Dying to know just that little bit more about the ideas behind Kaaron’s story? Well, here’s 10 Things!
10 Things About Ishtar:
‘The Five Loves of Ishtar’
I don’t want to give my story way, so instead of listing ten things about Ishtar, I’m going to list ten things about washerwomen!
Ten things about washerwomen in history:
10. The washerwoman has been known as scrubber, swabber, char, Mrs Mop, gleaner, picker, scavenger bird, crow and vulture, according to Roget’s Thesaurus.
9. Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD) has been around for a long time, variously known as miner’s knee, tennis elbow or washerwoman’s thumb.
8. The Night Washerwomen walk the land eternally, cursed for killing their own children. If they catch you, they will wrap you in their washing and drown you where their pool.
7. The opposite of the Night Washerwoman was a real woman called Oseola McCarty, who washed clothes all her life, saving half of what she earned, until she had enough to establish a scholarship fund.
6. The Washerwoman is an old profession. She was once known as Lavender. Other old jobs are the Kempster, or wool comber, the Pigman, or crockery dealer, and the Colporteur, or peddler of books.
5. The Mormon Battalion of 1846 took along four laundresses.
4. A few drops of kerosene or some peach-tree leaves are a washerwoman’s friend, because they will help to whiten the clothes.
3. Hooch Girl is Vietnam War US slang for a Vietnamese woman hired by the American military as a washerwoman. John Wayne was slang for a can opener.
2. Here is Paul Guigou’s Lavandiere.
1. Ishtar’s washerwomen inherit their job and they serve her until the moment of their death.
