Tag Archives: Traditional

Is Life Fair? – a traditional tale re-told

by Christopher Agostino

 

Once upon a time there was a man who was a farmer. He had worked a long, hard day in the fields and he was walking home when he heard a voice: “Ssssaaaave meeee.”

He looked around and didn’t see anyone, so he started walking when he heard the voice again: “Ssssssaaaaave meee, pleeeaaaassse!” He realized the sound was coming from the ground, so he looked down, and there, trapped under a large rock, was a long, dangerous looking snake.  The snake had been trapped for so long that it looked weak from hunger, ready to die.

The farmer did not like snakes, most farmers don’t, but he hated to see an animal suffering like that, so he moved the rock and saved the snake’s life. Right away the snake jumped up and said, “Thank you for ssssaving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” said the man.

“Now I’m going to eat you,” said the snake, and he grabbed the farmer by the neck.

“Wait a minute,” said the farmer, “I just saved your life. Is it fair that you should eat me?”

“Life is not fair,” said the snake, “and I’m hungry.”

So they ended up with the snake still wrapped around the farmer’s neck. This led to a discussion, the farmer asking, “if life is not fair then what is the point of living?” to which the snake replied, “if you’ve lived long enough you’d know, life is not fair.” But the snake said he would give the farmer a chance, since the farmer had saved his life. They would ask three animals that question, “Is life fair?”, and if any of them said it was, the snake would let the farmer go.

So the farmer, with the snake wrapped around his neck, set off across the fields to find three animals. And the first animal they came to was a cow. The farmer looked at the cow and asked, “Is life fair?”

“Wwwwwwell,” said the cow, “ you always let me eat your grass, and it’s very goooood. But don’t I have to give you mmmmmilk every day? And when I’m old and tired and can’t give mmmmmilk every day, will you still feed me? Noooooo, it’s off to the hamburger factory with me. Life is not fair,” said the cow.

“Oh no,” said the farmer.

“Heh, heh, heh,” said the snake.

So the farmer with the snake wrapped around his neck, and with the cow following along behind, set off to find the second animal. And they walked across the fields until they came to a horse. The farmer looked at the horse and asked, “Is life fair?”

“Weeeeeell,” said the horse, “you always let me eat your oats and sleep in your barn, and that’s very goooooood. But don’t I have to pull your plow? Don’t I have to carry you on my back? Hhrruuummmphh. And when I’m old and tired and can’t carry you anymore, will you still feed me? Nnnnnnnnooo, it’s off to the glue factory with me. Life is not faaaaair,” said the horse.

“Oh no,” said the farmer.

“Heh, heh, heh,” said the snake, “one more to go.”

So the farmer with the snake wrapped around his neck, with the cow and the horse following along behind, set off to find the third animal, the final animal. And they walked across the field until they came to a bunny rabbit. The farmer bent down and looked at the bunny rabbit. He put his hands together and cleared his throat. Then he asked, “Is life fair?”

“Hmmm,” said the rabbit, “what an interesting question. Why do you ask?”

The farmer explained that he had saved the snake’s life, and the snake explained that he was going to eat the farmer.

“Oooh,” said the rabbit to the man, “you saved his life? That’s very nice of you,” and the rabbit said to the snake, “And you’re going to eat him? I don’t know about that. Now as to your question: ‘Is life fair?’ Well, I’m just a bunny, I don’t know why you’d ask me. But I did ask my mother this same question once when I was little, and you know what she said? You know what she said? She said, ‘Whether life’s fair, or whether it’s not, the least we can do is dance!’”

“Dance?” asked the farmer.

“Dansssssse?” asked the snake.

“Dance!” said the rabbit. And the rabbit began to dance:  Hip hip hip, hop hop hop, hip hip hip hip hip, hop hop hop!

This was such a silly sight that it got the horse dancing: Hruum hruum hruum; hruum hruum hruum; raaaaahhhuuum raaaaahhhuuum, hruum hruum hruum!

Which  got the cow dancing: Ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum; ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum; ba-da-da-dum, ba-da-da-dum; ba-dum, ba-dum ba-dum!

Which got the farmer dancing: boop-be-doop-be; boop-be-doop-ba; boop-be-doop-be; boop-be-doop-ba!

Which got the snake dancing: Cha cha cha, ssssssssss! Cha cha cha, sssssssssss! Cha, cha, cha,sssssssssssss!

And while the snake was dancing, the rabbit took the farmer by the hand and they snuck off, back to the safety of the farm house.

Now I don’t know about you, but I agree with that rabbit: Whether life’s fair, or whether it’s not, the least we can do is dance!

