>Odd. One would have thought they had to be taken down first
>and then packed away. Most horse's backs are not big enough to
>accommodate a Yurt that has been tossed on them.
>
Oh good - if you can't argue with facts, try bloody mindedness...
>> >Perhaps you ought to look at Praxian Housing on p12 of the Players
>> >Book: Genertela where it makes the distinction between house tents
>> >(everything is unpacked for stays of more than a week in one area)
>> >and travel tents (smaller, less comfortable, defensible etc).
>
>>So what?
>
>Try reading the next few sentences and find out.
>
The point is that how the praxians live has little to do with how the pentans live. The description here is NOT of a yurt, and therefore is irrelevant.
>>If the Pentans live in Yurts - which has a real meaning
>
>Then perhaps you better give us the benefit of your pedantry for
>in this thread, we have already been given two radically different
>meanings of a Yurt. FWIW by the more linguistically correct
>definition that I've seen, your definition is completely and
>utterly wrong.
>
Yurts were tents used by a variety of nomadic steppe dwellers. They were designed to be moved rapidly, either through folding or by placing on the back of a cart, as a defense against attack by mounted raiders.
>Yes, they do. They are nomads living in harsh terrain and they have
>mobile housing.
>
But do they live in yurts or in more permenant structures? If their dwellings cannot be repidly moved, they ain't yurts...
>>Yurts are specifically designed to be quickly moved. In the real world
>>a yurt and it contents can be packed and ready to move in well under
>>an hour.
>
>So "tossed on a horse and ridden away" really meant something
>like "packed and ready to move in well under an hour"? With
>such loose definitions on your part, why can you not expand
>those definitions just a little further to accommodate my
>statements and save yourself the hassle of disagreeing?
>
A yurt has a real meaning, and what you are describing is not it. I'm quite happy for your Char Un not to live in such tents, but more permenant structures, owning more wealth, etc. I'd just like a more appropriate word - - maybe 'tent'?
>>If this is not true of
>>your Pentans, they do not live in Yurts - find another word.
>
>Are you speaking of English Yurts or Mongolian Yurts?
>
I've never heard the word used in English except to describe the tents used by various steppe tribes, including (but not limited to) the mongols.
>>Specialisation is a relatively modern concept - it was not found amongst
>>the various steppe nomads in the real world, who could happily ride and
>>bleed the same horses.
>
>But those steppe nomads herded cattle, wheres the CharUn do
>_not_. Therefore the CharUn are obliged to specialize their
>horses, which contrary to your statement is not a modern
>concept.
>
This makes no sense. Not all steppe nomads herded cattle - sheep and goats were (are) equally common, if not more so, but that's a minor point. Why does the CharUn lack of cattle mean they have to specialise their horses? In the real world, the typical pattern was :
riding horse : whichever one is currently fittest. blood horse : One I'm not going to ride for a bit. Meat horse : One which is too old/injured to keep.
Why would the CharUn be different? We have reasonable evidence that the Praxians aren't... Even today where a vast amount of specialisation occurs, mixed herds are rare - most farmers maintain one breed of cattle at a time.
Specialisation occurred in the sense that traits that were desired were breed for, but within a given area, only one such specialisation would occur. People simply did not have the resources or knowledge to start seperating meat cattle from milk cattle until recent times. What exceptions do you have for this?
>> The only horses that were not suitable for riding
>>were used for meat, not kept with the herd.
>
>And where did the nomads store these meat horses when
>they weren't hungry if they didn't keep them with a
>herd?
>
They ate them, or dried the meat over fires. If attacked during the butchering process they would abandon them. The one thing they would NOT do is keep them with the herd.
>>At the end of the day, Peter seems to want his CharUn not to be Mongolian
>>style steppe nomads,
>
>The Pentans are not Mongolian style Steppe Nomads, according
>to statements by both Greg and Sandy. Huns might be a more
>appropriate parallel but strict parallels with the Huns or any
>other RW steppe nomads are inappropriate for the CharUn because
>none of them had any taboos about cows.
>
Hmmm. There isn't actually that huge a difference between the huns and mongols - at least as far as the technology is concerned. The major difference is that the huns never ruled the second largest empire the real world ever saw, and maintained it through internal organisation. I'd guess this is the part of the model Greg/Sandy object to. Otherwise objecting to the mongols but accepting the huns makes no sense.
Not that any such parallel is anything other than a starting point for understanding. However, I'm going to stick with my image of the CharUn as warriors mounted on ponies breed for speed and stamina, armed with stirrups and bows, understanding the power of terror against the soft settled people, and avoiding raids on their women and children by picking up everything they own and getting out of the way. If you wish to see them as more settled, feel free, but that makes them too similar to other cultures (Grazelanders especially spring to mind) for my tastes.
Graham
Positive, adj:
To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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