From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 30 Mar 1994 - 15:32:01 EEST
Martin Crim in X-RQ-ID: 3451
> joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) writes:
> "The cattle people could have been Urox' Hsunchen followers,
> their inclusion into Orlanth's kingdom seems logical. Swine are
> mentioned in KoS in the myth about Orlanth the Justice-Bringer."
> Urox/cattle people: There once was a cattle people, but their
> secrets became spread far and wide, and they disappeared. As for
> Urox, I believe his emergence as a separate cult is a second or
> third age development. The same with Humakt. Before that, they
> were just what we would call subcults of Orlanth.
> For swine, see Mralot (mentioned as far back as Griffin Mountain as Mralota,
> a goddess).
The mae forms of Mralot, Gorakiki and a few other Hykimi deities appear in the Jonstown Compendium in RQ Companion, in the same entry that states Maran Gor as ancestor of dinosaurs (Earth Shakers).
However, in Dragon Pass the pig has an ancient association with Earth, read e.g. the Cult of the Bloody Tusk in Elder Secrets.
> "Kargzant is almost as enigmatic. Plentonius makes him the Solar
> ruler who reigned before the Dawn."
> Kargzant the Rider is the name of a Yelmic cult or sub-cult,
> according to Stephen Martin's essay "The Cold Sun" in the RQ Con
> program guide. He makes the identification of several Yelmic
> cults with the stages of the Yelm cult as published in WW:
> Kargzant=Rider, Shargash=Warrior, Buserian=Priest/Elder,
> Murharzarm=Emperor. Of course, this in itself is probably a late
> development, or "rationalization" in the sense that
> anthropologists use the term.
The more I learn about the Solar pantheon, the less of Yelm the Emperor I can find in horse nomad cult(ure)s. Plentonius is hardly a help, being a fanatical foe of the horse people, so his (follower's) account of the horse nomads' culture, history and religion can hardly be fair or objective. Jenarong gets astonishingly good press, in this light.
However, the exodus from Nivorah seems to be one example of humans converting to Animal Ways (i.e. taking features of Hykimi religion etc.) which I suspected of the Praxian beast riders as well. This must have been a quite common occurrance in the various stages of the Darkness, since the animal ways were superior means of survival in the upheaval of the Gods War(s).
My God Learner self tells me that the origins of the Hsunchen might have similar traits as the Grazer origin outlined below.
> (In the anthropological sense,
> "rationalization" refers to the post hoc explanations for ritual
> behavior which people "discover" when their religion is under
> pressure. This happened in front of anthropologists' noses in
> Bali in the 1950's.)
> "The Grazer deities could have been polluted by their long
> interaction (as Golden Horse People) with the EWF Theyalans and
> the Praxians, and later Ironhoof's Ritual of Rebirth, but on the
> other hand the tribe that came to Prax was the most conservative
> of all. "
> Yes, if you accept the earlier myth that the Grazers are
> descendants of the Pure Horse People, and not the later myth
> presented in KoS that they are descendants of centaurs who split.
> Greg seemed to revert to the earlier myth in one of his comments
> at the Lore Auction.
I see both of these myths as totally compatible. Here is why.
ATTENTION! GOD LEARNING AHEAD! SENSITIVE PEOPLE PLEASE SHUT YOUR EYES WHILE READING ON! :-) During EWF times, the EWF lords had invited the Pure Horse People into Prax, to guard their border against the animal nomads.
Some time during the Third Council, a group of surgeon-sorcerers around Delecti, the Remakers, began experimenting with man-animal hybrids. To achieve this effect, they naturally chose humans who had affinity to the animal in question. So they got Storm Bull/Urox worhippers as base material for Minotaurs (with the promise to make them more like their god, which seems to have been held <g>), probably Basmoli for manticores, now extinct fox Hsunchen for Elurae, and Golden Horse people for centaurs. I won't rest on the issue on whether these were volunteers, wrongdoers or slaves, but this will have been the principle they worked upon. (The Tusk Riders may stem from this period as well, although they might be older.)
However, the ancestors of the centaurs are extremely likely to have been the Pentan horse riders which lived in the region.
After their demise, some wild or draconic magic allowed the beast people to breed true, and today there is little difference between the Dragon Pass Beast people and their cousins in southwest Seshnela. Maybe the form does shape the being, after all.
However, the Battle of Alavan Argay, which ended the Golden Horse People's presence in Prax under that name, occured in 1250 ST. The remnants of the Horse people were the Zebra Riders of Pavis, which had separated from the tribe at the founding of the Arrowsmith dynasty, the captives after Alavan Argay, most of whom fled into the Black Net, to be pulled forth by Derik Furman Pol Joni about 200 years later, and refugees which approached Dragon Pass, still lying under the magic of the Inhuman Occupation. (Which did not extend to the Pygmy Bee and Wasp Hsunchen, so it excluded only a certain style of human life anyway.)
Ironhoof's people met the refugees, and remembered their origin. Since they were allowed to live in Dragon Pass, why shouldn't their relatives?
But to fulfil the letter of the proscription of human life in Dragon Pass, they had to be made into something slightly different from human. In the ruins of the capital of Remakerela, known as Wild Temple, where the Beast People annually meet to dance and ritually remake or unmake some of their folk to assure continuing fertility, Ironhoof devised a ritual which allowed the refugees to become Ex-centaurs. This probably involved the unmaking of some centaurs into separate parts, man and horse, and as probably the sacrifial (because incomplete, and unfunctional) transformation of some of the refugees into centaurs. With this merging ritual, the former Golden Horse people were "transformed" into the Grazer people, and herds.
(Sorry to intrude into your terrain, David...)
> "Do Pralori, Damali, Rathori, (extinct?) Galanini, Basmoli
> interbreed with their totem animals? Do Sofali turtle people mate
> with turtles? If so, do their women lay eggs?"
> Sandy said (in an earlier post, reprinted in Codex) that Basmoli
> sometimes give birth to lions, but these are always sterile.
I was aware of this. It seems that the general absence of lions in Prax has weakened Basmoli magic there, so that this lion offspring is not fertile any more. Sandy also wrote "Don't ask". Well, now we've come this far, it might be time to disregard this request. Sandy?
> Greg Stafford answered a question about marsupial Hsunchen at the Lore
> Auction. For those of you who weren't there, or don't
> remember the answer, I recommend ordering a copy of the booklet
> which David Cheng is preparing, which will contain complete
> transcripts of the Lore Auction and Heroquest Seminar, as well as
> other goodies. It'll also show you the Grazelander comment I
> refer to above.
David, will you announce when and how this booklet will be available?
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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