominally follow Buddhist teachings, but fail because of arrogance, greed and other earthly attachments. Those who mislead others by promoting incorrect practices also turned into tengu after death. 

Many tengu narratives from the Heian period and the middle ages portray them as possessing extraordinary powers, which they use to trick and mislead monks and laypeople alike. They could be referred to as gejutsu (外術), literally “outside techniques”. A related term is gedō (外道), “outside way”. These labels are not necessarily pejorative, and can refer to any practices which are not strictly Buddhist, for example to Confucian or Daoist ones, and in fact some were integrated with Buddhist practices. However, depending on context other options might be preferable. For example, Haruko Wakabayashi went with “wicked sorcery” in her translation of a Konjaku Monogatari tale in which a tengu poses as a buddha in order to mislead laypeople. However, even if tengu could imitate miracles Buddhas and bodhisattvas were believed to perform, their results were only temporary because they lacked true power. In many tales the effects of tengu tricks only last seven days.

According to the Kamakura period anthology Shasekishū (沙石集), not all tengu are malicious, despite their origin. Those who are close to being redeemed, while held back by “superficial wisdom”, curtail the influence of their more malevolent peers and thus act as protectors of Buddhism. They eventually leave the realm of tengu. Other sources indicate that the malign tengu are destined to eventually be reborn as animals.

As already pointed out above, the notion of tengu being opponents of Buddhism already appears in Konjaku Monogatari, composed between 1120 and 1140. The tales involving them appear in the final chapter of the section focused on Buddhism in Japan, which sets them apart from most other supernatural beings. They are instead grouped with accounts of visits in hells and other realms of rebirth, and with narratives explaining the consequences of accumulation of bad karma.

In the Kamakura period, tengu received their own place in the Buddhist cosmos: an entire realm of rebirth. It didn’t replace any of the three other realms where one reincarnates as punishment due to accumulating bad karma - these of hungry ghosts, animals, and hell. It could be sometimes described as a specific hell (one of many) or as a part of the animal realm, but generally it was held to be something distinct. While still perceived negatively, it can effectively be considered a preferable alternative to rebirth as an animal or in hell, since to be reborn as a tengu does not necessarily prevent one from seeking enlightenment.

The realm of tengu was variously referred to as tengudō (天狗道; “realm of tengu”), madō (魔道; “realm of ma”) or makai (魔界; “world of ma”). The last of these terms has been present in Touhou for a while, though never in association with tengu, at least for now. I am aware many people are attached to the PC-98 portrayal of Makai and to Shinki, but I would argue there are endless possibilities in trying to make the medieval understanding of this term work in this context as well. Most notably, the notion of monks who failed in their pursuit of enlightenment would have interesting implications for Byakuren. Following medieval Buddhist logic, one could argue she is essentially already a tengu, even though ZUN refers to “sealing” in Makai, as opposed to being reborn there. She may deny it herself in Symposium of Post-Mysticism, but it's hard to argue with the evidence.

The oldest work establishing the existence of tengudō as a distinct realm of rebirth is Hirasan Kojin Reitaku (比良山古人霊託; “The Spiritual Oracle of the Old Man of Mount Hira”), in which the Tendai monk Keisei (1189–1268) learns about it from a tengu residing on Mount Hira. While left anonymous, the being states that he was alive in the times of Shōtoku and before the rise of Fujiwara no Kamatari to prominence, and explains that due to worldly attachments he was reborn in the realm of tengudō. He then provides information about many of Keisei’s family members and contemporaries, as well as assorted historical figures. Some of them have shared a similar fate, including emperors Sutoku and Goshirakawa and prominent members of Buddhist clergy like Ryōgen, Jien, and many others. Keisei and the anonymous tengu then engage in what I can only describe as a vintage example of power scaling, and start to compare the strength of the individual tengu (as we learn, Go-Shirakawa is more powerful than Sutoku). 

Curiously, the anonymous tengu is entirely self-aware, and explains that his mind is filled with illusory thoughts, but proper Buddhist observance can nonetheless save him and other tengu from their current state. He notes that Ryōgen was able to leave the realm of tengu already, for instance. Another peculiar aspect of this account is the explicit reference to female tengu. The protagonist explains to Keisei that his wife is a fellow tengu, though she is only 400 years old. He also specifies many other tengu have families and even children.

A debate in the tengu realm (wikimedia commons)

The Buddhist views on tengu became firmly cemented thanks to the Tengu Zōshi (天狗草紙), a set of seven illustrated scrolls. This work most likely originally arose in the thirteenth century, in an era of conflicts between the well established esoteric schools of Buddhism, Tendai and Shingon, and the newcomers to the scene, like Zen and Pure Land. All parties involved accused each other of spreading false teachings and embracing ma. The new schools did not form a unified front, for clarity: for instance, Nichiren denounced the Shingon establishment about equally enthusiastically as Zen or Pure Land. There were also voices presenting the very act of criticism of other schools as worthy of critique in itself. The goal of Tengu Zōshi was to criticize and satirize the various vices of contemporary Buddhist monks by presenting them as tengu. It states that there are seven kinds of tengu, corresponding to seven different sorts of pride (citing Haruko Wakabayashi: “feeling slightly inferior to those who are greatly superior, feeling superior to those who are inferior and equal to those who are equal, feeling superior to those who are equal and equal to those who are superior, feeling superior to those who are superior, being attached to oneself, committing evil and thinking one is virtuous, and feeling enlightened when one is not).

Five of the tengu types are supposed to represent monks of major temples of this era (Kōfuku-ji, Tōdai-ji, Enryakuji, Onjō-ji, and Tō-ji), the remaining two are yamabushi (mountain ascetics) and “recluses” (tonse). However, the scrolls culminate with a reveal that all of the depicted tengu attained salvation and eventually became Buddhas (save for Ippen, who was instead destined to be reborn in the animal realm). This once again puts an emphasis on tengudō not being quite as bad as the other paths of rebirth which should generally be avoided: one has to actually practice Buddhism in some form to get there in the first place, and it is possible to attain enlightenment as a tengu.

The notion of tengudō and tengu being fallen monks did not vanish after the middle ages, and appears for example in some tales about Yoshitsune’s youth and his training with these beings, for instance in the Miraiki (未来記; literally “chronicle of the future”). Therefore, it is safe to say that this is the closest thing to a universal explanation where do tengu come from. However, their history actually goes even further back.

Cats, comets, dogs and kites: the origin of tengu

A tiangou from the Classic of Mountains and Seas (wikimedia commons)

The history of tengu starts in China. At least the history of the name, that is. The word 天狗, which in Chinese is read as tiangou, already occurs in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, probably composed at some point in the second half of the first millennium BCE, either near end of the Warring States Period or in the beginning of the reign of the Han dynasty. While tiangou can be literally translated “celestial dog”, the creature is actually compared to a wildcat with a white head, and makes catlike sounds on top of that. It is also said to repel evil forces. This quality is also reaffirmed by the poet Guo Pu, who additionally states the tiangou is so small that a ruler could either eat it or wear it as a belt ornament to make use of its protection.

Next to this whimsical image of a benevolent supernatural creature, the term tiangou was also used to refer to comets and similar celestial phenomena. This meaning of the term entered Buddhist texts, for example in the Sutra on the Bases of Mindfulness of the True Dharma (正法念處經, Chinese Zhengfa Nianchu Jing, Japanese Shōbō Nenshokyō), tiangou serves as a translation of the Sanskrit term ulka, which refers to meteors. The astral tiangou eventually developed its own supernatural associations in China, becoming a sort of dog-shaped astral demon. I cannot cover this topic extensively here, but you will find plenty of information, including a first hand account of a modern celebration tied to these traditions, in Xiaosu Sun’s article in the bibliography.

