> Jane Williams has suggested that Heortling teens are
> infertile until Initiation -- the process of initiation makes them,
> literally, adults.
Given that women are initiated soon after menarche, this seems somewhat circular reasoning. Harmast's Saga gives an example of a male teen who has furtive sex before his initiation. There's a fairly detailed section in TR on initiation - it mentions prohibitions or sex and magic, but nothing about fertility.
> I would think relations within the stead are bad, within the bloodline
> almost as much, and between bllodlines somewhat more acceptable, as long
as
> you don't do something stupid like want to marry the oaf.
I did a summary/issues paper on Heortling exogamy and sex on the HW list a day or two ago. Can I assume that most folk subscribe to both, or should I repost here?
>
> >Sleeping with a trickster definitely counts as adultery, and by
> >extrapolation where there is a total (Yelmic All) taboo as incest as
well.
Incest aversion is a genetic psychobiological disposition given particular form by cultural traditions. It is therefore malleable. While some form of incest taboo is universal in humans and in many animal species as well, in humans there are important cultural differences as to the form it takes. There have always been partial exceptions in humans - Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, the Azande, Peru, Hawaii. In many tribal societies, the schema is very different to the Christian West, and follows extremely diverse geneological paths. Heortlings are an example of this, where incest categories seem to flow from common lineage, not degree of geneological closeness.
In certain Burmese tribes for example, sex with your mother is adultery not incest, and sex between half brother and sister is permissable. Some societies may *no* legal attention to incest whatsoever. Incest conventions flow from the social and kinship structures of a *particular* clan with a *particular* history.
The question of the allegedly deleterious effects of inbreeding is quite complex, and there is no clear or simple answer. We have had quite small tribal populations who have survived thousands of years in complete isolation with no noticeable deterioration. The Tasmanian Aboriginals for instance, who were isolated for thousands of years after the flooding of Bass Strait, and who never numbered more than a few thousand.
Hurriedly (my apologies)
John
As far as I know, we are the only people who think ourselves savages; everyone else believes they descend from gods.
Powered by hypermail