by Cory O'Brien
and then Susanoo is like “Well, I guess I win
because my sword was what gave birth to chicks
and chicks are worth double points.”
And for some reason they don’t argue over this at all
and everything is great.
BUT NOT FOR LONG
because seeing as he is the god of storms
it takes all of six seconds for Susanoo to start making bad decisions.
Everyone is basically just going around minding their own business
when WHAM WHAM WIMMY WOZZLE
here comes Susanoo, shitting on everybody’s rice fields
then he cuts up a pony and throws it at his sister’s loom
and then kills one of her attendants for no good reason.
Basically you can tell he didn’t spend very long planning this rampage
but even so, it ends up being so horrible that his sister crawls into a cave and refuses to come out.
So of course now he gets exiled for REAL
and on the way out he figures he should get some groceries
so he hits up the food goddess for some food
and she hooks him up with all kinds of stuff
but apparently she is taking all of this stuff out of really gross places on her body
and Susanoo is not okay with that
so he kills her.
GREAT JOB, DICK.
WHERE IS ALL THE FOOD GONNA COME FROM NOW?
But it’s okay
because since she is the food goddess
her whole dead body immediately turns into food
so like
silkworms come out of her head
and rice comes out of her eyes
and small beans come out of her nose
and millet comes out of her ears
and barley shoots out of her junk
and then large beans come out of her fundament
which is what my sourcebook seems to think a butt is called.
So that all turns out okay
but now Susanoo is FOR REAL TRIPLE EXILED
So he’s wandering around down on Earth
when he sees this man and woman crying all over their daughter
and he’s like “Whoa, whoa, stop that.
What’s going on?”
And they’re like “Well, see we used to have eight daughters
but every year for the last seven years
one of our daughters has been eaten by the YAMATA NO OROCHI.”
And Susanoo is like “Uhh, what is that?”
And they’re like “WELL.
It’s a snake
but instead of one head, it has eight
and instead of one tail, it has eight
and instead of being normal snake size it is as long as eight hills and eight valleys.
ARE YOU BEGINNING TO NOTICE A THEME?
Also, moss grows on its back and its eyes are like cherries
I don’t know how the world turtle and Santa Claus got mixed in here
but HOLY CANNOLI THIS THING IS SCARY.”
And Susanoo is like “Pshaw, my friends
I am your local god of storms
romping and stomping is what I DO.
How about you let me have your daughter and I will kill this big snake?”
And the parents
(who are names are Foot-Stroker and Hand-Stroker)
are like “Okay, sure, sweet.”
So immediately Susanoo goes WAZZAP KAGOW
and turns the daughter
(whose name is Beautiful-Rice-Field-Princess)
into a comb
which he immediately stuffs in his hair
presumably to keep her safe
but more likely because he has no idea how sex actually works.
We are talking about guy who has made a career out of forcing necklaces to give birth.
And then he’s like “ALL RIGHT, GUYS
HERE’S THE PLAN:
I need you to build eight gates
and eight pedestals to put behind the eight gates
and I want you to make eight pots
full of booze that has been distilled EIGHT TIMES
because we’re kind of on a roll with the whole eight thing
and then I want you to set that all up for me
and we should be good.”
So they set all that stuff up
and pretty soon the snake comes along
and it smells the octuple-distilled booze and it is like “OH DAMN
LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE IS HAVING A PARTY.
TIME TO TRANSFER THE ENTIRE LIQUOR CONTENT OF THAT PARTY INTO MY BODY.”
Which is basically what I yell every time I show up to a party.
But yeah, the snake gets absolutely trashed in all eight of its heads
and then they passes out
at which point Susanoo just strolls by
idly decapitating each of the heads in succession
except he only gets halfway
when his sword hits something and TOTALLY BREAKS.
Oh wait, it’s fine.
It turns out what he broke his sword on is just A BRAND-NEW SWORD
so it looks like it all worked out in the end.
Pretty soon after that they let him back into heaven
because who is going to argue with a guy who just decapitated a snake eight times?
So the moral of the story
is that no matter what shape or size
drunk animals are ALWAYS hilarious.
AMATERASU AND THE CRIPPLING DEPRESSION
So, Amaterasu is hiding in a cave.
She is doing this because this is what you do when your brother is the god of storms
and he does things like tear up ponies and shit in rice fields for absolutely no reason.
This is a problem.
This is a problem because Amaterasu is the sun
and the sun is important for things, like
for example
organic life.
But no one can talk Amaterasu out of her sadhole
no matter how many funny voices they do
and the gods are all starting to get pretty nervous
because how are they going to have sweet beach parties without the sun?