The earliest Japanese reference to 天狗 occurs in the Nihon Shoki (completed in 720), specifically in the section recording the events from the reign of emperor Jomei (593-641). The reason why I’m using the kanji here is that the reading is not necessarily intended to be tengu in this case; the gloss indicates it is actually to be read as amatsukitsune, “heavenly fox” (I’ll go back to this term later). However, Haruko Wakabayashi states it’s safe to assume that it was used here in the astronomical Chinese meaning. The passage refers to observation of a comet, which reportedly made the sound of thunder as it passed from east to west.

Some other early references to tengu occur in literature of the Heian period (794-1185). In this context, this term seems to refer to nondescript mountain spirits. They were believed to possess people to make them fall ill or to cause disorder. All around it seems they weren’t really meaningfully distinct from any other beings or phenomena which could be subsumed under the label of mononoke (物の怪), and it's not clear how their name came to be applied to them. In the early twentieth century, the folklorist Kunio Yanagita tried to prove these early tengu might have represented people pushed into the mountains by the spread of a centralized Japanese state. However, this theory never took off. Even some of Yanagita’s contemporaries, especially Kumagusu Minakata, were critical of it, and it’s just a weird curiosity today. Similar assumptions were proven correct in the case of tsuchigumo, and might be correct in the case of some oni tales, but these are matters for another time.

The supernatural form of Sutoku, as depicted by Yoshitsuya Utagawa (wikimedia commons)

Notably, in the Heian period it was already believed that one can reincarnate as a tengu, though this belief didn’t become quite as well defined as it was in later sources. Probably the oldest story like that states that the monk Shinzei (真済; 800-860) a disciple of Kūkai (774-835), became a tengu and subsequently tormented empress Somedono (染殿后; Fujiwara no Akirakeiko), the wife of emperor Seiwa. In later tradition, emperor Sutoku came to be viewed as the archetypal example of a human who reincarnated as a tengu; it should be noted he was simultaneously viewed as a vengeful spirit (怨霊, onryō), though. 

A kite-like tengu, as depicted by Sekien Toriyama (wikimedia commons)

The well known association between tengu and birds is already present in Heian sources too. Today, the bird-like depictions of tengu are known as “karasu tengu”, literally “crow tengu”, and in many modern works, including Touhou, this moniker is taken literally. However, through history the birdlike elements of the tengu were typically those of a bird of prey, not a corvid. As I mentioned, kites were the most common, but for example some depictions of Iizuna Gongen are eagle-like. This convention might have been influenced by garudas, a class of bird-like Buddhist protective figures.

A depiction of a garuda from Besson Zakki (別尊雑記), a Heian period Buddhist iconographic compendium (via Bernard Faure’s Rage and Ravage; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Descriptions of tengu explicitly mentioning their resemblance to kites are quite common. In Zoku Honchō Ōjōden (続本朝往生伝; “Continuation of the Biographies of Japanese Reborn in a Pure Land Continued”) Ōe no Masafusa (who you might remember from my Ten Desires article) mentions a tengu turning into a kite to spy on a virtuous monk. In the historical epic Taiheiki Sutoku, presented as the ruler of all tengu, is said to have the form of a golden kite. However, in at least some cases tengu are not necessarily birds themselves, but merely use them as mounts. Granted, both traditions could coexist: Hirasan Kojin Reitaku explains that tengu ride kites, but it also describes them as possessing the legs, tail and wings of a bird themselves.

The oldest source to feature a large number of images of bird-like tengu is the already discussed Tengu Zōshi. These include high-ranking monks with beaks, yamabushi or monks with wings and beaks, slightly more bird-like figures portrayed largely without clothing, and finally non-anthropomorphic kites. There are also illustrations of seemingly regular humans labeled as tengu. Haruko Wakabayashi concludes that the use of multiple distinct iconographic types in the same scrolls might reflect belief in a hierarchy of tengu, with the beaked monks representing the upper echelons of the tengu society and the other varieties their servants. The regular kites presumably hold the lowest position. The tengu world thus seems to reflect a contemporary idealized image of Buddhist hierarchy, with lower ranking practitioners, wandering ascetics and laypeople guided by senior monks. 

ZUN kept the notion of tengu hierarchy, though the classes listed in the relevant entry in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense are largely his invention, or at least represent pretty extensive reinterpretation (for instance, tengu dressed up as yamabushi aren’t associated with printing in any particular way). While many of these changes work very well with his idea to adapt the traditional role of tengu as peddlers of dubious interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and false miracles with a fresh twist by making them purveyors of misinformation, I will admit I’m not sure where did the idea of wolf tengu come from, as it fits neither this theme nor any genuine tengu background. The wiki insists that’s a reference to the Chinese tiangou, but I’m not buying this.

Iizuna Gongen riding on the back of a celestial fox (wikimedia commons)

I would argue foxes would probably work better than wolves. In some cases due to phonetic similarity a degree of conflation, or at least confusion, could occur between tengu and tenko (天狐), “heavenly foxes”. The fourteenth century treatise Byakuhō Kushō (白寶口抄) states the tenko has the form of a kite, for instance. It’s also why Iizuna Gongen was sometimes referred to as Chira Tenko (智羅天狐). The link with foxes was hardly universal, though. For example, it is absent from the tradition centered on Mount Atago, in which in addition to birds, tengu are associated with wild boars. Note that a myth dealing with Iizuna Gongen’s arrival in Japan does indirectly link this location with foxes, but this is basically extending his own connections to other tengu.

While the discussed animal connections are quite important for tengu iconography, I was unable to find any evidence that there was ever a particularly strong belief in mundane animals turning into tengu, as Aya’s bio from Phantasmagoria of Flower View would imply. The only source I am aware of which would state that directly is Atsutane Hirata, one of the most fanatical kokugaku authors, and even he still states that at least some tengu were reincarnated Buddhists. Note that his works are generally not a record of genuine mythology or folklore, but part of an effort to “purify” Japanese culture which directly led to the birth of the “contemporary” form of expansive nationalism. In any case, Hidden Star in Four Seasons and the historical context of information it provides opens the possibilities for much more interesting and unique tengu backstories than just stage 2-worthy beast youkai fare.

To sum up, while individual stories might portray tengu as arriving in Japan from Korea (Tarōbō), China (Zegaibō and his prototype Chira Yōju) or even India (an anonymous tengu in Konjaku Monogatari), these reflect the routes across which Buddhism was transmitted to Japan. The tengu as a distinct supernatural creature had elements which originated abroad, obviously, but ultimately represented a strictly Japanese contribution to Buddhist demonology. At least some Japanese authors were already aware of this in the middle ages, as evidenced by the Shasekishū. 

The three meanings of 天狗 - the tiangou, the astral object and the tengu - are explicitly described as distinct from each other in the encyclopedia Jakushōdō Kokkyōshū (寂照堂谷響集) compiled by the monk Unshō (運敞; 1614–1693). The original tiangou is described here as a type of tanuki which eats snakes, but this doesn’t exactly contradict the Chinese description I’ve mentioned before, as 狸, the character referring to wildcat in Chinese, was adopted to represent the name of tanuki in Japanese. The astral tiangou is described as a “tengu star” (天狗星, tengu-sei) which has the form comparable to a dog. Unshō stresses that both of these are distinct from the Japanese tengu, despite their names being written identically. He places the tengu in the entourage of Mara, alongside dakinis and vinayakas (in this context demons representing something like an evil counterpart of Ganesha as a remover of obstacles).

