Certainly grounded in Earth. More 'sweat lodge' than sauna, surely, with the ritual element foremost. The air doesn't need to be stale or still - if hearthmaidens whisk away the smoke in most hearths, I'm sure most sweat lodges will have a minor daimon or ancestral presence to keep the air circulating. Why sweat lodges? Well they are a ritual that confronts all the elements - air and water and earth and heat and cold and light and dark (there is the traditional cold water dip or roll naked roll in the snow afterwards). Perhaps its a form of the founding of the Storm Tribe ritual.
Jaxarte Whyded records the following enigmatic remark in his 'Journey through Far Point':
"They are rude and wild, though generous in their hospitality and childlike in humour. Their rituals seem entirely devoted to the taking of steam baths in sweat lodges of stone and earth - men one day, women the next, ancestors the third."
This is - typical of Jaxarte - almost certainly a misunderstanding. But what was really going on?
John
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"And when someone accepts their challenge to battle they proudly recite the deeds of valour of their ancestors and proclaim their own valorous quality at the same time abusing and making little of their opponent and generally attempting to rob him beforehand of his fighting spirit."
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