B.B. King, Blues Master and Icon

Yesterday B.B. King, rock-the-world blues guitarist, died at the age of 89. His death was from complications from high blood pressure and diabetes. His life was an on-going splash of color and life and an on-going contribution to the music world, not just to blues but how his blues influenced even the early days of jazz and rock, the radio and the road show. He is a king in the music world!

I had just finished reading his book Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King when he died. I never heard of him before but after reading the book, I could so easily understand the throb of pain and reaction in the media caused by his passing. He wasn't an articulate man. Rather, he was quiet and as a child, he had a stutter and was painfully shy. Music unlocked his soul and gave him expression. For a man who wasn't articulate, he painted beautiful imagery in his autobiography with his simple sentences:

"Great Grandma spoke with quiet authority. She'd put me on her lap and, up close, I'd notice wrinkles around her mouth and over her lips. Her eyes would twinkle and her voice was steady. I believed her every word. Unlike some of the men, she didn't exaggerate or fib to build herself up. She was sincere. She told me a story about Houston, Mississippi, where a black boy fell in love with the master's daughter. When the moon was slim and the night was dark, they'd meet undercover and steal a kiss..." 

He grew up milking cows, driving tractors, picking cotton and at night or on free weekends he would walk several miles to town with his guitar and strum a bit, picking up coins on the corners of sidewalks, and then walking back home the several miles late at night to save those coins. Though tired, he had a smile on his face and energy to continue the manual labor because his soul was fed with the music he created and shared.

In school in those few years when he attended, he learned of Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Mary McLeod Bethune, and how hard work, tenacity, and faith were the keys to accomplishment. He following the fights of Joe Louis like he was fighting for the Black's freedom. But his bigger heroes were the musicians that his Aunt Mima had on records. Men like Blind Lemon Johnson who sang "Rabbit Foot Blues", "Shuckin' Sugar Blues" and "That Crawlin' Baby Blues" and "Mosquito Moon". But while Blind Lemon was raw, Lonnie Johnson was gentle and had a dreamy quality of singing and a lyrical way with the guitar. Blues were about feeling, and these two guitarists were the ones who hit young Riley, latter B.B., hard.

Riley moved to Arkansas because the picking of cotton paid better, $1 per one-hundred pounds versus the 35¢ he got in Mississippi. So after madly picking cotton from early morning to about noon, he would wait around WDIA had see if he could substitute for Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert, a deejay with a program called Sepia Swing Club. He was getting his plucking fingers in the door of blues music. It was rough but he had passion for the picking' - the picking' of the guitar, not so much of the cotton, but a man did what a man had to do, and he was a workaholic anyway. So by 4pm he'd be back in the field for another couple of hours picking that cotton and dreaming of picking his guitar for wider and larger audiences. It was at the WDIA that he got his nickname Beale Street Blues Boy shortened to B.B. although for a time he had the longer shortening of Blues Boy.

Well, B.B. also had a name for his guitar - she was curvy and sexy and the passion of his life. The name came about while he was pickin' in a club one night and the club caught on fire. No way was he leaving without his precious guitar that he had saved and saved for, so fighting his way through the blazes, he grabbed his guitar and barely escaped the building, cradling his guitar in his arms. He was burned on his legs but his guitar was fine, so he caught his breath and thanked the Lord. Then overhearing a patron say, "Damn, you wouldn't think two guys would kill each other over a gal like Lucille" and B.B. realized the blaze was from a fight over a woman he never met, but it was a memorable night, a memorable name, and right then and there he christened his guitar Lucille. He liked seeing his guitar as a woman, as someone worth fighting for and even dying for. Over the years he's had seventeen guitars, but all of them have been named Lucille.

In 1952, when B.B. was 26, his "Three O'clock Blues" reached and remained #1 on the Billboard's rhythm and blues chat for three months. This breakthrough changed his life. He didn't become rich and he didn't become famous, but in the world of black music, he became a national name, and just like that, his territory spread beyond Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama. He states very clearly that he was listened to by blacks and not selling to whites, that wouldn't happen until some 20 years later, but he was now on the slow ladder climb to nationwide fame.

