Star Bears: Mythos & History of Arakang

From: Andrew Behan <ajbehan_at_maedhbh.maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 20:40:12 +0000 (GMT)


(What follows is speculation on my part, reasonably constructive criticism isn't so much encouraged as begged for.)

The region now known as Doblian and specifically the western land of Arir was a hunter-gatherer society until the middle of the Second Age. The natives were backward tributaries of the Dara Happans in the Concilliar period, and of the Empire of Gloom for most of the Second Age. In common with the rest of the Pelorian basin it was heavily wooded and had heavy soil which could not be turned by the light pony drawn ploughs of the civilized Dara Happans and Pelandans.

The dispersal of Carmanian iron plough in the ninth and tenth centurty precipitated the rapid decline, or transformation, of the formerly dominant hunter cults: Kenestrata, Orogeria and Arakang. The new cults of Oravinos, Turos and Oria came to prominence and the old ways survived in the rugged foothills of the Yolp Mountains and in the northeast near Mount Jenalf.

The agriculturalists and their new Carmanian overlords, with their penchant for hilltop qasirs, came into conflict with the mountainy men. The tale of Oravinos and Arakang reflects this hostility. Dara Happan tradition, which disapproved, of saleseh and bear deities, provided religious justification for persecution. To defame them further settled folk gave the tale of Purendi a materialist gloss as a cannibalistic orgy.

The Arakang cultists formed a covert spirit cult offering one non-hunting spell to its miserable backwoods followers who came to accept their scapegoat status. The raising of sacraficial bear cubs and the attendant festivities took on a secretive, even sinister tone in the four centuries between the appearance of agriculture in the region and the Lunar conquest of Carmania. Its devotees were the downtrodden, the dispossessed, slightly crazy and downright dangerous. It was a secret society, an outlaw cult of witches and brigands just like Orlanth (only kidding)

The Lunars subverted this completely. The mountainy men were early allies of the New Moon Queendom, and converts to the Lunar creed such was their desperate need for support. Rufelza-Orogeria's conquest of the Star Bears in Hell was, at one level, an allegory for this association. Like the Star Bears the Bear Witches were considered to be subdued foes, turned loyal servants by their new masters rather than as equals. Nevertheless their link with the Star Bear Rider earned them tolerance as a Lunar sub-cult, particularly in Doblian.


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