Beyond animals: the long nose tengu and Sarutahiko

A Meiji period depiction of Sarutahiko (wikimedia commons)

A final matter which needs to be addressed here is a theory that tengu imagery is derived from Sarutahiko, which for some reason has been placed in the lead of the tengu article on wikipedia despite being hardly relevant academically. This proposed connection relies on the fact that from the very beginning Sarutahiko was described as long-nosed. In the section of the Nihon Shoki dealing with the “age of the gods”, the oldest text he appears in, it is said that “his nose is 7 feet long”. His other physical characteristics are also exaggerated, to be fair - he is said to be unusually tall, and his eyes are enormous too. All around, this description is presumably meant to make him seem intimidating. Still, the nose is what visual arts tend to highlight, sometimes for comedic purposes.

A long-nosed tengu, as depicted by Hokusai (wikimedia commons)

This characteristic also led to a development of a folkloric connection between Sarutahiko and the one type of tengu depictions I haven’t discussed yet - the long-nosed tengu, commonly called daitengu or “great tengu”. The origin of this iconographic variant remains poorly understood. While by far the most recognizable today, they are a relatively recent artistic convention - the oldest examples only date to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and they only became widespread in the Edo period. By then, tengu were present in Japan for some 700 years, and Sarutahiko doesn’t come up in sources describing them (and vice versa).

It also needs to be stressed that while the daitengu still have some birdlike traits, Sarutahiko lacks a connection to birds altogether. Instead, he is associated with monkeys (tengu never are, contrary to an unsourced claim on wikipedia). Historically he could even be identified with Daigyōji (大行事), a deity from Mount Hiei depicted with the head of a macaque.

It’s not impossible that the specific long-nosed type of tengu depictions was based on depictions of Sarutahiko, but it’s equally likely the influence actually went into the opposite direction (most depictions of Sarutahiko are from the Edo period or later, and most shrines dedicated to him are fairly recently established too, even though he was worshiped in one form or another through earlier periods already).

A statuette of a dancer wearing a Raryō-ō costume by Shōmin Unno (Imperial Household Agency; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Bernard Faure notes it’s also not impossible that both Sarutahiko’s iconography and the long-nosed tengu are simply both reflections of something else altogether, and suggests the long-nosed Raryō-ō (羅陵王; sometimes shortened to Ryō-ō, 陵王) masks used in bugaku performances as one possible candidate. Ultimately none of these possibilities can be proven conclusively, though, and it’s best to maintain caution.

ZUN seems to believe there is some truth to the proposal that tengu were derived from Sarutahiko, judging from the fact he referenced this connection multiple times in various ways. The oldest example are Aya’s spell cards in Mountain of Faith. It also comes up in Symposium of Post-Mysticism, where Miko and Byakuren seem to basically treat it as a fact. Aya in one of the short articles from the same book declares that “when it comes to white beard in Gensokyo, we tend to picture Sarutahiko. (...) he is also the god of us tengu”. Putting aside the latter claim, which is bit of a reach when it comes to real beliefs, it’s worth noting that the mention of the white beard is a pretty deep cut. It was actually not a part of Sarutahiko’s original iconography, but rather an addition which developed at the Shirahige Shrine on the shores of Lake Biwa. Originally the local deity, Shirahige Myōjin (白鬚明神), was considered a distinct figure. However, at some point he came to be identified with Sarutahiko, and the names seem to be used interchangeably in medieval and later sources. As a result, the latter received the former’s signature white hair and beard.

While despite the existence of a genuine connection it is a stretch to call Sarutahiko a “god of tengu”, let alone their leader, this does not mean that figures which can be described this way are absent from tradition. In fact, I mentioned a number of them in passing in the previous sections. However, describing them in more detail a topic for another article. Look forward to "Tenma, boss of the tengu". Exploring the "heavenly demon(s)", coming next year!

Bibliography

Yasurō Abe, The Book of “Tengu”: Goblins, Devils and Buddhas in Medieval Japan

Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 2)

Idem, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore

Sarah Fremerman Aptilon, Goddess Genealogy: Nyoirin Kannon In The Ono Shingon Tradition in: Charles Orzech, Richard Payne & Henrik Sørensen (eds.), Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

Wilburn N. Hansen, When Tengu Talk. Hirata Atsutane's Ethnography of the Other World

Richard E. Strassberg, A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas

Xiaosu Sun, Liu Qingti's Canine Rebirth and Her Ritual Career as the Heavenly Dog: Recasting Mulian's Mother in Baojuan (Precious Scrolls) Recitation

Haruko Wakayabashi, The Seven Tengu Scrolls. Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Idem, Monks, Sovereigns, and Malign Spirits: Profiles of Tengu in Medieval Japan

Duncan Ryūken Williams, The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Sōtō Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan

[junglerain]

Bearded Theory festival

Derbyshire England

May 2024

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 4 thoughts

here we are!!! i actually turned off auto caps on my phone for this; that’s how serious this blog is getting. don't worry, i'll probably remember to turn it back on before i send an important email.

i haven’t seen an ep in a few days and i feel like it has been 80 years. the last episode wasn’t the greatest, so our time apart feels even longer.

this episode is about a guy named clyde. clyde bruckman is a hell of a name. i’m expecting a real cowboy. a guy who knows his way around a horse. he probably spits chew in a certain fashion. we shall see if i’m correct.

(editor's note: op found that clyde was not a cowboy, but something just as special... a friend <3)

we open with a man reading a magazine article on predictions, written by a celebrity psychic. we later learn that this fellow doing the reading is, in fact, clyde bruckman. and elvis being dead but buddy holly being alive has got to be one of the greatest theories i’ve ever heard. i WILL incorporate this into my belief system.

allegedly, buddy holly is going to open at a big music festival. and this is how i learn that lollapalooza was a thing even before chappell roan visited... but we all know that when she steps on that stage in a few short weeks it will blow anything secretly alive buddy holly could have cooked up in his wildest dreams. "the night the music died" <- crazy thing to say about a time before miss roan was even born. anyway...

bruckman ran into someone in the street. feels like a chekov’s gun moment but who knows.

hint: it was!

now the clumsy man is at the psychic. and he says he saw his own future and he seem himself doing things that are “out of character”. now that's suspicious~

OH??? clumsy man just killed the fortune teller and says she should have seen this coming. HUH???? clumsy murder man needs to be punished …our psychics deserve federal protection. 

we are at the scene of a murder. a different murder, because this one did NOT take place in the psychic's room. “they say the eyes capture the last thing a murder victim sees” “so what do they say about the entrails?” “yuck” LMAO i giggled a little….

they’re talking about some guy in vague terms, that he’s “unorthodox” and “a kook”, and then mulder walks in and it looks like they’re talking about him but the investigator says “who the hell are you” HAHAHA that got me as well

so the murderer left behind the eyeballs and scully says that they made a profile for the killer and i’m thinking yaaaaay they worked together <3 i love that spooky mulder, the well-established profiling expert, is willing to collaborate. but with her only.

and also the house is filled with porcelain dolls 

mulder knowing the professional name for the people who read tea leaves… unfortunately i love him so bad.

