This is
an old tale that had currency throughout China but which was only committed to
print during the Yuan Dynasty, that period of Mongol occupation in which much
narrative and dramatic literature came to be refined. The tale involves the
waylaying of the Mandarin Hsu on his way to present a report to the court of
the Emperor. Several loathsome tribespeople convince the Mandarin to divert his
course to a nearby cavern wherein they promise a “great treasure” will be
found, which should be of interest to him. Along the way, his retainers vanish
one-by-one, accompanied by smells of intricate cuisine, reminding the Mandarin
of various treats remembered from his youth. Eventually, the scouts bring the
Mandarin to a cave wherein a great cooking pot boils. They urge him to look
into the pot and the Mandarin sees only his own reflection, finally realising
the purpose of this excursion.
The tale
was a black and amusing narrative that saw a small vogue during the Dynasty,
but which was often derided as too subtle and complex in a period when the
fashion was for more broad and slapstick types of humour such as that found in
the pages of “Monkey” by Wu Ch’êng-ên. That being said, the story is a fairly
clear example of the Tcho-tcho in action and presents to the reader some
salient details about their culture. As well, this episode throws some light
upon the death of the British diplomat and amateur botanist Augustus Raymond
Margary, whose disappearance in 1875 under similar circumstances precipitated
the end of the Imperial Age in China.
(Source: Chaosium, Malleus Monstrorum)
Chinese;
traditional; Yuan Dynasty (late 13th Century); Sanity Loss: 1/1d4; +3
percentiles to Cthulhu Mythos; average 2 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
Het
Handboek van de Volkeren van Tjo-tjo (“The Handbook of the People called
Tjo-tjo [sic.]”)
“…I surmise
that while some races of Men aspire to rise above the animal state and further
the cause of Civilisation within their bounds, the Tjo-tjo are predisposed
towards quite different goals. I have spoken to those of them who claim to know
the taste of human flesh and it is well known to all who work with them that
they place little value upon the rights or property of others…”
This is
an extremely rare book and it is unlikely that the party will stumble across a
copy without some fairly intense searching beforehand. The initial print run of
100 octavo copies was designed to accompany ship’s captains, port managers and
slave overseers in the employ of the Dandel family in their holdings across the
world. Nicholas Dandel, while working for his father on his East Indies
plantations in Java, recognised a certain fraternity of people living a
sub-rosa existence, trying to blend in with the various native peoples of the
places to which Dandel’s wanderings took him. Thus, he avers, he encountered
these folk amongst the Malays of Java and Singapore, the Chinese of Hong Kong,
the Minangkabau and Batak peoples of Sumatra and the Dyak tribes of Borneo. He
rigorously sought out information about these people, a race he called the
“tjo-tjo”, and wrote up the things which he found, hoping that they would be of
use to workers on his family’s estates. The initial run was bound in sturdy
pigskin with waxed endpapers, to protect them from the hazards of a nautical
life, and each was housed in a wooden box with a sliding lid: few of the
remaining copies retain this box.
“…According to
their legends, the race descends from an earlier one that was created by an
ancient deity called ‘Shugafan’. At one time they dwelt in an ancient city
called ‘Elozar’, high atop a plateau in the East called ‘Ling’. Apparently, an
invading army drove them out and the race splintered, driven in different
directions. A warrior caste fell back to the base of the plateau and
established a stronghold there: this later grew into a city named ‘Lelag-ling’,
or ‘return to Ling’ in their tongue...”
Nicholas
Dandel’s observations were useful in his later life back in the Netherlands in
1786, where his research helped him to win an academic post at the University
of Utrecht. However, as word of his book spread out, missionary organisations
launched an angry outcry against the publication: the Catholic Church
especially sought to marginalise the work and, within a period of almost a
decade, had officially debunked most of the book’s findings.
“...Other
factions threw in their lot with other tribes and other faiths and spread
across the face of the world. Those peculiarly attached to the Weaver God
‘Alahnatji’ congregated on the Andaman Islands from where they send a yearly
tribute to their cult leaders on Ling…”
-Excerpts
translated from the Volkeren van Tjo-tjo
Under
pressure from Catholic elements within the VOC (Verenidge Oostindische
Compagnie), Dandel resigned his teaching post in 1793 and returned to the sea,
buying himself a commission in the First Army of the Coalition: he died when he
sacrificed himself at a key point during the Battle of Neerwinden, giving the
Dutch a clear victory over the French.
Dutch; Nicholas Dandel;
1782; Sanity Loss: 0/1d3; +4 percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos; average 2 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
“Admonitio
non requiro scelestus inter penuriosus...”
