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> >From what I've read (Questlines again) there was substantial kinstrife in
>the Far Place as the Yelmalions drove out the Elmali. In the Far Place we
>have tribes and even clans that are part Orlanthi and part Yelmalion;
>something I've never been really sure how to portray.
Originally they were just neighbours with slightly different ancestral ways. New land, few temples, little formal worship, and certainly few religious specialists stirring up trouble, let alone politicians exploiting and emphasising religious differences for their own ends.
IMG, the Yelamlio/Elmal/Orlanthi struggles are recent, and have been played out over just a few generations. Under increasing Heartland influence (and perhaps Sartarite new-Yelmalio influence), Yelmalian bloodlines become more inward looking. Their food, contact and marriage taboos mean they will keep to their own lodges, and over time, to their own steads. They tend to marry each other. Their more centralised, patriarchal views of leadership and authority will mean that a few elders on the ring or at the moot will speak on behalf of them all. Some Yelmalians will have adopted a particular cultus with minimal changes to their traditional (Orlanthi) way, others will take on the new traditions, rituals, teachings marriage preferences and magics with gusto, forging a new identity and creating in effect a clan within a clan.
Ernalda and Ernaldans hold all three gods as husband/lovers of course, and can hold the clan together for a time. However, the challenges are enormous.
Can a clan really work in this way? No, of course not. Which is why the Far Place is in the state it is in today. New customs and social formations always bring change.
Like you, I have trouble conceiving how a mixed clan can work. This is probably because it can't. :)
The challenge for those who cling to their Far Walker heritage is to find new ways of making a clan so that once again the brothers of the spear can live side by side in peace as their ancestors did. Or to divide the land in two: Sharl Plains for the sons of the cold sun, wild uplands for the warriors of the storm. Or to drive the offending Yelmalians/Elmali/Orlanthi (tick as many as you like, preference given to latter two) away forever. The Harvar Solution. Except its not working.
There's probably a similar situation in Sartar as mixed cultures increasingly try to live together, to change cuystoms to suit or to drive away competing beliefs. Its just that the Far Place situation is more pronounced. And enemies are harder to track down. :)
Jest my two clacks and a greasy bolg...
Here's an in-character perspective. Some of you will have seen it before...
The Yelmalians
The following excerpt from Lagerwater tales is told from the perspective of an Orlanthi living in an upland clan.
I know their stories as I know their spears. Though blood of our blood, they live in their own lodges, their own quarter of the stead - for purity they say!- set apart from the rest of us. As though their cult were more important than their kin! A hateful arrangement, though perhaps we are all the better for it. As they live apart, there is less chance of quarrel.
Yelmalians. Their kind have split our clan, and brought many cruel deaths upon us. The shadow of kinstrife falls upon us all. I curse the day the first of them set forth from the plains below.
They are kin however, and our ways honour them, for all their strangeness. We toast their deeds and their boasts in hall, and they are welcome always at the moot, though usually only their elders attend. Even when they are all present, they'll seldom argue, and leave all the talking to just one or two whitebeards, and vote as one. The women never speak to a man in public, save their husbands, who they pretend to obey. Can you imagine! They act as if a bloodline all their own, ploughing and planning and quarrelling as one.
Only Ernalda in her wisdom holds our clan together, for the Yelmalians honour her as we do, and count her as wife to their god. It way be true, for the Lusty Earth has taken many lovers, from Fire Tribe as well as Storm. Yet even in the Ernalda rites they will sometimes worship apart.
There is no taint to my tongue - they are good farmers and warriors, and stand steadfast in the wall of shields. I should know, for I've faced them down as enemies often enough. Hard workers too - backs to the plough sometimes even on holy days, when they should be with us at the altars. As spearmen, as fine as any Elmali. But they are different, and always seek to keep themselves apart. Their god weakens our clan.
Always they must make a different way. They will not eat risen bread, and they butcher their meat with strange rites and golden blades. Their women are never warriors, and cover their head amongst strangers. The men wear slit capes hemmed with yellow, and coil their beards like a city dweller, and seldom boast or quarrel. And they marry only their own cult, as if the good of the clan counted for nothing! They mock the precedents of Heort, for they have their own strange rules of justice and marriage and burial. They never try to fit in, they think they are a clan apart.
This I do know. Yelmalio was a wounded light that shone through the darkness, a follower of Elmal: in this we honour the god and remake his hero deeds in the rites. And this much is plain. The Thunder Brothers rescued him from the Ravaging Dark, and the women of Thunderhome succoured him until he again stood proud and bright and was counted as one of the fyrd, a spearman of Elmal. He took our bread and salt, but never joined our tribe.
In the days of the Far Walkers, Vantar son of Taros discovered a Yelmalio temple amidst the ruins of Alda Chur, and he made the god his own. Perhaps this was just, for the golden wheat plains of the Sharl belong to the yellow-fire god, and no one doubts his sovereignty there. The plains might be his, but the uplands are a realm of storm. For this our fathers fought.
Vantar quarreled with his father the Ridgeleaper, and wrought a heavy wyrd against his kin, and between the future tribes of plain and height. Peace was made - for was not a Vantaros our first Prince of the Far Place, acclaimed by all the clans? Yet the seeds of strife remained, nurtured deep in fertile ground.
In the time of my grandfather the Alda Churi made war upon Elmal in the name of their own god, and many was the clan - even in the wild gors! - who tore down the altars of the Loyal Spear and erected golden sundisks in their place. Yelmalian missionaries came among us with new ways from the north, from the land of the new-risen moon, and they challenged our own sun warriors in the hero rites. In the Sunspear ritual they showed us all the Yelmal light that the Elmali could not face, the golden light that blinded and burned. So it was that many embraced the power of the bright new god. Then came Harvar Ironfist, and he tore the ancient wounds anew for private purpose, for his enemy is the Storm and he hates the free clans of the high country.
There have always been Yelmalians in our clan: they are my kin, and I embrace them, and honour them, for all their strange ways. But the servants of the demon moon have broken us apart, and made us enemies, and the Orlanthi and Elmali clans of the gors are harried and warred upon by the men of the plain. Even our tribal king has swallowed the lowland sun, and he plots against the free men of the Tresdarnii. Conla Brightshield has broken apart the tribal ring of our ancestors, and he chants new laws and new customs, new ways of making kings and heroes.
I say the reckoning must come.
We in the wild gors defy our king, and keep close watch upon the Yelmalians within our gates. The reckoning must come. Elmal will protect our stead, and will guide our spears in the necessary hour. But can you turn a blade against kin, your own kin? To strike a kinsman is to strike yourself. It cannot, it must not be. But the reckoning will come.
Cheers
John
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