Adams's "Designs for Living" Notes: Spirit Marriage & Possession

I'm going to post some notes I took from Monni Adams's Designs for Living from 1982 (made in Cambridge MA at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts in cooperation with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology).

I grabbed this from a free box and liberated it soon after (so sorry, if you're wanting more context for these quotes, I don't have it). Ostensibly, it is about the design of various art objects (masks, sculpture, textiles) from various peoples scattered around Africa, but it has some interesting stuff about art, religion, spirit possession, and spirit marriage that I thought folks might also want to read! (Especially since this book looks exactly like the kind that is hard to find and expensive to buy.) It bugs me how all these different peoples are kinda lumped together but whatever, it's still information I didn't have before. The peoples mentioned here include the Yoruba, the Ibibio (both mostly in Nigeria) and the Baule (Cote D'Ivoire).

( Very singlet academics from the 1980s pondering this peculiar possession thing and the spirits involved. That's your warning! )

Bisclavret, the gentle werewolf who gets king smooches

Miranda: Through a chain of associations, I recently found myself reading Marie de France's 12 century lai (sort of a short story poem) Bisclavret, AKA "the Werewolf."

And it is delightful! Oh my goodness! It's just this lovely little story about a gentle werewolf who overcomes his wife's treachery through the love of his king and the common sense of one of the people in his court. The lai starts with, "everyone knows that werewolves are violent, bloodthirsty, wretched fiends! Now let's talk about one who is not any of that, and who is in fact the loveliest man ever."

This is the 1996 translation I read, by Joan Shoaf. Less clunky than the following, tries to keep to the original rhyming poetic scheme.

Here is a as-literal-as-possible, a bit clunky translation, side by side with the original French, done by a man with the handle "Mad Beppo." Also comes with some illustrations, plus translation and historical notes. Follows the poetry lines, does not try to rhyme.

And here's a prose, fairy tale type of translation, by Eugene Mason from 1911. More smooth and beautiful than the other two, but I enjoy the clunky charm.