Transcript – Text – Roberta Williams – Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum

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Universal Bureau of Investigation: UBOI

Attention: What you are reading is an official document of the UBOI. All contents of this document are completely confidential. A level (5) clearance is needed to access the contents of this document. Any attempts to reproduce, publish, and/or distribute any part(s) of this document’s contents without the expressed written permission of the UBOI will be considered an act of the highest treason and is punishable by death.

Report: Transcript – Text – Roberta Williams – Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum

Location: 35.1313° N, 76.5038° W

Time: 13:00

Date: Estimated date 2133

Group(s): Southern Afro-Ethnographers (SAE)

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Williams, Roberta. “Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum,” Southern Star Press, 2133.

Table Of Contents

Forward p. x

Introduction p. xxi- p. 20

Chapter 1 Blood Rituals in de South p. 20 – p. 50

Chapter 2 The Lights of de Ancestors p. 50 – p. 80

Chapter 3 The Masters of Weapons and Tools p. 80 – p. 100

Chapter 4 The Keepers of de Hxstories p. 100 – p. 153

Chapter 5 Monster and Demons p. 153 – p. 220

Conclusion p. 220 – p. 226

Notes p. 226 – p. 238

Bibliophagy p. 238 – p. 245

Definitions p. 245 – p. 259

Chapter 1 Blood Rituals in de South p. 20 – p. 50

The Argenti Beast: A sterling silver being known as the giver and/or taker of life. Possess superhuman strength. Consumes bloods and energy through fangs, also known as the Silver Goddess, Sapphic Silver Goddess (SSG). This being may have evolved from the Blood Healer race. See. Blood Healer. See. Plata Blade

Syncerus: Beings are part human and it is also suspected they share a blood link with the Noir Hunters. Syncerus – possess horns of different sizes and lengths. These horns can be sharpened and cause great damage to any foe. It is also believed that with a large enough number of Syncerus both hot and cold blooded, plane travel and creation can be achieved.

Hot Bloods: Are calves and teenage Syncerus. They possess normal levels of strength for an adult human. Hot Bloods have premonitions of possible future events. These visions are at their strongest during transition i.e. fever dreams into adulthood. Hot Bloods’ bodies can withstand high temperatures reaching 300 degrees.

Cold Bloods: Are Syncerus whose blood grows cold over time after their transition from calves to Syncerus. Consumption of this blood allows the individual to see into the past. Cold Bloods’ bodies can withstand high temperatures reaching over 300 degrees and exist in cold climates as well.

The Noir Hunters: Strong beings. Hunts with two blades: one made of Hematite from his people de noir hunters, and the other black is made from the last creature or being killed and/or wounded in battle. Master level trackers.

Blood Healers: Consumers of blood illness and physical wounds through blood transfer. These beings’ skin show specks of silver in various light wavelengths. They have long lifespans. Latent ability to heal others through physical pain.

Locs: Not to be confused with euro warlocks. These were beings of eminence power. Some say they may have even battled the Knights.

Chapter 2 The Lights of de Ancestors p. 50 – p. 80

The Lights: Beings of immense powers and abilities. For as many colors that exist in the light spectrum, that is how many Lights have existed throughout time.

Blacklights or Ultraviolet Lights: Can amplify other lights and/or beings’ powers. Awaken dormant abilities in supernatural beings. Focused light beam and Mirror Ball light effects.

Blue Lights: Telekinesis – ability to move objects with the mind. Some Blue Lights’ aura are invisible.

Pynk Lights: Force Field projection. Force Fields can also be used to fill in wounds due to serious injuries. Latent ability, pyrokinesis – the ability to control fire with one’s mind.

Green Lights: Pyrokinesis – the ability to control fire with one’s mind. Beings are fireproof as well.

Purple Lights: Olympic level physical abilities and Superhuman Strength.

Violeta Lights: Possess the ability to translate and/or decipher any language spoken or otherwise. Photographic memory. Genius level intellect.

Orange Lights: Superhuman Strength (auras usually reflect not light).

