> >Sure, but I'm not sure its done sufficiently consciously to justify
> >it as an opinion or philosophy. Are Odaylans, or other Gloranthans,
> >able to take the step back and see this argument in the abstract?
> >I'm not sure they have a good enough overview - their data is largely
> >limited to personal experience, and they have no tools for conducting
> >comparative population analyses of various fauna.
In one sense, this is precisely what an animal goddess or a beast ancestor is - a conscious, communicable aggregate of an animal tribe - a form of wyter if you will. Granted, communication with such is not a standard feat for *any* of the main wilderness cults.
IRW, when animal conservation is an important part of a clan's consciousness (at least in the communities I have read about or had experience with), it is very much a joint *social* responsibility, reflected in the clan's mythology and ritual. Aboriginal songlines of our Northern Territory around Port Keats and Kakadu for instance, elaborately encode the animal species, their lifestyles, and the resources of each patch of country into a remembered (though restricted) whole that is both song, myth and ritual, furthered by totemic identification with particular animal and fish species and responsibility for a particular patch of country as either owner or manager. Such identification is certainly translatable into some parts of Glorantha, but is not, it seems, particularly useful for Odaylands and their cousins.
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