Thread by @blaftness

Hello friends!

This morning's comparative mythology thread will focus on a legendary race of ancient Indian people who....

(drum roll)

had no buttholes.

That's right! This venerable tribe was first attested in the book Indica by a Greek fellow named Ctesias of Cnidas, who lived in the 5th century BCE.

Ctesias never actually visited India; but he was the chief physician in the court of the Achemaenid king Ataxerxes II at Persepolis. They got a lot of visitors from the subcontinent who brought gifts and stories.

Most of Ctesias's India tales were fantastical, but some of them were true. He describes several real birds and animals, for instance, which were not known in Europe at the time.

He also gave a secondhand report on the existence of a nation of anus-less folk east of the source of the Brahmaputra (translation Andrew Nicholas):

Now Ctesias says a lot of crazy stuff. This report here comes right after a bit on the Kalystrioi, a Himalayan race of dog headed people. He also talks about the martichora, or "manticores", tiger-like monsters with scorpion-harpoon tails and three rows of teeth.

Since no real manticores or dogmen have ever been found, we might assume that Ctesias's rectally-challenged folk are just another fanciful invention.

But!

There is another, completely independent mention of a butthole-less tribe in Indian folklore. This one comes from Mizoram!

It involves the Mizo trickster hero Chhurbura, a.k.a. Chhura for short.

Chhura is usually an idiot, but has occasional flashes of nutty brilliance.

One of the most famous Chhura stories tells of his visit to Mawngping Khua -- The "Land of the Unholey", y'might say. (Sorry)

Here's the story, from a transcreation by Margaret Ch. Zama on the Mizo Writings in English blog.

mizowritinginenglish.com/2009/03/chhura…

(CW: child abuse, infanticide, body horror, incredibly twisted mythology)

A lot of other Chhura stories are about his being chased by these people whose children he's just killed. At one point, they have him up a tree and surrounded. He escapes by blowing his nose and blinding them with a massive amount of snot.

Mizo folklore is something else, I tell you.

They even made a movie about this episode of Chhura's illustrious career, and it's on YouTube. (CW again!)

But back to the matter at hand. Could Mawnping Khua be the same place, or the same tribe, mentioned by Ctesias? The geography sort of works! Did a nation of differently-orificed people really exist in the eastern Himalayas?

Does the Chhura story record a historical event: the genocide of a race of people without bungholes?

Or perhaps these mysterious monogastric men and women still roam among us! Perhaps they even hold positions of political power! ...A secret society of arseless oligarchs bent on destroying the world in revenge for their ill-treatment by those with complete alimentary canals?

We look forward to some Ancient Aliens/Search for Bigfoot type shows exploring this possibility in the future.

In the meantime, buy our books! Post offices are open and we're shipping again! Ebooks available too!

blaft.com

Update: Apparently someone in the Mizoram Tourist Department thought this legend ought to be memorialized in plaster.