Great Humakt

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_bigfoot.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:32:21 +1200


Peter Larsen:

>Me>You are mixing mythologies which makes your conclusion flawed.
> >Humakt and Shargash come from separate cultures and do not
> >interact in the world-destroying stage. If you want a God
> >Learned explanation for this, you can blame it on the
> >disintegrating world.

>Well, if a Dara Happan was asked who killed Humakt, wouldn't he say
>Shargash?

Shargash still does not fight Humakt in the destruction of the world. What a worshipper might say has no bearing on this.

> >Under another definition, a greater god was one that owned a
> >rune (thus Uleria for love, Orlanth for air). Humakt certainly
> >fulfills this criteria with his death rune ownership.

> Well, does that definition have any teeth anymore?

AFAIK it still does.

>Pretty much every god and hero owns their own rune now.

But there's a big difference between the rune of a god and the ownership of a primal rune. Humakt has a death rune for his personal rune which just so happens to be one of the ten ancient polarites listed in HW:RiG p161. Likewise Chalana has Harmony, Eurmal Disorder, Ernalda Earth and Orlanth Storm. The same is not true for gods like Urox, Heler or Odayla.

>Besides, Chalana Arroy "owns" a rune and she isn't a Great God.

Yes, she does. She's been so since RQ3.

>Mastakos owns a rune, and he's a subcult.

I would read the Mastakos definition again if I were you. He has a separate identity from Orlanth and is explicitly stated there not to be a guise of Orlanth. He is also associated with Magasta (in the Mer Pantheon) and perhaps Larnste as well (depends on how bad his leg is).

> >Shargash does not represent life. His Death is necessary for
> >Life to exist but that is different.

>According to Enclosure 1 (as far as I know the best source of
>information on Shargash to date), Shargash, as Alkor, is "husband to Oslira
>and father of all the peoples of Alkoth" (Enclosure 1, p. 35).

He divorced Oslira in mythic times. This from the Blue Dragon Sshorga myth which was once the myth of the month up at www.glorantha.com.

         "Embrace me," taunted Oslira, "Come and hold me with those
         big manly hands Shargash. Come and touch me once again, you
         who were my husband. Come close and wrestle with me, you who
         betrayed your oath when you left me. Come and let me surround
         you once again, you who have sworn never to touch me..."

         Oslira laughed a roaring laugh, for she was right. Shargash had
         made those oaths and he could not, dared not, to touch her. He
         had broken one oath already when he rejected her, and for him
         touch her again meant he would break another which would cause
         a terrible weakening of his soul. He knew he would hiss out 
of existence himself, as his red hot bolts had done.

Secondly merely because Shargash is described as ancestral to the people of Alkoth does not make him a fertility deity. By that logic, Bagog, Thed and Malia are fertility deities.

>One of his Secret Names is "Stick and Stone -- Shargash holds the
>power of fertility, just as new green shoots sprout after a brushfire."

That is an interpretation of Shargash's names and Stone and Stick refers more probably to weapons. The actual list of Shargash's names is (this is Alkothi material BTW):

         Shargash is/the Devourer,/ the Purifier,/ the Foremost,/
         Stone and Stick,/Destroyer of Umatum,/Conqueror of
         Kargzant,/Crippler of Elmalus,/Caster down of Lesilla,/
         the Thunderer,/the Wielder of the the Skyspears,/ the
         Lord of Ashes,/and Lord of the Dark Way.
                         GRAY p101

Doesn't sound like a god of life and death.

>Outside of Alkoth, Shargash is worshipped in fewer forms, all (I assume)
>concerned with violence.

Outside of Alkoth, Shargash is worshipped only in a propitiatory sense.

>In my reasoning (which could be wrong), this makes
>Shargash a Great God in Alkoth but not elsewhere. It's similar to the way
>that Maran Gor is a fairly simple minor god in Sartar, but a Great God in
>Tarsh.

I'm not a great fan of the implication that belief is what makes a god great.

>Yelm is; he is the Sun, the Holder of Justice (maybe its source),
>the God of Rulers, the Allfather, Bringer of Fertility (you don't think
>it's those yucky women, do you?), etc.

And so why does Humakt not get to be a great god because of his aspects as the Sword (Hu), the Master of Weapons (Kargan), the Leader of Battles (Efrodar Blackhands), the Loyal One (Maklamann), the Nightwatchman (Rigsdal)?

> Uleria (Uleria again!) is a Special Case. I doubt if she is a Great
>God in the sense that a whole culture worships Her (although there's that
>Zoria place),

Uleria happens to be an important divinity in Pelanda.

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