Howdy,
On a completely unrelated subject to the ongoing mythic discussion, I
thought I'd post a bit of Heortling economics to the Digest. In my Taming of
Dragon Pass Campaign (which takes place in 1346), farm and livestock
economics are crucial to the lives of my player characters. Today I thought
I'd talk about one aspect of this: Cattle.
Heortling cattle are bred in early Fire Season to drop their calves the
following Sea Season. The calves and their mothers are then driven to the
pasture lands and stay there until Earth Season, when the calves, by then
weighing around 300 pounds, are weaned. By the next Earth Season, the
full-grown yearlings probably weigh around 500-600 pounds. A cow generally
goes into a decline after its seventh year of life and, in normal
circumstances, only two out of every five cows raises a calf each year.
In the course of my campaign, our players found themselves possessing
more cattle than they could feed during the winter. Rather than butcher
their stock, an enterprising Dave Pearton asked, "can we offer people
cattle/sheep in exchange for the first born or can we ask people to take
care of some of our stock and then they get the first-born of them?"
The answer to this would have to be yes. The Heortlings have a myriad
of livestock arrangements, involving reciprocal responsibilities. The two
basic arrangements are the cattle loan, where a loanee borrows cattle and
pays the loaner renders for the privilege; and the cattle gift, where cattle
is given in exchange for ongoing debt. A handful of these possible
arrangements are described further:
- Cattle loan from social superior (patron-client) - free client.
Probably the most common livestock arrangement amongst the Heortlings. An
example of a free-client cattle loan would be a carl taking three cows in
loan from a chieftain or wealthy carl. For the first three years, he paid
back annually the equivalent of one-third of the loan - one cow in return
for a loan of three cows - so that by the end of three years the equivalent
of the loan had been restored. For the following three years, the equivalent
in value of one cow was paid over in dairy produce, calves and dung, or its
value. In the sixth year no payments were due at all, but in the seventh the
original loan (ie. the original animals) had to be returned to the patron.
Either party can terminate the relationship by restoring the loan, without
penalty. In addition to caring for his patron's stock, the free-client owed
his patron respect, support and manpower services.
- Cattle loan from social superior (patron-client) - base client. This is
a more onerous arrangement than the free-client loan and assumes that the
base client is economically dependent on the loan and lacks the social
resources to defend his status in social confrontations. Like with the free
client loan, the base client had to repay the value of the loan but the base
client had additional renders to pay and had a much broader range of
services. The base-client cannot terminate the arrangement without hefty
fines and other penalties. The base-client or bondi relationship is fairly
common amongst the Hendriki and the Heortlendings, but not so common among
the Quivini.
- Cattle gift from social superior (patron-client). A cattle gift is
quite different from a cattle loan. With a cattle loan, the client is in
effect paying for the privilege of taking care of his patron's stock, hoping
that the stock produces more than the payment takes. With a cattle gift, the
client owns the cattle outright, but owes the patron services and renders
until the client can compensate the patron for the value of the gift.
Because of the Heortlings place a high social value on the repayment of
debts freely taken (it has been called the "anvil upon which honor is
forged") the value of this compensation is determined more by the community
than by the parties directly involved.
- Cattle loan between equals. A cattle loan between folk of roughly
equivalent social resources tends to have less strings attached than the
free-client loan, since the loaner lacks the ability to enforce the
arrangement and has less to offer the loanee in terms of protection.
Generally such an arrangement involves simply the repayment of the loan plus
minimal renders and the return of the cattle after seven years.
- Cattle gift from equals. Social and political alliances are usually
cemented and often engendered by reciprocal gift-giving. As previously
stated, amongst the Heortlings, any gift requires a reciprocal action from
the recipient.
Yours truly,
Jeff Richard