> I find this an interesting attitude and probably not quite the case
> for Odaylans -- trapping is of value and I'm really not quite sure
> where you draw the line for 'commercial' trapping, as this has
> extremely ancient antecedents in RL.
The cult writeup specifies that an Odaylan must bring pelts to a stead at least once a year on furring day. At least some of these are gifted to the Earth, the others (so the writeup tells us) are either left without trading or traded for essentials such as weapons. I'd imagine the pelts are from *all* animals butchered, in accordance with the 'waste nothing' ethic. As with other holy day transactions with steads (Berry Festival, Spring Morn) these seem primarily ritual in nature, and, by the writeup, seemingly in part intended to force reluctant wilderness dwellers into social contact.
The question (for me at least) is not whether commercial trapping exists, but as to whether an Odaylan, a very unusual totemic hunter, would engage in such activity beyond the requirements of survival. There is a related but separate question about how, in a magical world where the beast tribes are sentient and organised, where godlings and beast ancestors inhabit the wastes, how any large-scale exploitation activity would be met by the Lady and her tribes, and what part an Odaylan would play either for or against it. For the Far Pointers, the massacres of the Tearing Claw Season are remembered in every telling of the founders tales and in many ceremonies. As the Taroskarla relates:
"Of all the Far Walkers, only a few survived to teach us the terrible lesson of the Tearing Claw Season. The animal tribes cut them, the element tribes bruised them, the Wild Immortals touched their souls with madness."
While there's plenty of room for campaign variation in this, the above might explain the source of my particular perspective, and the perspectives on Odaylans I develeloped over the last five or six years.
> And what do these outsiders trade to get their necessary supplies so
> they can survive the winter? Exchange and barter is a two way street.
There are many answers to this, and the writeup returns several times to the extremely ambivalent relationships Odaylans have with 'civilisation'. but one answer is: they hibernate.
> AH, here we seem to see some modern attitudes on fur. WOuld not
> wearing these be _sacred_ and good? This was often the case -- I
> point to the norse berserks and wulfsarks and the wearing of feathers
> (etc) by natives OF their sacred animals.
Not consciously, but its an interesting perspective to consider. Totemism is a complete identification with an object, usually an animal species. Notice that Odaylans do not hunt/worship the Bear, they *are* the bear. Totemic priviledges and restrictions are complex, and gms can adjust them to their own needs, but most Heortling clans would recognise a difference between wearing a totemic pelt you hunted yourself and one picked up cheap from One-Eyed JarJar the Etyrian - no self respecting berserk would have a wolfskin with a 'souvenir of Dublin ' branded on the back.:) If clans did honour totemic relationships, its unlikely to condone the wearing of totemic pelts as some sort of fashion accessory. Again this is not to say that furs aren't worn - far from it, just that we have to be careful of reading western responses - both pro- and anti- fur, into a Gloranthan situation.
> BZZZZT. Check Russian or Canadian history. It took quite some time
> to danage the animal populations, in fact it took the advent of modern
> hunting and trapping techinques and baits.
I certainly bow to superior knowledge on this. The brief bit of reading I *have* done suggests that severe shortages of animals affected the Canadian/US trade 3 times before the market's eventual collapse in 1850 - ironically because beaver skin hats went out of fashion in Europe. Is that right? Empires have fallen for stranger reasons I guess.
> Um. Got some bad news for you: the natives were responsible for some
> of the most destructive hunting practices LONG before they ran into
> the Europeans. Look up 'Buffalo Jump' or wonder what happened to the
> big animals in North American (or elsewhere for that matter)
Absolutely. I thought of but didn't put my own rejoinder. Megafauna and man never mix, to name but one wave of native extinctions. I've certainly no illusions there. But there are questions of scale and imperative. A trapper can only eat so much and wear so many pelts, even if he's supporting kin, but an economic imperative *rewards* wholesale destruction. And native sustainability traditions *are* very real - their lives depend on it. They can't go to Macas if they killed one too many deer last season - the deer are gone forever, and the people starve. There tends to be a touch of new age spirituality liable to creep into to our conceptions of these traditions-rightly or wrongly- but the traditions *are* real, are at times very different from our own consumerist/materialist standard-of-living driven mindsets, and *are* excellent science. Something like Suzuki's 'Wisdom of the Elders' achieves a fair balance between science and spirituality in describing the advantages, limitations and challenges of these mindsets.
Odaylans share this mindset. The way I'm approaching the cult is that to be most effective its mindset should *challenge* our own preconceptions while being understandeable enough to be roleplayed in an enjoyeable way. And you can't do this without taking account of both the reality *and the mythology* of hunting and wilderness as experienced by (largely) western urban males - us.
Odaylans would be the one seeing them
> off
> > again, destroying the trap lines and driving out the destroyers.
>
> Er, interesting. Possible good game tactics but I don't think its
> quite that cut and dried and black and white.
Nothing ever is, hence we campaign. :) While I have developed a fairly in-depth hunting mythology for the Far Place over a number of years, there's plenty of scope for other perspectives and philosophies. That's one of the joys of our hobby. I'm not trying to place value judgements on history or hunting - except for the obvious one that large-scale exploitation of limited resources is usually a bad idea. I'm trying, in what I hope is an amicable way, to sort through a variety of possibilities in search of an elusive Odaylan mind set. Those following the thread may have noticed me changing positions slightly as the discussion progressed - I'm learning and listening and chucking out ideas that no longer fit.
If I have upset anyone along the way, this has not been my intention, and I apologise whole-heartedly.
And so to bed.
Cheers
John
Desperate ducks commit desperate acts!
Powered by hypermail