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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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....!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

kalyptein wrote:
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