More Thed material - Inuit mythology

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Julie (jrs) first tipped me off to this connection, which I'd known nothing about.

It's not research if you just hit a Search button, but regardless, the Inuit Myths from the Windows to the Universe website (at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, of all things) provides at least a starting point.

Apparently Sedna is the sea goddess, who is understandably pissed off after she is forced to marry and bear children to a dog. And then there's the moon god Anningan who continually chases and rapes his sister Malina, the sun god. Hence their constant travels across the sky and his becoming thinner as he forgets to eat, and the eclipse when he occasionally catches and rapes her again.

I was sort of jarred by the observation that apparently these are the three Big Gods. Aren't there any nice gods for the Inuit? Yeesh.

Anyway, there's some Thed-type stuff from real myth to put into the "h'm" file next to Book Two in Paradise Lost. Does anyone know about any others?

I have to add that this website's material is probably one transliteration of one version of the actual myths, which like all real-world myths are probably much more complex and have lots of versions which get applied in different places and times.

Best,
Ron

[RaconteurX]

Very interesting explanation of solar eclipse. Classical myth abounds with rapes, but I'd not thought of the Inuit as a source of additional tales. I should dig out my copies of Book of the Hopi and Popul Voh to see if the Hopi and Mayans have any rape myths. Here is a quick Amazon search of "rape in literature", which has quite a few good titles.

[Brand_Robins]

Celtic myth is rife with this kind of material, though the clearest story in my head right now is of Aine.

Aine was a sovereignty/land spirit who lived near the center of the rich lands of Munster. She was raped by Ailill Olom, king of Munster, at the hill of Knockainey ("Cnoc Aine"). During the rape she tore his ears off, giving him the name "Olom" (bare eared or earless). She later became an ancestor figure for the Eoghanacht who ruled the region, and most of the medieval accounts are less than complimentary towards Ailill. Some of the accounts, probably influenced by the Ui Neill who warred with Eoghanacht, say that Ailill stabbed her through the gut with a spear after she tore his ears off. In some areas this myth lead to Aine being the banshee of the local region, crying out with suffering and the mark of death upon her.

This tale stands in contrast to the normal use of the sovereignty goddess in Celtic myth. Normally a man comes upon a hideous hag and must have sex with her in order to gain rightful kingship of the land – her gift to him as she emerges from their lovemaking as a beautiful goddess. In the Aine story, however, Aine was a beautiful goddess and Ailill a beautiful king until the rape – at which point he was earless and she gutted. This probably reflects early dynastic struggles between Munster and the Eoghanacht, as bards of one side claimed that the king of the other side got his sovereignty by rape, and his doing so was an assault against the land itself.

Of course, that's the explination historians and mythographers give the story. In HeroQuest I could see the rape of a local goddess being a very real thing, especailly as the Lunars (known for their powerful heroquesting and deals with powerful beings) move into Herotling territory.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Actually, I'm not so interested in "rape in mythology" as a general discussion. It's all over the place in a variety of forms.

What I'm interested in is rape-experience as a source of power, presumably usually a diseased-sort of power. I'm also very interested if anyone can find anything resembling what I pinpointed in my article: the emphasis on the community failure to deal with the issue, essentially making the justice system complicit with the rape.

Best,
Ron

[Brand_Robins]

the emphasis on the community failure to deal with the issue, essentially making the justice system complicit with the rape.

There was some of that in the Aine myth, as it was used as an excuse for war between the Eoghanacht and their neighbors on several occasions. The whole idea was that the sovereignty deriving from Ailill was diseased and wrong because he had raped to get it, and that it was therefore righteous to fight against the authority of kings who received their power from that source.

Ailill got his power from rape. His people, though not happy about it, accepted it as it made them dominant. The rape also create banshees which haunted the lands inhabited by those who were complicit with the rape, and became a source of power for others who were using alleged anger over a rape that had occurred centuries before as a reason to make claims for their own power.

So while it's not exactly the same situation as in your story, it is about power coming from rape, community complicity, and the way that different myths of the same event can cause a great difference in the folk-lore and culture of a people. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough in the first post.

[RaconteurX]

The emphasis on the community failure to deal with the issue, essentially making the justice system complicit with the rape.

Classical myth definitely includes this, more due to Zeus' own predilection for this behavior than anything else. This does not concern itself with the justice systems of the Hellenistic peoples overmuch, though... at least not that I have found. Celtic, Teutonic and Norse myth probably deal with the community aspects in greater depth, as their perspectives had a greater tendency toward practical reality.

[Ron Edwards]

A person who prefers to remain anonymous sent me this:

No, there are no nice inuit myths tht I have ever found.  Its a brutal
set of myths for a brutal people. Their myths make the norse look like
huggy Californian wannabes.

I've had to work with inuit while up north working as a geologist. They
are a part of a harsh, harsh land and survival is paramount. everything
else is baggage.

There is a brief, frantic spring/summer/fall and a long, brutal winter
where survival is measured out in tallow lamps and growing gaunt faces.
The close quarters of the communal winter tents does breed incest, rape
and all those other wonderful crimes because there's no where to go....!

