Morning Myth – Wealth and Cigarettes

Recreating old myths and reviving old deities must be a pastime for mankind. The deities and beliefs ebb and flow in appearance and other details but it seems the meanings always hold true to their original intent. I am one of those supra-human types who believes in the connection between all mankind at a very deep psychological level (the physical level connection is fairly obvious – should anyone have missed that). To the right is a composite image of the average human. I will extrapolate and say that man's mythologies are likewise similar and our manners of making them are similar as well.

But to the point, let me introduce you to Ekeko. I first meandered across an Ekeko doll in college. I didn’t give  much thought to it and was reluctant to ask my host about the doll. I was somewhat shy about such things then. I am no longer that shy. I ask if I am curious. In any respect. Ekeko….

Ekeko was/is a god of prosperity amongst the pre-Columbian Tiwanakan of the Andes. Not much is known about that civilization excepting from archeological records and rumors of rumors through those who still lived in the area of Tiwanaku. The civilization collapsed in the 1000s AD (maybe, but around then, certainly by the time the Spanish arrived the civilization had long since disappeared). Ekeko remained, was reskinned, and revived – with a cigarette in mouth no less.

We don’t know how or in what manner Ekeko was worshiped or regarded in pre-Columbian civilizations but we do know the mustachioed man existed prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. Ekeko’s association with abundance may not have been well known but was known. Ekeko may well have been on the point of disappearing when a little-known writer in the 1940s, Antonio Diaz Villamil, related a tale he heard, or made up, who knows?

This tale is one of love and war and stealth. Isodoro and Paulitta lived together at a hacienda as youngsters and were in love. Paulitta went to La Paz to serve at another estate. In a war, wherein La Paz was under siege, Paulitta was hard put to food. Years previous, when she left the hacienda, Isadoro gave her an Ekeko doll for luck and fortune. During the siege, she placed it outside her front door. Isodoro was had been conscripted into the army defending La Paz and would sneak over the doll on occasion and leave food there. Paulitta was none the wiser.  I don’t know what happened after the war but I will assume they reconnected, married, had many children, and lived a happy fruitful life.

After the dissemination of Villamil’s tale, Ekoko became popular again. One can find likenesses of the doll everywhere in the Andes and beyond. His basket and hands are stuffed with money and goods and he smokes a cigarette now. As an interesting side-note, one shouldn’t have more than one doll in a house at a time. The spiritual forces manifested by the dolls war with one another much to the loss of the owner. This is a warning against greed FYI.

Adventure Hook: Someone has placed an extra doll in a merchant’s house. The spiritual war between the two manifestations is causing money to simply vanish from the house. The merchant suspects a thief. The solution is to find the extra doll and remove it, then discover who put the doll there in the first place.

Adventure Hook: The characters find a doll in some treasure. If one of the characters place it prominently in their house (it must be a permanent or near permanent abode), a silver piece appears everyday in their trunk or where coin is stored. If he doll is destroyed or removed from the house, all the unspent silver disappears.