THEN the real star of the show rolls up. it’s the psychic from the cover of the magazine we saw clyde reading earlier. CROWDED w paparazzi. he's got a vague european accent going on here. hold up is that jon favreau in the background. i received no clarification on if that was him or not.

psychic is describing a guy who could be literally anyone “white man with facial hair… or not” “tattoo somewhere on his body” wow king of specifics. it's like he's in the room with us. /s

the agents are watching him do this and share a glance and i want it on a poster it’s sooo cute <3

celebrity psychic says he lost the vision from negative energy and then gets right up in the agent’s faces. they handle it pretty well, all things considered. because i would be telling him to back tf up. 

he asks mulder to LEAVE!!!! he has been diagnosed with negative energy. she leans in and says “i can’t take you anywhere” LMAOOOO so he stands outside and then the psychic says that skeptics like mulder make him sick. yeah i laughed!!! so what!

description of our guy: “white male, 17-34, with or without a beard, maybe a tattoo, who is impotent” <- wow.

back to the clyde cam. he's selling insurance. telling some guy that he is going to die in a car crash. well this is an effective life insurance sales policy. or not, because he doesn’t close the deal!! sure would have worked on me.

back home, he takes out some moldy cabbage that looks like a guy’s head into the trash. takes out his neighbor’s trash as well, and sees a vision of the dog eating her remains. (sabrina brier voice) oh!!!

(wait i just realized i reference that video all the time and have never cited my sources. if you are unfamiliar with the legendary "oh!" moment please click here)

back to the plot at hand.

clyde asks if his neighbor has enough dog food. thoughtful man. BUT he sees a body in the trash!

this episode is making me giggle <- don't remember what prompted that note but it was true.

clyde, who reported the murder, says that he knew the eyes were cut out, but she was found face down... so. how do you know that. site your sources. “well it just figures”, he says, and it absolutely, and i cannot emphasize this enough, does not

they bring him to… a murder scene. dun dun dun!

he thinks they're pranking him and asks to see their identification again (sees mulder’s badge) “i’m supposed to believe that’s a real name?” yeah get him again for me.

he sees blood at the crime scene and throws up which... yeah. that’s pretty messed up. he emerges from throwing up and starts saying and doing the same things as the earlier psychic. but then he starts getting... a bit more specific. allegedly, the woman was having sex with the killer before she met her end.

“well then, what’s wrong?” “sometimes, it just seems that everyone’s having sex except for me” LMAOOOOOOOOO clyde you are too real

scully looks soooo confused and i love it

all of a sudden, he sees one of the many dolls as a bloated corpse head, and announces where they’ll find the body then�� hands the doll to mulder. which is not the first time we have seen him holding a doll. it is an interesting visual. what are they trying to tell us??

scully isn’t buying it. why does clyde know all this stuff? “i don’t believe he’s the killer”, says mulder, and she responds with, “i don’t believe he’s psychic” yeah that’s the dynamic i love. and she is sooooo pretty. 

mulder goes to the dude’s house and he knows exactly what is going on. but then clyde seems shocked it's him so we are getting mixed messages here.

he asks mulder if he wants to know how he’s going to die, and mulder says yes after stuttering a little and i’m like WOAH where is this going… but clyde responds with “no you don’t”, which, okay yeah, i don’t think i could handle that either

(he goes on to try and sell mulder insurance)

clyde says the future is inevitable. or if he does get involved… what if there is the whole butterfly effect thing? and then he immediately agrees to going along with the investigation. king of not having an answer. the indecisive representation we deserve.

mulder you’re so pretttttyy... look at him watching clyde touch some brass frogs and base conclusions off of them.

scully arrived at the door as mulder has his head FLAT ON THE TABLE lmaoooo 

so, it appears that clyde can ONLY tell how people are going to die. nothing else. now is that useful to this investigation? it's arguable. maybe they can find an angle.

clyde says that the scrap of fabric he’s holding comes from mulder’s new york knick’s t shirt (which was a thing that happened in 1x13 when he was testing that other psychic!!!! ohhhh i remember! do not think i forgot!! and i was confused as to why he would have a knick’s shirt if he was from new england... perhaps he knows no loyalty to geography when it comes to sport)

but mulder denies that it is his shirt anyway, so.

they found keychains on the bodies, and clyde is going on about all the personal information of whoever owned said keychains. it turns out he just sold the guy an insurance policy a few months ago lmaooo... but he knows he was murdered! the death power strikes again.

scully is driving. clyde is in the passenger seat. mulder is sticking his head in between them, asking how he receives his psychic transmissions. it's funny. he wants to know how being a psychic works! so is it like, visions, or dreams or something?

he then implies that mulder will die by autoerotic asphyxiation <- HELLO????? he looks at scully after receiving this news. as if she can possibly defend him against such an accusation.

they’re in the forest looking for a body and clyde explains he knew “the big bopper” was going to die.

scully says she doesn’t believe in that stuff, and even if she did, she wouldn’t believe that story. damn, just really going for his throat, huh. he seems to believe her indignation is over the fact that he liked the big bopper better than buddy holly and he defends himself.

they try to get the car out and mulder’s suit gets all dirty (this is sad to me, a mulder suit enjoyer) but gasp!!! the car is RIGHT OVER THE BODY. that has to be bad for finding evidence. so he did know exactly where it was!!!!

they have a thread from the scene, and have presented it to clyde. “but don’t you have crime labs that analyze these things for you?” he asks scully “yes. yes we do” (pointed glare at mulder) LMAOOOO but he says it takes time!!! and they still haven't analyzed the other thread. so please please please just give your powers a go.

he doesn’t want to help out, but mulder says he wants some insurance. on the fiber, not actual life insurance :( clyde was so excited to tell him the benefits of general mutual!!!

clyde is describing mulder being stalked by the killer sometime in the future, and all of a sudden scully’s up and asking him for more details like she believes it. awww. it’s sweet in a way. does she believe in psychics? no. is she still gonna take detailed notes when one says mulder is in any slight danger? yeah. and don't worry about that seeming to contradict her belief system. she is complicated beyond simple characterizations of skeptic or believer.

he seems to think that the killer will slit mulder’s throat at the investigation, but he doesn’t want to tell him. he DOES tell him that he will step on a pie before whatever happens to him, happens to him.

thank you to the subtitles for clarifying that clyde was imitating johnny carson because they reference would have been lost on me. i know, i’m uncultured, i’m sorry. i’ll google it though. okay, as i thought, he was a late night host. see? we get an exchange of knowledge on this blog, i learn about johnny carson's way of pronouncing the word "killer" and you can use sabrina brier's "oh" in conversation now.

it seems the killer sent clyde a letter saying he’ll kill him. and he’ll be dead before they can get him help :( noooo i like mr bruckman!!! :(

back to the killer. he’s getting a tarot reading and says he’s looking for a guy he’s gonna kill. the man doing the tarot reading smiles nervously, because what do you say in such a situation.

they seem to have bought clyde a pie after his earlier ramblings on the subject, and he kindly asks scully if she wants some, but she denies because she must study background checks instead of relying upon visions. he asks if she is jealous. a good banter between them.

back at the tarot place, the reader mentions a woman. MAYBE A REDHEAD...? stay away from her…

clyde is going on about seeing himself in bed with scully. HELLO??? “it’s just a very special moment neither of us will ever forget” huh. laughs nervously. what the fuck. is she gonna find him dead or do we need to call HR.

(cries editing this, now that i know how the episode ends)

it seems the tarot card guy is about to get murdered. but back at the hotel room with clyde and scully, they’re playing cards and she’s talking about moby dick and macbeth misinterpreting prophecies...

but despite the denial, SHE ASKS HIM HOW SHE DIES??? he says “you don’t” and that is exactly what i like to hear <3

she seemed really serious about it too, like she didn’t want to admit that she was curious, initially deflecting. oh best believe i WILL psychoanalyze that.

