Re: Ancestor Worship from David Weihe on 1999-01-06 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: David Weihe <weihe_at_eagle.danet.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 19:52:58 EST

Various individuals have pontificated on ancestor worship. I doubt that there is any one answer. For example, I doubt that the stone age tribes of Vietnam expected that the Special Forces soldiers that they adopted would cease to belong to the US Army (rather the opposite, I expect, since the tribesmen were serving as mercenaries for the US). Likewise, when Mark Antony was adopted by a plebian (so that Caesar could make him one of the tribunes) I doubt that he ceased offerings to the Antonine family spirits, or would have been expected to cease them. There was also a Persian emperor who adopted the heir of a Byzantine emperor, which ensured that the Romans would pick said heir when his father died before his son's majority. OTOH, typical adoptions in US society assumed that the adoptee would have no further contact with or claim upon the original blood line. The point is that different societies will view "adoption" differently, and possibly even have different adoption levels within the same society.

> Worshipping someone *else's* ancestors is rather silly

Worshipping them as YOUR ancestors would probably be, but worshipping them in the context of, for example, a vassal of a Yelmic House giving sacrifice to the Ancestors of his noble patron, might be reasonable. If not directly useful (ie, no spells) it still might have political implications (ie, being a loyal vassal).

Steve and Peter said
> Neither can adopted members (usually) hold clan official seats.

I disagree. If you trust them enough to adopt them, you would tend to trust them enough to hold office (maybe not king, but membership on the clan ring, certainly). In fact, sometimes families would probably "adopt" somebody just so that he COULD serve, when it is otherwise necessary (see Mark Antony above, or the Captain of Pavis according to the Pavis box).

Keith Nellist
> Why would the shaman or the ancestors want
> some non-family member worshipping them?

Spirits always want worship, it is the easy route to getting and maintaining their mana levels. Non-blood ancestors may not be as easily treated as blood (eg, only teaching the lower power levels of a spell), but then the power flow back to the spirit is probably not as efficient, either.

> > It makes me think of Humakt cutting his family ties, and Daka Fal is
> > not keen on Humakt.
> I guess this has something to do with Humakt being the cause for
> Grandfather Mortal's transformation into Daka Fal. But don't the Daka
> Fali recognize Death as a necessety?

I would guess that when a Humakti goes through kin-severing it cuts the link that Daka Fal uses. Thus, if your great^4 grandfather severed kin you can't get access to your great^5 grandparents (except through alternate routing). This would probably be viewed by the DF priest-shaman as sacrilege, even if death is abstractly necessary.