That is what the Praxians themselves believe as recorded in numerous gloranthan publications. Moreover your analysis is flawed in that it obsesses over Waha's heroic deeds rather than Praxian culture, namely the laws and customs of society which Waha established.
> Waha is the hero of the survival period after the chaos battles. He
> emerges from the Paps with a quasi-cannibalistic idea to ensure the
> survival of both herds and riders.
The moment I see pseudo-anthropological jargon ("quasi-cannibalistic"?), Wakboth kills a shadow-kitten. Avoid salting your arguments with them. They add nothing and the only effect has been to weigh down your theories with unnecessary constraints.
As it is, I don't accept your premise that Waha is the equivalent of the Vingkotling Hidden Kings.
> He freed the Protectresses from capture with Kyger Litor. Compare Heort
> rescuing Ivarne, or any storm hero stealing from Darkness. This is no
> Lightbringers' Quest.
Nobody ever said it was a Lightbringers Quest. Heort did not rescue Ivarne from Darkness, he woke her from her tomb. Lastly the Protectoresses are greater in power than Ivarne, a women's hero.
> "Then the women of the tribe began worshipping Eiritha"
You would be better off indicating your source. It's the cult of Waha which also describes him as providing the basic lifestyle and survival needs for the men. No silver age hero has that importance. What Waha is equivalent to is deities like Orlanth and Vingkot, Lodril, Pamalt, Hyalor and so forth rather than a silver age hero.
> The women discovered the worship of their ancestress. Only now? Eiritha
> and Protectress are often interchangeable in the tribal myths.
Eiritha and the Protectresses are not interchangeable in the tribal myths. The Protectresses are defenders of the Herds, not Providers. Lastly they began worshipping Eiritha because the Protectresses were now available to defend the herds. Before they couldn't worship Eiritha because there weren't any herds - the Darkness kept scattering them.
> The
> herd-worship of the Protectresses can hardly be a new thing, and that's
> what the plains ape portion of the herds had done previously, too.
And how does this pose a problem with my theory that many of Waha's special deeds are actually golden and storm age myths?
Stylistically, could you avoid calling the proto-Praxians plains apes? You probably don't mean it but it's coming across as perjorative rather than clever. One doesn't go around describing the Orlanthi of the Storm Age based on what the contemporary Dara Happans said about them.
> Waha's cult may well claim this, but only by virtue of subsuming the Founder cults.
Except that the Founders are not part of Waha's cult. The ranking Waha Khan may know the secret of summoning the Tribal Founder, there's very little Founder magic in his cult.
> Waha fought Wild Fire and tamed it.
> Oakfed had been set free by the Tada-shi and burnt up all of the Redwood
> savannah of Prax, leaving noxious ash in his wake. After the trees were
> gone, Oakfed ran out of fuel, and only lingering embers were left.
Debatable. Who set Oakfed free is not stated, only that they are men and that they did it to keep him alive. That doesn't make them Tada-shi as there were others in Prax. Secondly since the Wild Fires are reportedly capable of burning stone, I doubt that only lingering embers were left.
My belief is that Waha taming Fire was a Golden or Storm Age myth. When the Great Night came, his worshippers used him to burn down the forests and then used his magics again to bring the fires under control.
> How do you fight a wildfire? By depriving it of fuel. Maybe Waha did have
> the foresight to make the herds bare a stretch of chaparral so that the
> wildfire would run out.
The Wildfires are not scrub fires but elemental demons (Nomad Gods terminology). Ordinary fire-fighting tricks (such as creating a firebreak) would thus be powerless against them. Waha and his worshippers would have magical means of fighting the wildfires, like tricking it into lighting an inescapable bundle of fibre and wood (Sartar Companion p276).
--Peter Metcalfe
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