LMAOOO okay so this is the episode where mulder says the “chantilly lace” line and she makes that face. he's referring to another thread found at a murder scene, but i saw it in a gif and i have been thinking about it since then.

she slaps his chest with the file and says good luck as he goes to babysit the old man psychic. it was very affectionate. do it again.

mulder is in bed. it’s sleepover time with the old man. “you’re not one of those people that turns everything into a sexual symbol, are you?”, clyde asks, seemingly self-conscious about revealing his recurring dream. mulder says no, but i’m unconvinced.

anyway, he talks about seeing himself dead, and how his body fades away. we see a cgi decomposing body and it’s quite gnarly. maybe it's clay? and all his skin faded away and he becomes bones. kinda gross tbh. but he says he feels at peace.

there’s been another murder, so another guy is gonna babysit our clyde, and i’m thinking noooo don’t trust this other guy!!

scully says she feels bad, that clyde has convinced himself he is a psychic and it’s taken all the joy out of his life :(

okay, the guy babysitting him seems to be telling him jokes. clyde says he won’t die of lung cancer so he lights up. and i'm thinking, buddy, he did not rule out emphysema.

hang on. that is a lighter we have seen before. in the hands of old lady who shall be eaten by dogs. now is this a mass produced object or are we about to witness the end of clyde!!!!

“don’t open that door for anybody”, says the babysitter, and clyde then immediately proceeds to do so. and who is it knocking but the psychic killer delivering their room service!!!

killer is asking clyde why he does these things and it’s “because you’re a homicidal maniac” well that would explain it! and then he stabs the babysitter. but clyde has delayed his fate by telling the murder he doesn’t kill him now. seems he believes him. clever thinking.

scully realizes that the killer is the bellhop at the hotel after seeing some more lace. which mulder describes as “woman’s intuition” yea <3

back at the hotel. mulder is in the kitchen. he sees the killer with the knife. it is all going down as clyde described it. now if there really is a pie do NOT BE DISTRACTED. OH there is a pie. and he knows he has to turn around, so he turns THE OTHER WAY. noooo!!!!!

they get in a struggle!!! mulder’s bleeding, and scully gets off the elevator just in time. she shoots the murderer. no hesitation on taking a life, she will kill a motherfucker for mulder. i love that about her. 

and scully only got there because she took the wrong elevator!!! more pondering on the meaning of fate!!!!!

i love when one of these bitches is on the floor in pain and the other comes over and comforts them. i think i need that in my life just once. it would heal me.

but the question is: where is bruckman?

they go to find him and they only find a dog tied to the door?? and a letter to scully. it’s the dog from before, the neighbor's pet. the letter from clyde says to take care of his neighbor's remains. and he asks if she wants a dog, and that you can’t blame him for the dog’s actions. so they go into the room.

BUT IT IS BRUCKMAN THAT IS DEAD IN THERE. it looks he took pills and suffocated himself. scully looks so so so so so sad.

AND OMG!!! SHE IS HOLDING HIS HAND WHILE HE IS IN BED AND CRYING. JUST LIKE HE SAID WOULD HAPPEN. WAIT THIS IS SO SAD. 

so that must be why he say a head in a bag at the start of the episode, it was his own death... and the killer was right, he did get to clyde before he was caught, he just didn't attack him. huh. funny how prophecies play out.

cutscene to her on the couch WITH THE DOG IN HER LAP. and an ad from the earlier eastern european psychic is on the tv. she throws the phone at him.

A DOG!!! a dog. okay, a lot to think about, but first and foremost we have scully with a dog <3 and it sits in her lap while she watches TV. and it MAY have tasted human flesh, which i feel is a hard thing to get past, but clearly she has done it. she has done the emotional labor of knowing that fuzzball knows what human meat feels like. and she has faith that this dog will not do the same to her. that is an awful lot of trust for a new dog. but we do know she loves animals. so perhaps she trusts the puppy.

i always pictured her with a big ol mutt from the pound. but a little dog can be just as good of a friend. and it WAS a rescue. that is important!

okay. back to the episode at hand, dog aside. even though it is a BIG deal to me and i'm honestly being so brave by not going on a monologue about what scully having a dog means to me. this episode was definitely comedic, and like the earlier comedic episode, i liked it a lot! but the ending made me so sad :( it was a pretty abrupt tone shift. 

still. the episode was SO good. i kept pausing every few seconds to write things down because they made me laugh or otherwise intrigued me (thinking of scully playing cards and explaining macbeth. or chantilly lace line. or "i can't take you anywhere". i will try not to think of mulder's potential death by choking himself for my own sanity)

and i liked clyde a lot. we get a lot of one time characters who we will never see again and so it’s good when those characters make an impact in the short amount of time we share with them. 

and i’m always gonna take a light-hearted episode, as light-hearted as a show where serial killing is a daily occurrence can be. it does go to show though that there wasn’t always a consistent tone throughout the story. and i do find that interesting. i am part of a generation where we typically get 6 hour long episodes of a tv show per season, and they’re so condensed there is very little time for exploration with genre or tone. in general, i have loathed this about modern television; the death of the filler episode has been lamented by people far more eloquent than myself.

the only thing i dislike about this format- doing a silly episode- is that if the next episode ends up being really dark it’s like, woah man, the whimsy, where did it go? last season we got humbug, which was SO fresh and funny, and then within the first 3 minutes of the next episode, a baby was killed by a train. so i lowkey got whiplash. but then again, i watched those episodes back to back, so maybe having a week between them seeing them air as they hit TV would have softened the blow. feel free to chime in with your theories on the nature of genre and how pacing of episode viewing effects that experience.

overall, a very good episode. i rank it up with humbug as one of my favorites, which is again funny, because i love the extreme angst and the silly. i paused to take so many notes because i liked so many things that i think i should someday rewatch it again and get a smoother experience haha

[probably-enjolras]

random aro!enjolras drabble for pride month

------------

The parade was passing through and Enjolras felt like he was missing something. He wasn't as decked out as his friends; no flag around his back or flower crown in his hair, but he had his shirt off to show his top surgery scars, a "he/him" pin on his lanyard that showed information for Les Amis de l'ABC, and Courfeyrac talked him into wearing a stack of rainbow and trans flag bracelets along his arm. Yet in the place he felt the most at home - being himself with his friends - something wasn't in place.

Enjolras began perusing the stalls and stands that different groups had set up. He had made sure to keep a stack of paper money with him for donations, giving them out to community and local organizations. Les Amis had a stall set up at the Café, but they were all taking turns manning the stall versus enjoying the festivities.

As Enjolras continued walking, a stall caught his eye. The stand had a few flags hanging on it with different shades of purple, green, grey, white, and black. Enjolras recognized the purple ones as the asexual flag, but the green flag caught his eye. He steadied himself and walked over to the stall.

The stall was being operated by two college-age kids, someone who looked to be in their mid-thirties, and an older man with a thick beard. When Enjolras stopped, the man stood up and gave him a smile.

"Hey son," the man said, looking at Enjolras' pin. "What can I help you with? Flags? Pins? Maybe a few zines by these lovely people behind me?"

Enjolras looked around the stall and his eyes fell on the green flags again. "What do the green flags mean?" he asked. "I know the purple is for asexuality, but I don't recognize the green one." He felt his face flush as he asked the question. Enjolras liked to think he was in the loop of all things queer; his friends had so many labels and have taught him so much more than his conservative family taught him, but admittedly he was more aware of political theory than identities.

"Oh!" the man said, smile widening. "It's the aromantic flag." Upon seeing Enjolras' slight look of unrecognition, the man continued. "It means they don't experience romantic attraction. Some people are just aromantic and never experience romantic attraction, some use the term greyromantic because they sometimes feel attraction, feel attraction but to a very low level, or feel somewhere between aromantic and alloromantic, and some use demiromantic because they don't get romantic feelings until a very deep bond is formed." The man pointed at each flag as he talked.

