Nexus - 0802 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Nanih Waiya cave mound sits squarely at the headwaters of the Another variant is the Nalusa Chito, or "big black being", who Pearl River). Some traditions indicate that it went on to connect emerges from underground dens to capture women and children to other "worlds" or underground places. Staying underground presumably for supper. This abduction scenario is by now a for many generations, the Choctaw emerged to wage aformof familiar one and is very similar to the abduction and changeling guerrilla warfare on their enemies, eventually winning by using accounts of Celtic and Scandinavian traditions which often darts coated with a poison made from mushrooms found in the describe abductions for the purposes of maintaining genetic diver- caverns. Victorious, they emerged again into the sunlit world. sity. The goblin Ho'koklonote'she is a shapeshifting creature One tradition holds that this emergence of a generation of peo- believed to haunt the region, and is very similar to the Pooka or ple born underground is the basis for the mound origin myth, and Buca of the British Isles. So are the Nalusa twins, for that matter. that the Choctaw had in fact arrived centuries As has been demonstrated, many similari- earlier after leaving a "sunken land" which ties or perhaps identical descriptions exist had foundered in a distant western ocean. for the underworld inhabitants of myth and After many wanderings and travails, they folklore. arrived in the southeast where they found the This underlying cohesion may have result- natural cavern mound which would later ed from an “archetypal stew" which long serve as a place of refuge. But other simmered in the imaginations of men and women; and as will be demonstrated in the next section, this has resulted in some very interesting and imaginative works of fiction. Choctaw beliefs dispute this, claiming that not just the Choctaw but the Muskogee, Cherokee and Chickasaw peoples emerged from the mound as well, having all been one people in the underworld. Today the Choctaw still believe that a variety of strange supernatural beings either inhabit the cave mound or dwell in the wooded hills that surround it. One of these is the Shampe, a hair-cov- ered, manlike giant who has a terrible odour and stays underground during the One tradition holds that this emergence of a generation of people born underground is the basis for the mound origin myth... Continued in the next issue of NEXUS... About the Author: Wm Michael Mott is the Creative Director for a high-performance US software company. He is also a free- lance artist and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He has worked as an artist/designer for Fortune 500 compa- day. The Shampe is a sort of ~ nies and for a variety of book and magazine Sasquatch, but the underworld connection is publishers. His artwork has appeared in pub- there. Also present are the Kawana-kasha lications such as Computer Graphics World (Kowi Anukasha), also called Bohpoli Magazine, Computer Artist, IEEE Computer ("stone-thrower"), a type of supernatural and Graphics and Applications, Dragon mercurial dwarf living within not just the Magazine, UFO Magazine and others. He's woods of Mississippi but within the cave mound itself. Like the Created award-winning artwork and graphic design for mass-mar- Norse dwarves, they are hoarders of vast knowledge. ket book covers, posters, brochures, packaging, CD-ROM covers 7c ale PGi ant a" . and art collections as well as for digital/web-based media. His art- hoc nonin BS also the home of cant Serpe and Tha ve work has been featured in the exhibition In Dreams Awake: Art of ns cings. “Among Her as the Nalusa Bavaya, Fantasy at the Olympia and York Gallery in 1988, at the 1987 "long black being ', who is humanoid yet slides on his stomach World Fantasy Con and in other exhibits. like a snake". His pointed ears only accentuate his reptilian Mott's satirical fantasy novels, Pulsifer: A Fable and Land of Ice, appearance. A Velvet Knife, are published in electronic form by SoftBook Press/Gemstar, (www.soft- book.com) and will soon also be available from the author in a deluxe illustrated ver- sion on CD-ROM. The first of a series of illustrated short stories appeared in September 2000 as a chapbook from Undaunted Press (www.undauntedpress. com). Mott has been researching Fortean and paranormal topics for over 20 years and has only recently decided to put the results of this research into written form, the result being the graphically rich book and CD- ROM, Caverns, Cauldrons, and Concealed Creatures (available from website http://www.hiddenmysteries.com). Wm Michael Mott can be contacted by e-mail at mottimorph@earthlink.net. Editor's Note: The bibliography accompanying this article IF). will be published in a subsequent issue of Examples of Egyptian underworld deities, the jackal-headed Anubis and Ammut NEXUS. that this emergence of a generation of people born underground is the basis for the Continued in the next issue of NEXUS... abe Asuka. appearance. 64 * NEXUS One tradition holds ; mound origin myth... FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001