(urth) chenille

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/25/2011 1:42 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> Well, Chenille's hair is actually brown. It is colored red. So 
> Jahlee's red hair would have to reflect the way Chenille thought of 
> herself.
>
> However, I believe Wolfe /is/ sending a message regarding red hair 
> although I can't say quite what it is  (Silk's reddish-blonde beard, 
> Rose's hair, Chenille's dyed hair).
>
> According to "The Vampire: His Kith and Kin" red-hair was a feature of 
> the Typhonians, the human sacrificial victims of Osiris. I think the 
> red hair is supposed to connect characters to Typhon in some way,  but 
> can't put the pieces in place.

You've been holding out on us, James. The above is a work of Montague 
Summers (1928). The passage is:

"Those whose hair is red, of a certain peculiar shade, are unmistakably 
vampires. It is significant that in ancient Egypt, as Manetho tells us, 
human sacrifices were offered at the grave of Osiris, and the victims 
were red-haired men who were burned, their ashes being scattered far and 
wide by winnowing-fans. It is held by some authorities that this was 
done to fertilize the fields and produce a bounteous harvest, red-hair 
symbolizing the golden wealth of the corn. But these men were called 
Typhonians, and were representatives not of Osiris but of his evil rival 
Typhon, whose hair

was red.[76] Francesco Redi says: "Fra gli Egizii era tradizione che 
Tifone, il genio della distruzione, simile al Arimane Persiano al Satano 
Ebriaco fosse di pelo rosso, forse per memoria di invasioni di barbari 
di pelo rosso e presso noi dura tutta via la tradizione, 'Guardati dal 
pelo rosso nè valse a toglierla la barba rossa del Redentore.'"[77] Red 
was the colour of the hair of Judas Iscariot,[78] and of Cain, and an 
old Latin rhyme of the thirteenth century has:

Monet nos haec fabula rufos euitare
Quos color et fama notat, illis sociare.

The Italians say:

Capelli rossi
O tutto foco, O tutto mosci.

John Wodroephe in /The Spared Hours of a Soldier in hie Travels/, Dort, 
1623, quotes: "Garde toi bien des hommes rousseaux, des femmes barbues, 
et des ceux qui sont marqués an visage."[70] I have not met with the 
following tradition save orally, but it is believed in Serbia, Bulgaria, 
and Rumania, that there are certain red-polled vampires who are called 
"Children of Judas," and that these, the foulest of the foul, kill their 
victim with one bite or kiss which drains the blood as it were at a 
single draught. The poisoned flesh of the victim is wounded with the 
Devil's stigmata, three hideous scars shaped thus, XXX, signifying the 
thirty pieces of silver, the price of blood."

The weird thing here is that both Osiris and Typhon are Pas. Maybe 
Typhon had a good side and a bad side (going along with his "change of 
heart" regarding bookburning), and Pas (Osiris) is his good side. So 
then who in the Whorl is his bad side, who had red hair and was 
associated with corn?

Should we read "good" side as a scanned, positive personality and his 
"bad" side as his physical, genetic aspect, capable of popping up with 
unexpected qualities? In that case, Tussah ... Chenille ... Silk?

And how to read the betrayer of Jesus into the story? One could make a 
connection with serpents, the idea being that there is always one 
somewhere in any paradise ... but I can't see anyone but the inhumi 
themselves filling that slot.