Taking this over from the Man Rune discussion.
3 hours ago, davecake said:What Runes we have for intellect is largely irrelevant to your argument, except to note that multiples exist, and there is no need to add Man which already has other uses. The semantics games of understanding vs intellect vs knowledge is just games, and your presentation of those ideas is misleading. Law isn’t just another Rune for knowledge.
Do you have to add any other runes that stand for intellect? Making that statement and not following it through feels like a cop-out, David, sorry.
Some read it as a rune for cosmos, yes. But outside of the Malkioni, Law and intellect aren't necessarily connected. To the Orlanthi, the Law Rune denotes learned knowledge, or with the most xenophobic ones, evil sorcery.
Man is what separates the sapient races (except the dragonewts) from beasts. That suggests that it does stand for sapience.
3 hours ago, davecake said:There is a big gulf between unity, and a crisis of religious heterodoxy.
I am not talking about the Malkioni in Seshnela, I am talking about serious dissonances between different population groups in Brithos. The Seshnegi did with Earth what the Waertagi had done with Sea, and the Waertagi are as welcome to Brithos as they always have been. They aren't counted among the Brithini any more, but that's what both Seshnegi and Brithini were fine with. Some other colonies (like Neleoswal) were less willing to follow the new ways initially, but when the Pendali threat turned around, they became part of Seshnela rather than an outpost away from the Brithini mainland. (Some of this is actively described in Hrestol's Saga.)
3 hours ago, davecake said:Froalar is supposed to have left due to a political struggle of succession.
Twin brothers, equally qualified to take on the succession, and their supporters ready to go all the way. Froalar chose exile in independence over weakening his people further by civil war. No idea when in the Gods War this happened - presumably after the Expulsion Walk.
3 hours ago, davecake said:And the trouble started with Hrestol in year 2. Not that I’m claiming the Seshnegi didn’t drift into heresy - I’m simply following the fairly well established claim that they drifted into henotheism in the First Age. You seem to be trying to make the very specific, and odd, claim that they were already heterodox before leaving Brithos, simply so you can then have them separately pursue heterodox caste changes over the Man Rune and Ancestor worship without linking that to their drift into henotheism?
No, henotheism doesn't seem to play much into the internal differences in Brithos. Part of this is due to the leaders of the other castes being sidelined by Zzabur, with son of Hoalar (Froalar's brother, who was allowed to take up the throne of Talar unchallenged by Froalar's departure) a mere puppet and not a ruler like Froalar.
Zzabur usurping the leadership in the West appears to have been an issue even before Hrestol invented the Men of All. Look at Sandy's choice of two different groups representing the Malkioni, sorcerers and "knights" (warriors). I'd need ro reread that part of Hrestol's Saga, but Hrestol visits the parts of Brithos where the Horali Duke rules either before or after Faraalz (a warrior caste companion who became a Man-of-All and later a Baron) slew the Brithini king, and there is mention of dissatisfaction by the Menenans.
3 hours ago, davecake said:Quibbling about when Ancestor worship began mythologically is another argument I’m not sure why you are pursueing. This is essentially disagreeing not about what happened, but when it reaches a form close enough to modern practice to use the same term rather than regard it as an antecedent practice for a different era. We both agree it’s pre-Dawn, which is basically the only relevant issue.
I say it is post Breaking of the World, and while it may not be an issue to you, it is to me.
The Great Compromise which allows the parallel existance of the various Gods Ages to what remains of the World predates the Dawn by quite a bit. Effects of the Ritual of the Net and the Great Compromise were what allowed the Kingdom of Night to organize the surivors of Unity Battle and I Fought We Won into a patchwork community even before the Dawn, and it likely allowed Waha to start righting some of the wrongs in Prax. Most peoples who somehow survived outside of such civilizations probably were still caught in their traumatic nightmares, some well into the second century of History.
It may be the Compromise which allowed use of the Axis Mundi. And I am curious how and when such practices started to work differently from cohabitation with the Dead.
3 hours ago, davecake said:There is that small detail of it being a heretical practice for them, which it wasn’t for the Malkioni. Ancestor worship doesn’t work as such if your ancestors are not in the underworld.
