Doraddi

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_voyager.co.nz>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 22:39:31 +1300 (NZDT)


David Cake:

>[I said 'the Doraddi think they are progressing away from the trappings of
>civilisation, and were actually more outwardly civilised before Hon
>Hoolbiktu']

Me>>I take completely the opposite view and posit John Hughes 'Left Footpath'
>>tribes as the original inhabitants of Jolar.

> The Doraddi views on the progress of civilisation originate with
>Sandy, and I like them too, more than I like the Left Footpath stuff, so
>I'm sticking with it for now, at least as representing recent history.

Recent? We're talking about the first age Doraddi tribes who were living amidst the ruins of the Artmali Empire and had memories of how ruthless and evil it was. The Doraddi have (bad) memories about the civilized nature of the Six-Leggers and thus would be more willing IMO to claim Hon returned them to a pre-six-legged mode of existance.

OTOH for their degeneration PoV to be valid, they would have to have tales about how wicked and corrupt the first age Doraddi were - less bad than the Artmali Empire but more bad than the Six Legged Empire. Which I find somewhat implausible. Thus IMO civilization is seen by the Doraddi as a Wicked Bad Thing which Stupid People try to introduce from time to time.

So most of the tribes running around Jolar in the first age were what we consider to be left-handed tribes. Some Oasis people might be more organized but they would be unable to spread beyond the bounds of the Oases and would have ambivalent relations with the plains tribes - they recognize common heritage, but the plains tribes see the Oasis folk as being Artmali-symps.

>Certainly, I think the Doraddi were more civilised in the Second Age, and
>are deliberately less so in the Third (and claim to be much happier for
>it), and this change is a result of Hon Hoolbiktu.

Yeah, but I'm talking about the _first_ age tribes before the six-leggers came, not the enslaved tribes of the six-legged empire.

> Definately. The Six Leggeds took over by taking the oases, building
>permanent forts at them, and then setting up roads between them. This is in
>stark contrast to the Doraddi way of doing things, where the oases are
>occupied by old people from a variety of tribes.

We don't know if that was done in the first age. I'm of the opinion that this was an innovation by Hon Hoolbiktu to prevent a resurgence of Oases culture.

>>>And the idea of Pamalt as the southern Earth King, Generts counterpart, is
>>>also something I don't think is original to the Pamaltelan religion, along
>>>with the attempt to turn his pantheon into an earth pantheon.

Me>>Considering that Pamalt is a natural chieftain figure, it gets very
>>hard to imagine him as not being the earth king.

> He is the chieftain over the earth gods, and all the earth gods and
>spirits obey him. But his relationship to the earth is very different to
>Generts. Genert was always an earth god, Pamalt as far as I can tell
>married into the Earth tribe (Faranar was an earth goddess), and his
>earliest recorded deeds are as a firebringer.

Pamalt has stronger connections with the Earth than Faranar who is a wife goddess IMO. In Sandy's tales (the one about Vangono and Sikkanos), Pamalt is described as being a grandson of Lodril who _is_ an Earth God.

But that wasn't the reason I considered him to have been an earth King before the God Learners. Consider the plains. Any chief god of savannah culture is bound to be seen as having dominion over the plains.

>Most of his early deeds
>(before Vovisibor) he performs with the cooperation of another, while
>Genert was always powerful himself. Generts connection to the land is
>direct, while Pamalt mostly maintains his control by the cooperation of
>other gods. Genert is exclusively an Earth god, Pamalt is a fire bringer
>(both the Promethean role, and uses fire as a weapon against Vovisibor and
>the Uz). Genert is fertility, Pamalt is stability.

How many myths about Genert do we have? He's a big giant who got his arse kicked at the Battle for Genert's Garden (and was a terrible child-minder if we can believe KoS). Thus to make a comparison between Genert and Pamalt is unsound IMO. It would be much wiser to make a comparison between Pamalt and (Genertelan) Lodril(s) before determining who is an Earth God and who is not.

Furthermore to deny that Pamalt is an Earth King because he does not manifest the same characteristics as Genert is also unsound methodology (and a tad close to God Learnerism IMO). He's bound to have some differences with Genert - hell, there's bigger differences among the many cults of Lodril that can be found.

> I think there is probably a myth where Pamalt actually gains his
>earth powers, rather than being a great earth being by nature.

_If_ this is true, so what? Lodril is an archetypal Earth God by nature and yet there are preserved myths about him having originally been from the Sky.

> Which is not to say that considering him as an earth king is in
>anyway wrong. Its just that saying 'the Pamalt pantheon is an earth
>pantheon, and Pamalt is the Southern Genert', which I believe was pretty
>much the God Learner view (though not necessarily the Six Leggeds) is very
>simplistic. Its another repeat of the classic God Learner 'here are two
>deities that occupy similar roles, they are obviously really much the
>same'.

If this is true then why did the God Learners give Pamalt the (Kinship) Power Rune rather than the Earth Rune that their theory dictated?

Dave Pearton:

DC>> Certainly, I think the Doraddi were more civilised in the Second Age, and
>> are deliberately less so in the Third (and claim to be much happier for
>> it), and this change is a result of Hon Hoolbiktu.

>I must admit that I support this view of Doraddi (d)evolution. Why would
>the Doraddi be so hypocritcal? They have all these marvelous examples of
>the evils of "progress" - the Artmali, 6-leggers. I can certainly
>concieve of an entire culture decieving itself in this manner - I just
>don't see any plausible reason why they should in this case (Occam's Razor
>and all that).

What would they be deceiving themselves about? The alien intrusive nature of the six-legged empire is fact AFAIK.

>I also have the ulterior motive of wanting mysterious ruins belonging to
>ancestral doraddi similar to the Zimbabwe ruins and the Matopas, etc. I
>can certainly see room for the equivalent of the Queen of Sheba, etc in
>Pamaltelan history.

You can have them. There is AFAIK some first age ruins in Kothar and plenty of Artmali ruins all over the place. But I was talking about Jolar.

>Peter, why do you see the need to believe that _everything_ that a culture
>says about itself in any published sources is a lie?

Before claiming that I'm up to my old tricks again (Deconstructionist Aspect, perhaps), perhaps you could point out what exactly I'm accusing them of lying about?

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