Peter asked for Darkness traits.
> If the Spear's origin is AA (and I doubt it very strongly), that does
> not make the Colymar 'dominated by darkness like the Torkani' are.
I never claimed that. The clans and tribes which formed the Volsaxi weren't troll lovers either.
>>And the Colymar claim that the Kitori granted them safe passage.
> An enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Only as long as they keep fighting my enemy, otherwise they are easy prey since neither your friends nor your foes are going to help them.
Peter worries about the clan structure coping with living not all in one place. I suggested:
>>By allowing sub-clans to develop.
> Why don't the sub-clans just split up and call themselves normal
> clans?
Because a larger clan has more access to their joint ancestors magic.
>>IMO the Hendriki oversized clans are loathe to call themselves >>"tribes" in the Alakoringite way, so they cling to the clan >>structure and tamper with it.
> I don't see why this should be so.
> Most of the Sartarites who
> are descended from the Hendriki do not follow this custom and
> it is not hinted at in the Report on the Orlanthi.
How many of the Sartarite immigrants are descended from the Hendriki proper, and how many are descended from one of the other "four large tribes" which make up the population of Heortland? IMO the Hendriki are the dominant, most populous tribe of Heortland (of the size of a tribal confederation), with the other three something of a relic.
Generally, Heortland is about as inhomogeneous in its composition as the worshippers of Orlanth along the Upper Tanier River - arch-traditional family-group clans high up in the mountains, "standard Orlanthi" in the foothills of the Storm Mountains, and feudalized and urbanized on the flat plateau and along the coast (where there is also a sizeable Pelaskite minority), with increasing Malkionisation.
> Furthermore
> Questlines shows the Volsaxi tribes occupying territories roughly
> the same size as the Sartarites.
The Volsaxi tribes were formed as full tribal entities only when their tributary and suppressed status by the Kitori was lifted.
In the early the Third Age, the Kitori were dominating the valleys of Creek-Stream River and Lysos River south of the Crossline. Their troll component allowed them a limited trade across Dragon Pass, which they did trough a route via Whitewall, then in their hands. They ruled over numerous scattered clans and tribelets whom they oppressed probably as much as the Vendref are suppressed by the Grazers - i.e. they were very limited in their military potential, forced to pay strong tribute, etc. I don't think that the Kitori had a mythical explanation for this tribute, strength alone sufficed.
BTW, one of the first blows to their dominant position would have been the formation of the Lead Hills and the swamping of much of the best river valley land in 1318.
> So why would the Heortlanders
> suddenly adopt a radically different system of clans in the ten or
> so years after the Colymar migrated?
A clan which has renounced the ties to those who would not follow (or rather vice versa, at least in the case of the Malani who seem to have been outlawed in large numbers, formed up a clan or even tribe, and marched northward).
IMO very many of the refugees came from the border between the lowland (plateau) Hendriki and the highland clans when the westernized Hendriki expanded their feudal system into the lower valleys from 1320 to 1350 (at least). The hill clans had the choice to resist and be crushed, to submit, or to pack up and leave. IMO most submitted, many left for higher valleys (already settled, compare the Sambarri arrival in Torkani lands) or new opportunities (Praxian Marches, Dragon Pass).
>>After switching from the careless "nobody will attack us" mode >>of settlement (which seems to have worked with strong patrons >>disallowing fortifications - do you expect Vendref villages to >>have stockades?) to the Alakoringite hill fort settlement.
> Which does not require any change in clan structure.
Peter misses the point I wanted to make: IMO many immigrants from northern Kethaela had been living as tributaries to the Kitori, not as as proud and free Orlanthi as they want to see themselves. IMO the Colymar belong to this sort of immigrants (unlike the Malani, who were a warband with noncombatants dragged along rather than settlers waiting to recultivate the land).
>>There were no Volsaxi prior to Tarkalor's coup which removed the >>Kitori rulers. There were subject clans who paid tribute to the >>Kitori.
> Furthermore 'An Earlier Argrath' explicitly mentions
> the Volsaxi as having existed before Tarkalor (ie 'when Tarkalor was
> among the Volsaxi...').
That's like referring to the Quivini lands of say 1450 as Old Sartar, or to say that Arkat landed in the Holy Country, or the Jrusteli built cities in the Holy Country - sloppy terminology. Also, when Tarkalor was there, the Volsaxi had formed as a warband to shake off the Kitori oppression, probably incited by the Sartarite prince.