So they have a big meeting of all the gods
and that is quite a thing
because there are about EIGHT HUNDRED GODS.
Yeah
Shintos don’t mess around.
And all of these gods sit down and they start brainstorming
and I don’t think they ever got more than halfway through brainstorming
because here is what they end up doing:
They get a mirror
and a giant necklace
and some cherry bark
and they put it on some tree they found
and then they get this chick named Ama-no-Uzumi
whose name means “DREAD CELESTIAL FEMALE”
to do a silly dance on a washtub until everybody is just laughing their holy asses off.
Okay, so far it sounds like a pretty good party
but where does the plan come in?
Well, see, what happens
is that Amaterasu hears everybody having a good time
and she comes out of her cave like “Hey wait, why is everybody so happy?
Last thing I remember
some dude was chucking dead horses through everything.”
And all the other gods are like “Oh we are SO over that now.
Now we are all about this new goddess we found.
She is SOOOO much prettier than you it is amazing.
Look, check it out.”
And then they hold up the mirror
and Amaterasu thinks that her reflection is a DIFFERENT PERSON.
You heard it here first, my friends
the sun is on the same level intellectually
as that puppy you had when you were five
you know
the one that kept beating its head against the hall mirror because it was trying to play with itself.
So Amaterasu is so into her own radiant glory
that she can’t stop herself from walking toward the mirror
and meanwhile some other gods are creeping along behind her
roping off her escape route so she HAS to go back into the sky
and then she does
and everyone is free to get as many sunburns as they can handle.
So the moral of the story
is don’t wear reflective clothing
because the sun will think you are her
and then she will incinerate you while trying to make your acquaintance.
TANUKIS HAVE BIG BALLS
So tanukis:
First of all, tanukis are a type of animal that is as adorable as a bullet train full of kittens
(assuming that conveying things at high speed makes them more adorable).
Second of all they are a cross between raccoons and dogs
making them utterly terrifying ur-bastards of the highest caliber.
Third of all, they have the BIGGEST TESTICLES POSSIBLE.
This is not a metaphor.
These dudes were rooting through the bargain bin at Balls City
where they unearthed a whole case of super deluxe triple XL men-tronomes
and then proceeded to use the ungodly influx of testosterone
to go EVERYWHERE and cause ALL THE PROBLEMS.
Seriously, the Japanese cannot stop making statues of these little jerks
getting wrecked in straw hats then dropping ludicrously ill beats
drummed out on their DISTENDED MANBULGES.
Think I’m making this up?
I dare you to put down this book right now
and go look up “tanuki testicles” on Google image search.
Yep
those guys on the second row are using their balls to bludgeon large fish to death.
You’re welcome.
BUT YOU DID NOT BUY THIS BOOK TO HEAR ME WAX POETIC ABOUT RACCOON BALLS
(or if you did then you have oddly specific taste in literature.)
So here is a myth about a tanuki:
Okay, so a tanuki gets married to a fox and they have a baby
but they are having problems finding food because their forest is WAYYY overhunted.
And they’re about to starve to death when the tanuki is suddenly like “Oh wait
we have magical shape-shifting powers.
Man, it is so great being a mythological creature.”
So the fox shape-shifts into a dude and the tanuki shape-shifts into a dead tanuki
and the fox carries the tanuki into town and is like “Hey, guys, who wants to buy a tanuki?”
And everyone is like “I WILL GIVE YOU A HUNDRED BUCKS FOR THAT TESTICLE DOG.”
And the fox is like “SOLD.”
Then she uses the money to go buy a ton of food
and meanwhile the tanuki escapes from the house of the dude that bought him and goes home.
But one of the sucky things about food
is that it gets eaten and then it turns into poop
and so eventually they need to come up with a plan to get more food.
So the fox is like “All right, well I should probably be the dead body this time
because it would be kinda suspicious if I walked into town again and tried to sell the same tanuki.”
So the tanuki turns into a peasant dude
and the fox turns into a dead fox
and the tanuki carries the fox into town.
But oh no
it looks like some of those leviathan testicle veins have burrowed into the tanuki’s skull
because this is the point where his balls seize control of his entire brain
and start hammering on the button marked “BAD DECISIONS.”
See, he gets into town and he negotiates a sale
and then he’s like “You know one of the bad things about a wife
is you have to share food with her
so how about I tell the dude I’m selling my wife to that she’s still alive
and then he’ll kill her and I’ll live happily ever after!”
So he does that terrible thing and the guy kills the fox with a brick
and then the tanuki celebrates his newfound bachelorhood by going out and getting TRASHED
and he stumbles back home to his son at like three a.m.
and the kid is like “Hey, Dad what happened to mom?”
