I just saw this old digest and wanted to write a comment on it.
Unfortunately
I still can't send messages to the digest for the benefit of everyone,
because everything I send to Chaosium STILL comes back. I thot I'd write
it
to you anyway.
Subject: The Glorantha Digest V5 #204
>I think his
>background explains his ability to _see_ things normally hidden
>to a mere Lhankor Mhy. Geolgar is, or becomes, what could be
>called "emotionally involved" in the ceremony. He is in a border
>region between "lay member" and inititate, because of his
>background. Therefore, he can observe both the ceremony's
>mundane ritual parts (with masks and implements etc), and parts
>of its actual God-time contents (the voice of Orlanth,
>Flintslingers on the horizon, a brief glimpse of Aroka etc).
Also, I do not think it is simultaneously possible for a person to both see the sacred meanings and the mundane representations of a ritual. Either you see a guy in a mask, or you see Orlanth. Maybe an illuminate could manage to see both (but see below), but I think that is it.
As we were in Zuni they just happened to be visited by Kachinas during
the
very same two hours we were there. We wondered what the drumming was
about
and went to look. As we came around a corner of the Pueblo a Kachina came
by
on his way to where the others were starting in a Kiva. I could see a man
in
a mask, AND AT THE SAME TIME a Kachina. I was totally awed and didn't
know if
I was allowed to be there, or look at him, or if one is supposed to do
something when a Kachina goes by. I watched him pass as I might any other
person who might attract notice, assuming even a Kachina is a person and should be treated relatively normally, but I didn't greet him or anything
because I was just some dumb white tourist out of place. To me this man
was a
real Kachina, altho I've never been brought up to believe this and don't
even
believe in my own culture's supernatural beings. I could see that he was
wearing a wooden mask with man-made accessories like plastic foliage, but
to
me he was a real Kachina too. We went to watch the ceremony, cautiosly
looking out for signals from the natives whether our presence might be
frowned upon, (no such signals). I saw the sacred beings performing the
rituals of another culture, and at the same time a group of men. That was
my
point. I'd just like to add that when I asked a girl who'd been sitting
nearby us on the roof of the Pueblo what the ritual was about, she looked
suddenly startled, as if I'd just appeared there out of thin air, and
said,
"rain". We'd been there for some time, before she came, and I'd heard her
speaking English with others so she wasn't just startled to hear English
and
try to understand and answer. The very youngest kids speak Zuni, but she
was
quite old enuf to speak English. I thot maybe she was dumbstruck that
anyone
wouldn't know that, like if I'd asked what my own feet were for. Of
course I
knew that much of their ritual involves summoning rain, but wanted to
know if
it was a particular thing. We talked with some Hopis later and found it
is
common that spontaneous rituals are put together without it being a
particular holiday. That is something else one could put in Glorantha.
That
people do an unplanned ritual for some reason, and not just on Holy Days.
The
Hopi man knew which Kachinas we'd seen by our description, even tho they
are
from another sub-culture. He is a speaker for the elders, and has powers
himself and tranforms into a Kachina to perform rituals.
Stephen Martin
(for Daniel Fahey)
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