Re: Just a thought (bathing, hunting)

From: Mike Dawson <mdawson_at_...>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 14:54:58 -0000

Though I'm too lazy to look it up, I recall a first person portion of Thunder Rebels that condemns Praxians because "they don't wash."

Hunters (and many more Sartarites per capita are hunters than in the empire) know that if they smell too much from not bathing, they scare off game. I worked with a hunting nut for a couple of years, and his "Pre-hunt rituals" involved vigorous bathing with special scent-killing soap, application of various animal musks, and putting on camo clothes normally kept in a sealed bag. These clothes were only rarely washed, and when they were, he used special no-scent detergents and then treated the clothes with animal musks. I think all the above behaviors are useful ideas for hunter cult rituals.

Throughout history, bathing's popularity has gone up and down, even in a single culture. Group bathing was popular in Europe in the 14th century, at least among the nobility. (Lots of scandalous woodcuts of otherwise naked ladies in hennins [pointy hats] getting into big tubs of water with smiling noblemen)

Yet there's the famous instruction of Napoleon in a letter to Josephine: "I am returning to Paris. Stop bathing."

Here's a Sartarite joke, one of the few that the Lunars tell too:

How do you hide money from a Praxian?

Put it under the soap.

Mike

http://herowars.onestop.net

Powered by hypermail