Talk:Headless men

Merged Blemyah

A duplicate article Blemyah was found, and was merged into this article.
I took the step of moving contents piecewise here, attributing it to user:Elledani777 in Edit Summary.
After most content was merged here, Blemyah was changed to a redirect to here.

Not all content was transferred. I abandoned content of paragraph 3) Acephalos appearing in modern folklore as phonos (phonoi), which got low hit count, and 4) Isidore of Seville who merely reiterates earlier descriptions. --Kiyoweap (talk) 09:39, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Meaning

Image provided. Livres des Merveilles du Monde to depict the wondrous land of Ethiopa. Sinocentrism analogue to consider the Chinese word for "ghost" ties westerners in general. Look into Sinocentrism to understand its system.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.50.123 (talk) 23:02, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Singular?

So is the singular supposed to be "blemmye"? Because I see conflicting perspectives on that subject right in the article. Octan (talk) 16:09, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

wikt:Blemmyes states it only occurs in the plural so I guess you have to work around it by saying "a member of the Blemmyes" etc.--Kiyoweap (talk) 04:19, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 9 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. Although there is agreement that the current name is unsatisfactory, there is no agreement as to what title would be better. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

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Headless men → Blemmyes (legendary creatures) – To reverse a WP:BOLD move done in 2013. Current title is overly vague; best to call them by their WP:COMMONNAME. An alternate possibility is Blemmyes (folklore) if that is more WP:CONSISTENT. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)—Relisted. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:33, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. We should not make it look like there are real Blemmyes and legendary Blemmyes when in fact there are just real Blemmyes and legends about them. In general, I am opposed to this kind of treatment of legends that divorces them from the things on which they are based. I boldly moved Salamander (legendary creature) in 2015 and I posted a note on Talk:Panther (legendary creature) in 2018. Srnec (talk) 15:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Srnec: Maybe you could change your !vote to supporting an alternate move to Blemmyes in folklore instead of opposing completely? Surely you agree the current title is not great?_{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:02, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm unsure. I only know about real Blemmyes. Pathawi knows Blemmyes and Bloodofox knows folklore. Perhaps they have ideas what's best. Srnec (talk) 15:00, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what what's best. I do ethnographic field work with Beja people & research on the Beja language. I have long been aware of a European tradition of acephalous Blemmyes, but I really have no sense of that literature—it's pretty distinct from everything that's historically useful for studying real Blemmyes (tho I imagine it might be very historically useful for studying Europeans). The two thoughts I have are:

1. that this page incorporates other legendary headless people who don't seem to be related to the Herodotean/marvel lineage. If the page is to be about legendary Blemmyes, then probably those elements should be grouped together as a section of "Other Accounts of Headless Peoples", or something like that. My impression is that Blemmyes in legend are a people—the term wasn't a generic term for various possible acephalous peoples. I don't think it makes sense to call Xíngtiān or Raleigh's Ewaipanoma Blemmyes. But this is also not my wheelhouse.
2. that this page is longer than Blemmyes, & I really wouldn't want the limited information on the historical people to get drowned out by the European legend.

I'm not sure any of that was helpful. Pathawi (talk) 16:49, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Srnec:, thanks for pinging me. Interesting topic here. Has anyone checked the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature for a relevant entry? These 'headless men' sound like htey make up a motif, and, say, a motif-index classification number could lead to a dedicated article that would either in part or wholly encompass the contents of this article (and, ideally, more examples). :bloodofox: (talk) 06:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

That's an interesting proposition. Thompson lists a couple motifs that are varying degrees of relevant (I'm ignoring those which occur in an otherworld—tho is it possible that Ethiopia serves as an otherworld in some mediaeval European legend?—, ghostly figures, decapitated figures, & the Wild Hunt). The closest fit seems to be F511.0.1 "Headless person", with sub-motif F511.0.1.1 "Headless person with eyes (eye) and mouth on breast". He cross-references from there F401.4 "Spirits without heads (or with heads under arms)" & F531.1.2.1 "Headless giant". For all the F511s, Thompson lists three sources: Victor Chauvin's Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes ou relatifs aux arabes publiés dans l'Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, Tom Peete Cross' Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature, & Inger Margrethe Boberg's index of the Icelandic Fornaldarsögur and the Eddas. The Chauvin citations come from bibliographies on "The Prince of Charizme" (Khwarazm?) & the Alexander Romance. The first of these lists the following sources:

• Zakariya al-Qazwini's ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt (I 180, II 235)
• Al-Ibšīhī's Mustaṭraf fī Kull Fann Mustaẓraf (II 117)
• One "Marcus Mappus'" Historia medica de Acephalis (1064–1072)
• Jules Berger de Xivrey's Traditions tératologiques, ou Récits de l'antiquité et du moyen âge en Occident sur quelques points de la fable, du merveilleux et de l'histoire naturelle, publiées d'après plusieurs manuscrits inédits grecs, latins, et en vieux français (109–111, 365, 436)

The entry on the Alexander romance refers back to "The Prince of Charizme" with regard to headless people (referred to in this text as acéphales), but adds the Sēfer Yôsîppôn (71).

I haven't looked up any of this resources, but just give Chauvin's volume & page numbers. Volume VII of Chauvin was published in 1903, so if anyone wants to follow up on the above sources, that might give some guidance in figuring out what editions would have been available to Chauvin. Of note: Chauvin nowhere refers to these acéphales as "Blemmyes".

I'll leave Cross & Boberg for someone else to follow up on, if there's interest. Pathawi (talk) 15:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Move somewhere I agree this is overly vague, and it does not encompass all headless men. Not all headless men are even legendary/mythological. If "men" is taken to mean "human", there are birth defects that result in headless babies. Further there are the dullahan, Icabod Crane's horseman, the Japanese nukekubi; the legendary and mythological characters who survived head removal, the fictional characters who have done so, etc; and then there are those who did not survive, those executed by decapitation, otherwise decapitated, etc; -- 65.94.170.207 (talk) 03:35, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.