Blues is typically associated with drugs and B.B. did some experimenting too, but after one naive sexy evening with a hot woman who gave him drugs, he bumped into Tiny Kennedy, a pal who set him straight by yelling at him "You the damnedest fool I ever did see. That shit will kill you. And if it don't kill you, it'll turn you into a raggedy-ass junkie like her. You better check your rings and watch ..." B.B. did and sure enough the hot, sexy junkie girl had stolen his goods. He never did drugs again, and if he found out guys in his band were using dope, he'd fire 'em on the spot.

That didn't stop him from having more hot and sexy nights with hot and sexy women. He slept his way across the country, before he was married, when he was married, afterwards, between marriages, and to his knowledge he fathered 15 children, all of whom he acknowledged and all of whom he gave allowances to of some kind. He says he was like a foreigner to his children with his life on the road, but he still had the best of intentions and he still sent money to support them, something he could do because he loved to work.

He loved women of all kinds -- sweet women, women with compassion and inner beauty -- but one time when he had a hard time dealing with a woman was when the new trend in the hippie movement was to send a naked young lady to attend to him, not to offer sex but to welcome him, sort of in the spirit of the flower children. Well, it was Georgia and the lady was young, nubile and white. He wanted to accept the gesture and show his appreciation but he couldn't figure out quite how, and he also just wanted to stare, but then that would be rude and show just how nervous he was. Well, he got through the experience but he could hear the men around him laughing.

He grew in the world of black music and whites started listened, reinterpreting the blues and expanding on his style. B.B. believed in always doing his best, always evolving his style, and he was known for his workaholic passion for sharing his interpretation of the blues. In his early 70s, he was included in The Ed Sullivan Show, and through that experience he got on The Tonight Show. And in these later years, he finally reached worldwide acceptance. There are franchised B.B. King nightclubs in Memphis, L.A., Nashville and Orlando. Gibson started a line of B.B. King guitar strings made of Swedish steel. There are B.B. King casual clothing and B.B. King food products (B.B. King barbecue sauce, B.B. King salad dressing, B.B. King salsa and B.B. King bean spreads). There was even discussion of B.B. King catfish although ironically by that time B.B. had already been a vegetarian for 10 years after watching a TV show on the slaughter of chickens and cows.

With international acceptance came social invitations. B.B. was invited for the first time to the White House by President Bush, and he received the Presidential Medal of the Arts, one of the highest awards the US can bestow on a private citizen. He ate lunch with Vice President Quayle and the presidents in both Turkey and Latvia, because as they said, they wanted to get to know B.B. And Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip of England invited him to a garden party being thrown in Washington D.C. He even took his band to Beijing, China where he opened the Hard Rock Cafe.

The little boy Riley who lost his beloved mother and grandmother at a very early age and struggled to live, having little to no time or interest in book learning, became a household icon and monument in the world of music. He wrote his poignant autobiography humbly, sharing his foibles and weaknesses much more easily than tooting his horn on his many successes. But his sharing made the reader realize that his life was a struggle, not one he was ashamed of but one that he embraced so that his utmost purpose of "feel the music" and share what he felt could be achieved. He wasn't a businessman; he was an extreme artist, placing value on the intrinsic rather than the material gain.

Words Lost in Translation

When translating from one language to another, inevitably you will come across a word that just can't be translated directly into the other language and you must resort to description and explanation of the concept. This is true because language reflects culture and vice versa, culture reflects language, so our cultures like our languages are different and therefore result in different ways of looking at the world. Many cultures in fact have totally different world experiences from other cultures preventing full understanding between the cultures because they just can't quite identify with one another. 

Many people already are aware that the Inuit have a large number of words for "snow" that just don't translate into English. This is because when the Inuit talk about the snow, they are including references to how cold it is and therefore how fluffy, crisp, hard, blowy, etc and the snow is that is falling, the snow that is on the ground, e.g. in hard packed coverage or deep fluffy coverage that doesn't support a dogsled. In English we resort to description if we think the kind of snow on the ground or falling is important. That would take a long, long time in the Inuit language because about nine months of the year the Arctic has some kind of snow.

