Friday, October 9, 2015
The Chickcharney
The talented Joe Broers is behind this idol of the Chickcharney, a mythological figure from the Caribbean island of Andros. Interestingly enough, some researchers think the supernatural creature is inspired by the Bahamian Barn Owl, a meter tall flightless owl that was assumed to have gone extinct in the 17th century. The figure is one of the backer premiums in Golden Goblin's Kickstarter for their "Tales of the Caribbean" collection of adventures for "Call of Cthulhu".
I was totally unaware of the chickcharney and its origins or the Bahamian barn owl. The chickcharney creature seems to fall into the broad category of duppie or jumbie in Caribbean folklore.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly in popular culture, the duppie is referenced in a film, High Wind in Jamaica (1965) a kind of Ransom of Red Chief plot line. This is where children are abducted by pirates, to their great horror (the pirates not the children, who enjoy the outing). In the film, the kids rotate the head of the ship’s figurehead backwards and the superstitious crew all proclaim it an evil duppie and are terrified by the omen. It shows some pretty good research on the part of the novelist Alexandar Mackendrich who wrote the 1921 book of the same name on which the film was based. .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duppy