>>We don't know how the Black Spear Clan led by Beneva and Colymar >>traveled before they reached the Cross Line, either.
> They would travel from A to B by the quickest way, methinks. Thus
> the Colymar came from near Whitewall.
As would all other immigrants to the Quivini hills.
If the Colymar had the choice between going west (into Grazer territory) or east (into the Quivini hills) this indicates they lived somewhere in the Creek-Stream River valley, with opportunities to cross it nearby.
> There is practically no room for an entire clan (according
> to you the size of a tribe!) to migrate to densely populated
> Esrolia and expect to maintain their integrity and to maintain tribal
> loyalties to a far-off tribe in another country!
That's where you misunderstood me. I don't say that the northern half of the Esrolian March has ever been as densely settled as the river valleys. IMO neither Longsi Land nor the North March are as densely settled as the plateau of Heortland, or have ever been. Esrolia's riches lie in the river valleys, not in its Skyreach foothills. That's also my reasoning why the people living there are closer to standard Orlanthi than the riverine population, though still with a stronger matriarchal slant.
I never claimed that the Colymar came from anywhere south of New Crystal City.
>>If tribal membership is an ancestral relation, I can't see why >>splinters maintaining an identity cannot live far from the main group.
> Tribes are not measures of Ancestral relations in the Third Age,
> Bloodlines are.
That's late Third Age Sartar, a country made up from immigrants. Middle Third Age triaties might be called a tribe or a clan with subclans, but certainly were based on ancestral relations. The original Colymar tribe was.
BTW, when did the (original) Karandoli enter the tribe? They quickly received a ruling house from the Arnoring clan after they first held tribal kingship, but the mention of the first foreign clan admitted to the tribe predates the rule of the first Karandoli king of the Colymar by only a few decades, if that many.
> IMO even in King Heort's Time, clans could defect
> from one tribe to another. There is no benefit in maintaining tribal
> affiliations when one moves into a new area in the third age.
Ok, bad wording on my part. I meant clan membership of clans scattered among other clans.
>>The Colymar severance of their ancestral ties seems to be unusual, >>and caused by the extreme situation when they entered a forbidden >>land.
> They did not sever any ties.
They ceased to contact their (Orshanti clan?) ancestors, who are invoked in all important worship services. This sounds pretty severe(d) to me.
> They simply formed a new clan which
> is the basic Orlanthi social unit.
IMO the atom of Orlanthi social structure is the individual, and the basic unit is the hearth, followed by the stead/village over-unit within the clan. At least the stead level is how economics work in Orlanthi society, and society and economics usually are interwoven.
>>(Note how the Pure Horse People survivors who formed the Grazers >>about 65 years before the Colymar entered did the same thing...)
> Did they?
They ceased to contact their ancestors, lest they be traced into Dragon Pass. (Sort of prevented "Divination" to the clan spirits by excommunicating themselves.)
> On Arkat's Command.
>>One thing which is different is that the Kitori tribe (of trolls, at >>least) seems to have continued to lord over humans. They, or any >>other local troll group in charge of collecting (and using up?) >>the tribute would have mustered against a breach of this privilege, >>I suppose. And may have won.
> The Kitori do not lord it over humans, they have a mutual
> relationship with a human tribe.
Yes. They also lorded over the clans which were forged into the Volsaxi confederation by young Tarkalor.
> I should point out that the Kitori were enemies of the OOO
> as they supported the God Project (as per Lords of Terror).
That's documented for the human Kitori. I don't know if the Kitori tribe on the 2nd Council included trolls at all. It may well be a consequence of the OOO remembering this fact which led to the human-troll tribe. (Obviously humans are better trollkin than the original...)
>>>I think instead the division of Dragon Pass was 50:50 between the >>>OOO and Dagori Inkarth.
To abbreviate this part of the discussion, I don't. The OOO collected from the lands around the Shadow Plateau, which did overlap with the Heortling lands along the lower Creek-Stream River, perhaps up to the Lakes. The Sazdorf Trolls definitely belong to Dagori Inkarth, those of the Troll Woods to the OOO. I don't know much about the situation in the former Jorganostelli lands (modern Grazelands and Esrolian North March).
> I'm not talking about Holay., I'm talking about Dragon Pass. The
> OOO would have had collected Arkat's Command from the southern half
> of Dragon Pass at least.
Why? He had all of Esrolia to collect from.
