From: John P Hughes (john.hughes@anu.edu.au)
Date: Wed 06 Apr 1994 - 20:41:53 EEST
A Commentary on Tales #11, The Pamaltela Special
Howdy folks, John Hughes here.
I've just spend Easter pursuing my other great love at Australia's National Folk Festival in Canberra. It was a wonderful experience, with singing, dancing, concerts, storytelling, spontaneous drama, costume and maskwork. Pippin and I picked up a lot of roleplaying ideas along the way, including inspiration in the festival's closing fire-fertility ceremony for the Gloranthan ceremony Greg and I are planning for RQ- Con Down Under next year. I've also added a bodhran (hollow celtic drum) to my gamesmaster's kit, arranged both a storytelling and dancing workshop for the Phenomenon roleplaying con in June, and had a new insight into Doraddi shamanic practices after attending a drumming workshop. Experiential roleplaying!
Now to business. The following commentary on Tales #11 relates mainly to my own stories and articles. There's little in the way of spoilers for our US friends, just expansionary notes and comments to clarify some of the more difficult issues raised.
COVER Dan Barker has done it again! The cover illustrates the story "Aranjara Dreaming", and depicts Surinda (fingers raised) talking to Kirinuu. Dan has captured beautifully the difference in appearance between Left & Right Hand Doraddi.
BLOOD IS STRONGER THAN DEATH: THE ROLEPLAYING POSSIBILITIES OF KINSHIP Page 7
In both diagrams, a slash indicates the person is deceased. This is a
standard convention, ommited from Figure 1 by our judicious editor.
(Space, the final frontier...).
Look again at figure 3, bearing in mind my comment that, to the Doraddi, the brother and sister bond is much more important than that of husband and wife. The diagram makes it clearer than my discussion in the text.
Notice how Moonwatcher's continuing skin (clan) identity in the next generation comes about through his sister's children (ZC), Farwatcher and Pure Voice, rather than his biological children (C), who belong to the skin of his wife. His sister's children share his clan identity, and it will pass to a 3rd generation through Pure Voice's children. Therefore, Moonwatcher will be Guidefather to his sister's children, and pay more attention to their well-being and education than to his own biological children. To his biological children he is merely 'father' or more tellingly, 'mother's husband', a somewhat distant figure.
Page 8.
Figure 4 is given from the perspective of the Sweet Clover skin, a fact mentioned in the text but not on the diagram itself. It makes sense only from this perspective, as Alex (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk) has pointed out in a previous posting.
To understand the system, let's do it from the perspective of the Blood Bean skin. The Vol Ini are 'managers' to Blood Bean ceremonies, and so are ritual partners. They are also rivals for both the Vol Ini and Blood Bean are in the position of 'Husband Takers' to the Instamiru and Squaa skins, and SO compete for the best marriages.
The function of a MANAGER can be clarified by saying that the term is often translated as 'policeman' in Koori dialects on earth. On initiation, each owner will be matched with one particular manager in the correct skin relationship. The manager will be older, and will guide a young owner in the correct way to plan and perform the ceremonies of the Dreaming that he owns. The manager passes on ritual knowledge as appropriate. He or she will function as a stern and somewhat distant Guidefather, being in turn teacher, policeman and ceremonial resource. The manager also ensures that ceremonies and songs are not misused by a particular skin.
Note that the SPATIAL ORDERING of the clans in the diagram is actually used in daily life: it is played out and repeated in hearth location, clan movement, dance, ceremony, etc.
My citing of bride and father-in-law as being an example of an avoidance relationship is INCORRECT. It should be groom and mother-in law (WM) or bride and Guidefather-in-Law (HMB). Lets think it through for a standard 4 skin system. The groom is from skin A, and his intended (much younger) bride is from skin B. This means the bride's mother is also of skin B, and often the same age as the groom - a tempting (and otherwise permissible) sexual relationship.
Now try and work out why bride/father-in-law is not such a problem. Answer follows.
The Bride is of skin A, while her intended groom is of skin B. Therefore the groom's biological father is from skin A or one of it's fellow 'Husband Taker' skins. The bride therefore has had incest taboos against the groom's father since birth, and is used to dealing with him in a distant and formal way. However the groom's Guidefather...
Alex's posting also noted the confusion over the labels 'Husband
Giver' and 'Husband Taker'. Basically, the terms serve only to divide a
clan or tribe into 'Us' & 'Them' (or the Evergreens and the Thorns,
White Rose and Red Rose, City and United, Crips and Bloods or
whatever). In fact it is usually less confusing to use these local terms
instead. From the perspective of any person x, 'Them' (the Husband
Givers) are those skins than might supply husbands, while 'Us' (the
Husband Takers) are my own skin and any other skin that doesn't
supply husbands. 'Us are always better than 'Them' and 'Us' have to
stick together against 'Them'. (Although of course, in this system, if
you want a spouse you have to be nice to 'Them'!). Therefore Alex, no
skin can ever be both Husband Taker and Husband Giver to you at the
same time.