All ancestor worshipers agree that the ancestors they contact aren't the complete beings they used to be while living, but that they represent aspects (partial souls, or the spirit) of the ancestors, and usually they stay rather anonymous for the Orlanthi. Spirit society Daka Fali may contact ancestors with more individuality.
Ancestor doesn't have to mean progenitor, either. Some sort of blood kinship is normal, but it can be a different branch of your ancestral tree than yours.
3 hours ago, davecake said:It becomes a quite different thing if your ancestors are either demigods walking around. It also becomes a different thing if your ancestors are (or are supposed to have) dissolved their individuality after death, and so your attempting to bring them back is either futile or heretical (or both).
But that's the case for the Orlanthi. Unless the ancestor was of heroic (or demigod) stature, usually he won't be called back as an individual, but as part of the community of ancestors. And if I look at the Ancestors units in Nomad Gods, the non-Daka Fali among the Beast Riders have as diffuse a relation to their ancestors as the Orlanthi, and only the specialized Daka Fali get to contact individual ancestors.
3 hours ago, davecake said:Ancestor worship is a practice you follow if you want your own spirit to be preserved after death.
As an individual, you mean, and not as present but not individually expressed amorphous member of the Ancestors?
Every culture honors and sort of worships its ancestors. The Daka Fali (at least per RQ Cults of Prax and RQ3 Gods of Glorantha) require exclusivity to be able to contact individuals. And it is possible that these individuals need to have been Daka Fali, too - this wasn't detailed. But then there are the really ancient ancestors who died before there was a Daka Fali tradition using the Axis Mundi.
I think that the Axis Mundi couldn't work as long as there was an open, bleeding void occupying the center of the world. Only when the maelstrom encapsulated the Void, the vertical connection to the Underworld that used to be Wonderhome became available.
3 hours ago, davecake said:I don’t think you can use it if your ancestors followed a path after death that precludes it. So the question is really when did the Seshnegi fall into heresy. And as I said before, no good reason to presume it was pre-Dawn IMO.
What's the Waertagi take on these things? Although with the Mermen facing a similar dissolution into the All Waters after Death, with loss of individuality, it is possible that they required the message of Solace as much as the orthodox Brithini.
Still, the origin of the Brithini is a lot less pure than Zzaburism claims.
3 hours ago, davecake said:I do not think this is true. Nor is 1 male in 4 a Dronar, and 1in 4 a Talar, which would be a rather top heavy society. Going from a single mythic family to a society of thousands many generations later and assuming all proportions and breeding practices were perfectly preserved is weird reasoningBut not as weird as arguing the ancestral Malkioni are parthogenetic fish.
Last thing I heard, first sons (of a Brithini mother) get to be a Dronar, second sons get to be Horali, third sons talari and fourth sons zzaburi. If that means from the same father, the ratio of the special castes diminishes a lot more.
The parthenogenic Menenans are just an idea which came to mind when reading about these parthenogenic fish. I like weird scientific facts to inspire my Glorantha. I blame @scott-martin for planting such weird ideas about Menenans in my brain.
3 hours ago, davecake said:. Finally, back to the Man Rune. I’m not arguing that the Man Rune is about a functional, harmonious community. Many aren’t. I’m also not arguing about Agrarian society, which is the Earth Rune. I’m arguing it has the simple primal role of being about mortal beings living together in groups, usually family groups.
The basic wolf pack/monkey pack/lion pride. There are of course plenty counter-examples in the animal kingdom, but our social structure in family groups really is not what makes us different from beasts.
So Waha took the family structure from the Herd Men when they lost the contest? Doesn't look like that to me. Herd Man family structures are the same as for slaves - subject to disruption by the whims of the owners, but overall following the normal pattern.
3 hours ago, davecake said:I’m not arguing that from an abstract argument, but from the simple observed fact that most of the Man Rune magic we know of is about those things.
Daka Fal is all about summoning spirits of family members to share their magical possessions (remember this is animism, something you have) with their (expanded definition of) descendants. In RQ2 this meant access to Battle Magic spells that could be stowed in foci. In HQ it means charms holding spirits.
