Sacrifices and Writing in Peloria

From: Carlson, Pam <carlsonp_at_wdni.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 95 09:05:00 PDT


Michael wonders about Pelorian sacrifices:

>I don't know about the sacrificial practices of rural Peloria, but the
sacrifice of bulls [and horses] for fertility and prosperity has ample precedence in the RW, so i'd guess that pelorians do it too. In what form i don't know, but your latter suggestion seems a likely proposition, as the scenario hook provides MGF.

Given the expanse and variety of Peloria, there are likely hundreds of variations. Cattle sacrifices are often mentioned in GROY - and the color of the cattle was often significant - all black or all white, usually.  (These are imperial level sacrifices - done in hindreds.) I would suspect a village would get together and sacrifice just one or two animals per village. I doubt each family even owns a pair of cattle. Peasants probably make most of their sacrifices by leaving vegetables and grains on shrines.  Meat is rare for them.

GROY mentions horses as sacred, and only the emperor may sacrifice them.  This attitude is likely left over from the waves of horse nomad rulers of DH. Even in the modern empire, few folk can likely afford to sacrifice a horse.

Of course, don't mention sacrificing a horse anywhere near a Grazelander.  Only the Pure Horse People may do that, you see...

Writing:

Somebody a while ago:
>>I suspect that religious attitudes towards letters would be strongest
>>in the less urban regions.

Or on the script itself. I suspect that many literate cultures have both sacred and mundane scripts. For DH, the alphabet listed in the back of FS is likely a sacred script - perhaps what they write Firespeech in. Old Dara Happan is likely revered, and those who teach it to women and peasants are frowned on. (Perhaps this is one source of the FS comment that under the old ways, women weren't allowed to 'talk' to each other without permission.)  New Pelorian is known by all educated people and used for everyday writing.

I agree that many Orlanthi feel that written storm speech is sacriligious - like binding the winds in stone. Stormspeech should only be carried on the winds.

Peter M.

>As for the origins of writing, Murharzarm of Dara Happa is stated to have
invented clay tokens to solve the Remembering Problem. Written Laws came later although still before the Great Darkness. The Orlanthi were still neolithics in Sheepskins at this time so I doubt that Issaries or Sarries Goldentongue invented writing.

Clever guy, that Murharzarm. To be fair, when GROY was written in (about 300ST or so), Plentonius mentioned one of the woundings of Antirius was: "An emperor wrote down the law and then used those writings to kill a friend". (As close as I can remember it.)
This implies that the DH's of Plentonius' time still distrusted written laws. Presumably they were just coming out of an oral and somewhat flexible legal tradition.
Or perhaps Plentonius was influenced by Khordavu's ideas. Since K was from Zarkos (a tribal land), had tatoos and heroquested, he may have brought a storm worshipper's distrust of written law to his court.

Pam


End of Glorantha Digest V2 #64


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