Sandy's Grain.

From: Alex Ferguson <alex_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 95 21:53:45 GMT


Sandy does a lightning sojourn round the bean and cereal eaters of Glorantha. A veritable tour de farts, in fact.

> >dietary supplements [to corn] are mandatory, or you get pellagra
> Yes, just as with wheat and rice. Except that all you need
> for a "dietary supplement" with corn are beans.

I don't know about wheat, but I think said beans are also a sufficient supplement to rice.

> SANDY'S UNSUPPORTED OPINIONS ABOUT PEASANT DIETS IN GLORANTHA
> Meat is uncommon for peasants and farmers everywhere in
> Glorantha, just as on ancient Earth.

Certainly true of most highly-agriculturalised areas. Tends to be progressively less true of more "primitive" regions (who don't have "peasants" in the same sense anyway, of course).

> TYPICAL DARA HAPPAN PEASANT:
> Staple: maize

I may be confoozled, but I thought that maize was the most-other-places- in-Peloria staple, but DH was, um... something else. Help me out here, folks. Or at least, I'm sure DH had organised monoculture before Hon-Eel did her thang. Wheat, was it? I'm sure this hasn't stopped, though it may now be more mixed (from region to region, rather than locally, maybe).

> TYPICAL ESROLIT SERF
> Staple: oats
> Other: wheat and beans

Even a free(wo)man may have a similar diet; this sort of high-density population isn't going to have much meat on a per capita basis.

> TYPICAL HEORTLAND/SARTARITE FREEHOLDER
> Staple: wheat or oats

And (principally, in many areas) barley.

> Other: fruit, beans, cabbage
> Farmers with good land own a cow or two, thus getting milk
> and cheese as well, plus when the cow dies, some beef.

> Farmers with less-good land own goats instead.

Nope, mythicly impure. Sheep, though.

 Pigs and chickens are common, of
> course.

I think most Orlanthi "peasants" eat a fair bit of meat. Not because they're any "richer" than maize-stuffed Lodrili dudes, but the former's land better suits a "mixed" style of agriculture, while the latter's is most productive when used for near-monocultural arable.

> TYPICAL KRALORI FARMER
> Staple: rice
> Other: that's it, really. Just rice.

Presumably some pulses and root vegetables, also, otherwise amino-acid shortages would be an acute danger. Lentils probably crop up here, and/or in Teshnos.

> Kralori that live near the coast supplement their rice with
> fish. Kralori that live in the interior supplement their rice with
> pork, dog, and horsemeat.

Ditto for the Vorumai, with the difference that there's relatively more fishing, per capita, and only people of _low_ status eat meat. Highstatus  people avoid fish, as well as meat.

I believe they also grow some wheat and some millet, but that's a mere detail.

Joerg protests:
> >I am still not too happy about the term "Grain Goddesses" as defined
> >in GoG (and expanded in the Dorasta write-up). "Land Goddesses"
> >captures their function better, IMO, that they have a favourite
> >grain seems like a by-effect.

Sandy is impenitant:
> That's as may be, but certainly the "by-effect" is what most
> of their worshipers pray to them for. And not just the one "favored"
> grain -- the Grain Goddess is goddess of all the grains, and for that
> matter all the fruitful growing things. Serve her!

The term "agricultural goddess" would probably be closest. This is equal to "Land Goddess" only, I believe, in the Theyalan case. The GGG term does seem to invite confusion, in respect of identification with a _specific_ grain; witness the Rice Mother debate, and it's nearrecapitulation  wrt Hon-Eel. (Don't blame me, I _said_ I didn't want to go over it all again...)

Alex.


End of Glorantha Digest V1 #168


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