Best,
Ron

[RaconteurX]

There are no nice Inuit myths that I have ever found. It's a brutal set of myths for a brutal people.

The Inuit are no more or less brutal than any other culture forced to live a marginal existence in severely inhospitable climes. Bedouin culture was equally harsh prior to the civilizing influences of Islam, and many African tribal cultures retain vestiges of their harsh ways. "It is tradition," they would say.

How very similar to what we would hear from the cultures which threaten to collide as the Hero Wars unfold.

[pete_darby]

Hmm.. we're coming up against one of my few bugbears with Glorantha, in that it forces the common perceptions of myth, as filtered in the Western world through a Victorian / Edwardian lense of Frazier, Campbell et al, with the brutality that is at the heart of nearly all RW myth systems as perceived by their practitioners.

If i want to be faithful to the mythic reality, I should really be going down pretty damn dark paths for a 21st century liberal, democratic, balding white guy in his 30's. But some of those paths lead to amounts of "not fun". So, the balancing act has to be played.

But then, I was discussing Ron's Thed article with my HQ players last night, and despite my initial misgivings, it was definitely as (fun? Enterntaining? Rewarding?) as any other gloranthan chat I've had. So maybe I'm more comfy with the dark than I thought.

[RaconteurX]

I'm rather fond of Glorantha's unabashed cultural relativism, but then I've never been much for utopian idealism... in the real world or in roleplaying (Pendragon being a notable exception in the latter). The Hero Wars are the ultimate expression of the "Us vs. Them" mentality as practiced on the lozenge.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Michael, agreed and agreed. Emphatically, in fact.

Pete wrote,

If i want to be faithful to the mythic reality, I should really be going down pretty damn dark paths for a 21st century liberal, democratic, balding white guy in his 30's.

Hi, fellow demographic member!

More seriously, I agree ... and one of the things I like best about the group I've played Hero[Quest] with, is that they're willing and able to do exactly what you describe. The great result is that instead of being a self-indulgent "wear another's skin" exercise, it turns out to be a process of self-discovery as well.

Best,
Ron

[kalyptein]

I'm completely unqualified to enter this debate on gloranthan theology, but what the heck.

How far does the cultural/religious relativism go?  If myth is real and shapes the world, then was rape actually a crime until Thed deified it as one?  If not, then what right did she have to justice, she had been done no wrong.  This doesn't make sense in real world terms (not to mention being a fairly twisted notion).  Cocaine is no better or worse than it once was, now that it has been made illegal.  But human laws have no supernatural power.   In Glorantha I get the impression that if they repealed the Law of Gravity, everything would float away...  Or is it more a social matter, where rape is "a crime without a name" (but still a crime) until Thed gives it one?  If that's the case, it suggests that a level of what might pass for objective reality is present, more of one than I was under the impression you could find in Glorantha.

I really don't know enough about the world to guess, but I find its murkiness fascinating.

Alex

[Donald]

How far does the cultural/religious relativism go?  If myth is real and shapes the world, then was rape actually a crime until Thed deified it as one?  If not, then what right did she have to justice, she had been done no wrong.  This doesn't make sense in real world terms (not to mention being a fairly twisted notion).  Cocaine is no better or worse than it once was, now that it has been made illegal.  But human laws have no supernatural power.   In Glorantha I get the impression that if they repealed the Law of Gravity, everything would float away...  Or is it more a social matter, where rape is "a crime without a name" (but still a crime) until Thed gives it one?  If that's the case, it suggests that a level of what might pass for objective reality is present, more of one than I was under the impression you could find in Glorantha.
Alex

Cultural/religious relativism goes as far as you want it to in Glorantha. Even what we regard as obviously true is not necessarily true in Glorantha, I doubt if you would find many people in Glorantha who even knew what gravity was. Different cultures have different mythological explantions for why the world works as it does, explanations which cover how creatures (including man) can fly even though from a real world perspective they couldn't.

In social terms there is even more diversity, for example the Orlanthi don't recognise crime in the modern sense at all. All their law is to do with injury, restitution and avoiding the the last resort of killing the person who did you wrong. So Thed is not asking for her rapist to be punished, she is asking for restitution for her injury. It's not clear what Orlanth's reply was, he may have suggested they get married or something equally tactless but Thed's response was a perfectly reasonable Orlanthi one - she rejected whatever was offered and declared feud on the family of the one who had injured her. The consequence of that (introducing chaos into the world) was so bad that rape is recognised as injuring the whole community and now the appropriate punishment is exile.

The Dara Happen version would be different, their legal system concentrates on legal process and punishment so after Thed had been cross examined at length Yelm would make a decision and possibly imposed a penalty on the Ragnaglar. Now either Yelm didn't consider Thed's case proved, she considered the penalty inadequate or it wasn't enforced so she took revenge on Yelm's people.

The Rokari view would be different again - there Ragnaglar is comitting the sin of lust and should do penance while Thed was probably encouraging him so should do the same.

None of these reflect the modern real world view of rape but all have existed in real world cultures.