If you happen to be a young woman in Namibia, watch out for a middle-aged Indian man who may try to strike up a friendship with you. Before too long, he may whip out his breast-sucking turtle. It happened to Lina Sames (link:
informante.web.na):
Sames, a domestic worker, related how the mysterious man suddenly produced a live turtle, no bigger than the average grown up's hand and pressed the reptile against the victim's right breast. "It proceeded to suck, while at the same time growing bigger. I was then forced to drink blood from the turtle," a traumatized Sames said.
And this has happened before!
The folklore surrounding the breast-sucking turtle first surfaced late last year, after a young woman was lured with the promise of a shopping spree into breast-feeding a turtle on the northern outskirts of Windhoek. Although she was rumoured to have been admitted to Windhoek state hospital and later died, this could not be verified.
The story resembles what folklorists call the "bosom serpent" legend. Bosom serpent legends usually involve a woman ingesting the eggs of a serpent (or other scary creature) and then later giving birth to it (or having the creature somehow emerge from her). In the tale of the Namibian turtles, the women aren't giving birth to the turtles, but they are mothering them in a horrifying way. So like a bosom-serpent legend, the tale of the Namibian breast-sucking turtle seems to emerge out of fears and fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood. Why the stories are focusing on a turtle, of all things, I have no idea.
Comments
Just like they did with those other turtles.