I need a clarification here. My understanding of how bloodlines work is: The average clan is divided into approximately 6 bloodlines of roughly 200 people (adults) each. Each bloodline lives in about 3 steads and, presumably, controls about 1/6 of the clan's resources. People do move between the steads, especially as a way to get the young men out of the house, but the bulk of any stead will be part of a single bloodline.
That's great for imagining clans, but kind of monolithic at the personal level. I imagine that bloodlines break down into smaller groups (probably by stead) and those "sub-lines" can be divided by more immediate family groupings. If I am right, our stead should be part of CLAN and BLOODLINE, with the stead being held by Swensline (Or the Whiterapids or whatever), a sub-line that may, someday become a distinct bloodline. The 80 people at the stead are further divided into family groups. The sub-line and family groups have no real recognized Heortling existence, but the day to day life of the stead is governed more by interactions between and within the family groups than CLAN or BLOODLINE issues. Similarly, Swensline has no "existence" for the CLAN, but it is an active stead and the stead leaders have some influence in BLOODLINE decisions which, in turn, affect the CLAN.
Am I right here? It doesn't sound much like what John is describing above.
>* harstings,
>* tula,
>* wilds and
>* waste
>to mean
>
>* worked land,
>* fixed clan boundaries including some relatively small hunting and grazing
>lands,
>* regular hunting and grazing lands that might be shared with neighboring
>clans, and
>* wilderness with no fixed ownership.
This makes a lot of sense.
Peter Larsen
PS John, I have had quite a few messages bounced back from your account -- have you received anything directly from me for any of the working groups?
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