The Mother
All of lore begins with The Mother, and all warmth builds on the memory of her hold. Her back firmly beds the sleeping child, stiffens to iron against the threat of danger, is the first wall we learn to hide behind. While other figures of African folklore deal in whispered power and arcane rituals, the mother's myth sits in plain sight, not cultivated in a forest grove of hidden gods or at the bottom of a river, but in the simple actions and sacrifices of mortal women with one more job—to nurture. Yet when she appears in folklore, in a hero's rise, a villain's ruin or a fool's caution, the way things resolve often leave one wondering whether power is so simple. In this illustration, I draw her nearly bare, a woman with a firm back. Only the child tells a difference.
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