Enjolras stayed quiet for a second. He hadn't realized this was an option. All his friends talked about their crushes and romantic relationships, and while Enjolras enjoyed hearing about it, he never had anything to share, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"How do you know if you're aromantic?" he asked, feeling sheepish.

The man gave him a knowing smile. "It's a process of finding yourself, but sometimes you just know."

Enjolras looked at the little green and grey pins on the table. Everything felt like it was clicking into place. All the years of trying to be in romantic relationships hoping romantic feelings would form and ending up having to break up and losing a friend because he couldn't do it. All the confusion of what he thought were crushes but the idea of being more than friends made his stomach churn. Every time he changed the subject when his parents asked him about settling down because settling down with someone was so foreign to Enjolras in a way he couldn't express. All of it was suddenly a shade of green, calming like summer trees and fresh cut grass.

Enjolras pulled out his wallet and gave the man a few dollars.

"I'll take a pin please."

[gardenist]

Bearded theory festival

May 2024.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/05/09/the-father-of-kwanzaa/ec0fe360-c895-47d3-a5b6-0a1a09a471b1/

The Father of Kwanzaa

By: Hollie I. West

Published: May 9, 1978

"I created Kwanzaa," laughed M. Ron Karenga like a teenager who's just divulged a deeply held, precisions secret.

"People think it's African. But it's not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!"

The overwhelmingly black audience at Howard University's recent National Conference of Afro-American writers broke into laughter. The joke was on them - and millions of other black Americans who taught Kwanzaa, the seven-day festival of harvest, was African.

Since he created the holiday in 1966, numerous Afro-Americans have come to celebrate the occasion between Dec. 22 and Jan. 1 as an alternative to Christmas.

Nevertheless, the ploy was not malicious. Karenga, political activist in the late '60s, currently a college professor and frequent lecturer asked: "Can you imagine 30 to 40 million people not having one national, non-heroic holiday? We couldn't wait around for someone to do this for us."

In the late '60s and early '70s, he had a profound effect on the thinking of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) and other Afro-american cultural figures who spread his philosophy.

From his base in Los Angeles, Karenga came to national prominence following the Watts civil disturbance. He was seen frequently on television and made numerous speeches. A civil rights observer called him "one of the leading theoreticians in the national black power movement."

His role was described as a study in contrasts. He urged militant self-defense by blacks, but he also conferred with white politicians on civil rights issues. His bald head and Genghis Khan-styled beard and moustache gave him a fearsome look, but in face-to-face meetings he was calm and soft-spoken.

Using the tough rhetorical style of the '60s, he wrote in "The Quotable Karenga," a thin handbook given to his followers: "When it's burn, let's see how much you burn. When it's kill,' let's see how much you kill. When it's blow up," let's see how much you blow up."

But times have changed. Between 1971 and 1975 he dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman. He is appealing. Now he was resurfaced and said he is rebuilding his movement.

Although the popularity of Kwanzaa mushroomed dramatically, Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X's birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day, a commemoration on Aug. 11 of the 1965 Watts civil disturbance.

The 1960s were a time of fervent cultural activity among blacks. Theater groups and writers workshops sprang up in most large cities. And Karenga took advantage of this.

He spoke to large and small, middle-class and working-class black organizations from CORE to Baptist church groups, carrying the message of Kwanzaa. At the same time, Baraka spoke for the Karenga philosophy to thousands of people at Congress of African Peoples meetings. He also wrote tracts that were published by black publishing houses.

The Kwanzaa idea began to pop up in black mass publications such as Ebony and Jet. From there it was picked up by white publications - daily newspapers and magazines - and radio and television.

Who is this short, squat man with the high-pitched voice and the flery rhetoric, and what is the current measure of his influence?

A. B. Spellman, writer and National Endowment for the Arts official, said: "There was no theory of nationalism in the '60s. What Karenga did was to rationalize the nationalist impulse and try to codify it."

Larry Neal, writer and executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, said: "Vocabulary and Kwanzaa are the major influences he's had. People started studying Swahili. Kwanzaa was like Topsy. It just grew.

"People wanted form, structure. He spoke to a need."

But Baraka, a former black nationalist who's become a Marxist, is not so charitable in his current assessment of the man whose ideas he once proselytized.

Said Baraka: "There was a vacuum created after Malcolm X died . . . Karenga was very well organized. He moved into the vacuum.

"He did a positive thing as far as Kwanzaa was concerned. But in a way it was another form of bourgeois nationalism. And he taught male chauvinsim."

"People have slandered me," complained Karenga. "I's slow building an organization in this atmosphere. There's a lull in the (black liberation) movement and I've got to dismantlef the bogus image that has gone up around me."

In his rapid-fire black preacher's oratory style, marked by staccato rhythms and syncopated long and short phrases, Karenga said, "What I said in the '60s I stand by. I'm still black. I still put black first. I'm still for the cultural revolution. Until somebody develops an alternative, more comprehensive view of reality, I've got to ride with mine."

Karenga was not always so outspokenly black. In the early '60s, he was Ronald Everett, the 14th child in the family of a farmer and part-time Baptist minister in Parsonburg, Md., on the Eastern Shore.

After receiving his master's degree in political science, he dropped his "slave name" and took on Karenga. In 1965 he organized US (as opposed to "them"), and gave himself the title Maulana (Master teacher). In 1976, he received a doctorate in urban development.

He would not say how large his following was before his 1971 imprisonment or how many followers he has currently.

"Our movement has been discredited," he said, "and I'm trying to rebuild it. The day I got out of captivity I went to a meeting."

His goal is to construct a national cultural network among Afro-Americans.

"We don't have a national culture," he explained. "We have a popular culture. We confuse influence with power. Influence is the ability to effect. Power is the ability to change."

--

By: Bruce A. Dixon

Published: Dec 29, 2018

[..]

But for many of us who took part in or were simply aware of the Black Panther Party in the late sixties and early seventies, the Kwanzaa holiday is inseparable from the career and persona of its inventor, Ron Karenga, now a professor in California. Back in the day, Karenga headed up an organization called US. As a tool of COINTELPRO, the federal counterintelligence program directed at movement organizations, Karenga’s US organization murdered two leading members of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, and two more in San Diego, Sylvester Bell and John Savage.

To my knowledge, Mr Karenga has never expressed the faintest remorse or regret for these murders, or for his part in furthering the nefarious aims of federal and local police agencies in their assault upon the movement of those times.

Karenga was later convicted, along with his wife, of kidnapping and torturing two women in his own organization, a crime for which he served four years in prison, and one of which he still claims to be innocent. Some of Karenga’s close and credible associates however, like former US chair Wesley Kabaila, maintain Karenga was not only responsible for those women’s torture, but that it was part of an ongoing pattern over the years.

“I’m a feminist,” Kiilu Nyasha, a former Black Panther in New Haven, CT told me. “How can I honor a holiday made up by a man who tortures women in his own organization?”

[..]

==

Reminder that Kwanzaa is a fake holiday invented by a black nationalist Neo-Marxist felon who tortured, branded and waterboarded two women.

It has absolutely no African origins. None.

Happy Kwanzaa.

[royaladvisor]

Behold! A Ma- GET THE FUCK OUT

Prompt: You are an immortal, have spent most of your life being a professor. Today a new student signed up to your class, who happened to be a familiar face.

