Lady Ka

Lady Ka is a primordial Ubu mother figure who historically appears in many legends. By convention she is said to have lived for one thousand years, having been born in the same year as Christ and living until AD 1000. Texts predating this period from other countries (mainly Piwahria), however, already refer to a people who worship the same figure; this is evidence of a very early pagan goddess or heroine being adapted to a Christian society. However, some researchers have suggested that the supposed timeframe of these Piwahrian texts (before 1000 BC) seems absurdly remote, so that perhaps the Ubiaks have shifted the timeframe of Ka's life forward while the Piwahrians have shifted it back.

During the early 20th century she was developed by the Nationalists into a patriotic symbol of Ubu culture as opposed to the forces of Russian domination; she is frequently featured in propaganda posters from the era. During the 1960's Controller of Public Affairs Narga Txorkulag integrated her into her new People's Dialectic Cult of Succession of Prominent Ubu Females as, of course, the First in Succession.

Physically Ka is described as an imposingly tall and broad-shouldered woman; early attested legends put her at a height of about 5'10" which gradually migrates up to 6'5" by 19th century versions. Other descriptions vary; often she is said to have cut her hair very short or even shaved her head entirely; in some accounts she has sharpened her incisors into fangs; occasionally she has small bony horns that grow from her bald head. She is often depicted as going barefooted and bare-breasted; what little she does wear includes traditionally-patterned cloth, light armor, and many pieces of silver jewelry.

This article will discuss several prominent legends in which Lady Ka figures.

The Shamaness Legend

This is attested very early; neighboring nations note the story with mild horror. The story describes an era in which traditional shamanic remedies have suddenly stopped working, and the sick are piling up in the Hospice Hut. One particular shaman, most often named Bakanal.e, "steady-hands," goes to a sacred cliff edge and prays for the gods to reveal what has gone wrong. The goddess Nokpakpa explains that she has deposed Galargiat, the old god of medicine; shamanism will now be the territory of women. Bakanal.e returns to the village to find Lady Ka treating the sick. He scratches his final sacred picture on a rock face, and throws himself off of the cliff. Lady Ka makes a speech about the "paradigm shift" and thus the tradition of having female shamanesses starts.

The Jesus Legend

This is first attested in a ca. 1040 version of the Secret History of the Ubiaks, and is, obviously enough, an explanation for the Christianization of Ubep. Ka, hearing of Jesus' spreading fame in the Levant area, and not wishing to lose earthly power nor take it away from him, makes a voyage to the west to confer with him. Ka and Jesus decide to "divide space and time:" Christ will rule in Jerusalem (also likely taken to mean "the entire West") for one thousand years while Lady Ka rules Ubep; then Jesus will rule in Ubep for the following 1000 years. It is never directly stated that Ka will then rule in Jerusalem; Narga Txorkulag and other scholars have suggested that Ka is manifested in prominent European female figures such as Catarina de Medici and Bloody Mary.

Also left unexplained is whether the rule of Christ in Ubep should end ca. AD 2000; such is the official position of the atheist PDLCU, who thus construe the legend as a political justification, somewhat akin to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven for the Chinese.

The Warrior Legends

There are several of these, and they multiply over the years, but here are two of the most prominent.

-Lady Ka journeys to Piwahria in a "sturdy Pandaemonian boat" with a small army of grizzled warriors. She finds the tent of the local chieftan and offers to drink fermented horse milk with him (a sexual invitation is implied). As they drink they converse. She asks him whether he has ever seen the strange Ubu people, who Piwahria once gloriously defeated. "No," he replies. She plucks out his eyeballs, keeping them attached to the optic nerve, dragging them out of the tent and facing them towards her band of men. "Do you see now?" she says. The men kill him and mutilate his body, tying the nerves around and around his head and finally placing the eyes back in the wrong sockets.

-Lady Ka journeys to the southern frontier and finds a party of Janerosians on horseback. They laugh heartily at the sight that a woman is carrying a spear. She asks whether they could throw as far as she. "All of you stand in a line," she says, "And throw your javelins. Then I. We shall see who throws furthest." They consent and throw. As they look to see whose has gone the farthest, she throws her own javelin at such an angle that it skewers each of them perfectly along the line they are standing in. Then she takes two of their horses, and eats the others.