Re: Re: Digest Number 841

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:23:07 -0700

> Well, if dead people (ghosts) stick around, the clan magicians
> usually exorcise them. That is, a mythic/magical outlawry. Anyone
> beyond the jurisdiction of the clan lawspeaker is not part of the
> clan in any way, and that means they may not live there. Declaring
> yourself legally dead is to outlaw yourself---pack your bags.

Not quite. Exorcism is the way to guide or force the ghost into its proper place (on the other side of the veil). The three deities involved in exorcism have different means to do this, but none of them are in any way a sentence of outlawry. TKT stuffs them into her Cavern of Silence, there to linger until given to Issaries on Return Day. Humakt "slays" them again, forcing them through the veil, and Issaries gently leads them to their proper place in the afterlife. (ST 197)

So a powerful TKT could deal with a "declared himself legally dead" Humakti who persists in hanging around a tula, or another Humakti could fight him. Issaries the Guide will probably not come near him (or, maybe, get him drunk and take him "to see something really neat that I found, it's just down these thousand dark steps..."), but those are more permanent solutions than mere outlawry.

RR