>>IMO the OOO ruled over the Hendriki who, as supporters of Arkat, >>would have had a better deal.
> All Heortlings (Hendriki included) fought against Nysalor. For their
> pains, they are made subjects of the trolls and have to pay a
> loathsome tax. Somehow I think Arkat has acted true to his nature
> and shafted his human supporters.
Quite a lot of Heortlings submitted to Palangio's rule when the Obsidian Palace and the Hendriki in the mountains held out. IMO the Hendriki rebel families proper were exempt of the tax, whereas those who remained under Palangio's rule had to pay. I view Arkat's Command much like the diwan paid to the original Muslim conquerors of Iraq and Egypt into the middle of the Abbasid dynasty.
To explain the parallel: In essence, the muslims of a province were assigned diwan (stipend) to be paid from the ata (head tax) paid by the non-muslim population of the province. This diwan originally was a hereditary income for the role these warriors had played in the spread of the Caliphate (and to keep them ready for action should the need arise, as well), and later applied to all muslims in the province during the heiday of the early caliphate, converts or immigrants. With increasing numbers of converts (and resulting less payers of the ata) this system was prone to break down. The diwan first was restricted to the descendants of the original conquerors, and finally removed at all, redirected to the turkish mercenary troops.
This stipend for accomplished warriors and their descendants taken from the non-muslims also had its exemptions: a couple of christian Arabs had assisted in the conquest of Iraq and, while not recipients of the diwan, achieved exemption from the ata.
To get back to Arkat's command: the role of the trolls in the Gbaji-wars is undisputed. Arkat gave them a stipend for their success against the Bright Empire, not for their (immense, compared to the Heortlings - the Trollkin Curse!) suffering from the empire. The Hendriki, who had persisted in their resistance as well, would have been "rewarded" with an exception to the general rule that Heortlings (who had profited from the success of the trolls) would pay a tribute. This would also explain why the high kings of the Heortlings (or "of Heortland") were Hendriki afterwards.
IMO the influence of the Hendriki kings of the Heortlings dimmed when Arkat's command was shaken off from the north, farthest from the Hendriki. If Saird and northern Kerofinela still were "Heortland", at least the Hendriki kings had lost any influence when they failed to help to shake off Arkat's Command.
The rise of the EWF prevented an otherwise interesting challenge of a new dynasty of northern Heortlings against the Hendriki. Instead, a new religious movement took over the rule (and converted many rulers). The Hendriki kings were able to save their face in the shelter of the Only Old One, and like the OOO they practiced a policy of friendly independence from the Draconic movement. Which left them open for the Jrusteli incursions...
> But the Hendreiki were never originally subjects of the OOO. They
> took over their land when the OOO was facing extinction as a result
> of the losses at the Battle of Night and Day and the Trollkin Curse.
> So Arkat has subjugated a previously free people and made them helots
> to the OOO. Nice one, Arkat!
One possible interpretation.
The official line goes more like: "In the hour of greatest need, the Only Old One interceded with his mother, and offered a formerly waste land as a haven to those who would continue to fight the Bright Empire. Arkat rewarded those who went with him all the way, not those whose labour (and magic!) had supported his enemies."
Neither statement is all true or all false.
I said "read Geolgin Askarios"
> One Hegelian Quisling does not a benevolent regime make. Geolgin is
> quite unusual as he comes from the _Stygian_ Temple of Lhankor Mhy.
> One is given a vision of Lhankor Mhy Sages dressed in black, with
> a few scrolls short of a shelf, trying to develop their darksense
> by wearing blindfolds...
Well, take off the blindfold, and recognize that the Stygian period of the Lhankor Mhy temple in Nochet is referred to. To my knowledge the temple files aren't stored by political cult factions (although that would make about as much sense as the strictly chronological "date of arrival" filing system...).
>>True. Neither mention of brutal oppression by the OOO, but the >>opposite. Of course Geolgin wrote propaganda (every contemporary >>historian aka chronist does), but was that pure propaganda?
> For one who claimed that rule by trolls is benevolent and contained no
> treachery, I certainly think so.
Don't you think that the "and contained no treachery" line is a statement like "Arkat becoming a troll was not treason, but necessary", meant to counter meaningless accusations that Arkat was a traitor to the Orlanthi cause? After all, Arkat never said he'd fight for the Orlanthi, he said he'd fight against the Bright Empire with all necessary means.
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