>Peter:
> > Given that the Lunars have clans too, I think Pelorian clan traditions
> > are being adopted rather than the [Tarshite] clans being weakened.
>"Clan" is a very versatile and vague label, and can cover a multitude of
>sins *esp* when people translate it between languages. The Tarshite word for
>"family", which in reality most closely resembles a Sartarite bloodline, may
>get translated into Sartarite as "clan", because that is its equivalent
>functional label. (One of the possible explanations for Illaro Blacktooth's
>tagline).
I don't buy this. The Tarshites are Heortling Orlanthi (even if they are overlaid with Alakoring traditions) and so would retain the Heortling clan traditions. Hence Tarshite clans are Sartarite clans. If your argument had been about the Orlanthi of the East Wilds or the Wenelians, then I could be convinced of a different clan structure.
>The other main general factor is urban living - IRW, as large sedentary
>settlements and towns evolve, kinship systems (which are also economic,
>resource exploitation and work-organisation systems) evolve to match the
>new reality.
But more than 90% of the people will still live in rural areas so even if the urban clans are bent out of shape, the rural clans will still be recognizable. In this way, the Orlanthi survived the rise and fall of the EWF without too much change in their clan structure.
>Evolution can go many ways, but its easy to see in Tarsh why tribes
>have taken on some of the responsibilities previously dealt with at
>a clan level.
But they haven't. The tribes have been converted into an administrative polities ruled by court favorites. They are instruments of royal power rather than expressions of the common voice of the clans of Slavewall etc. Given such a distortion on the nature of the tribe, the clan chiefs (or clan rings) will remain the mediator between the clan and the world.
>The next step may be greater identification with a city or region
>rather than a tribe: this seems to be the primary Lunar mode of
>identification.
It's not the "primary" Lunar method. Only in four places do the Lunars identify themselves with the city. Elsewhere they identify themselves with the people they come from. Thus a Dara Happan Lunar, they would identify themselves with a specific family while if they were in Rinliddi they would identify with their Addi. Pelandan Lunars do identify themselves with their city/ket but so do other Pelandans. Carmanians identify with their house and so forth. If a Lunar happens to belong to the Satrapal clan, then he would identify with the clan (i.e. I am of the Errio-Unit), rather than the territory that the clan rules.
--Peter Metcalfe
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