Anne sent me a newspaper clipping from 1987 issue of The Fiji Times containing an interview with Dame Mary Edwell-Burke, published to coincide with the 1987 Retrospective Exhibition of her work:
"FIJI'S GAUGUIN STILL GOING STRONG AT 93"
This article contained many important details I've included in my yet-to-be-posted Wikipedia article, (gosh, those other Wiki-writers can be so cruel about submissions, you have to be so careful) but something that I won't be writing is so very strange that, when reading it, the hair stood up on the back of my neck!
Without knowing it, it would seem that Dame Mary Edwell-Burke met the Himalayan Fox Goddess!
It's so odd, let's say it again:
Dame Mary Edwell-Burke met the Himalayan Fox Goddess!
As you know, when I first arrived in HK eight years ago, I immediately read my way through HK Library's Asian Mythology section - every single book they had in English - including a book, published in Singapore, called "Chinese Ghost Stories" wherein person after person recounted first-hand accounts of meeting the Fox Goddess.
All these stories were so alike, I wondered why they had bothered to publish more than one of them.
And the basic story goes like this: "I was hiking alone through the Himalayas when a strange woman suddenly appeared in front of me. She was oddly dressed and wore red high-heeled shoes, which seemed strange in the mountains. I spoke to her but she didn't reply, instead she looked deep into my eyes and then vanished. I ran away screaming to the nearest house/inn/shelter/town where I told what had happened but no one knew what I was talking about and everyone got angry with me. However, I was lucky I was there, in shelter, because a snow storm hit and this apparition turned out to have saved my life. But, in the following days/weeks/months/years, I started to lose weight. I got thinner and thinner, sicker and sicker, until doctors feared for my life. Then, in a fever, the apparition visited me and said I was to honour her in gratitude for saving my life, and so I agreed to do so and instantly got well again."
I'm trying to find references to The Fox Goddess for you, but there are only articles on Kitsune, the Japanese Fox Goddess, and nothing whatsoever on the Tibetan one.
However, I'm telling you all this because this story is exactly - but without the screaming - what Dame Mary told in this interview while talking about the highlights of her life, which is particularly strange because Dame Mary obviously didn't know the first thing about Himalayan Fox Goddesses. I mean, she didn't even mention the red shoes, which is probably the first thing someone who DID know about Himalayan Fox Goddesses would have mentioned.
Anyway, in Mary's story she was 20 - which would make this about 1914 - and traveling alone through the more out-of-the-way places of the world and by the time she reached the slow-boat-to-Dubai in the Middle East section of her journey, she was so thin and sick, the ship's doctor was so worried about her the chef in First Class was sending wonderful food down to Third Class to tempt her appetite.
But then, just before reaching Dubai, she got feverish and, yes, had her apparition and told The Fox Goddess that she would honour her by painting her portrait from memory ... and immediately got well again and was able to eat those wonderful French dishes being sent down to her; food so delicious she said she'd remember them until the day she died.
The painting Mary did of The Fox Goddess was simply titled "Woman" and it was her first major sale - to the Australian National Gallery - and it would appear that this set her on her path for the rest of her life.
When I told Anne this story, she promptly wrote to the Australian National Gallery asking if it were possible to see the image ... and was told they didn't have it anymore; that it was sold off some unknown time in the long-distant past.
So somewhere out there, in some unknown part of the world, there is an actual portrait of The Himalayan Fox Goddess ... so there's yet another painting of hers - the other being of Fiji's Founding Father, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna - that we're going to HAVE to track down.
I mean, who doesn't want to see the actual face of the goddess! Any goddess! But a Tibetan Fox Goddess? It doesn't get any better than that, does it!
All these stories were so alike, I wondered why they had bothered to publish more than one of them.
And the basic story goes like this: "I was hiking alone through the Himalayas when a strange woman suddenly appeared in front of me. She was oddly dressed and wore red high-heeled shoes, which seemed strange in the mountains. I spoke to her but she didn't reply, instead she looked deep into my eyes and then vanished. I ran away screaming to the nearest house/inn/shelter/town where I told what had happened but no one knew what I was talking about and everyone got angry with me. However, I was lucky I was there, in shelter, because a snow storm hit and this apparition turned out to have saved my life. But, in the following days/weeks/months/years, I started to lose weight. I got thinner and thinner, sicker and sicker, until doctors feared for my life. Then, in a fever, the apparition visited me and said I was to honour her in gratitude for saving my life, and so I agreed to do so and instantly got well again."
I'm trying to find references to The Fox Goddess for you, but there are only articles on Kitsune, the Japanese Fox Goddess, and nothing whatsoever on the Tibetan one.
However, I'm telling you all this because this story is exactly - but without the screaming - what Dame Mary told in this interview while talking about the highlights of her life, which is particularly strange because Dame Mary obviously didn't know the first thing about Himalayan Fox Goddesses. I mean, she didn't even mention the red shoes, which is probably the first thing someone who DID know about Himalayan Fox Goddesses would have mentioned.
Anyway, in Mary's story she was 20 - which would make this about 1914 - and traveling alone through the more out-of-the-way places of the world and by the time she reached the slow-boat-to-Dubai in the Middle East section of her journey, she was so thin and sick, the ship's doctor was so worried about her the chef in First Class was sending wonderful food down to Third Class to tempt her appetite.
But then, just before reaching Dubai, she got feverish and, yes, had her apparition and told The Fox Goddess that she would honour her by painting her portrait from memory ... and immediately got well again and was able to eat those wonderful French dishes being sent down to her; food so delicious she said she'd remember them until the day she died.
The painting Mary did of The Fox Goddess was simply titled "Woman" and it was her first major sale - to the Australian National Gallery - and it would appear that this set her on her path for the rest of her life.
When I told Anne this story, she promptly wrote to the Australian National Gallery asking if it were possible to see the image ... and was told they didn't have it anymore; that it was sold off some unknown time in the long-distant past.
So somewhere out there, in some unknown part of the world, there is an actual portrait of The Himalayan Fox Goddess ... so there's yet another painting of hers - the other being of Fiji's Founding Father, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna - that we're going to HAVE to track down.
I mean, who doesn't want to see the actual face of the goddess! Any goddess! But a Tibetan Fox Goddess? It doesn't get any better than that, does it!
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