In 1789,
Pope Pius the Sixth issued this papal encyclical criticising a tendency among
missionary workers to hold certain heathen races as beyond redemption.
Specifically, the letter excoriates the Handboek and its author Dandel,
minutely sifting through its claims and refuting them one by one.
While lacking
much of the detail of the Volkeren van Tjo-tjo, because the rebuttal contained
in the encyclical tracks all of the major points of that other work, this is a
useful guide to what the Volkeren covers, for those unable to locate a copy of
the original text.
Latin; Pope
Pius VI; 1789; Sanity Loss: 0/1; +1 percentiles to Cthulhu Mythos; average 3
weeks to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
“A
Guide to the Tjo-tjo People, by Captain Nicholas Dandel”
In 1824, George Lewis Buchanan, an
academic at Cambridge, made a translation of the Handboek as an adjunct to
study which he was undertaking in relation to the Dyak peoples of Borneo. He
did this as part of an examination of several Dutch works concerning the
region, for which he travelled to Antwerp and Utrecht. He suffered a breakdown
attributed to ‘overwork’ whilst translating these books and was forced to spend
a year recuperating in Devon before continuing with his studies.
The work exists as part of a collection
of translated writings printed by the Cambridge University Press, in a short
print run and entitled Selected Works of the VOC in Translation. There is a least
one copy kept in the British Library and possibly other copies can be found in
the larger libraries of major cities in Britain and the US.
English; George Lewis
Buchanan: Selected Works of the VOC in Translation; 1824; Sanity Loss: 0/1d2;
+2 percentiles to Cthulhu Mythos; average 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells: None
*****
The Book of Blackened Jade
Semi-literate,
incoherent, pornographic, filled with images of torture and perversion, The
Book of Blackened Jade is a product of the Tcho-tcho mind at its nadir. It is
not a published work per se but has cropped up as an obscure website, or
underground ‘zine at sporadic intervals, the earliest dating from around 1998.
But for the fact that the contents of each iteration build upon what has gone
before, it could hardly be called a discrete work; nevertheless it exists, and
seems to be promulgated through an active and anonymous organization. Chinese
authorities are quick to respond to the emergence of this material and it ranks
very highly on their lists of proscribed ‘literature’.
The bulk of
the material revolves around the seduction, rape, mutilation and murder of a
young woman who describes the process - along with her increasingly willing
involvement in it - through a rambling interior monologue, punctuated by rhapsodic
poetry and – in some online versions – blasts of heavily nihilistic and turgid
rock music. Some versions include a ‘high priest’ figure who orchestrates the
desecration of the victim and includes his thoughts in its narrative; other
versions have two, three, or even more tormentors and include their musings -
or not - dependent upon the literary capabilities of the author(s). In each
case the depravity is of a high order, inventive in its cruelty and very nasty
in its perversity. Several subversive presses in the West have been approached
to publish this work but so far none have made the commitment. Nevertheless,
The Book of Blackened Jade has achieved an underground cult status within many
alternative lifestyle organisations, including death metal music aficionados
and Southern-Californian Satanic cults of the Anton La Vey stamp. Many musical
artists have had their music co-opted into online versions of the material
(often without reference, permission or payment) and several of these bands
have, in response, created music in homage to the work. Amongst these are the
Norwegian fascist death metal group Oskorei; Mexican black metal band Nekrosis;
Japanese psychedelic pop group Sadistic Mika Band; Australian death/thrash
metal innovators, Armoured Angel; and – notoriously - nihilist German group,
Enthäutet, with their album, “Das Zischen von ihr Risse”.
Hidden within
the subtext of this work are snippets of the Cthulhu Mythos: spells, devotional
prayers, chants and so on, interspersed with glimpses of Tcho-tcho history. In
some incarnations the material is so diluted within the indulgent
phantasmagoria of death-fetishism that it is all but worthless; in other
instances it is more potent. In recent times copies have been translated into
(often atrocious) English, or other languages and these have begun to be traded
on their own merits. Iterations are invariably classified as “Valuable”,
“Ordinary” or “Useless” by those who pursue and collect copies. A burgeoning
market of collectors has appeared in recent years - holding clandestine
swap-meets and conventions - and the values of copies of the Book and
associated memorabilia have begun to skyrocket.
The following
statistics can apply to either an Internet website (with accompanying spoken
content in a dialect or language of the Keeper’s choice) or a low-circulation,
printed magazine; in all cases, hosting attribution or printing activity will
reveal little or no overt knowledge of the material and payment for such
services will have been made through cut-outs and other such secure methods.
