Yurugu- A being in Dogon Mythology which is responsible for disorder in the Universe. This is a being conceived in denial of the natural order, which then acts to initiate and promote disharmony in the universe. In African Cosmology such a being is deficient in spiritual sensibility, is perpetually in conflict, is limited cognitively, and is threatening to the well-being of humanity.

...a pipcture of Yurugu from the book cover:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0865432481.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif

interesting addition:

1. The myth contains an explanation for misfortune in the world, rather similar to that described in the Judaeo-Christian myth of The Fall of Adam and Eve. In the Dogon creation myth the original created beings were two pairs of male/female twins, the Nommo, each in its own placental compartment. One male twin Yurugu did not wait for the time God (Amma) intended him to be born, and fell down through space with a fragment of his placenta, which became the earth, with which he had incestuous intercourse (the earth being his Mother). If you have clicked on "Mali" above, you know that this part of the world is very arid. The dryness of the earth is blamed on this original act of incest and on Yurugu's wish to outdo God and create his own world. The offspring of this incest are single beings, not twins - certain, presumably problematic, kinship ties and sentiments are said to be explained by this. Here we have a "correspondence" between things as they are in the physical world and events which happen in the creation story.

2. After Yurugu goes back up to the sky to try (unsuccessfully) to retrieve the other part of his plancenta, the other twins came down to earth and created a number of things that came in pairs, fours, or groups of eight. These things included four male ancestors, two blacksmiths, and the sky and the stars. They also made light and water, and brought the eight seeds which are the source of all human food. These are good numbers, which signify wholeness and complementarity. These Nommo did not fall through space the way Yurugu had, they came along a great arch, which eventually became the new, more fertile earth. Human life is seen as a struggle between the duality of the undefiled Nommo, which gives rise to good things, and the selfishness of the unpaired Yurugu, which is a source of evil. Although this selection does not mention it, Yurugu is also said to correspond to the "pale fox" which, in its animal form is believed to be able to diagnose illness and predict the future, when it runs, during the night, across special grids which have been laid out so that the fox's footprints can answer questions built into the design of the grids. Thus we see the physical form of the world and the origin of human groups in the actions of the Nommo, and we see a certain ambivalence about rebellion (again, compare to the story of Adam and Eve) when the selfish Yurugu gets the power to divine hidden secrets. In this unit we will be reading an article by Mary Douglas, in which she argues that marginal individuals (like Yurugu) tend to have both power and danger - they are often necessary to get things started.

from:
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/ANTHRO/rwpark/rwpark/courses/Anth311/dogon.htm


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