This system is part of the 'Chinese Box' paradox of kinship, allowing a
community to have its violence/confrontation/rivalry cake and eat it too.
Husband Taker will defend Husband Taker against Husband Giver,
while both categories will join together as a clan against other clans or
tribes. Tribes will join together as a nation or Federation against other
cultures or nations, and differernt human cultures will join together as
'civilised beings' against other intelligent species or chaos.
The Doraddi are realistic: they accept that 'violence is pleasurable', and
therefore devote tribal energies to containing rather than surpressing
anger and violence. Therefore, ancestral custom states that you must
never publically disagree with someone in your own skin (accept in a
hearth meeting) for there is always a junior/senior relationship in place.
You may argue but must peacefully defer to someone from a fellow
Husband Taker skin. You may fight with clubs but must never kill
someone from a Husband Giver skin (an unwise move though - they
control your potential marriage partners). You may use spears against
armed warriors of other Dorradi clans or tribes and steal their herds and
goods -though you must not hurt non-combatants or children and must
accept blood-responsibility if a death occurs and you are identified. Its
basically genocide tactics against non-Doraddi and non-humans - they
are 'beyond skin' - beyond kinship and therefore not True People. Note
that in present day Jolar at least, such violence is VERY RARE.
Page 10: THE ORIGINS OF KINSHIP - A DORADDI MYTH
I mention the "!" sound as being a clicking sound make against the roof of the mouth, and used only in proper names. This 'click language' is modelled on that of the !Kung and other bushmen of the South African savanna. (These are the people portrayed in the propaganda 'comedy' **The Gods Must Be Crazy**. However the irony is that, rather than the carefree traditional nomadic life of the film, all of the !Kung are actually imprisoned in South African government concentration camps. They were also made famous in a book by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas entitled "The Harmless People". The !Kung are known by this epithet even though their homicide rate is higher than Chicago! (though probably not Washington.)
Combining the clicks is where the fun really starts. And guess which god uses all three clicks in his name...
!Bol//ongo/ the Trickster. Try and say that quickly...
Page 14: THE KRESH.
This is a query. I'm doing a further module on meeting the Kresh, and just cannot get my mind around the idea of these gigantic ponderous multi-tonne wagons, up to 40 metres long, being pulled BY HAND across the type of country that passes for 'flatland' (ha!) in a savanna environment. And after Elmal/Yelmalio I thought I could handle anything. OK, so there's magic involved, perhaps some bound gnomes to flatten the ground in front, and maybe some old road beds from the Six-Legged Empire. Its a wonderful image, but it still doesn't click. Why are they doing it, especially since there are much more practical ways to propel even large wagons (domesticated dinosaurs or megafauna).
This seems to me one of those compelling mythological images that impress themselves upon your consciousness, and then have to be justified my all sorts of cumbersome after-the-fact left brain rationalisation. Obviously there are deep mysteries here, and I'm wondering if anyone has ideas or suggestions.
Page 20: SONS OF THE TOTEM, DAUGHTERS OF THE DREAM
GodLearner type cult writeups are a necessary evil, but I've always felt they obscure as much as they reveal by sacrificing local colour and the effects of personal experience. (BTW, the Pamalt Cult was put together from original notes by Greg and Sandy, only minor finishing was necessary.) In SOTT... I've tried to convey the view of actual worship and belief **on the ground**, in a situation that is so far removed from the tidy GodLearner reductionism of the cult write-up that sometimes you have to stop and say, 'Hey, this IS the same god and cult'. As recent Digest discussions have noted, there is similar variation even amongst familiar gods like Old WindBag or the Snotty Loner with the Sword.
Page 21
I believe the illustration is not of Kerasan/Kirinnu (Left Hand) but rather of Surinda of the Twisted Lance (Right Hand). Another absolute gem from Dan Barker.
Page 23 - ARANJARA DREAMING
Did she or didn't she? it's for you to decide...
Due to a slight oversight, Kirinuu is called Kerasan in the second epigram. (She was called this in the first draft, but I later changed it to avoid confusion with Keraun). Post hoc, I guess I'll just claim that Kerasan is Kininuu's skin name. We're all Vol Ini here, aren't we? Good.
Pages 24 to 26
Can anyone identify the fauna? I think the one on page 26 is a snake who has swallowed the rear half of a horse :-).