And the tanuki is like “Uh, well
whatever it was, it definitely had nothing to do with me purposefully getting her bricked to death.”
And the kid is like “Uh, sure.”
But as the days go by the kid starts to get more and more suspicious
and also the tanuki is being a huge dick and not sharing any food with him
so he’s really got no love for this dude whatsoever
and finally one day he’s like “Yo, Dad
you know mom taught me all her magical secrets before she died?”
And the tanuki is like “Bullshit. Prove it.”
And the kid is like “Okay. How about you go to a bridge in the forest
and I will shape-shift into something and try to cross the bridge
and if you can recognize me, you win.”
and the tanuki is like “YOU’RE ON, SON.”
So he goes to this bridge in the middle of the woods
and a few minutes later his son shows up
but his son doesn’t cross the bridge.
He just chills out by the far end of the bridge and waits for his dad to screw himself
and sure enough, here comes the local king on his chariot of jewels and human misery
and the tanuki is like “HAHAHA, NICE TRY, SON.
YOU THOUGHT I WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU
AS A PROCESSION OF NOBLEMEN AND ALSO A CHARIOT.
ALLOW ME TO RUN UP AND PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE.”
And the king is like “Okay, why is a raccoon dog trying to blackjack me with his ballsack?
Guards, I believe you are trained to handle wild animals and their comically large genitals?”
And the guards are like “SIR YES SIR.”
And they throw the tanuki into the river where he proceeds to die like a chump.
After that, I guess the kid starves to death
because he just killed his only surviving family member
and now who is he going to pretend to sell to the villagers?
So the moral of the story
is that although the temptation may be great
you should not assume that everybody you meet is a shape-shifter.
It is almost as dangerous as not assuming everyone you meet is a shape-shifter.
AFRICAN
Okay, so Africa
it’s a big place
full of a lot of dudes with a lot of myths
so it’s not like there is this big established canon of pure uncut AFRICAN MYTHOLOGY
more like there’s a bunch of little African mythologies scattered all over the place
but like every single one of my girlfriends has told me with a smile and a pat on the back
“It’s not the size that matters
but if you ARE gonna have a tiny penis, you gotta at least be really freaky in bed to make up for it.”
Uh
anyway
what I’m trying to say is that I can’t tell all the myths from all the mythologies here
so I’m just gonna pick all the sweetest ones
in order to give you what I hope is a balanced picture of what I think is the main through-line of African mythology:
ordinary dudes
making ordinary mistakes
except those ordinary dudes happen to be gods so then there’s problems.
OBATALA HAS A DRINKING PROBLEM
So there’s this dude Obatala.
H
e’s one of the orisha
which are basically a bunch of gods that exploded out of some other god’s corpse
when one of his slaves dropped a big rock on him.
So, already this story is shaping up to be pretty sweet
but then it hits a major roadblock real fast:
Obatala wants to make a world
but he has NO IDEA HOW TO DO IT.
Frankly, I find the realism in this myth to be highly refreshing.
I mean, can any of us honestly say we know the first thing about creating a world?
Oh, look at me, I’m Ra
let me just will myself into being out of nothing
and then create land with nothing but my left nut and PURE GUMPTION.
NO.
THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS.
You have to SIT YOUR ASS DOWN and you have to BRAINSTORM.
So that’s what Obatala does.
He hits up his buddy Olorun, the sky god
and he’s like “Yo, Olorun I wanna make a world with some people in it.”
and Olorun, who is the king of the gods
is like “Oh man, that sounds great
but it also sounds REALLY HARD.
Do you have any plans? Like some blueprints or something?”
And Obatala is like “Uhh . . .
I’ll get back to you.”
So at this point Obatala really only has one option
and that is to go see Orunmila, their resident fortune-teller.
So Obatala goes over to Orunmila’s house and Orunmila is like “Duuuude!
I can totally tell you how to make a world.
Let’s go into my back room and stare at my nuts for a while.”
(He tells fortunes by throwing palm nuts and reading their patterns
but I failed to clarify that because I was looking for an excuse to write “stare at my nuts.”)
So after peering intently into his nuts for a while
Orunmila is like “All right, dude here’s what you gotta do:
Step one
descend down to Earth on a GOLD CHAIN ATTACHED TO THE SKY.
Oh man
that would make such a sweet album cover.
Uh, uh . . . STEP TWO!
Go down to Earth carrying a hen, a black cat a palm nut, and a snail shell full of sand.”
And Obatala is like “What?”
And Orunmila is like “What?
Sorry, dude, I’m pretty high right now.”
But it’s not like Obatala has any better ideas
so he goes about trying to make this ultimate gold chain
but he doesn’t have NEARLY enough gold
