The suns of Teshnos and elsewhere

From: Nils Weinander <niwe_at_ppvku.ericsson.se>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 94 10:54:11 +0100


Nils Weinander writing

Teshnan deities etc:

Peter:
>I was referring to the lack of a figure from Yelm's Rightful Government.
>If the Vessel of Light was a proper representative of the Government of
>Yelm then Teshnos would have subjugated the amazons, be treated by the
>Dragon Empire as an equal, colonized the isle of Teleos and the River of
>Cradles, be the terror of the nomads...

Well, I think the teshnans are good Yelmites, but they are after all under the curse lethargy.

I have a bit of a problem with Dendara as the sun goddess. I could probably be talked into seeing her as the wife of SOmash, and thus the deity of choice for the women of the Noon caste.

Ralf:
>How exactly do you define 'caste'? Do you change your caste when you get an
>elder and switch to Zitro Argon/ the 'priestly' caste ? Or are you born into
>your caste and stay there ? I understood the matter to be the former case.

A bit of both. I see four castes: Night (actually casteless, more about those later) which are landless farm workers. Morning, which are landed farmers who according to offical theology should worship Solf, but don't really like to have drugged-out derelict as patron and thus mainly worship Calyz. Noon, which were originally warriors, but are now mostly peaceful nobles and officials. The nooners worship Somash. Evening, or the sacred caste, which worship Zitro Argon. The Evening caste is composed of older people who have retired from the Noon caste. This is the only case of caste mobility.

>Somash in my picture is the "executive branch" of the Teshnan hierarchy, but
>not the ruling deity. That's still Zitro Argon, IMO.

In my Teshnos the Eveing caste/Zitro Argon dudes are in charge of all spiritual matters, which are very important in Teshnos, but the Noon caste rules in worldly matters.

>> ..., they might be relegated to the socially inferior Calyz cult, or they
>> may have more insignificant female deities which are not mentioned in the
>> Genertela book.
>Calyz directly ? After all, he's male and possibly not the epitome of the
>_female_ virtues. Or is he androgyne in your picture ? (?(!))

I thought of Calyz as appropriate since he is socially inferior to the other major deities. Given the discussion this far I have changed my mind. I prefer a set of 'wife goddesses' for the women.

>The insignificant female deities were the ones I think I was asking about.

Well Dendara, whatever her name might be, is a good suggestion for the Noon caste women.

> I even think that the
>old women worship Zitro Argon indirectly via >Ourania<

Fine idea. Ourania isn't exactly the wife of Zitro Argon, but the principle of a separate, less exalted deity for the women of a caste works here too.

>How to put them into the mainframe of Glorantha ?

There must be lots of local deities of marginal importance everywhere.

>Does the Night Caste practice witchcraft (though persecuted, I have no
>doubt) and Spirit Cult Worship, say perhaps of >Gorgoma< ?

Something like that, yes.

PM> Calyz' association with sex in this case makes me feel queasy ...

Ralf>I think I'm missing your (obvious ?) point. Explain please.

PM>Nils has said that Teshnos has two populations: the Night Caste and the 
PM>Day castes.  Now as the Day castes were descendants of original solar 
PM>invaders, it just clicked to me what Calyz's associations (ie fire, cooking 
PM>and sex) really were in the old days of the occupation; ie something like 
PM>Rape and Cannibalism.  It seems to have been softened/civilized in the time 
PM>since then...

OK, I'll give a short summary of my view of Teshnos. This is completely my speculations, with very little justification in published material. I give no distinct ordering of god-time events, for obvious reasons. Many of the ideas come from the discussions here on the list, credit is due to a lot of people: Joerg, Nick, Peter, Ralf and others.

My Teshnos is influenced (perhaps overly so) by my dilettante view of real world India.

  The Night caste have some secret worship of Gorgorma, as well as some   ancestor worship (and witchcraft), which can be done more secretly   than ordinary cult worship.

  Some mixing of the groups has of course occurred, so the teshnans are   neither purely Wareran nor Kralori.

Solar mythology:

Bruce Mason:
> There was a big movement around the turn of the century interested in
> Solar mythology where all myths and folktales were interpreted as
> metaphors for the Sun either rising or waxing and waning with the year.
> It was kind of a humorous school of thought of the most ludicrous form
> of monomythism.

Nick:
>Andrew Lang (he of the multicoloured books of fairy tales) effectively satirised
>the Solar Monomythologisers by examining the life of their leading proponent,
>Freidrich Max Muller, a ploddingly worthy literal- minded German scholar of the
>type this Daily is wholly unfamiliar with. Using Max Muller's own recognition
>criteria, he "proved" from the known details of his life that the Great Scholar
>was in fact a Solar Hero, if not the Sun God himself.

I have a charming little book titled 'Proof that Napoleon never existed' or something like that (I have a swedish translation from a french? original).

The author makes a totally ludicrous interpretation of Napoleon's life as a sun myth. He actually makes everything fit in perfectly.

/Nils W


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