Meet You At The Crossroads
I will meet you at the crossroads: a research paper on Islam and the conflict against racist Zionism.
Let’s head on down to the crossroads, shall we? By Dioboss (CC BY 2.0 [via Flickr) The Devil – the daddy of crossroads legends Last week we saw that the crossroads formed a popular burial site for suicides and witches in the UK. But the folklore of Europe, India, Japan, and America all feature myths about the demons that lurk that the crossroads. Popular culture got in on the fact in the early 20th century.
Murnau’s version of Faust (1926) showed the hapless Faust summoning Mephistopheles at the crossroads. Faust at the crossroads But while Mephistopheles and Faust undoubtedly occupy a privileged position in ‘soul selling’ circles, the story of Robert Johnson deserves more attention here. While it varies in the telling, the general gist explains that blues legend Johnson, then a mediocre guitarist in Robbinsville, suddenly left the area. When he returned, his newfound remarkable abilities shocked his contemporaries. Naturally people asked about his sudden proficiency, and he allegedly described selling his soul to the Devil at a crossroads. His early, and mysterious, death at 27 only added credence to his Faustian pact explanation. One of the alleged Robert Johnson grave sites. By Courtland Bresner ([CC-BY-SA-3.0 (via Wikimedia CommonsThe legends explain that if you want to repeat such success, you need to play guitar at the crossroads at midnight, until a man appears.
He’ll tune your guitar for you, and play a few songs of his own, and when he hands it back, you’ll be a guitar wizard. Why the crossroads? As we saw last week, the intersection of two routes means that crossroads exist in a ‘neither here nor there’ place.
What better place for the Devil, or one of his minions, to make an appearance? Papa Legba – Loa of the crossroads Among his many names, is sometimes called the Lord of the Roads, and the Loa of the Crossroads. According to Leah Gordon, “Papa Legba governs the threshold to the spirit world. As master of the crossroads, he can help you find the way if you are lost” (2000, 52).
Crossroads Lyrics Bone Thugs
He’s also associated with Hermes in Greek mythology and Janus in Roman myth, both liminal figures between worlds. He’s also linked with the saints Peter, Anthony and Lazarus, which is hardly surprising! Many Vodou figures were twinned with saints to enable slaves to continue their practice while appearing to convert to Catholicism.
Statue of Legba from Benin, Africa. From Gede.org. Papa Legba has different functions within Haitian Vodou, but what interests me here is his role as the keeper of intersections, roads, doors and so on. He acts as a liminal figure, between the spirit and mortal worlds, able to communicate with both (much like Hermes). However, Papa Legba has a dark aspect in the form of Kalfu, also known as Carrefour, who controls the crossroads. It’s this dark aspect that probably inspired the writers of American Horror Story: Coven when they decided to depict Papa Legba as a villain. Lady Geek Girl has a brilliant post.