Sun Domers - Burial Customs

From: MOBTOTRM_at_vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 22:07:35 +1000


G'day all,

Sun Domers - Burial Customs & Better Spiritual Communion Through Drugs...

Pam ponders:
>I'm not sure about the Sun Domers. They may have a general wood
>shortage, and may bury their dead. But they always seemed to have a
>pretty strong earth connection as well.

Yep, they do: Yelmalio and Ernalda are considered husband and wife in Sun County, after all!

Sun Dome funerary practices are described in Sun County: 'the dead are burned at dusk with smokeless fires*. Services begin with great mourning and the burning, then wine or beer follow, as do victory peans and the call for the soul to join with the Sun. At dawn the sunrise is read for omens , and the ceremony concludes.'

*wood is a valuable commodity in Sun County, and one of the biggest outlays at a funeral is paying for the pyre. Poor folk make do with a couple of the special 'smokeless' logs and build the rest of the bonfire out of dried rushes from the river. Everyone just pretends the smoke ain't getting in their eyes...

Note that after the solemn bits, everyone gets plastered as part of the funeral rites. So, hearkening back to the recent debate between Peter M. and Ian G. over whether uptight Yelmies use ecstatic trances to better commune with their god, here's some positive evidence! And come to think of it, the retired priests in their towers staring at the sun until they go blind are most likely in some sort of meditative euphoric state (at least those in towers voluntarily!).

Jean wrote:
>+Light sons restrictions
>I think that outside Prax, light sons are allowed to ride sky animals
>and not restricted to horses. This comes from the Solitude of testing. This
>rule was made to avoid going native. It allowed the Sun County to remain
>different from the zebra and the ostrich nations. (ostrich are sky animals,
>zebra are part sky animals).

This is an excellent theory - fitting very well with the idea that the Sun Domers grimly and resolutely held on to their cultural identity even when under nomad domination - and I like this even more:

>Since only men are conscripted in the militia, a way to dodge the draft
>is to wear a woman's dress. As officers, Light sons are to be examples
>of courage and fortitude. They should not give a bad example to the troops.

A pungently MGF-able theory, and should be added to the various other reasons why good Sun Domers now won't be seen dead in frocks! At the last Convulsion I was part of the Yelmalio HeroQuest group, and the HQ we came up with was to overturn the 'Curse of Rampant Tranvestitism' that had once again blighted the Sun Dome lands...

Peter M writes:
>Me:There is no evidence in the Pavis Boxed Set to support the following:
>: a) Solanthos Ironpike fancies Little Boys.
>: b) the banned crop Hazia.
>: c) a second abandoned Sun Dome Temple.
>: d) a Yelmalio worshipping Baboon

Peter is completely right here - the rumors about me having access to an ancient photocopy of an idle doodle Stafford made on a napkin at a Taco Bell in Des Moine, Iowa 1968 describing a spear-weilding dope-smoking pederast and his Sun-crazed baboon offsider who live in the identical replica of an old ruined temple just down the road is [mostly] incorrect*.

>:Yet this did not stop de MOB from creating them for Sun County. So
>:why should I have to *find* non-existant evidence to support my
>:theory? I'm making it up just like MOB did.

Yep, Pete's getting his stuff from the same well-spring of inspiration as me, Ian and everyone else on this group and even ultimately Greg does.

*It was actually a Pizza Hut napkin.

Cheers

MOB


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