Tuesday, August 24, 2010

What Completes the Gentleman?













What makes the gentleman complete?

This one dude (though not necessarily a gentleman) loves to drink palm-wine more than anything else. His tapster (not necessarily a gentleman, either) dies in an on-the-job accident, falling from a palm-tree while tapping palm-wine. The one dude who loves palm-wine heads out for Deads' Town to find said tapster. 

Down the road, the village head gives him (the one dude) palm-wine and says he will point the way to the tapster in Deads' Town if he'll retrieve his daughter from a curious creature, known at first as the "complete gentleman." For what had happened was this: she was following him (complete gentleman) to an unknown place. But as she was following the complete gentleman along the road, he was telling her not to follow him, but the lady did not listen to what he was telling her, and when the complete gentleman had tired of telling her not to follow him or to go back to town, he left her to follow him.













DO NOT FOLLOW UNKNOWN MAN'S BEAUTY

Down the Road: Complete Gentleman began returning parts of his body to those who rented them out to him apparently in order to make him "complete" while earlier gamboling at the village market. 

Now this complete gentleman was reduced to head . . . now the complete gentleman in the market reduced to a "SKULL" and this lady remained with only "Skull".

THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN

Can the palm-wine drinkard retrieve the lady (who is village head's daughter) from Skull? Will village head tell palm-wine drinkard where his tapster is located in Deads' Town?  Finally, what will palm-wine drinkard do if he actually does find his (dead) tapster?

Answer: I know some but not all because I am still reading Amos Tutuola's book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town (1952).  Italicized lines transcribed directly from said book.

Today's Rune: Journey.

4 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

That sounds pretty complicated to me.

jodi said...

Erik, that's some pretty crazy shit especially for a regular wine drinker like me!

the walking man said...

Erik...you live to near a large library

Lana Gramlich said...

Okay, you're losing me. Are the cards part of the book, because they're damned sure not part of traditional tarot...