Re: CHAT: Visible planets (was: Corpses)

At 12:00 AM 11/10/03 -0500, you wrote:
>Isidora Zamora scripsit:
>
> > Now, I've got one more question...Is there any difficulty in identifying
> > the Morning Star and the Evening Star with each other.  Are they very
> > likely to think that they are two separate bodies rather than one?  (I
> > wouldn't know, because I have never really studied any astronomy.)
>
>It's possible.  Homer definitely does not know, in the 12th century B.C.E.,
>that Hesperos and Phosphoros are the same thing.  Plato in about 350 B.C.E.
>definitely does; Pythagoras around 500 B.C.E. supposedly did as well.
>It's basically a question of having the correct insight rather than
>anything related to observation.
Once again, John, many thanks for sharing your considerable knowledge
pertaining to various and sundry things.  It has saved me a good deal of
work tracking down the information.  (Though I am going to have to learn
some rudimentary astronomy eventually for fine-tuning the calendars of my
several concultures.)

I think I will say, then, that the Nidirino long ago recognized that the
Morning Star and the Evening star are the same heavenly body.  That leaves
us with the Nidirino worshiping Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Juppiter, Saturn,
and various comets.  And, due to Trehelish influence, some, but not all,
Nidirino also worship local rivers, which is an easy and natural thing to
do as one travels in the Trehelish portions of Trehelan, since there is
generally a shrine located at every bridge and ford.  (And, with or without
a shrine, offerings of food or money can be thrown directly into the water,
which many people do.)

I don't know the native names that the Nidirino have for any of the
heavenly bodies (or even for themselves, for that matter), because the
Nidirino language has a very small phonemic inventory (only 17 or 18
phonemes, depending on whether I give them an /h/ or not.  Neither of the
other two languages have an /h/, so perhaps Nidirino ought to for the sake
of variety.)  The phonemic inventory includes only voiceless obstruents,
but they are realized as voiced in certain environments, and I expect that
some of the stops are spirantized in certain environments, and the liquid
will be realized differently depending on environment, so I think that it
is best to write the language in Roman transcription as a close
approximation of the actual phonetic value of the words rather than as the
phonological UR, which would just be misleading.  Someday, I may actually
get around to inventing the syllabary, but it is not a priority at this
point.  I will probably create vocabulary as UR then apply rules to it to
produce the Roman transcription.

I mentioned in another post that the Nidirino have a higher literacy rate
than the Trehelish.  (That should actually be Trehelo, but, for some
reason, that one gets Anglicized, and the other two don't.)  Literacy is
encouraged among the Nidirino for religious reasons.  A lot of the special
occasion prayers, such as the ones for eclipses, are printed in the
standard, pocket-sized prayerbook.  These prayers are used infrequently
enough that they would not get memorized by sheer repetition, as would
sunset and dawn prayers, or even prayers for the lunar cycle that are heard
daily or monthly.  (And I know from experience that when you hear a
liturgical text at intervals of less than one week, it is difficult to
memorize it from hearing it repeated.  Anything repeated daily becomes
memorized quickly.  I can rattle off large portion of Morning Prayers and
Prayers Before Sleep without thinking, and frequently do, which is
annoying, because if you're not concentrating on what you're saying, you're
not actually praying, so I am perfectly capable of getting through 15 or 20
minutes of prayers with out actually *praying* at all.  I need to correct
that situation.)  Hymns to the various planets are also included in the
prayerbook, and these can be performed at will, whenever the correct planet
is visible, but are not as necessary as some of the other prayers.

One of the main differences (and it accounts for the difference in literacy
rate) between the Nidirino and Trehelish in their personal devotion (as
something apart from the sacrifices and other rites performed in the
temples) is that Trehelish personal and family devotion consists mainly of
having a family shrine with small statues of favorite gods and goddesses
and burning incense before them with extemporaneous prayers.  (If the deity
being worshipped is Death, then there is a bowl for offering blood in
addition to the censer, or sometimes only a bowl for blood.  The blood bowl
is less common in cities, as city-dwellers often buy their meat already
dead.  In the country, if an animal is being slaughtered, then some of the
blood is set aside as an offering, but, outside of temples, blood is
offered only to Death.)  Nidirino personal and family devotion consists
mainly of reciting prayers or singing hymns while drawing a sun-spiral or
moon-spiral in a tray of sand, thus literacy is encouraged as an aid to
worship.

Isidora

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