From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 25 Apr 1994 - 00:50:33 EEST
Martin Crim:
> I dug out the reference I was thinking of, and find that it
> refers to the Pol Joni (although they are not named), not the
> Pure Horse People. Mea culpa. The reference is the Pavis Common
> Knowledge book, page 12, where it states "They carried battle
> magics, and their magicians worshiped Rune gods, unlike the
> shamans of Prax." This was in the 1420's.
You had me wondering if I'd missed some Major Reference. This is thin evidence indeed. (Not to say a source I don't have. <sob>) This event is clearly not the first time the Praxians had encountered theistic worship (to discount their own as such): witness previous contact with the Orlanthi, the presence of Pavis and Sun County, and of course with sun-worshipping horse nomads.
At any rate, I'm sure it'd be generally accepted that Storm Bull worship in Prax predates 1420, and so this is not evidence against the Bull being an independant cult (and not a sub cult of Orlanth, at least in Prax)), to return (however fleetingly) to my original point sparking off this sub-thread.
> Of course, this is late Third Age, and the reference is
> copyright 1983, so make of it what you will. I prefer to believe
> that the nomad cults developed in complexity from shaman-based to
> mobile-temple-based during the Second and Third Age.
I'd imagine there was indeed some `development' of Praxian cults over time, but the mainstay cult of Prax, Waha, is demonstrably still `shaman- based' at the end of the Third Age.
Alex.
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