The Devil fish’s Daughter

Even in today’s society the devilfish (octopus) is revered as magical.

Long ago a native man who was a Shaman hauled his canoe onto the rocks with the intention of finding and killing the Devil-fish. But whilst he was searching, the great monster itself emerged from its hole and dragged the Shaman down into its dark deep den. His forlorn family felt for sure that he was dead and so they paddled mournfully away. The creature that had entrapped the man was a female Devil-fish and she had dragged him into the very deep recesses of the town where her father lived. He was Chief of the Devil-fish.

In time the Shaman and the Devil-fish married.

Many, many years passed and the man started to become home-sick and greatly wished to see his human wife and family. He pleaded with the Chief of the ?Devil-fish to let him go. After some hard thinking his request was granted. The Shaman soon departed and was given a canoe to depart with, so too was his wife, the Devil-fish. The two canoes were magical and sped along without oars.

Soon the enchanted canoes reached the Shaman’s father’s dwellings. They were laden with much wealth from the Devil-fish kingdom which he used as gifts in a great potlatch ceremony and he became a great Chief. After a while his own children finally found him and came to him. They were now adults and he organized a great home-coming feast, in fact, he held five great feasts, one following the other and at every one his human wife and children attended.

Eventually the Devil-fish wife pined more and more for her watery world. Then one day while she and her husband sat in her father-in-law’s house, they began to transform. In a brief moment the Devil-fish wife disappeared through the gaps between the floor planks. Her husband seeing his change form immediately took on his own Devil-fish form and his soft shiny body followed his wife between the floor planks. They both returned to the realm of the Devil-fish and her father.

Many native legends tell of how people sometime share a mythical in-between life of both land and sea and thus share an innate knowledge of why it is important to be caring of both worlds.

Then there is the very recent parable of an Octopus named Paul.

Paul the Octopus (hatched in 2008, died October 2010) was a common octopus living in a tank at a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. He became a world acclaimed as an animal oracle. He used his power for very important purposes. He was able to predict the results of football matches, usually international matches in which Germany was playing. He came to worldwide attention with his accurate predictions in the 2010 World Cup.

During a divination, Paul was presented with two boxes containing food, each marked with the flag of a national football team in an upcoming match. He chose the box with the flag of the winning team in several of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches, and all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup—with Germany’s third place playoff win over Uruguay on 10 July.

His success rate rose to 85 percent, with 11 out of 13 matches correctly predicted. He predicted a win for Spain against the Netherlands in the World Cup final on 11 July by eating the mussel in the box with the Spanish flag on it.

RIP Paul.