Ceremony in Magellan Meadow. (novella)
Got an impulse to write after reading American anthropologist Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation. The setting of my story was inspired by a visit to the Water Meadow of Magdalen College. (Mist and deer made the meadow a mystical wonderland!)
In this story, Maisha麦莎, a girl who went through a violent “Rite of Passage” in a tribe of fertility worship in Southeast Asia, decides to complete a personal ceremony (suicide) during her pandemic graduation ceremony in the meadow. I juxtaposed the historical and geographical details of her hometown with those of the Water Meadow at Oxford. I also mentioned how this tribe was involved in the Second World War, and the lived experiences of her grandmother, Aimei[爱梅], the head ritualist of this group. This story has an open ending, and it is part of the pandemic series I’ve been writing since 2021 🙂
These are costumes (each with a simple hat) for men and women in the tribe. Both “chains” on the front are serrated. Men’s chains can be pulled off from the bottom, while women’s are just decorative. Men’s zips make the sound of palm leaves rubbing in the wind, a warning with an air of authority.