3 hours ago, davecake said:Even the weirdo EWF sorcery of Pavis about the simplest social interaction, and reproduction,
And that's the Harmony bit of Pavis' rune magic. Nothing at all to do with the Man Rune.
3 hours ago, davecake said:but 90% or more of Man Rune magic is Ancestor worship or community magic.
But ancestor worship comes in quite different flavors. The way the ancestor interaction is presented for the Heortlings is completely different from that of the Praxian Daka Fali. Heortlings worship the ancestor community. Daka Fali interact with specific spirits of ancestors. Hence the communal effects of the Heortling ancestor interaction. Daka Fali magic is mostly personal magic inherited from some ancestor (and quite likely each individual ancestor has only a limited store of magic they can leave to one descendant at a time. Only when uncle X dies or unlearns it, you get the chance to receive the healing spell inheritance of great-grandaunt Y.
On 22.2.2018 at 10:16 AM, Joerg said:
3 hours ago, davecake said:Man doesn't seem to be tied to female mysteries (Earth, Fertility) in any way, so it really might be a Man and not necessarily a Woman Rune
I think this is a Very Weird stance, and a clear indication that you are getting lost in abstractions and overthinking this (if parthenogenesis in fish had not already made this clear).
Note that I said this in the context of discussing Westerner origins. It doesn't apply to Praxian Daka Fali.
When it comes to Clan Ancestors as in King of Dragon Pass, I am not quite sure, really - many a mother (although a minority, unless your clan bears a special curse) may leave the clan after a temporal marriage runs out or after a divorce, leaving no ancestral imprint if the clan she dies in is the clan where she serves as an ancestress.
(For Esrolian males, a similar situation might exist, so this case is not really a question of gender, but of defining who is clan/kin, and who is not (any more).)
3 hours ago, davecake said:Where do you think families come from?
For the Westerners, this is an astonishingly valid question. And family structures on Brithos need looking into.
Does this mean a Menenan woman that has had no children yet must choose a Dronar as father for her children until she bears a son, and then turn to a Horali (rinse and repeat for Talar and Zzabur caste)? Does this mean that a father may only have intercourse with a woman who has born the correct number of sons in order to claim her son as his heir? And can he have multiple heirs by having sons from various eligible women?
The immortal Brithini don 't marry for life. Now, within Time, they appear to avoid getting children, too, although things may be different on Brithos if that island is somehow held outside of Time.
3 hours ago, davecake said:If anything, Ancestor worship is even more about motherhood than it is about fatherhood. Women are part of families, have ancestors, die, every bit as much as men. And cities, of course, are also inhabited by women.
Agreed. Except for magics like the pregnancy transfer offered by Xiola Umbar, it is usually in no doubt who the mother is. (But then mythology has this modern problem where a child can have multiple biological mothers already, e.g. the mothers of Heimdall.)
But if you look at the Malkioni, I get the impression that male lineage is all that counts. There are maybe half a dozen historical Malkioni women mentioned in the Guide, and maybe a few more in the Seshnegi king lists.
But then, Motherhood and maternal magics are the realm of the Fertility Rune. Males strong in this rune may be able to bless their partners with fertility, but they still cannot create new life on their own, unless they go to similar lengths as Orstan the Elder.
3 hours ago, davecake said:Yes, it’s more primal than the gendered role implies by a female Earth, etc. but there is really nothing at all in Man magic that makes it male, if anything slightly the other way. And it is worth noting that often the intercessory gods, like Darhudan and Darhudana, or Old Man and Old Woman, are in identical-apart-from-gender-ed pairs. I think we get a male retelling of a story that the women tell about Grandmother Mortal, but don’t mistake that for it being a male story. It’s a mortal story.
A different version of the Sword Story?
Earth mythology has its own judge and keeper of the Underworld, Asrelia's dark sister. Darhudana appears more like an afterthought, and might be an aspect of Ty Kora Tek.
Female mysteries in Glorantha go as far as making the participation of males optional for procreation if done so on the Other Side. And then there are the in-betweens (Jernotia/us or Androgeus) or the shifters (Heler and his cultists).