Where Europe Begins by Yoko Tawada

Author:Yoko Tawada [Tawada, Yoko]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2351-5
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2013-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

2

In Hamburg-on-the-Elbe there is a small harbor known as Devil’s Bridge. A long time ago, no one was able to build a bridge across the Elbe strong enough to withstand a severe autumn storm. The devil made the desperate Hamburg merchants an offer: he would build an indestructible bridge. In payment he demanded a soul. The merchants promised to give him a soul when the bridge was completed. When the devil had finished work, it became apparent that none of the merchants was prepared to forfeit his soul, and so they sent a rat across the bridge to the devil, who stamped on the rat in fury and then sank into the earth. Since then the harbor has been called Devil’s Bridge.

When I first heard this legend, I didn’t understand it, because I didn’t know rats have no souls. That is, rats have no souls for the devil, who is quite Christian in his orientation. In other religions that tell of the lives of plant souls and animal souls, a rat most certainly does have a soul—one every bit as precious as that of a Hamburg merchant. The devil needn’t have been disappointed.

I have two ways of visualizing the human soul. In the first, the soul looks like an elongated roll I once ate in Tübingen. This sort of bread is called Seele or “soul” in Swabia, and many people have souls in this shape. But this doesn’t mean the soul is inserted into their bodies like a roll. The soul is an empty space in the body that must constantly be filled with the roll that has the same shape as this space, or with an embryo, or with the breath of love. Otherwise the owners of the souls feel as if something is missing.

The second way I picture the soul is as a fish whose name is also “sole”: thus the soul is related to water, or to the sea. I’m thinking of something like the soul of a shaman. Among the Tungus, for example, it’s said the soul of the aspiring shaman draws the tribal river down to the dwelling place of the shaman’s ancestral spirits. There, among the roots of the tribe’s shamanic tree, lies the shaman’s animal mother, who devours the soul of the new arrival and then gives birth to it in the form of an animal. This animal can be a quadruped, or it can be a bird or a fish; in any case, it functions as the shaman’s double and guardian spirit.

It’s a nice thought that somewhere in the world the soul is leading its own life in animal form. The soul is independent from the person in question. The human being has no way of knowing what the soul is experiencing, but still there is a link between him and his soul. I would like to share a life with the person I call “my soul” as the shaman does with his; I never see or speak with this person, but everything I experience and write corresponds to this person’s life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.