From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bokononism is the fictional religion practiced by many of the characters in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.

It is based on living by the untruths that make one happy, called foma. Many of the sacred texts of Bokononism were written in the form of calypsos. The foundation of Bokononism is that the religion, including its texts, is formed entirely of lies; however, if you believe and adhere to these lies, you will live a happy life.

Bokonon, a character in the novel, is the founder of the religion. He was born Lionel Boyd Johnson. "Bokonon" was the way the natives of San Lorenzo, the fictional Caribbean island where the shipwrecked Johnson started his religion, pronounced his family name.

Bokonon has also been quoted in Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins.

Bokonon is also a Brigadier Saint of the POEE.

Bokonon is also a term in the traditional South Beninian Vodun religion designating 'Diviner/Healer'.

Bokononism is also referenced in Whirligig by Paul Fleischman.

• "All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies."
• "Busy, busy, busy."
• "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
• "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
• "Tigers got to eat, birds got to fly, man got to ask himself why, why, why? Tigers got to sleep, birds got to land, man tells himself he understands."
• "It is not possible to make a mistake."

We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.

• "What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing."

I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A Par-a-dise.

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, they sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and have a look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God!
Nobody but You could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thankyou for the honour!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now. I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen-
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice-
So many different people
In the same device.

The preceding lyrics were set to music by the band Ambrosia in 1975, in their hit song "Nice, Nice, Very Nice."

Vonnegut created various concepts, and intentionally "silly" words to describe them, in order to outline the Bokonist faith as a background for his story.

boko-maru 

A union of two souls achieved by placing the soles of two people's feet together. It is a Bokononist ritual that is taboo and forbidden on the island of San Lorenzo, referred to as "footplay".

Borasisi 

The sun.

Pabu 

The moon.

duprass

A karass made of two persons. "A true duprass can't be invaded, not even by children born of such a union." Members of a duprass usually die within one week of each other, as shown in the book Cat's Cradle.

foma 

"Harmless untruths" (e.g., "Prosperity is just around the corner"). Bokonon describes his own religion as foma, created for the purpose of bringing comfort to the people of Bokonon's island. The people of San Lorenzo live under a poverty-stricken Third World dictatorship, but thanks to the comforting untruths of Bokonon's foma, they are better equipped to face reality (following Vonnegut's early theories about the true usefulness of religion).

granfalloon

A false karass. People who identify themselves by state or country of origin or in other various ways to form a group, when in reality such people may have very little in common or even turn out to be enemies or ideological opposites. There is much granfalloonery in the world. To quote the book, "If you wish to study a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon."

kan-kan 

The instrument which brings you to your karass.

karass 

A group of people who, unbeknownst to them, are collectively doing God's will in carrying out a specific, common, task. A karass is driven forward in time and space by tension within the karass.

sinookas 

Tendrils of life that intertwine with other Karass member's tendrils.

sin-wat 

A person who wants all of somebody's love. Bokononists believe love should be freely shared.

vin-dit 

The force that first pushes a person in the direction of accepting Bokononism

wampeter 

An object which is the focus of a karass; that is, the lives of many otherwise unrelated people are centered on a wampeter (e.g., a piece of ice-nine in Cat's Cradle). A karass will always have exactly two wampeters: one waxing, one waning. The term first appears on p. 52 of Cat's Cradle (in the 1998 printing by Dell Publishing). It is analogous to a MacGuffin.

wrang-wrang 

"A person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang's own life, to an absurdity." In the book, the protagonist begins to speculate that everything may be meaningless and take the first steps toward a belief in nihilism. But he encounters a nihilistic wrang-wrang who commits actions so repulsive and horrific to him that he subsequently wants nothing to do with nihilism.

zah-mah-ki-bo 

"Fate - inevitable destiny."

• Vonnegut.com The place to view and purchase Vonnegut's print artwork.
• Bokononism All of the text from Cat's Cradle which refers to Bokononism (including the Books of Bokonon).
• The Books of Bokonon - a collection of all excerpts from the Books of Bokonon from Cat's Cradle