It must’ve been about the 3000th time he gave this lecture on his Allegory of the Cave he could’ve done it in his sleep. Yet there he stood, broad-shouldered Plato, now known as Simon Richtfield, Professor of Psychology at the University of Athens, droning on on autopilot to a class full of bleary-eyed students. Plato had now been alive a couple thousand years and though he’s traveled the world over many times and witnessed the world transform and evolve as well as devolve and fall back into chaos many times over, he still found himself drawn back to Greece and back to teaching.

Of course, “teaching” as it were has evolved as well, no longer could he stumble into class still half drunk from the harvest festival the night before and pull a lecture about some inane aspect of life out of nothing. Now he had lesson plans, test papers and worst of all, grading. Theres something truly soul-draining about reading 50 different terrible views on your own theory and having to pretend you’re not incredibly personally insulted. The written word truly made morons of the modern man, Plato would have loved to say I told you so if he only knew who to say it to.

The door to the lecture hall swung open, much to the chagrin of the former Olympic wrestler. If his students had the audacity to be late they could at least have the sense to quietly sneak in. Already opening his mouth to make a snide remark about the students tardiness, he was struck mute at the shock of seeing a familiar face. There at the door, disheveled, bearded and smelling like 20 different herbs and dirt was that rat bastard Diogenes, and to Plato’s eternal dismay, in his grimy hands dangles a hairless Sphinx cat which was missing both of its front legs.

[thesoulofaclown]

Bearded Theory 26-28 May 2023, Catton Hall.

Bearded Theory 26-28 May 2023, Catton Hall. It was our first time at Bearded Theory and with the promise of glorious weather and it marking the start of our festival season, we were really looking forward to it. We arrived at a busy camp site. A conversation with our neighbours confirmed all we had heard about the festival – that it’s a really friendly event that draws a crowd who want to enjoy…

[pcnmagazine]

Iggy Pop, Manic Street Preachers & Yard Act confirmed to play Bearded Theory 2025

The UK’s premier boutique festival announces first wave of acts for 2025 Next year’s line up for DHP Family’s Catton Park extravaganza has started to be released and what a line up it’s already shaping up to be. Following on from 2024’s rain fest, which saw the likes of Jane’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr, New Model Army, Therapy and Bob Vylan grace the stage, 2025’s is already looking…

[keepxsolxinxsolxinvictus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/05/09/the-father-of-kwanzaa/ec0fe360-c895-47d3-a5b6-0a1a09a471b1/

The Father of Kwanzaa

By Hollie I. WestMay 9, 1978

"I created Kwanzaa," laughed M. Ron Karenga like a teen-ager who's just divulged a deeply held, precisions secret.

"People think it's African. But it's not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!"

The overwhelmingly black audience at Howard University's recent National Conference of Afro-American writers broke into laughter. The joke was on them - and millions of other black Americans who taught Kwanzaa, the seven-day festival of harvest, was African.

Since he created the holiday in 1966, numerous Afro-Americans have come to celebrate the occasion between Dec. 22 and Jan. 1 as an alternative to Christmas.

Nevertheless, the ploy was not malicious. Karenga, political activist in the late '60s, currently a college professor and frequent lecturer asked: "Can you imagine 30 to 40 million people not having one national, non-heroic holiday? We couldn't wait around for someone to do this for us."

In the late '60s and early '70s, he had a profound effect on the thinking of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) and other Afro-american cultural figures who spread his philosophy.

From his base in Los Angeles, Karenga came to national prominence following the Watts civil disturbance. He was seen frequently on television and made numerous speeches. A civil rights observer called him "one of the leading theoreticians in the national black power movement."

His role was described as a study in contrasts. He urged militant self-defense by blacks, but he also conferred with white politicians on civil rights issues. His bald head and Genghis Khan-styled beard and moustache gave him a fearsome look, but in face-to-face meetings he was calm and soft-spoken.

Using the tough rhetorical style of the '60s, he wrote in "The Quotable Karenga," a thin handbook given to his followers: "When it's burn, let's see how much you burn. When it's kill,' let's see how much you kill. When it's blow up," let's see how much you blow up."

But times have changed. Between 1971 and 1975 he dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman. He is appealing. Now he was resurfaced and said he is rebuilding his movement.

Although the popularity of Kwanzaa mushroomed dramatically, Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X's birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day, a commemoration on Aug. 11 of the 1965 Watts civil disturbance.

The 1960s were a time of fervent cultural activity among blacks. Theater groups and writers workshops sprang up in most large cities. And Karenga took advantage of this.

He spoke to large and small, middle-class and working-class black organizations from CORE to Baptist church groups, carrying the message of Kwanzaa. At the same time, Baraka spoke for the Karenga philosophy to thousands of people at Congress of African Peoples meetings. He also wrote tracts that were published by black publishing houses.

The Kwanzaa idea began to pop up in black mass publications such as Ebony and Jet. From there it was picked up by white publications - daily newspapers and magazines - and radio and television.

Who is this short, squat man with the high-pitched voice and the flery rhetoric, and what is the current measure of his influence?

A. B. Spellman, writer and National Endowment for the Arts official, said: "There was no theory of nationalism in the '60s. What Karenga did was to rationalize the nationalist impulse and try to codify it."

Larry Neal, writer and executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, said: "Vocabulary and Kwanzaa are the major influences he's had. People started studying Swahili. Kwanzaa was like Topsy. It just grew.

"People wanted form, structure. He spoke to a need."

But Baraka, a former black nationalist who's become a Marxist, is not so charitable in his current assessment of the man whose ideas he once proselytized.

Said Baraka: "There was a vacuum created after Malcolm X died . . . Karenga was very well organized. He moved into the vacuum.

"He did a positive thing as far as Kwanzaa was concerned. But in a way it was another form of bourgeois nationalism. And he taught male chauvinsim."

"People have slandered me," complained Karenga. "I's slow building an organization in this atmosphere. There's a lull in the (black liberation) movement and I've got to dismantlef the bogus image that has gone up around me."

In his rapid-fire black preacher's oratory style, marked by staccato rhythms and syncopated long and short phrases, Karenga said, "What I said in the '60s I stand by. I'm still black. I still put black first. I'm still for the cultural revolution. Until somebody develops an alternative, more comprehensive view of reality, I've got to ride with mine."

Karenga was not always so outspokenly black. In the early '60s, he was Ronald Everett, the 14th child in the family of a farmer and part-time Baptist minister in Parsonburg, Md., on the Eastern Shore.

After receiving his master's degree in political science, he dropped his "slave name" and took on Karenga. In 1965 he organized US (as opposed to "them"), and gave himself the title Maulana (Master teacher). In 1976, he received a doctorate in urban development.

He would not say how large his following was before his 1971 imprisonment or how many followers he has currently.

"Our movement has been discredited," he said, "and I'm trying to rebuild it. The day I got out of captivity I went to a meeting."

His goal is to construct a national cultural network among Afro-Americans.

"We don't have a national culture," he explained. "We have a popular culture. We confuse influence with power. Influence is the ability to effect. Power is the ability to change."

© 1996-2023 The Washington Post

[brn1029]

Time for your Rock Report

Jane's Addiction will be among the headliners of next year's Bearded Theory music festival. Amyl and The Sniffers, Future Islands, Sleaford Mods, Orbital and Dinosaur Jr. are featured in the initial line-up, announced on Wednesday. For Jane's Addiction and Dinosaur Jr., it will be their U.K. festival exclusive show. The 15th anniversary edition of Bearded Theory is scheduled to be held at Catton Hall estate in Derbyshire during May 23-26, 2024. Festival organizer Ben Ryles said, "We're very excited to have two of our favorite alt-rock heroes choosing Bearded Theory as their only UK festival for the year. We also can't wait to welcome Amyl and the Sniffers and Future Islands who are both so widely renowned for their incredible live shows, as well as festival favourites Sleaford Mods and electronic icons Orbital."

