Thanks for your full reply I will oppose some of the views but I value your contribution, please don't end this with the YGWV deadlock.
I don't consider your opposition wrong, I am just trying to bring to the table a new point of view that may enlighten us on some of the finer issues of myth.
I am not really talking about Prax specifically but as you use it in your very clear and well considered argument I will stick with the theame.
>Two points: First, dual concepts are important, but
>it is a fallacy to conclude that one such dual concept
>is therefore central to their mythology.
This we may have to differ on, my perception of animism has death as a fundamental driver of mythology and informs all other concepts, I am wary of using the words duality or dualism as this is a misplaced concept and implies good v evil or at least opposition which is not gong to help me explain myself.
We do not have a clearly defined Glorantha, and self evidently never will have a totally defined one, and we do not have all the Praxian mythology to draw on.
We do have a lot of RQ2 and RQ3 period material which can give us insight into the major players in the myth, but again these figures have not been totally defined yet in HQ and until they are in print are always subject to change. This is a good thing as we can still inform and enrich the world as yet unpublished.
> Second, the dead/live duality is not so much part of
> the their _mythology_ as it is part of their
> _environment_. There are probably better ways to
> express it, but the point is when Praxians look for
> role models, they are not generally looking to Daka
> Fal or Horned Man. They look to Waha, Eiritha, and
> Stomr Bull, whose stories they tell with relish.
Actually looking at role models may be a good way of expressing it. I apologise for the following lenghty explanation of my views but I think you will see why I am laying out these ideas.
As I see it all societies and indeed all people to some extent build the totallity of their myth around great figures, but the choice of the main protagonists tends to dictate the surounding figures. These figures slowly build up a complete picture and form a jigsaw to help explain the world. But, importantly by the time the mian players are decided the rest have to fit into the hole left available or made apparent (some overlapping occurs).
So to return to Prax the main protagonists are Eiritha and Waha. This is unusual in myth as we often start with man and wife. Eiritha marries the Storm Bull and their union results in Waha. Storm bull and his people come from another land. I see no reason to alter this myth in the light of the treatment of Storm Bull / Urox in HW so I still see him as a incommer (all be it in the mythic era of Prax so not necessarily foreign people just a supplanting of ideas).
When I read this and also when we ackowlege that Waha is more important in Praxian society I see somthing obscured in the story. I see a new husband replacing an old traditional one and a son that helps reconsile the change in society.
We know that Prax is a broken land, we know that Genert's garden is its natural state and so we know we are dealing with a mythology that has been subject to great cahnge and a people who are facing great challenges and a new way of life. (Lets not get bogged down with the Genert myths though as they may not be as informative as they first seem).
This new way of life involves Waha dividing the people into two and defining who can be eaten and who can eat. It is analogous to the hunter god defining who is the hunter and who is the hunted.
I argue that Waha is drawing on an older tradition supplanted by the war like Storm Bull, filling the remainder of the missing hole in the jigsaw. He forms a compromise of life and death for survival. I suggest that the main "dual" concept at work here is life and death and that all other shamanistic concepts rely on this point, the fact that the religion has changed is a reaction to the change in the way of life.
> The main
> antagonists in the Praxian mythology were chaos before
> time and outlanders afterwards. There was an
> important period after the compromise and before the
> dawn when Waha set everything right: he set the horned
> man to make the land of the dead, set Daka Fal to lead
> the way, freed the spirits needed for the living to
> live, and got Storm Bull to fetch the bright treasure.
This is fine but it is all after the change - before time is a concept constantly in flux, if anyone was old enouth they may remember the stories very differently, but they are told this way now. The important things right now to praxians is that they are just scraping a living clinging to the "old ways" and newcommers and chaos are just two of the stresses placed on their way of life.
I am not trying to defeat the point you are making, just pointing out that this isn't necessarily the whole story. I am trying to explain how the comology of life/death/undead can underly a mythology without being manifest in the main story.
> But we have no stories about Waha defeating the
> zombies. In fact, he has no magic to lay ghosts to
> rest; he relies on Daka Fal for that and Daka Fal is
> ancestor worship.
You are obsessed with zombies ;-)
On a serious note their are no doubt stories about the abomination of
holding on to loved ones more than is appropriate, creating ghosts and
other such monstrocities, maybe even reanimated corpses as in the
monkey's paw and other such tales. (Undead in stories are rarely
zombies. In the real world zombie myths are quite obscure).
In Prax the undead are the ghosts that wander the wastes lost on route to Daka Fal's hall because of a failure of the living , wraiths that haunt a society that refuses to acknowlege the atrocity of their death, vampire like shades of dead relatives who were not allowed to rest or depart and must survive by consuming life, over zealos ancestors who will not depart from the living once contacted because they have an unfulfilled mission, succubus like ex-lovers who I cant elaborate on without spoiling my game for lurker players.
Also you can't label Daka Fal as simply an ancestor worship guy. He is the guardian of life and death and as such Ancester Worshipers revere him and natually have to contact the dead in a way that does not oppose him. His main role in praxian myth is as the person who makes the decisions on who lives in which realm and he stands guard over the doorway and ensures that the world remains separate. He is faceless and impersonal and not really an actor in the stories.
> In fact, the only Praxian group I can think of that
> has reference to undead are the Ghost Darters, and
> they are a very confused bunch.
I think most of Prax will be confused on the whole life/death thing. It has been obscured and moved from the centre of their myth. I see this as not opposing the more established view of Prax, just enriching the back story.
> And, yes, Praxian shamans know that it is bad for
> ghosts to be in the world, but they will be practical
> about it. Is this a ghost that I need to lay to rest,
> or can we just avoid this place? Compare that to the
> hatred that Praxians have of chaos; Bullmen bands will
> go far out of their way to attack chaos they have
> heard of. You don't get roving Daka Fal bands laying
> ghosts to rest.
An obvious difference in scale but in my view a result of the warlike influence that has been introduced by the breaking of the old world. We can again have this both ways enriching the background.
>...your Glorantha varies. Choas is the central evil
> in the world for Praxians.
Everyones Glorantha varies I am trying to come to some understanding of the background we have informed by the newer cosmology, such things have influenced the published material before and will do again.
Your arguments are helping me explain myself so thanks.
> Chaos is a feature of Praxian mythology that sprung
> from their own experiences. It was not imported.
> Vrak Kargl Vozn, the Devil, sprang from the empty spot
> where nothing would grow. Their oldest stories are
> about what chaos did to them; everything after was how
> they survived and recovered.
Again I refer to the flux of myth but also by its nature chaos in a invasion from outside the world. Nowhere is safe from it especially not animist areas where some serious remoulding of belief is required to incorporate it and oppose it.
This is what I believe has happened and your reference to the oldest stories leave the question "as told by who" again giving us good potential back story.
Jamie Mac
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