Seriously, I personally prefer NOT to too closely identify Jolar with Australian flora and fauna. I've tried to keep the flora Gondwanaland - a time when Africa and Australia were joined - though I've added flowering plants and lots of clover.
The food plants I name on page 43 are all actual Koori dishes, with several exceptions. Obviously, there are several native Glorathan plants, and one other that MOB has forbidden me to mention lest we both get forced to bulk ingest the stuff.
As for fauna, I posit a curious mixture of African plains, Cretaceous Gondwanaland dinosaurs, and a scattering of late Pleistocene Australian megafauna - diprotodons, giant kangaroo-like marsupials (macropus titan), enormous wombats (Phasolonus) plus some carnivores such as the marsupial 'lion' (Thylaceo) and the only-recently extinct Tasmanian tiger or marsupial wolf (Thylacinidae). Go figure. I leave the exact reckoning of this curious (and wondrous!) food chain to minds more skilled than mine.
CENTRE MAP I notice a new city has appeared on Jrustela. I suppose it must be the birthplace of the (now deceased) gentleman whose journal is recorded on page 23.
Page 31 - VELDT TREK by Paul Reilly.
Hey Paul, nice job! Do you have any comments to add to this?
Page 38 - THREE WOMEN DANCING DREAMING MODULE
TWDD is an example of an introductory module that's very useful in ANY campaign - that is, strangers who know nothing come along and try to learn the local culture and integrate themselves within it. Kinship provides a wonderful way of injecting questers into local politics, and the 'unknown stranger' motif means that players need to know little background before play begins. Try it for Lunar settlers in Sartar, Sartar refugees on the plains of Prax etc.
Page 39. The SEASONS are: Hot Dry, Thunder Before Monsoon, Monsoon, [Sacred Time], Season of Flowers and Fruit, Good Dry. The seasons are irregular in length, and obviously, only so named in areas under the special providence of Keraun, the Monsoon Wind.
I believe that Sandy's Jolar weekdays (given in a recent posting) are a remnant of the Six Legged Empire and used only in large cities. Certainly, on Earth, such regular calendars are a feature of the city/state or the missionary. Plains people have little use for such an artificial construction, and it certainly suggests a very strange notion of the nature of time. Plains Time is measured by the rains and winds, by the constant cycle of holy days and ceremonies (Vangono's day, the eighth Day since Keraun etc.), and by the very subtle but omnipresent humming/beating of the earth (Grandmother's heartbeat) which varies according to a fixed 28 day pattern.
Page 45
Here's an example of the GUIDED IMAGERY EXERCISE during the initiation ceremony.
Turn down the lights and keep other players silent. Some atmospheric music would be in order ( I used **On Hearing Solar Winds**). This is an exercise in trust. There is no script, anything can happen dependent on the involvement and imagination of the PC. The Master of Luck and Death (MLD) must accept whatever the PC tells her, and draw out the interesting images as explained in the text. It is a co-creation - both player and MLD are equal.
MLD: the darkness choking down on you, your body cold and dark and
distant, your lungs still burning with the memory of that precious, final
breath. What do you feel?
TERW: Am I dead? (fishing)
MLD: What do you feel? (keeping PC on track)
TERW: I'm scared, its so dark, so very strange. My body is so very
different. I feel... free. Am I dead?
MLD: The darkness swirls around you. Strange half shapes, fleeting
impressions and sounds and sensations flash across your
consciousness. What do you see?
TERW: I'll make a Scan roll.
MLD: (gently) No. I want you to close your eyes and let your
imagination guide you. Tell me what TERW sees.
TERW: (Player understanding now what is required). I... I'm on a vast
and empty plain, like my guidefather told me the world was like in the
beginning. The shapes... I think the shapes are spirits. A cold wind is
blowing. I can't see my body.
MLD: (encouraging player to build on imagination). Is there anything
on the plain, anything at all?
TERW: No. Nothing. it's terrifying. Am I in hell?
MLD: (patient) Wait until you see or hear something. Then tell me what
it is...
TERW: (after some time). I can hear something... soft and distant. It's
a sound like water, water crashing on rocks. I'm going to walk towards
the sound.
MLD: Walk forward, and tell me what you see.
LATER...
TERW: It's unbelievable. The water is crashing in great lines of foam,
very wild. There's something metallic above the water, like copper,
circling down.
MLD: Look closely. What is circling?
TERW: it's a bird, small, with brilliant bright green flashes. A hawk of
some kind. It's seen me, it's coming closer.
The MLD marks down the hawk as a first sighting of a possible totem animal. She will encourage TERW to interact with it. If the bird talks to her this will be a sure sign that the hawk is a totem. ETC.
Sorry about the length. Hope this is helpful!
John.
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