> "Oh no they're not." OK, their bloodlines are exogamous, which
> IMO is fundamentally what a (Heortling) bloodline is _for_...
> Rumours that they have leaders, own communal property, etc,
> are hotly denied here in Elkenval. ;-)
I think there's such a tremendous range of variation across Sartar, which makes it simpler for narrators in individual campaigns and almost impossible for the silly bugger who's trying to tie it all together in an introductory essay. :)
Not to mention inconsistent use of terminology across the sources.
I believe that if a clan is small, bloodlines may be little more than conceptual categories for things like exogamy and communal rights and responsibilities. However, if a clan is large, or dispersed geographically, then bloodlines become more important, and in some cases may in fact almost be 'mini-clans'.
Add the fact that a bloodline is not the same as a lodge or hearth, which is not the same as a stead, even though all three overlap to a certain degree, and there's flame fodder to get your through the longest Dark. A stead may compromise one hearth belonging to one bloodline. It may also comprise four or five hearths belonging to several different bloodlines. A bloodline will typically run several hearths spread over a number of different steads. Except when they don't. etc.
My shorthand for a bloodline is an extended family, usually centred on a living senior male, his brothers and three, four or five generations of descendants, hangers-on and adoptees. A bloodline is also a family corporation, one in which all adults hold shares and hold corporate rights and responsibilities. Membership is somewhat flexible, as opposed to membership *eligibility*, which is based on patrilineal descent.
Communal property? The focus of a bloodline is running a stead or series of steads, so communal rites that have been granted by the clan ring and communal property in key equipment makes a lot of sense. Such communalism ma kes a lot of sense when you're dealing with extended families and a descent system based on brothers working together in close cooperation. While this goes against the implicit "Orlanthi are paid-up wild and fwee Republicans" model that does seem to have crept in in some places, it makes them not so much filthy red commos as communal-negotiation type anarchists with a lot of respect for grandad.
Any family group has its leader. How formal or informal this leadership is is going to vary erormously in different situations. Most bloodlines IMO have some sort of recogniseable senior male or group of males. Even more obviously, each lodge has its senior woman - mistress of the hearth. Cross her and you're really trod on the cow pat.
I will leave it to Alex to point out, in loving and excruciating detail, why I am wrong about this. :) Obviously, his Elkenvali are an odd lot: why they probably mate with their sisters and eat goat meat!
> But that's certainly one way to leave you clan in fact, if not
> in law: marry out. Obviously this is the reason why some men
> are happy to be underhusbands, Esrolian husbands, etc: the wife's
> folks aren't are bad as your own. ;-)
In Heortling society, kinship is both normative and often fictive. It often works by reverse logic - you're useful, so you *MUST* be related. Swapping clans could happen any number of ways by osmosis once you've moved elsewhere. Underhusbands would almost certainly be full members of their wife's bloodline in all practical ways. Real-world kinship is always much messier than the models dictate.
Marriage in itself does not affect your clan membership, though it does affect the clan membership of your children. Women don't change clans on marriage, just the place where they live. (This is why burning down steads and killing the women in them as well as the men (al la Burning Njal and Jeff Richard's otherwise excellent law article) is such a major NO-NO for Heortlings - do that and instead of feuding with one clan you're suddenly feuding with three or four.)
BTW, King of Sartar reports that exogamy is about both sex and marriage. It's not, its about marriage, and I think this was (barring some searing Metcalfian rationale) a simple stuff-up on Greg's part. Exogamous bloodlines mean you marry out, not that you abstain from sex. In principle, I don't believe there's any real ban on sex within a bloodline, barring the incest taboo (which is a subtle shade or three removed from exogamy) and the experience of real world communal groups that indicates you rarely have much desire for those you've grown up with (the Kibbutzim or 'forbidden fruit' defence).
Cheers
John
nysalor_at_primus.com.au John Hughesjohnp.hughes_at_dva.gov.au
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #812
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