>Castes? In Dara Happa?
As recent as about 1230 when Valare Addi was born as a "Third-Minus-Less;
that is, a younger (or Less) daughter (Minus) of a craftsman (Third)". She
was born in Estekoi, "a small town in northern Vonlath, upon the south shore
of the Vosel River, upriver from its confluence with the Oslira. It was
then, as now, an
important ferry point, though now it is considered to be a suburb of Good
Shore." (From the Entekosiad, available to non-Aussies from next weekend on.)
>The social system described by Plentonius
>has long since changed.
Not that much, it seems.
>But more importantly, _if_ the Yelm Cult
>was originally restricted to the nobility (which I doubt) then there
>will be a surplus of people who cannot be supported by the economy in
>a dilletante lifestyle.
I have to support this angle, though. However, Pam's observation about prolific Yelmies with 12 surviving offspring (how many wives, parallelly or in succession, would such a Yelmie use up in the progress of childbirth?) is restricted to married Yelmies. It seems that to a lot of Yelmies, "doing it" seems unacceptable. How many third and later sons go into a celibate monkhood?
>Thus to keep living, they will have to get a
>job and thus migrate downwards into the lower social classes. Since
>the membership of Yelm is conferred by the fact that the father must
>have been one, we would see Yelm becoming an urban faith.
But not generally widespread.
We have (finally) learned that Orlanthi initiation is into the pantheon. What about the Yelmies? We know that they have specific initiation into the mysteries of Yelm (but so do the Orlanth subcults). Wouldn't any initiate of a city god be an associate of Yelm anyway, in Dara Happa?
>Lodril is not the intercessor between Yelm and Mankind. He is
>the Earth Father and is the major men's god of the peasantry.
This is an interesting point the God Learners managed to miss totally, making Lodril most of all a volcanic fire deity.
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