I notice that the various clan questionnaires suggest most clans have one temple and just a couple of shrines. Although, if they also had shrines to the deities covered by the temple perhaps that simply isn't mentioned. Still, you can worship without a shrine, it simply will tend to be harder/not as satisfying/not as effective.
most specialist worship is done with the rest of the
> > clan, although obviously you can't completely abandon your stead
on every
> > one of the 28 days (and probably part of the day before and after
for
> > travelling) or you wouldn't get anything done. It could be 10-15
miles to
> > the Chief's stead; that's a good portion of a day's travel for a
large
> > group. Maybe only part of the stead travels to rituals, and the
rest stay
> > at home and participate there.
Some of the oldest stead members might find the travel onerous, and how many babies are you willing to cart across the country side at the end of storm season? And as someone said, you can't totally neglect the animals.
So how about this compromise. "Everyone" (in the Orlanthi sense of the word) goes to the chief's stead.
Most of those who stay behind are quite mature (i.e. not new initiates), and know the rituals well. They will do them as best they can "at home." With them are many of the unitiated youth and children, who have to deal with most of the day to day household chores. At first when you are ten and put in charge of milking the cows or baking the bread its an honour, by the time you are close to being initiated you can't wait to escape that honor and travel to the chief's stead! The adults left behind spend most of their time in ritual observances, but have enough time to help a little bit and supervise some more. As much as possible would have been prepared ahead of time (there is enough wood split, and grain ground, cheese has been pulled from storage, grain for the fowl has been pulled from the storage pits, hay is close to the cattle, etc), so there isn't SO much to do for those two weeks. Still, it is a real taste of maturity for the older children, and no doubt observations of them then helps shape the thinking of what sub-cults they should trial in.
--Bryan
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