Brides of Salome

Known as the Bane-maidens, the Brides of Salome are an elite group of female (mostly Adyge) assassins belonging to the Masks of God. The name derives from the story of Salome, found in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. Salome was the daughter of Herodias, who performed the Dance of the Seven Veils before King Herod Antipas, which led to the beheading of John the Baptist. The concept of the “Dance of the Seven Veils” was popularized by Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome,” and in the OC Kayin associates it with the “Seven Gates” from Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld: To reach the realm of the dead, Inanna must divest herself of a piece of clothing at each of the Gates. This act of divesting oneself of the constituents of one’s identity is used in the OC as a metaphor for the Memory Purge the Self undergoes at the death of a body, when the Second Self, a.k.a. one’s identity, is removed. This allows the Self to develop a new, hence different, identity when substantiating in a body.