"Fightin' Joe" Baumgartner and "Killer Kiwi" Metcalfe appear engaged in a spectacular battle over the First Age West and the early Godlearners. Since it is a three-day weekend for me, I figured I'd jump into the fray - at least the Ralian portion of it.
Peter wrote:
>The people of Galin are Malkioni first and not Theyalan. To them,
>the Theyalans are grubby little savages who live in the wop-wops
>over in the east. Their major cultural traditions are derived
>from the Malkioni, Arkat and their ancient horse-riding traditions.
Really? Oddly, I've long believe that least during the First Age, the Galininae were likely significantly influenced by the missionaries of the Unity Council and by the later High Council of the Lands of Genertela. Such influence is the sine quo non of the term "Theyalan". As an aside, in the First Age, I'm afraid it would be rather hard for the Ralian lowlanders to look at the Theyalans as "grubby little savages".
>They have never been conquered by the Orlanthi. So why should they
>be overly influenced by Theyalan Ideals?
Again I'm curious why you write this - my understanding is that the spread of the Orlanth cult and Theyalan ideals in the Dawn Age had little to do with conquest. I suspect that by the time of the First Dari Alliance, the lowlanders of Ralios (presumably including the Galininae) were significantly influenced by Theyalan ideals - which includes the existence of the Orlanth cult.
JB>Not really, no. The Humathi seem to, though, since the separation
Maklamann
>incited when he made Humath Swordlord semi-apart from Lokamayadon's Storm
>Brothers - while Humath never was as important as all-encompassing
cultural
>deity of the Enerali, the general idea of the Enerali at the time of
Arkat's
>Crusade seems to have been "storm-worshippers".
PM>The Dari Alliance was a seperate state from the Empire of Light. So
>why would Maklaman need to make Humath semi-seperate from Lokaymadon's
>Cult? Secondly the Ralians had storm gods long before they came into
>contact with the World Council.
My impression is that the Dari Alliance was within the sphere of cultural influence of the Bright Empire. For what it is worth I actually think the prime actor in separating the Humath cult from the storm gods was Arkat himself. Separating Humath from the Storm seems to me to have been one way to prevent it from falling under the influence of the High Storm.
Jeff
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