Sound Lights: Voice vibration manipulation through vocalizations. Strength of vibrations are comparable to that of a whale call. Latent ability is sound absorption.

Auditus Lights: Faculty of perceiving sounds is greater than most humans. Comparable to a Moth’s ability to perceive sounds at higher frequencies.

Sorbere Lights: Ability to absorb all light and sound for short periods of time.

Green Lights: Ability to create powerful blasts of light.

Incitatio-Gravity Lights: Ability to fly and/or float at high speeds through gravity manipulation.

Physical Lights: Can control other beings movements for short periods of time.

Chapter 3 The Masters of Weapons and Tools p. 80 – p. 100

Plata Blade: Blade can only exist in the plane it was created. Blade gives the welder some healing abilities.

Hematite Blade: Made from the bones of the Noir hunters. Blades can exist in many planes of existence. Blade enhances the welder’s sensorial abilities.

Argenti Colmillos: Welded by silversmiths in the north to draw and transfuse blood.

Chapter 4 The Keepers and Channels of de Hxstories p. 100 – p. 153

Channler: Have the ability to communicate with past ancestors and/or their recently deceased kin of similar bloodlines. Latent ability to heal others through laughter.

The Keepers: Humans with a capacity to hold vast visual and oral histories in their minds. Some are known to use storytelling as a form of currency. Most are trained to be keepers/givers of hxstory.

The Fragrance Legend: An example of a keeper’s tale. As Alfreda usta say my Mamma tales be jus like gumbo. Be mixed with fact and just enuf fiction to keep the kiddies up at night.

Chapter 5 Monster and Demons p. 153 – p. 220

Purpura Demon: Creature exists between time – is thought to predate to the greek sirens myth, ability to place various beings into a trance-like state by secretion of powerful aromas. Last seen in the swamps of the Carolinas. The tentacles have tiny sharp fangs that produce venom and cause paralysis. Also known as the Purpura Demon of the South and Neuse Devil.

Vantablack Creature: Light and Sound Absorption. Ability to place Victims in a trance through powerful strobe lights.

End of Transcript:

Word Count: 881

Notes: Only one copy of Roberta William’s 2133 text “Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum” exists. It was recovered from the excavation site after her disappearance back in 2138. Reports state that Williams disappeared while doing further research on the Purpura Demon legend for her second book while on expedition at the Neuse River.

This copy was unfortunately severely damaged due to water and corrosion over the years. None of the images and/or audio recordings appear to have survived either.

Deeper scans of the book’s paper fibers reveal that this text was a first edition, and served as a makeshift journal for the Afro-Ethnographer years after its publication. The text above is all that could be recovered from Williams’ text totaling nearly two hundred plus findings concerning mythological creatures and beings in the south.

Williams’ text appears to be a mixture of fieldnotes and images of her travels collecting folktales and legends in the Carolinas for a span of 10 years. Williams’ was an Afro-Ethnographer who specialized in African Diaspora Mysticism (ADM) and Arua(s).

She was particularly interested in the Neuse River. A name that comes from the Native American Neusiok tribe meaning “peace.” Williams wanted to know more about this body of water and the lives it intertwined with throughout the span of 400 years or so. Also, she thought it unusual that this body of water has evaporated many times throughout its long hxstory. What secrets does it hold?

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Explanatory Sentences

I am a journalist in the year 2125. I write for the Third World Press. I found a number of classified documents from the anti-domestic terrorist group the Universal Bureau of Investigation (UBOI).

(UBOI) was founded in the year 2025 to actually deal with the true face(s) of terror on the homefront of the New First Nations of Marronage States (NFNMS), or what is formally known as Amerikkka.

I plan on using these documents to expose any and all the corruption that the free citizens of the New First Nations of Marronage States could still be exposed too.

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Maurice Moore

What is the significance of this work to you? What is the significance of the form you chose for this work? What was your process for creating this work?