If you'll recall, the movie "The King and I" was about a missionary who went to Siam (Thailand) in the 1800s and had the palace concubines and children put on a play. In the play about Harriet Beecher Stowe's book "Uncle Tom's Cabin", the miracle of snow was introduced. The concubines and others didn't believe that anything cold could fall from the sky; it was outside of their world experience and so at first they didn't believe anything like that could exist, then they played with the word "snow" and the mysterious idea of a cold world and marveled that such a thing could exist. They were able to step outside their culture via literature and broaden their world concept.

Well, a rather new and interesting book on the shelf is "Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World". The book has pages of illustrated words from other languages that just can't be translated easily or directly into English, but if they were, could be an asset to the ever-growing English language. Following are several of the entries with some charming illustrations:

Suadade (noun)

Probably one of the most famous (are beautiful) Portuguese words is "saudade" which refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone you love or have lost. Fado music, a form of music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, relates to saudade.

Saudade is not just a feeling but something you can literally "have". In Portuguese, you could say "Tenho saudades," which translates as "I have saudade."

This kind of reminds me of a Spanish expression, "No tengo ganas", with ganas being another word that doesn't translate. Ganas kind of means desire, will or energy, so "No tengo ganas" kind of means "I don't have the desire/will/inclination/energy to do that."

Cacimbo (noun)

This Kimbundu word, used in Angola, refers to a heavy mist or drizzle that occurs in the Congo basin area and which is often accompanied by onshore winds. It is synonymous for the cool season, and apparently there is no translation possible. Upon hearing the word, Angolans think about the fresh air, the summer, the cool weather and the very cold water.

This word reminds me of "siwonhada", a Korean word with perhaps more meanings on cool, refreshing, invigorating ideas. It seems to similarly be used for a breath of fresh air after the summer heat or the icy coldness of the air conditioner after the burning heat outside. It has no specific temperature range but often reflects the change in coolness after the hotness. Actually, siwonhada is an idiom with many more meanings, but this one on coolness is probably the most commonly used one.

Extrawunch (noun)

This useful German word is used to denote someone who is slowing things down by being fussy. It means an additional request which turns a simple delivery/operation/undertaking into a complicated one, often with only a marginal benefit and a sense of it being an unnecessary complication.

Hiraeth (noun)

Hiraeth is Welsh and refers to a particular type of longing for the homeland or the romanticized past. The Japanese word "natsukashii" means something similar. It sometimes has connotations of nostalgia for an idealized past that never was.

Somewhat similarly is the Korean word "han", which is in fact a cultural disease of the Koreans before Korea became a democratic country (in the late 1980s - early 1990s). Han means a rancor, bitterness or inability to express one's feelings of turmoil or resentment, kind of like a bitterness that could not be expressed (because of the military government) and an eating away of bottled up pain, anger and frustration. The oldest generation may still have the cultural disease of Han but the younger generations, experiencing freedom of speech and action, certainly do not.

Korembi (noun)

A beautiful Japanese word that refers to the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. Taking pictures of korembi is popular with photographers and this word seriously needs to be added to the English language!

Mokita (noun)

The word "mokita" comes from the Kivila language in Papua New Guinea. It translates loosely as "the truth we all know but agree not to talk about". Another necessary word addition for English!

Dapjeongneo (noun?)

The next time your girlfriend asks you, "Don't you think I'm pretty in my new dress?" you'll get an instinctive feel for the meaning of this word. Dapjeongneo (답정너) is a recently created Korean word used when somebody (usually, you may have guessed, a woman) has already decided the answer you want to hear, and all is left for you to do is to utter the answer.

Waldeinsamkeit (noun)

Waldeinsamkeit is German for "a feeling of solitude, being alone in the woods and a connectedness to nature." Perhaps not the most useful word out there, and to be fair, it's a fairly old term that nobody uses nowadays, but it's still pretty cool and would make you look very smart if you were to throw it in  a discussion, and mention that Ralph Waldo Emerson even wrote a whole poem about it.

Depaysement (noun)

A word that is in every French-speaking traveler's vocabulary. It doesn't translate to "homesick" but rather to the feeling that comes from not being in one's home country, of being a foreigner or immigrant or displaced from your place of origin. Literally translated in English, it would be something like "unlandscaped" (Italian has an exact translation, "spaesamento".)

The word can also have a positive connotation, a "change of scene" that is experienced in a completely new place. Therefore, in using and understanding the exact meaning of the word, one must pay attention to context and tone.

Iktsuarpok (noun)

Iktsuarpok is Inuit for the feeling of anticipation that leads you to go outside and check if anyone is coming. It also denotes impatience. Imagine living in an igloo in the middle of the northern tundra where not a single living soul lives within 100 square kilometers, then you can quickly get the sense of the meaning of the word for expectancy. The environment certainly has shaped the creation and use of this word.

Jayus (noun or adjective?)

A very useful word if you have friends with a bad sense of humor. Jayus is Indonesian for "a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but to laugh." English has the expression of "corny" and Koreans can use the above word "siwonhada" (cold) in this situation, but neither English nor Korean have a word for the embarrassed laughter following such a joke. Both languages could benefit by this word!

Mamihlapinatapei (noun)

Mamihlapinatapei is an amazing word in Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego (an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan). It means the wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start. Yeah, this word could seriously work in English! "The look", the closest translation is English, just has too many possible meanings.

Verschlimmbessern (verb)

Another German word, a verb in fact, means "to make something worse when trying to improve it," something we've all experienced but now we have a word for it. Somehow if this word gets borrowed into English, I do believe it'll have to be introduced as a contraction, maybe something like "The boss versched the reconstruction." It does sound appropriately negative so maybe this shortening will find its way into English ... eventually.

Eomchina (noun)

Eomchina (엄친아) is a hilarious Korean contraction of the phrase "Mom's friend's son" (엄마친구아들). Korean mothers are often very competitive and compare their children against the offspring of their friends. This word is used to describe a person who is more successful or skilled than you - the kind of person your mother would compare you to in a negative light so as to motivate you to study harder. Wow, yes, Korea is so competitive that I bet my students hear this word a LOT!

Schadenfreude (noun)

This German word literally translates as "harm-joy" and refers to the feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffer misfortune. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer mentioned schadenfreude as "the most evil sin of human feeling." A number of interesting scientific studies of schadenfreude were undertaken in recent years.

Following are some more culture revealing words, for as Virginia Wolf said in the only surviving recording of her voice, "Words belong to each other". Words are indeed a magnificent meditation and cultural reflection on the beauty of language. Language is what makes us human; it defines us, our essence, our souls.

Gurfa - Arabic (noun)

The amount of water that can be held in one hand. (I'm wondering how this word became popularized in Arabic and in what context it is really used.)

Tsundoku - Japanese (noun)

Leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up together with other unread books. Hmmm, I think I need this word.

Palegg - Norwegian (noun)

Anything and everything you can put in a slice of bread. Well, why not? A sandwich connotes two pieces of bread with a filling and people describe the filling via language, cheese-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich, PBJ sandwich. Why not put anything between bread, I mean, food is food, right?

Forelsket - Norwegian (noun)

The indescribable euphoria experienced as you being to fall in love. Useful indeed!

Trepverter - Yiddish (noun)

A witty riposte or comeback you think of only when it is too late to use. Literally, "staircase words."

Wabi-sabi - Japanese (noun)

Finding beauty in the imperfections; an acceptance of the cycle of life and death.

Jugaad - Hindi (noun)

Ensuring that things happen even with minimal resources, even if they happen "by hook or by crook." Oh, yes, English needs this!

Komorebi - Japanese (noun)

The sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees. Komorebi is just plain word poetry!

Kilig - Tagalog (noun)

The feeling of butterflies in your stomach, usually when something romantic or cute takes place.

Fika - Swedish (verb)

Gathering together to talk and take a break from everyday routines, usually drinking coffee and eating pastries (either at a cafe or at home) and often for hours on end.

Commuovere - Italian (verb)

Often taken to mean "heartmoving" but directly relates to a story that moved you to tears. Guess this means something different from tear-jerking, but they seem quite similar to me.

Luftmensch - Yiddish (noun)

Refers to someone who is a bit of a dreamer and literally means "air person". The closest English I can think of is the person has his head in the clouds, but a one-word descriptor is so much more culturally powerful.

Tretar - Swedish (noun)

On its own, "tar" means a cup of coffee and "pelar" is the refill of said coffee. A "tretar" is therefore a second refill, or a "three-fill".

References:

15 Untranslatable Words You Wish Existed in English - Lingholic

Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Catalog of Beautiful Untranslatable Words from Around the World - Brain Pickings

Baltic Plywood Horses

Browsing the web I stumbled across a pattern for making cardboard horses. Ann Wood, the craftsy designer, drew up three patterns (about 6-inch sized horses) and made a stampede of 100 cardboard horses. Her horses have been widely posted on the web and so creative that I took a closer look at her website. Very creative and suitable for almost all ages! But it kind of amazed me that so much effort would be put into cardboard horses rather than more enduring wooden horses ... that's a lot of work for just a cardboard frame, so I thought I would make some wooden ones.

Baltic pine plywood is the way to go. It cuts easily, shapes easily, doesn't break down like other plywood that has poor wood-fill composition, and it also takes paint well. I bought a 4'x2' sheet and proceeded to trace out the horses via carbon paper. OK, that took a looooong time. Actually I'm glad I didn't count the hours that went into making these, but once I got started, I wanted to do quality work so paid a little more attention to detail than if I were making something out of cardboard.

Tools needed:

• carbon paper
• needle-nose pliers
• buttons -- four for each horse
• twisty-ties (free from the produce section at the store)
• water colors
• paint brushes
• markers (optional)
• paper cups and paper towels
• Baltic pine plywood
• sandpaper
• drill
• scroll-saw
• optional: lace, yarn, ribbon, etc for manes and tails (hot-glue gun)

Here is the step-by-step process:

• traced out the three different patterns of horses (carbon paper)
• with a scroll-saw cut the horses out piece by little piece (I didn't follow the tracings because I wanted personality and not clone horses; that made the cutting a lot faster and involved a little creativity)
• sanded each little piece by hand
• drilled holes for fastening on the legs
• painted the pieces with water colors (touch up with markers)
• fastened the pieces together with wire (twisty-ties from the store -- free), buttons and a needle-nose pliers

Now what to do with them? I made 39 horses out of the 4'x2' sheet of Baltic pine plywood. I've given a few away but the rest, not sure. My younger bro piped up that they would make a really cool Christmas tree, and I think he's right, so the horses are packed away for Christmas.  Think I might get some more Baltic pine plywood and make a lot of white stars to balance out the color on the tree.

And now for niece (10) and nephew's (6 1/2) contribution. They had so much fun creating their horses. Now they're requesting snowflakes and stars. Hmm, we'll see.

Ayurvedic, Greek and Chinese Medicines at a Glance

Ethnomedicine—Circumferential distribution of humoral medicine

The geographic distribution of humoral traditions from three of the world’s great civilizations—ancient Greece, India and China—are remarkably similar (Laderman 1992: 272).  The Greek, Ayurvedic and Chinese medical systems are “naturalistic” and share fundamental values in protoscientific, philosophical, cosmological views of the universe, and in their classic form are characterized by the metaphoric pairs or qualities of hot and cold, wet and dry (Foster 1987: 355).  Despite the fact that each of these medical systems has the dual bi-polar axis of hot-cold and wet-dry, which are ‘elements’ by mutual agreement, oddly enough these categorizations are referred to collectively as ‘humoral’ although only the Greek and Ayurvedic medical systems have ‘humors’.  The chart below clearly shows the four Greek elements of fire, air, earth and water corresponding directly to the temperature and moisture metaphors, and these in turn, correlating with the four humors or four bodily fluids—blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile.  Albeit the Ayurvedic medical system has one additional element, ether, and one less humor—comprising two bodily fluids and the third humor being wind or flatulence—the Ayurvedic medicine delineates a similar labeling system involving elements and humors.  The Chinese medical system, on the other hand, does not have ‘humors’ at all, but four ‘qualities’, and these qualities (1) do not directly correlate with the elements as in the Greek and Ayurvedic medical systems but (2) are in harmony and balance with the five elements which reflect the eternal cyclical, functional relationship to the natural world: wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water, and water generates wood (Song 2005: 232). 

MEDICAL SYSTEMS
Greek	Four elements: Fire/heat Air/cold Earth/dry Water/moist	Four humors: Yellow bile Blood Black bile Phlegm
Ayurvedic	Five elements: Fire/heat Air/cold Earth/dry Water/moist Ether/??	Three humors: Phlegm/mucus Bile/gall Wind/flatulence
Chinese	Five elements: Fire Wood Earth Water Metal	Four qualities: Hot Cold Wet Dry

(adapted from text as written by Foster 1987: 359)

The Greek medical system originated in the 4^th century B.C. and, perhaps due to it being the forerunner of the other medical systems, became the basis of cosmopolitan medicine (Cunnar n.d.)., and hence, in the West the reason for referring to ‘humoral medicine’—based on the Greek interpretation of the bodily humors—as opposed to referencing the bodily qualities in accordance with Chinese categorization. 

The winged staff with the intertwined snakes is a symbol of ancient Indian medicine that predates the Caduceus of Greek medicine and mythology, now a universal symbol of modern medicine and science. (Source) 

The Chinese medical system from the 1^st century B.C. and the Ayurvedic medical system from approximately 2000 years ago (Cunnar n.d.) in conjunction with the Greek medical system influence some of the most heavily populated areas on earth.  The Greek medical system has moved both westward through Europe, Latin America and the Philippines and also eastward to heavily influence India, where it became transposed to the Unani or Ionian medical system (Foster 1987: 360), a mixture of the Greek and Ayurvedic medical systems and which is now arguably one of the four “literate” medical systems of the world (Cunnar n.d.).  This medical system has in turn influenced the Moslem world and South Asia (Foster 1987: 360-61) while the Ayurvedic system is the primary medical system in India (although Unani is also practiced there), Nepal and Sri Lanka and from there diffused to Burma, and in part to Malaysia and adjacent areas (Foster 1987: 360-61).  The Chinese medical system diffused through the Koreas and Japan and southward to Thailand, where Ayurvedic and Greek medical systems are simultaneously practiced (Foster 1987: 360).  

At present the three, arguably four, medical systems together lay a wide belt around the globe.  Like the earth’s geological Ring of Fire, a ring of migration and religio-social and political interactions have affected the acceptance and diffusion of the medical humoral beliefs.  Broadly banding the globe above the equator on the Asian-European continents to marginal areas around the equator and below it on the South American continent, humoral beliefs are strongly held.  However, in the spread of humoral medical beliefs, due to underlying values of indigenous cultures, modifications of the four humors have taken place.  The humoral system lost the bi-polar axis of wet-dry in Latin America (Mathews 1983: 837) and the New World in general, arguably due to no dichotomous indigenous beliefs of wet-dry in the New World (Foster 1987: 356-58); nevertheless, owing to the “profound imprint of the Spanish culture” in its long-term colonization of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Philippines, these areas are remarkably homogeneous in their hot-cold beliefs (Foster 1987: 367).  Similarly, in Malay, in accepting Ayurvedic humoral beliefs that later became softened by Greek and Chinese thought (Laderman 1992: 273), the wet-dry dichotomy was lost and a neutral category, having neither hot nor cold significance, arose in importance (Laderman 1992: 279).    

In conclusion, while the term ‘humoral’ does not in truth transmedically discuss the bodily ‘humors’ among the three medical systems categorized as ‘humoral’, it does provide an identifying label for transculturally comparing the elements and approaching a study of the beliefs the elements play within the cultures.  Nevertheless, while humans’ understanding of the medicine comes from various global locations (Moerman 2002: 56), homogeneous assumptions for the humoral categories must be avoided for societies are composed of intracultural and contextual variables (Rubel and Hass 1996: 120). 

REFERENCES

Cunnar, Christiane, Human Relations Area Files (n.d.), ‘Teaching Ehraf: Hraf Topics in Medical Anthropology (Level Ii)’.

Foster, George M. (1987), ‘On the Origin of Humoral Medicine in Latin America’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1: 355-93.

Laderman, Carol (1992), ‘A Welcoming Soil: Humoralism on the Malay Peninsula’ in Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge, ed. Charles Leslie and Allan Young (Los Angeles: University of California Press): 272-88.

Mathews, Holly F. (1983), ‘Context-Specific Variation in Humoral Classification’, American Anthropologist 85: 826-47.

Moerman, D. (2002), Chapter 5: Formal Factors and the Meaning Response (Meaning, Medicine, and the 'Placebo' Effect; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Rubel, A. J., and M. R. Hass (1996), ‘Ethnomedicine’ in Medical Anthropology: Comtemporary Theory and Method, ed. C. F. Sargent and T.M. Johnson (Praeger, Westport, CT and London): 113-30.

Song, Il-byung (2005), An Introduction to Sasang Constitutional Medicine, ed. Floyd E. Sandoval and Naomi R. Gelperin (Korean Studies Series No. 29; Seoul: Jimoondang).

Monster: An Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member

Kody Scott, born in 1963 and raised in South Central Los Angeles, was initiated as Crip at the age of 11. Before his teen years were gone, he had risen in Crip ranks to the status of Ghetto Star (ghetto celebrity). When he was 13, while robbing a man he was accidentally hit in the face by the victim. When the man was on the flee, he tripped and was then pinned in place while Kody in retaliation pounded and stomped him, then abandoned his disfigured body in an alley. The man was taken to a hospital where Kody last heard he had fallen into a coma. The police told bystanders that the person responsible for this was a "monster", and the name stuck. All Crips and all Bloods received some kind of nickname and 'Kody', already being a cool name, was then prefaced by Monster and was soon the moniker replacement for Kody.

published in 1993

When Monster was just joining the Crips, the war on the L.A. streets had only been going on about nine years, and was waged between the Crips and the Bloods. But as the nation of the Crips was growing, soon Crips were not just 75 or so in a set, but would later be a thousand deep. There were many sets, and sets in turns were broken down by streets, so literally there developed a Crip street gang on every street, and the Crip friends that Monster hung out with in his very early years as a gangster later became his mortal enemies as Crips started fighting other Crip gangs, rather than just ganging up on the Bloods. Initially the worst enemies were Crip and Blood sets, but by the late 1980s Crips were the number-one killers of Crips. In fact, as Monster Kody Scott writes his autobiography, he later states that in a 12-year period (1980-1993 approximately - he published his book in 1993) more Crips were killed in that time than Crips killed by Bloods in the entire 22 years of the war (1971?-1993).

By the time Monster was 15, he had already killed several, bashed in several and overall made quite a name for himself. Then in a drunken state, he smashed up 15 cars before he was captured and charged with assault and grand theft, receiving 9 months in camp. He had already been to the Hall, now he was going to be sent to the Camp, a tougher place to survive. Youth Authority, the next level for incarcerating adolescents under 18, would be next, followed by prison ... each sentence become longer and with harder convictions. Then of course there are many types of prison, L.A. country jail, Folsom prison, Chino state prison (with its Deep Seg or Deep Segregation unit), San Quentin, (100 years older than Chino and having double- and triple-max units). Monster experienced them all. Monster deserved them all. He makes no apologies. Monster simply states that once you're a Crip, you have to give attention to the 'hood, avenging disrespect from other gangs (or even within gang), protecting your family and protecting yourself. And that was why you joined a gang, to protect yourself. It seemed that every time he got out of youth camp or later prison, he would have a "strap", a gun, and would go out on a shooting spree before being home a full day. He had a name to keep up in the early days, and he had to give paybacks as a good and well-connected Crip should.

However, when he was 30 and in Chino, he started realizing that Crip on Crip and killing Crip was going nowhere. He met someone from the CCO, the Consolidated Crip Organization, which had a 'constitution', and the fundamental beliefs in respecting one's self (not calling one's self a nigga, not dissing one's family especially one's mother or sister, developing language of respect, and becoming educated to think logically for one's self and to make goals for one's self and the Crips as a whole).  The Constitution was new and it held promises to questions Monster had about where the Crips were taking the war -- basically, nowhere but the grave. He joined and then worked on creating a unified goal for the Crips, not to fight against one another but for a united cause.

In 1987 the Consolidated Crip Organization was disbanded. It was going nowhere except creating new faces to an old war. By this time Monster threw his lot in totally with the New Afkrikan Independence Movement. Even before going to San Quentin maximum security prison he had learned about the new movement but it was at San Quentin where he joined and was given his new name, Sanyika Shakur.

Sanyika Shakur was paroled in 1988, got his first job and tried to become a family man with a goal and to live more peaceably on the streets. When he got out of prison after being in for 4 1/2 years, he returned to mother's home and was appalled at the burnt down buildings around, the squallor, the homeless, and graffiti street gangs painted but he could no longer interpret as new gangs had been created since he had been imprisoned. This shock at his former reality confirmed that change was needed in his 'hood and that he could lead some members of his 'hood to leave their Crip-killing-gangs and realign themselves as New Afrikans revolutionaries with a purpose like himself.

Sanyika tried to live a more moral life, one showing respect for himself and also as a role model for his family. However, in 1991 he was captured by L.A.P.D. for assault and grand theft auto, charges that "stemmed from a healthy beating [he] had given a crack dealer who had refused to stop selling his product on [Sanyika's] corner." Sanyika then confiscated the dealer's van which, along with the beating, earned Sanyika another seven years in a maximum security prison. Sanyikda doesn't apologize, he has no regrets, but says "When the police and other government agencies don't seem to care about what is going on in our communities, then those of us who live in them must take responsibility for their protection and management."

___________________________________________

I found this book brutal but eye-opening as to the motivation of street gangs. It is one thing to sit in my white middle-class comfort and judge behavior as being morally right or morally wrong based on my genteel lifestyle and surroundings and totally another to see what is maybe not morally right but justifiably right when in a different context. As Sanyika Shakur states near the end of his autobiography, his early days in the Crips was without any real purpose except to belong to something big and tough and earn a reputation, but ultimately he realized there was no real purpose for all the killings, especially when the war became less Crip-on-Blood and more Crip-on-Crip. In his youth he didn't realize there was no real goal for the Crips in the killings. He didn't recognize the killings he and his tribe accomplished was just feeding an insatiably thirsty circle of action of purposeless killing.

The insights shared by Sanyika Shakur on the structure of the gang, the tribalism attitudes and shared street slang and signs connoting membership, and the code of conduct which was very strict are well documented. Living proximal to or condoning such a brutal live-or-die lifestyle alters a person. This is not my reality, but I am glad for Sanyika's insights to the reality of the New Afrikans and the people in the inner L.A. poverty zones so, as an educator and as an anthropologist, I can be more understanding of the educational and social needs I can endeavor to meet in my classroom. Being aware of the educational challenges caused by the social environment gives me a better understanding of how to potentially develop ways / a program / tools to assist youth in their learning process.

In fact, I think that educators, educational counselors, psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists should have this book on their reading list. The book gives a detailed psychological study of an L.A. gang member and discusses points of race, status, economics, prejudices, law interpretation ... While I am in no way connected or even familiar with gangs, I felt this book doesn't justify gangs but explains the motivations to belong to one and perform as a gang member. A very insightful book that made me less judgmental of brutal street behavior but more knowledgeable about why that brutality exists and in what form and by whom, almost always for a gang-viewed "logical" reason.