Sandy in a post made on the rules-digest talked about gloranthan merfolk and then remarked that there was one (cetoi) race that lived off the shores of Umathela which was related to the Manatees but did not look as ugly. They became extinct at the during the First Age and both the Elves and the Men blame each other for the deed. Presumably this is the origin of the observations in the Gloranthan Beastiary that some humans on the Pamaltelean Shores worship Manatees.
This raises an interesting question for the Lascerdans of Umathela. They are reported in Elder Secrets to have been exterminated by the Elves when their slash-and-burn tactics. Yet when the Lascerdan River Gods come to claim their revenge, they drown out the God Learner Universities. Given that we know that there are human populations before the God Learners came despite Elder Secrets (Proto-Sedalpists and descendants of the Storm Invaders), it seems to me the humans and elves have conspired in the first age against the other dominant species ('You knock off our enemies and we'll knock off yours') in the region.
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #639
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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