Re: Clan and Stead Populations

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_Ocxb22wZcFrVcSkazEsDg02FZw3pu7z2LRQ88lItn0isUKEBayohrKy1pbqSKuRLzhsx>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 09:48:11 +1000


Peter

Ah, thanks for the clarification. :)

> It's more how the bloodlines map onto the steads -- we seemed
> to be developing a model where most steads are inhabited by multiple
> bloodlines, which seems incorrect from TR.

In TR p.33 I write that a stead is "typically run by a dominant family and containing several households". That's obviously my model. Greg's "Your Clan" on page 18 can be read as a single bloodline model. The two models are not mutually exclusive but represent different emphases and styles of adaptation. We tried to be inclusive rather than prescriptive.

At the moment our clan looks like this:

                                        Bloodlines

 Stead                             * Founder  * Hunting    *  Iron      *
Rain     * Silver    * Black     Total
                                              Swen       Brothers    Plough
Cattle        Oaks      Loam

Swenstead                            52
  29                -             -               -              -
81
Running Horse Stead             -
   27                -             -               -            56
83
Cloudpierce Stead
 44                   -                -             -
1              -          75
Harveststone                           -                   -             66
22           76               -        164
Broken-Spear                         -                   -             74
30            22               -        126
Graingift                                   -                   -
88          144              -               -         232
Thunder Rock                       68                  4             96
89         126              6        389

Total                                    164                60           324
285        255            62      1150

http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/stead/clanbg.html#bloodlines

The chief's stead (Thunder Rock) has the mix you'd expect.

Swenstead is dominated by the Swen bloodline, and rounded out by the 'offspring' bloodline of the Hunting Brothers, to which it has always been closely linked.

Running Horse Stead is dominated by the Black Loam, with a hearth or two of Hunting Brothers (probably the hunters, fishers and herders).

Cloudpierce Stead is dominated by the Swen, with a hearth of Silver Oaks. (As an upland stead dominated by Swen's descendants, it would expect it to be in many ways a sister stead to Swenstead.)

The lowland steads, being richer, generally have a more diverse mixture.

Harveststone might be a bit of a political hotbed, with the Silver Oaks and Iron Ploughs battling for dominance, but it could just as easily be a harmonious stead where several families have been working together for hundreds of years. (As TR 26 notes, bloodlines vary greatly in their coherence and political unity. Sometimes they are like mini-clans, sometimes little more than a family name).

Broken Spear is dominated by the Iron Plough bloodline, with hearths of both Rain Cattle and Silver Oaks.

Graingift is the home of the Raincattle, with a substantial minority of Iron Ploughs.

We have previously discussed the two bloodlines at Swenstead, but everything else on the table is still open to modification. Do we want some single bloodline steads? Additional, smaller steads to round out the clan? I've certainly no objection - my working was intended as a conceptual draft. If you'd like to rejiggle the stead and bloodline figures to create some single bloodline steads in the mix , please do so. Bryan, as our creative director for Swenstead, do you have some guiding thoughts on this?

       Growth of a bloodline leads to establishment of more steads.
> Eventually, the structure becomes too unwieldy for the "central
> authority" of the bloodline to keep the group together and one or
> more steads establish themselves as separate bloodlines. Clan
> politics are also involved, of course, and they might lead to mixed
> bloodline steads, but I would imagine that the tensions would
> increase the chance of kinstrife.

In fact, in describing the system, my guiding principle was that mixed bloodline steads can also *decrease* the risk of kinstrife. As noted above, TR notes that the importance of bloodlines as political and organisational entities can vary greatly - and sometimes they are not visible at all. Other alliances - based around cult, personal wealth, Lunar sympathies, cattle loan sponsorship, personal grudges and rivalries (sometimes extending back generations), birth clans of wives, herders versus growers, carls vs cottars - may be equally important to clan politics. Also, bloodline membership is not fixed (TR 26) - so it is not quite a 'family' in the extended sense. Most folk are eligible by descent for membership in several bloodlines. If say, brothers are constantly feuding, changing hearths and bloodlines are an alternative to unhappy hearths and the possibility of kinstrife. I am sure that, formally and informally, for a whole host of reasons, Heortliongs change hearths and bloodlines. It's an important fact to keep in the back on our minds.

In choosing a mixed bloodline model, I am also influenced by my reading of RW clan-based communities. Subgroups almost *never* neatly map into discrete geographical units. Bloodlines are an adaptive tool, responsive to the demands of environment, politics, and population. They fuse, merge, split and die on a regular basis. Members switch allegiance in response to family pressures and work preferences. It is the clan that is the enduring unit. Because of this, I am personally inclined to downplay single-bloodline steads of any great size. But they *are* a part of Heortling reality, and I'd be happy for you to rework some of the figures.

> Certainly the Icelandic model shows a single person
> pretty much in charge of a given settlement, and, while Heortlings
> aren't Vikings, I can't imagine that the Sartar structure is all that
> much different.

The settlement-period Icelanders had a strong model of personal ownership, and a very diffuse clan structure. It's almost the opposite of the Heortlings in many respects.

If I have a little trouble seeing how Pat. and Mat.
> control, say 80 adults and children, it seems less likely that 2
> families with some forty members each will cooperate evenly to keep
> the stead going.

'Control' (perhaps 'guidance' is a better word) is multifaceted - the Chief, the Ring, the bloodline elders, the senior hearth folk, the thanes, the carls, all have their part to play. While the hearth is the effective work unit, what's to be done is usually dictated by the demands of the seasons, and will be fairly obvious to all involved. Members of the hearth spend their evenings (and for some, their days as well) together talking, so decision making will be for the most part consensual and organic.

> Now, if Swenstead has particularly good fishing (which it
> should), it might be that all the bloodlines send fishers to the
> stead for the "summer" seasons. So, perhaps Swenstead is 70 people in
> the winter and more like 85 in the summer, with the extra 20% or so
> made up of young men from the various bloodlines (and perhaps a
> visitor or two from other clans).

I like this. There's going to be a lot of seasonal movement round the clan - the shearing might be done a stead at a time for instance, with everyone helping out. Of course, trying to reflect such movements in the tables would make it pretty convoluted, but its an important fact to keep in the back of our minds.

Cheers!

John            

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