Chinese;
unknown author & date (circa 1998), “Valuable” edition; Sanity loss: 1d6/2d10; Cthulhu Mythos +12
percentiles; average 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells: Call
Tcho-tcho; Contact Lloigornos/Zhar; Voorish Sign; any or all of the T’ai p’ing T’ao
Chinese;
unknown author & date (after 1998), “Ordinary” edition; Sanity loss: 1d2/1d6; Cthulhu Mythos +6
percentiles; average 5 days to study and comprehend
Spells: Call
Tcho-tcho; any or all of the T’ai
p’ing T’ao
Chinese;
unknown author & date (after 1998), “Useless” edition; Sanity loss: 0/1d2; Cthulhu Mythos +1
percentiles; average 1 hour to study and comprehend
Spells: None
English;
unknown author, “Valuable” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 1d3/1d10; Cthulhu Mythos +6
percentiles; average 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells: Call
Tcho-tcho; Voorish Sign; any or all of the T’ai p’ing T’ao
English;
unknown author, “Ordinary” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 1/1d4; Cthulhu Mythos +3
percentiles; average 5 days to study and comprehend
Spells:
Voorish Sign; any or all of the T’ai
p’ing T’ao
English; unknown author, “Useless” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 0/1d2; Cthulhu Mythos +0
percentiles; 4 hours to study and comprehend
Spells: None
Danish;
unknown author, “Valuable” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 1d3/1d10; Cthulhu Mythos +6
percentiles; average 6 days to study and comprehend
Spells:
Contact Lloigornos/Zhar; Voorish Sign; any or all of the T’ai p’ing T’ao
Spanish;
unknown author, “Ordinary” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 1/1d4; Cthulhu Mythos +3
percentiles; average 3 days to study and comprehend
Spells: any or
all of the T’ai p’ing T’ao
Japanese; unknown author, “Useless” edition; 2001 onwards; Sanity loss: 0/1; Cthulhu Mythos +0
percentiles; 1 hour to study and comprehend
Spells: None
*****
“Das Zischen von ihr Risse”
An album released by the nihilist rock band
Enthäutet in the winter of 2004. The music is variously described as ‘death
metal’ or ‘death/trance’ by critics and is probably among the first ‘high
concept’ albums to be released within the genre. Significantly, it was the last
album to be produced by the band: front man and bassist Rudolf Zucker – who
composed most of the tracks – disappeared before the album’s release and was
found seven weeks later in a filthy flat in Hamburg with his brains blown out,
an apparent suicide; rhythm guitarist and keyboardist, Franz Hauptman, was also
discovered dead at his home, having suffocated himself with a plastic bag; lead
guitarist, Erich Mann, was arrested for the mutilation and murder of a young
woman and was killed by police whilst resisting capture; drummer, Martin
Spieler, voluntarily admitted himself into psychiatric care at a facility
outside Berlin and remains there to this day. The album was removed from
circulation shortly after these events by the publishing house, following a
public outcry concerning antisocial activity amongst fans, and plans for
international distribution were scrapped. In the fallout from the incident, the
master tapes were stolen from the studio in which they were housed and they
remain unaccounted-for.
The album concerns itself with material obtained from The Book of Blackened Jade, and wallows indulgently in the filth of that other work. It appears that Rudolf Zucker became aware of the text after finding that some of his previous music had been appropriated for a website version of the piece; he became obsessed with the Book and was inspired to write “Das Zischen von ihr Risse” (“The Hiss of her Tears”). The music is heavily layered and contains samples and textured sound-structures of an abstruse and disturbing nature, along with the other blasphemous imagery contained in the lyrics. Experts have identified discrete segments of background vocals as excerpts from the Dhol Chants and the complete formula for the Voorish Sign can be found backmasked on track 5, “Verloren zum Messer”. Invocations to Zhar and Lloigornos can be found in the mix as well as samples of a guttural sound that has been tentatively identified as the ‘speech’ of the Miri-nigri. While much of the Mythos content on this album requires sophisticated audio equipment to separate it out for perusal, nevertheless, listening to the album for an extended period causes a Sanity Loss of 1d4/1d8.
German: “Das
Zischen von ihr Risse”, audio Compact Disc; Rudolf Zucker and Enthäutet; 2004;
Sanity Loss: 1d4/1d8; Cthulhu Mythos +8 percentiles; average 3 weeks to study
and comprehend
Spells:
Contact Zhar; Contact Lloigornos; Create Blue Glow; Voorish Sign
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment