uang and his Wild Wife.AMOU was so beautiful. She was betrothed to a man from the tribe. But she was not yet given to her betrothed. She still lived with her family.
There was a man called Duang in a neighbouring village. Duang's father said to him, 'My son, Duang, it is high time you married.'
'Father,' replied Duang, 'I cannot marry; I have not yet found the girl of my heart.'
'But my son,' argued his father, 'I want you to marry while I am alive. I may not live long enough to attend your marriage.'
'I will look, Father,' said Duang, 'but I will marry only when I find the girl of my heart.'
'Very well, my son,' said his father with understanding.
They lived together until the father died. Duang did not marry. Then his mother died. He did not marry.
These deaths made him abandon himself in mourning; so he no longer took care of his appearance. His mourning hair grew long and wild. He never shaved or groomed his hair. He was a very rich man. His cattle-byres were full of cattle, sheep and goats.
Ankole-Watusi cattle
Because Duang cannot choose a wife his connection to the feminine is injured. When his mother dies he loses his last connection to the feminine (a repetition of the same idea by means of a different image helps to confirm the interpretation). Since the lack of a wife and the loss of his mother are the introduction to the story, they may represent the main theme: what happens when the connection is broken between masculine and feminine, yang and yin.
Duang goes into wild mourning. His wildness means that the unconscious is expressing itself in uncivilized ways, without mediation by cultivated patterns (this idea too is going to be repeated in different images). When the unconscious has no cultivated pattern of release it sometimes express itself in neurotic or somatic symptoms; for Duang it expresses itself in wild behavior.
For a man, because feminine psychology is mysterious to him, the feminine represents access to the mysterious unconscious. (Sometimes access to the unconscious is represented by an image of person of an unfamiliar - mysterious - race or of a person from an unfamiliar continent. Sometimes the unconscious reaches us through an unfamiliar mental function, perhaps through feeling for an intellectual, or through ideas for a person who normally relates through feeling.) Through the feminine a man can rebalance his personality: the unconscious can bring him new resources, thereby renewing and enlivening him. Without such a relationship his personality becomes tired, dry, and sterile.
A man's (or a woman's) relationship to the feminine need not be truly conscious. Sometimes I use the term "conscious" to mean a degree of awareness which includes a deep understanding of the unconscious, but sometimes I use it to mean merely the daytime state of being awake rather than asleep. By following the customs of his culture a man can marry and go through the lifecycle, being nurtured by the feminine without recognizing the feminine as an independent power or understanding that the feminine is also a part of himself. (But if his connection to the feminine is injured then he may not be able to sustain a marriage.)
One day he left for a trip to a nearby tribe. On the way he heard the drums beating loud. He followed the sounds of the drums and found people dancing. So he stood and watched the dance. In the dance was the girl called Amou. When she saw him standing, she left the dance and went near him. She greeted him. They stood talking.
Ethiopian woman, Omo Valley
John Kenny, 2010
Amou meets Duang when she is dancing. Through this community ritual she expresses vitality flowing from the unconscious. She is attracted to him and she courts him - the image of her courtship repeats the idea that the feminine permits communion with the unconscious.
When the relatives of the man who was betrothed to Amou saw her, they became disturbed. 'Why should Amou leave the dance to greet a man who was merely watching? And then she dared to stand and talk with him! Who is the man, anyway?'
They called her and asked her. She answered, 'I don't see anything wrong! I saw the man looking as though he were a stranger who needed help. So I went to greet him in case he wanted something. There is nothing more to it.'
They dismissed the matter, although they were not convinced.
Amou did not go back to the dance. She went and talked to the man again. She invited him to her family's home. So they left the dance and went. She seated him and gave him water. She cooked for him and served him.
The man spent two days in her house and then left and returned home. He went and called his relatives and told them that he had found the girl of his heart. They took cattle and returned to Amou's village.
The man who had betrothed Amou had paid thirty cows.
Amou's relatives sent them back and accepted Duang's cattle. The marriage was completed, and Amou was given to her husband.
She went with him and gave birth to a daughter, called Kiliingdit. Then she had a son. She and her husband lived alone with their children. Then she conceived her third child. While she was pregnant, her husband was in the cattle camp. But when she gave birth, he came home to visit her and stay with them for the first few days after her delivery.
They marry - a ritual in which daily life is renewed by communion with universal unconscious archetypes. They have three children - more repetition of the idea that rituals evoke the unconscious and renew daily life. In all of this Duang remains unconscious of the feminine: he is doing what he has been taught, unaware of the meaning of his actions.
After she delivered, she felt a very strong craving for meat. She was still newly delivered. She said to her husband, 'I am dying of craving for meat. I cannot even eat.'