Is Life Fair?  – a traditional folktale re-told

©2004 Christopher Agostino

This has been a favorite tale of mine to perform over the years, and I do it the “old-fashioned way” without any facepainting. For a number of years it was the story I’d end my shows with, and I’ve just started telling this tale again as part of a special thematic version of my Transformations — Storytelling show for libraries this summer. The library Summer Reading Club theme is “One World — Many Stories”, so I’ve put together a collection of tales that allow me to talk to these family audiences about the reason why we tell stories. 

When I first found it, I wasn’t looking for it. I was sitting in the reference section of  my local library looking through regional folktale collections to find a story about animals for a show I was writing. In every book I looked through there seemed to be a tale of a farmer who saves a snake that then wants to eat him. Often the farmer said that it wasn’t fair to be eaten by someone he had saved, to which the snake replied that life isn’t fair. In all the stories except one, the farmer turned the tables on the snake by tricking him back under the rock (or into a hat or a sack) and then justified his trickery by agreeing  that life isn’t fair and it’s every man for himself. A happy ending for the farmer perhaps, but not for the snake.

Only one version I found left everybody dancing. As best as I can recall, this version came from a collection of tales from Mexico, which has a tradition of tricky rabbits, but I am not sure. It wasn’t a tale I wanted to use for the show I was then writing, so I took no notes and have been unable to find it again. I began telling it a few years later just from what I remembered, which is my favorite way to begin to tell a tale. For then the story grows by itself, with the help of each audience that hears it.

I open the story by asking the audience that question, “Is life fair?”, and most often get a chorus of young voices answering, ”No!” That may be why I love to tell this tale to audiences today. That may be why stories like this survive for so long. We need our stories to help us understand the world in more ways than the obvious ones, because we know there will be days when the world doesn’t seem fair and the only thing we can do is keep dancing. 

This story is yours now. Tell it to someone else.

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Mike Tyson’s Tattoo: what the…?

Mike Tyson’s tattoo

By Christopher Agostino 6/9/2012

First off, I invite you to add your own comments to this one, as I am sure there are aspects to this that I am missing, and I have as many questions as opinions here. So, woo-hoo!, Hangover 2 gets to open because a judge rules that even though Victor Witmill does own the copyright to the tattoo design he famously put on Mike Tyson that was then imitated in the film, the financial damage of keeping the film closed would effect too many people to be justified. I’d only followed this with amused interest until I heard an “On the Media” report about the possible ramifications of tattoo copyright — and now I have some questions. (On The Media: This Week “Can you Copyright the Human Body?)

Is it the norm for a tattoo artist to retain the rights to a design they put on someone else’s skin? Or did it only apply in this case because Tyson is a celebrity and the tattoo artist was seizing an opportunity? What a weird idea that somebody else might own something on your skin. (In a related opinion of mine, I think that the models we paint at conventions should be allowed to get copies of all the photographs taken of them…the person on whom the bodyart is created is as intrinsic to the result as the art is)

Secondly, how does a non-Maori tattoo artist get to claim intellectual property rites over an obviously traditionally styled design? When Tyson first appeared with this thing around his eye I remember how he talked about it’s traditional origins and significance, so what about it makes it something that some tattoo artist can claim as original? I mean, really?  (In doing a web search for a common use eligible image of the tattoo I did come across an article from Techdirt about an indignant Maori response to this claim — see the quoted portion below)

However, the larger point I want to make, is what’s up with Tyson’s tattoo in the first place?

From the first I saw it and heard his comments about it, I had to ask: what the….? He talked real big about it being the sign of the warrior and all that, and for a few years afterwards I had all sorts of guys asking me to give them a Tyson Warrior Tattoo. But, what the….?

From Robley’s book: photograph from the 1890’s of a “well chiseled” Maori tattoo design

I’m no expert, just a fascinated artist, but everything I’ve read abut Maori tattoo traditions  (“moko”) say that warriors tattooed their whole face, not just some little bit around the eye, and that a big part of the process is enduring the months of painful work required for the full face. I didn’t go back just now to fact-check this little bit but I distinctly remember reading that only priests wore partial tattoos by the eye. Not only did the warriors tattoo the full face, but the designs were incised so deep that the skin became ridged and grooved like a sculpture. In H. G. Robley’s book, Maori Tattooing, first published in 1896 when the tradition was still in general practice, there is not a single example of a man’s face without extensive tattooing.

On the final night at the 2011 Face And Body Art International Convention (FABAIC), sitting in the outdoor courtyard after the party, I met a gentlemen who was extensively tattooed. He was a soldier, recently back from service, and he was fascinated by the painted people walking through the hotel. We talked about what I did, but then I got him to tell me about his tattoos. The first two he showed me were Cherokee inspired designs on his shoulders. Then he showed me others on his arms and legs, each one marking a place he had been in the service — some, it seemed, for lessons learned and experiences to be cherished (like a samurai inspired mark down the back of his neck from time in Japan) and some for more painful memories. We talked for a while and at one point he asked me if I had any Native American blood in me, and I said no, but that I knew that he was Cherokee, for I had learned from our talk that he wouldn’t wear a mark unless he’d earned it.

