Re:Tarsh Exiles

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_...>
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:51:02 +1100


A few thoughts on Tarsh Exiles:

Tarsh nationalists and political exiles have had two main choices since the events of 1496.

In that year the Far Point declared itself independent of the Kingdom of Tarsh after the marriage of the Lunar Hon-Eel the Artess and King Pymjeesab ended in the king's mysterious disappearance and her pregnancy. A Regent of Far Point was chosen from the Vantaros tribe by a vote of all the tribes.

They could either: join the clans of the Far Place, or join the Wintertop Exiles. I think the two choices attracted very different types of people.

Now the Far Point was resettled by the Ridgeleaper and his fellow exiles just a few years after Arim the Pauper founded the Tarsh tribe in the early fourteenth century. Though counted as part of Tarsh and sharing language and common ancestry, the Far Point was to a large extent independent, and developed its own customs and outlook. Far Pointers organised themselves into clans, which were rapidly discarded by rural and agricultural Tarsh, whose social system concentrates on family and tribe.

As Tarsh fell to Lunar intrigue, many exiles fled (and continue to flee) east. If they joined the solar or orlanthi clans of the Far Place (who have always been relatively open in accepting strangers) , they were in essence abandoning Tarsh for a new future. While the lowland Sharl Plains of the solar Princeros and Vantaros tribes were similar to the corn-rich plains of their homeland, the thickly forested, rain-cursed gors and gallt of upland Far Point were a new environment.

I believe the Exiles have not adopted a clan structure, and consciously look forward to returning to a liberated Tarsh. Its been stated that they have four tribes: perhaps these are clones of the original Tarshite tribes from which they have sprung. (In the same way that, until recently, Taiwan continued to appoint governors "in exile" for all of the regions of mainland China.)

This would explain the continuing tension between the Exiles and their cousins in the Far Place tribes, despite their having so much in common. It might also explain the stubborn insularity of the Far Place tribes, who currently have little interest in liberating *anybody*.

John


nysalor_at_...                  John Hughes

My girl is the queen of ten villages
We live on the fruits of her pillages
She eats other queens - she's very religious She doesn't use a fork
I don't think I'll go back to New York.

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