Iroquois folktale and... a switch to english!

« J’ai faim... j’ai faim...!! »
« J'ai fsee... Genesee... »
« Genesee! »
« Vite, il faut partir! Il arrive! »
7 ans plus tôt
***
"I'm hungry... I'm hungry...!!"
"I'm husee... Genesee..."
"Genesee!"
"Hurry, we have to go! It's coming!"
7 years earlier





« Mes enfants, je vous ai déjà expliqué ce que c’est que la mort, de même que la maladie et l’infortune. Sachez que tous ces fléaux ont une cause. »
« Écoutez attentivement car ce que je vais vous dire n’est pas à prendre à la légère. »
« Ko nea rau neh neh. »
« C’est un être monstrueux : grand comme cinq hommes, il a pour tout corps une tête à la tignasse épaisse, flanquée d’une grande paire d’ailes noires. »
« Il se terre dans les bois, les champs et les rivières depuis des temps immémoriaux. Il sème la terreur et le fléau, qu’il soit en colère ou qu’il s’ennuie. Et lorsqu’il a faim... »
« Il n’hésite pas à se nourrir d’hommes. »
***
"My children, I already explained to you what are such things as death, illness and infortune. Now, you have to know that they all are caused by something. "
"Listen carefully, this is very serious matter."
"Ko nea rau neh neh."
"It is a moustruous being: tall as five men, its body is only a head with thick hair, and it has a pair of large, dark wings."
"It's been hiding in the woods, the fields and the rivers forever, awaiting. Weither it is angry or bored, it causes terror and misfortune to makind. And when it is hungry..."
"It eats humans without hesitation."

-------------------

I wanted to enter a quebeker cartoon contest, but didn't managed to finish in time (1st of may) because I was busy with the past semester and job hunting for the summer. Yet I decided to have it done and here it is for you to see! ^^

To enter the contest one had to submit the first two pages of a 6 pages work on a quebeker folktale of their choice. I choose an Iroquois folktale: The Flying Head. (For those of you who would like to know more about the Iroquois nation, follow this link!) The Iroquois long believed that the Flying Head ( Ko nea rau neh neh ) was a monster who caused infortune and death to mankind. It is said that one day, as the tribe left the camp because the monster was coming to eat humans, a women stayed behind. She fooled the monster by pretending to prepare a delicious meal in her pot who was filled, in fact, with hot stones. The monster rushed into the longhouse, grab the pot and ate it all; it then flee in pain, never to be seen again.

This project took a lot more time to realise than expected. Conclusion: gouache is really pretty but takes too long for perfectionnists working 40 hours a week. -_-;
Oh, well. Need to find a faster medium.

Wondering why I switched to english? Well as you know, I am going on an exchange to Japan in september. So I had three languages possibilities: French, english or japanese. I picked english since its the language most likely to be known by both my fellows quebekers and japanese friends-to-be. But fear not! I still am a proud francophone quebeker. :D