Apple TV+ has announced a new three-part documentary series, "John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial," narrated by Emmy Award winner Kiefer Sutherland. The docuseries features exclusive eyewitness interviews and previously unseen crime scene photos, shedding new light on the life and murder of the Beatles icon John Lennon, and the investigation and conviction of Mark David Chapman, his confessed killer. The docuseries includes exclusive interviews with eyewitnesses — speaking for the first time — along with some of Lennon's closest friends, revealing shocking details of Lennon's tragic murder. It also features interviews with Chapman's defense lawyers, psychiatrists, detectives and prosecutors. According to Apple TV+, "John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial" is the most thoroughly researched examination of Lennon's shocking murder in 1980.

[musicnewsweb]

ICYMI: Bearded Theory Festival reveals first wave of acts for 2024 - #beardedtheoryfestival @beardedtheory #tickets #tour #buytickets #theatretickets #instatickets http://dlvr.it/SyK1Xs

[violetsystems]

#personal

I've been enjoying a long bout of complete sobriety since late May. Breaking out of any routine can be a bit behaviorally jarring. But I don't really know that anyone noticed the change because I keep to myself. I'm sure the dispensary misses the chance to set up revolutionary actions behind my back. But for the most part, dealing with the personal pizza of the political around my own home is psychedelic enough for me these days. With Bastille Day in full swing, I got to thinking this morning about Derrida and consequentially the remake of the outer limits. The writing in that show is perplexing enough to wake up to the subtitles in the middle of the night. But one particularly episode where a poltergeist is loose in someone's home is questioned by the male friend. "Have you heard of Occam's Razor?" You'd swear he was about to mansplain Roko's Basilisk. But it's something I've needed to hear lately. Basically that the simplest of theories is the most logical in a realm of competing conspiracies. Derrida explains this in the concept of ghosts as simple being a symptom of the future. Whereas the nostalgia of the past movements, holidays, and systems tend to be firmly rooted there. Sventlana Boym describes this pretty well in a book called The Future of Nostalgia in which she describes the hyper reality going on around people during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ghosts to me have spoken louder than the drama around me. One quote more than many by Gil Scott Heron echoed by the late DJ Rashad building off the revolution not being televised. Nobody ever sees the revolution in your mind. And this speaks to me as the future in terms of Derrida. How the individual freedom of the mind and soul is somehow lost upon the order of the past. The future is always chaotic. Always in flux. Some Scientologists come up with complex science fiction mythologies to root it back in the past with timelines and infinite versions of the self. Some Hindus and Buddhists describe the ego death and the inescapable binding of karma. Neo Marxists tie themselves to a book by a bearded guy who wrote about labor before the internet. Jesus, ironically, outside the tenets of religion is the ultimate ghost and was punished quite famously for it.

My point is not to berate the freedom of belief and religion but simply talk about the fear of a future tied to individuals. What I took freedom in America to be was the right to personal liberties, life and pursuit of happiness as protected by the constitution itself. Which seems to have been infinity stoned out of relevance by money, greed, and lawyers. Speaking on Rashad who I shared a tangential group relationship with post humorously in a Chicago footwork crew called teak dj's? Rashad was a community organizer. He was a movement maker. He was effortless and tireless in pushing forward a sound that would take him all around the world with the help of a movement that was rooted in the decaying paradigm of MK Ultra EDM festival culture. Something that grew like a cancer from the drug scenes of the Rainbow gathering and Grateful Dead. When he had a falling out with this, he dropped out of the music scene for a spell and created a renegade crew with Traxman which was a combination of Ghetto Technicians and Ghetto DJ's (pardon the proper spelling.) It really was just him and Traxman continuing another movement called "gutter" in which people just went in the studio in one take and made music. Just like the blues, white people came around and commodified something that was simply an individual expression. And thus like Kurt Kobain, Lil Peep, Van Gogh and many other individual tours de force they were stapled back in the ridigity of the broader movement as martyrs. Enshrined for all eternity as a voice that either rattled the chains on the walls of EDM or inside the minds of those still deconstructing what he was trying to say rhythmically personally. It's a tempting thing to want to be a part of something. To have clear rules, validation and order to what you do. But you will always ultimately feel failed by the middling out of a group and their broader agenda. Sort of like how Adam Curtis describes the failure of the occupy movements. The passion was so fierce at first but descended into nothing but an organizational chart and discourse battle of what was acceptable. Labor has this same feeling lately. A constant argument on enshrining the moment into history and burying it altogether. Accepting yourself as an artist, a writer, or even just a human being outside of the norms of society is hard enough. Especially when everything seems to adopt the army mentality of beating your individuality out of you to make you work as a cohesive unit.

Emotionally speaking, Anarchy is a haunting in and of itself. One that maybe I sought out ordering within by the ritual of psychedelics like thc. It dulled my dreams to the point where I never had any nightmares. Never any lucidity. Never had any visions other than these four walls that I banged around in. Individualism is a haunted state in and of itself. People are always trying to exorcise this spirit out of you for the greater good. Demonizing what doesn't fit in or can be easily pigeonholed into a movement. These movements are no more than folders for people on Tumblr. A way to organize the chaos of the future. To box it in instead of embracing the chaos within the self. I'm not saying it isn't torture to suffer alone. To be your own person and worship in your own way. To not have an organization to be affiliated with economically so you can incur income in a normal way. Everything is locked out to the individual in American society and demonized as selfish and narcissistic in a masked class war. I shouldn't be able to write here even though I do not get paid or tipped for any of it. While Andrew Tate is out there making twenty k from a billionaire who bought a platform to bury his affiliation with a sex trafficker. What makes me so free of sin? The ghost of Jesus Christ I guess? I'm not part of a church but I was raised Christian for what it is worth. Jesus to me was the ultimate anarchist. More so than the guy who tacked the blog post on the Catholic church's door for the record. You always have these people who ask you on the street the question whether you have accepted this guy as your personal lord and savior. And in the haunted sort of way you should be able to say yes and go about your day. But in America like every other movement, relationship and association there are things expected of you. And this is not personal freedom. It isn't respect. It's the constant confrontation of a graveyard. People want to reduce you to a monument that they can add to their collection rather than a ghost who walks free saying hi to forever. There is somehow something sinful about being free. No man is free from sin they say. And yet the paradox of Jesus as a ghost is pretty simple if you believe that sort of thing. I'm not here to lecture anybody out there about the past or even their personal beliefs on religion. I'm trying to live in the future and haunted by it consistently. The only holiday I'm celebrating is canceling my adobe subscription. I'm the same person I was with less baggage and this includes people speaking for my mind without giving me a voice. I've always said what I feel here. And I've always spoken it with love. Now you should ask the group if you are allowed to do the same. <3 Tim

[yorkcalling]

Millie Manders & the Shutup Announce York Date

Having recently played Slam Dunk, Bearded Theory and North West Calling festivals, MILLIE MANDERS AND THE SHUTUP have announced their SHUT YOUR MOUTH tour for later this year. They perform at the One For The Road festival at The Fulford Arms in York on October 28th.

[osarothomprince]

News: Delilah Bon announces Galop UK benefit gigs

Following her successful debut UK tour last autumn, a remarkable live appearance on the French Late Show with Alain Chabat on national French TV and having already confirmed UK festival appearances this year at Bearded Theory, Shindig, 2000 Trees and Tramlines, DELILAH BON continues her spiralling trajectory into 2023. To add to the festival announcements,…News: Delilah Bon announces Galop UK…