The mind fairly boggles. Maybe the Mostali ones related to trying to repair the broken Virtual World Machine? (I've had some net lag in my time, but never several weeks' worth. Must be those frozen electrons.)
> Guilty, m'lord - I don't put my name into the contents list 6 times for
> 20 words each... <g>
My ambition is to see an issue of the List with _only_ my name in the contents page, say, 8 or 9 times... Nearly managed it during my recent catching-up efforts, too.
> > I'd be happier to say that it was a Volsaxi city, with a _Kitori_ quarter
> My opinion exactly, although their importance will increase during the
> siege.
I'd have thought the reverse, if Broyan is trying to kick up a stink of Volsaxi nationalism and/or religious fervour. Why would it work that way?
> > I had misremembered Tales #6 as calling the Volsaxi chaps clans
> > [...] my feeling is
> > that the Kurtali, etc, are the "basic operative social unit".
[i.e., that they are clans]
> Tribe or nation often are confused in connection with Heortland
> sources. I prefer to speak of the Hendriki nation rather than tribe.
They were probably a (single) tribe once, though they seem likely to ignore the concept these days. Or perhaps there's just some residual
> IMO the difference between a clan and a tribe is the rank of its
> leader, and the rites the leader has to perform.
In any given vertical clan-tribe structure, yes. But this doesn't entirely tell us how to spot the difference from "outside", as in the case of trying to figure out which the Bacofi et al are.
Tribes are typically more federal, and more mutable. Clans can generally only change by "losing" members to a Founding within its own ranks, while clans can jink in and out of tribes relatively freely. Leadership within a clan is more "lineal" than in a tribe. The chieftain comes from a certain lineage, and is sometimes a de facto heriditary position. The tribal kingship is much less predictable, sometimes almost rotating between the component clans, after the Buggin's Turn method. (C.f., how to elect a president of the European Commission.)
> A tribal king undergoes
> the Sacred Marriage, a chieftain performs only a set of lesser rites
> (which ones, BTW?).
Chieftains are probably usually _more_ ritually important, I feel. Even if he performs "lesser" rites of leadership, he generally performs them at a "deeper" level.
> The tribal federation was imposed upon the victorious former underlings
> of the Kitori, by the grandson of Sartar the Civilisation-bringer.
But the Volsaxi are _still_ not very civilised. If this federation was purely an externalised bolt-on, it would probably not survive Tarkalor's influence in the area. Or if it did, it would distort, and be distorted by, the other political institutions of the area, rather than just sitting there placidly between Kingdom and Tribe as if it had always been there.
> Bloodline is a concept known even to the primitives
I'm not sure this is the case. If your clan is small enough, the concept is redundant. If your notion of mythogeneology is vague and unsophisticated enough, ditto. Unlikely to be the case for the rather large clans I suggest, though, even if they are a tad bumptious.
> the clan a means
> of cohabitation and joint effort of the bloodlines involved, the tribe -
> a joint effort of clans to keep a territory?
Many reasons, I think. Defence, trade, formalising inter-marriage. Clans, on the other hand, are pretty much a priori together, and don't so much need reasons to stick together, as reasons not to.
My guess at the political structure of Volsaxiland is, in outline: Many bloodlines (politically unimportant) -> One clan (e.g., the Kurtali). Handful of clans -> over-arching, but loose tribe (Volsaxi). Tribe then is (or isn't) subject to the Hendriki king.
My fallback position would be no bloodlines, small clans, important tribes, loose over-tribe. But I'm not falling back yet.
> Trolls like cereals, too...
"Darkness Pops: so chocolatey, they even turn the milk pitch black!"
> >> They are similar to the Alda-churi confederation, IMO,
> > This is a much more "civilised" region, so four or five tier local
> > goverment (maybe six, seven or so under under the lunars) seems a more
> > likely decadence.
> The Quivini were as (un-) civilised as the Volsaxi when Sartar came
> to them. Tarkalor merely repeated his grandfather's feat. Must be
> a family trait...
But the Alda-churi aren't Quivini, and certainly aren't as uncivilised as the Volsaxi _now_, which is what we're comparing.
> I regret that I mustn't comment to the rest of Alex' posting, following
> the rules. We seem to agree... Doctor, please? <g>
I seem to agree with Joerg rather a lot, too: must be catching.
Agreeably,
Alex.
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