What is the significance of this work to me, the form, and my process for creating these works can best be summed up: they deal with Afrofuturism, science fiction, and/or speculative fictions. These forms give people who identify as with the African and African American diaspora and/or with being Black, Indigenous, Queer, and People Of Color BIQPOC folks a safer space where we can practice and share our aesthetics on our own terms.

My major influences and/or messages conveyed were channeled by engaging the works of mayfield brooks, Marlon Riggs, Langston Hughes, Jayson Musson, Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia E. Butler, and Dorian Corey of the African and African American diaspora whose work and/or art criticism focuses on Black aesthetics, Black processes, and the Black artist identity in western culture(s). These sources speak in depth about racial identity where the queer Black creative is concerned. For instance, how do people of the African and African American diaspora deal/process/balance their racial identities in the field(s) of art? In my case it’s considering how these drawings/performances/writings practices all while Black and queer impact my ability to navigate some of the harsh landscapes in this field coupled with the -isms, and erasures that White western aesthetics produce to hinder BIQPOC survival. Moreover, many of these works helped bring clarity and better articulation of Black mark making be it either in text form, or two-dimensional renderings, or through a performance; to explore some of the beauty and ugliness that still prevail for a twenty first century Black queer artist and beyond. In short, my questions involving identity deal with the importance of creating safer space and/or aesthetics as an Black, Indigenous, Queer, and People Of Color BIQPOC artist, and how this is pertinent to our survival? My idea of survival in this context was broadened after reviewing Achille Mbembe’s text on necropolitics and Silvia Posocco/Jin Haritaworn/Adi Kuntsman on queer necropolitics helped me to meditate on how for BIQPOC folks there must also be many ways to survive; and more importantly the ways we continue to thrive through Black and Latinx Ballroom culture, Black Speculative fiction, Houses, Black Foodways, Reading and Throwing shade, chosen family, and for me it’s been through creative practices such as drawing.

Lastly, my process centers Practice as Research (PAR). Meaning, not only engaging with finished work(s) of Black Speculative fiction(s) i.e. text based works and/or visuals, or the criticism about these fictions, but I argue with this work and the work I will continue to make; that it is equally important to practice making Black Speculative fiction(s) due to there being a scholarly knowing/knowledge that is derived from the very act of practicing itself. By not considering drawing practices be they 2D, 3D, 4D, or text based as research at the same level as finished works and/or the criticism in this field; what are we missing out on as creatives and/or scholars by privileging one form of research over the other? Understand, my goal here with these texts and/or the drawings, is not to get the audience/readers to become professional artists, or writers, showing at art galleries or having their speculative fiction(s) appear on the New York Times bestseller lists. If that happens that would be great! However, the meaning of practitioner in this context involves the concept of Practice as Research. Meaning, a person is informed by actually practicing the techniques, theories, and hypotheses some creatives implore when creating their works. In short, just reading these Black Speculative fiction(s) created from this project, which is not meant to recreate the writing practice or make sense out of the final drafts. This work is meant to provide more clarity in the case of what it feels/felt like to draw and/or write Speculative fiction(s) while being a Black, Indigenous, Queer, and People Of Color (BIQPOC) creative.

Maurice Moore is currently a doctoral Performance Studies Candidate at the University of California-Davis. His creative non-fiction, critical essays, fictional, and visual works have appeared in bozalta Collective, Harbor Review, Rigorous, Wicked Gay Ways, Storm Cellar Journal, Loud and Queer Zine, Strukturriss Quarterly Journal, HIVES Buzz-Zine, As Loud As It’s Kept Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and Confluence. From 2011 to 2021, he has exhibited work and performed at the Medford Arts Center in New Jersey, Memorial Union Gallery in Fargo North Dakota, the International House Davis (I-House) in Davis California, The Center for Visual Artists in Greensboro North Carolina, Christina Ray Gallery in Soho New York, the Lee Hansley Gallery in Raleigh North Carolina, the Gallery 307 + Orbit Galleries in Athens Georgia, Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro North Carolina, and performed with Rios/Miralda for the Garbage Celebration in Madison Wisconsin.

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Transcript – Text – Roberta Williams – Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum

Maurice Moore