Friday 12 September 2014

Creature Feature: Joyboy


In this column I talk about some of the more unusual fantasy creatures and/or creatures it would be cool to see in books.
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While flipping through my copy of The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were by Michael Page and Robert Ingpen, looking for a creature for today’s article, I stumbled upon this listing for Joyboy:

“The West Indian character who personifies the human need to dance, sing, and jubilate.” (p. 26)  He travelled to the Caribbean with West African slaves and has been cited as a source of inspiration by some jazz musicians. 

While he’s more of a god or a muse than a creature, it got me thinking that pantheons in the past used to be huge and often had a character whose job it was to inspire joy, revelry and - in cases of excess - chaos.  Probably the best known is Dionysus/Bacchus, the Greek/Roman god of grapes, wine, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.

According to wikipedia Dionysus’ “wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful.” 

It seems like most fantasy books focus on the more modern, stern, repressive gods.  And even books that deal with Greek mythology don’t generally show the benefits or joys of following a god dedicated to letting things go.  The closest gods I can think of that do get used a fair bit are trickster gods, who, while having some similar attributes, aren’t quite the same thing. 

It would be cool to see a character like Joyboy used in a novel, a god that inspires dance and music - perhaps to excess, like the dancing mania that struck people in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries.  “It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected men, women, and children, who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion.” (source)  

But even just acknowledging that people need relaxation of some sort, joy, expressed in the form of a god, even excess in revelry, would be a nice addition to fantasy pantheons of the future.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

A manga called One Piece has Joyboy lore in it. It is my favorite story ever and I highly recommend.

Unknown said...

Just read chapter 1018 and came looking for answers on joyboy. I'm happy 5o be born at a time when this story is being told.

Ivan R. Saldias said...

Same

Unknown said...

One Piece??

Anonymous said...

Can anyone find another source for this Joyboy creature that isn't from this book? It's sus how it's the only place it ever shows up

Cody Cooper said...

I love you guys!!! I love one piece!!! I just did a whole trip of lsd and was looking up joyboy lore and I found you guys!!! Sun god nika Chote out

Coach Ibrahim said...

I just love one piece , its like a second life for a lot of people to the point you even mix between it and your real life

Anonymous said...

Thank you Jessica!

Wafer said...

So is it now confirmed that Joyboy from one pice is based on this mythology?
chapter 1044 reveals the true name of Gomu gomu no mi

Greatsong1 said...

Bless you Eiichiro Oda (creator of One Piece) for the reference to the Joyboy myth.

Anonymous said...

Yes!!

Anonymous said...

Yes!

Anonymous said...

Apparently, someone claiming to be from Caribbeans said that Joyboy isn't very well known and mostly only have oral records of him. They explain that this is most likely why not many people have heard of him. There isn't that many written documentations. It's all just passed down verbally in small communities. Though I can't confirm this for myself. It's all hearsay.

Lucy said...

This is because Joyboy existed during a time in our history that has been erased from all humanity's memory. We call this the void century. iykyk


>>>Apparently, someone claiming to be from Caribbeans said that Joyboy isn't very well known and mostly only have oral records of him. They explain that this is most likely why not many people have heard of him. There isn't that many written documentations. It's all just passed down verbally in small communities. Though I can't confirm this for myself. It's all hearsay.