Robley’s sketch from the 1890s

From Techdirt:

An illustration from 1800, from Karl Gröning’s book “Body Decoration”

Maori Angry About Mike Tyson’s Tattoo Artist Claiming To Own Maori …

Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo, described Mr Whitmill’s claims of ownership as insufferable arrogance. “It is astounding that a Pakeha tattooist who inscribes an African American’s flesh with what he considers to be a Maori design has the gall to claim that design as his intellectual property,” she said. “The tattooist has never consulted with Maori, has never had experience of Maori and originally and obviously stole the design that he put on Tyson…. The tattooist has an incredible arrogance to assume he has the intellectual right to claim the design form of an indigenous culture that is not his.”

I looked it up, from Wikipedia: Pākehā is a Māori term for New Zealanders who are not of Māori blood lines

There are a lot of intersting little articles about this whole issue, and the legal ramifications of tattoo copyright, here’s one: Copyright Yo Face!. Copyfight: the politics of IP

http://www.agostinoarts.com

Check out my Body Painting Page https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/

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Traditional Bodyart – Nuba, Sudan, Africa- 2: Nuba Personal Art

by Christopher Agostino, published April 2011

The Southeast Nuba people of Sudan, Africa practiced an extraordinary tradition of bodyart, available to see primarily in two books: “Nuba Personal Art” by James C. Faris (1972) and “People of Kau” by Leni Riefensthal (1977). Although the second one contains the more accomplished photography, it is Faris’ book that yields the most information to a bodypainter. Through detailed visual analysis of their bodyart and interviews with the artists over three field sessions among the Nuba from 1966-1969, Faris decodes the visual language and,  more valuably for a working body artist, explains the methodology and principles that led to such a stunning variety of designs. It is the most insightful and rigorous study of bodypainting (tribal or otherwise) that I’ve read.

The book contains sketches and charts by Faris encapsulating his analysis of Nuba bodyart patterns, with references to actual examples among the extensive photographs of painted individuals— the chart on page 47 is reproduced here. In addition to these formulas for generating bodypainting designs, he gives unique insights into otherwise impenetrable aspects of the images of the Nuba. For example, explaining that although they often use animal imagery there is no totemic connection to the animal’s powers (as there might be in Amazon or Native American bodyart). The animal imagery is chosen entirely for its value as a design element and how well it suits the forms of the body it is painted on.

Applying this analysis to one of the faces photographed by Leni Reifensthal, we can tell that this ostrich image is not chosen to give the wearer the speed of an ostrich but because the shape fits the eye socket so well. The long linear neck looks good going up the individual’s tall forehead and, by being placed precisely on the bridge of the nose, it keeps this asymmetrical design balanced. Further, Faris describes how Nuba artists manipulate the imagery to make it a pure design element by devices such as continuing the diagonal lines of the ostrich wings all the way into the hair line. He explains that if the lines continue off the face they are subjectively perceived as a design, while if they stop they are perceived more as a concrete object such as a wing. Finally, the removal of the literal interpretation of this design as “ostrich” is completed by outlining of the black design with a lighter yellow, a color which signifies that the design carries no meaning beyond its aesthetic appearance.

This is the quality that sets the Southeast Nuba apart from other traditional body arts, including the body arts of other Nuba cultures: the aesthetic value of the design and, especially, its ability to enhance the human form, transcend any meaning or ceremonial content in the design. When this art was practiced within their culture, young men in their prime would spend hours each day together, painting themselves and assisting with the painting of each other, creating unique designs daily — celebrating the human body by turning it into a work of art.

“Whatever the source of the designs used on the body, the critical factor is that the body must be emphasized, complemented, enhanced. No design or artistic treatment must detract from the presentation of the physical form itself — the chief reason, after all, for the personal art rests in the proper cultural exposure and celebration of the healthy body.” — James C. Faris

And he states that without dependence on symbolic content, “the most meaningful element is the medium on which it is … produced — the human body. This culturally proper exposure can be, perhaps as [anthropologist] Levi-Strauss has suggested, the essential expression of culturalogical man as opposed to the biological individual.” Which is to say that it is their personal art that signifies their identity as a social being.

Click here for a pdf of a tribal bodypainting guide I use in workshops, which includes my notes on one of the charts from Nuba Personal Art:  Bodypainting_Tribal_agostinoarts

Learn more about all we do at: agostinoarts.com

Nao Dance company in Bodies Alive! Bodyart patterns based on nuba designs

See the video of the Nao Dance company in Bodies Alive!:  The Nuba Bird Dance

 

 

 

 

“Picasso Nuba” from my Modern Primitive Art bodypainting series.    Combining a “nyulan” design type from Nuba bodyart with the cubist painting Seated Woman 1953 by Picasso

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