Re: Conreligion

On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Sheets, Jeff wrote:

> > Well, I think it's jumping to conclusions a bit to call the Tokana
> > "docile" just because they don't worship their creator.  As I
> > said before, the Tokana don't have a personal relationship
> > with Old Eagle Woman, and would probably have a hard time
> > understanding prayer, communication with spirits, and other
> > such features of our familiar Western religions (monotheistic
> > or polytheistic).  Like some Amerindian cultures, the Tokana
> > view the world as being something that 'just happened'.
> > Human beings developed out of the interaction of various
> > 'forces' and were not directly, wilfully created by Old
> > Eagle Woman.  Hence the Big Bang analogy...
> >
> > I should mention that life for the Tokana is not all that
> > hard.  Their society is small-scale agrarian and non-industrial,
> > and the population (which is quite small) is rather
> > thinly spread.  Food is plentiful, the weather is relatively
> > mild - though harsh winters are not uncommon - and
> > outbreaks of disease or drought are rare.  About the worst
> > natural disasters they have to deal with are the frequent
> > earthquakes.  (The Tokana live on the Pacific Rim during
> > a comparatively active period in geologic history.)  It may sound
> > like a hopelessly utopian conculture, but it's not meant to be.
> > I modelled the Tokana on the kinds of kinship-based societies
> > found in places like precolonial Indonesia, New Guinea, and
> > Central America.  Their religion should thus be expected
> > to reflect that kind of 'lifestyle'.
> >
> > But to respond to your hypothetical situation:  Millenarian
> > movements are most common among societies that are
> > experiencing severe social pressures:  overpopulation,
> > large-scale warfare, epidemics, revolutions and other
> > rapid social, political, or economic changes.  At their
> > current period of history, the Tokana are experiencing none
> > of these pressures.  So why should they believe that Old
> > Eagle Woman would 'give up' on them?
> >
> Sounds good to me.  I didn't know that much about the culture, and was
> going on the premise that the Tokana people were more tightly packed.
> Do they ever have any nearby tribes of a different culture?  If so,
> there might be an added element of warriors.  If they inhabit the
> Pacific Rim, isn't there the possibility of a Mayan-like culture
> extending?  North America's Natives tended to be loosely packed, but the
> Mayans, Aztecs, and Incans lived in cities, if I am correct.  Over time,
> a civilisation like theirs could expand and meet the Tokanans, and
> usually this was only really good for the explorers.
As it so happens, what you describe has happened several times over
the course of Tokana history.  In fact, as little as 100 years ago
(from the fictional 'present moment' in Tokana history) the territory
occupied by the Tokana was a province of the Tshashal Empire, which
at its height extended along the entire west coast of North America
from what in our universe is the Columbia River all the way down to
the tip of the Baja peninsula.

As for warriorship, the Tokana do fight occasional battles with their
neighbours, but for the most part their taste for violence and
competition is channelled into other activities: wrestling and oratory
competitions, ceremonial exchanges of wealth (much like the potlaches
of the Northwest Indians), and elaborate initiation rituals.  (In
Tokana society, the women are viewed as being primarily responsible
for material life - farming, trading, housekeeping - while the men
are primarily responsible for education and ritual activities.)

>         Another point; if the weather is generally nice, and the food
> plentiful, and the people are skilled in agriculture, their population
> tends to increase fairly quickly.  How has the Tokana population stayed
> down?
It's hard to say.  Probably a combination of a number of factors.
The kind of agriculture that the Tokana practice is rather small scale
- more like gardening than homesteading.  (Their other major industries
are fishing and timber.)  Tokana mores dictate against large-scale
exploitation of natural resources, and against the concentration of
wealth.  Marrying and having children at a young age is also
discouraged.  How exactly these traits evolved is unclear to me
(perhaps as a response to past famines or plagues?).  But at any
rate, it seems that the population has remained fairly stable for
the last several centuries - about 35,000 people occupying an area
roughly the size of Connecticut.

>         In reference to "docile", I meant that I cannot see any culture
> not having discord.  There are "bad apples" everywhere you look.  It
> seems odd to me that there wouldn't be even occasional upstarts.
As it happens, there are such people.  The term for them in Tokana
is "mahalek", which I usually translate as "shaman", although the
role of the mahalek is quite different from that of shamans.  A mahalek
is a charismatic spiritual leader who becomes the centre of a cult.
Mahalek are always men, and are usually "alhtoi", or "inverted ones",
people who are 'born different' (included in this class are transsexuals,
some homosexuals, androgynes, people born with physical birth defects or
disabilities, albinos, identical twins, breach births, and those born
by cesarian section).  Alhtoi are believed to have special powers,
and are usually treated differently from other children.  If an alhtoi
is highly gifted, and has an especially magnetic personality, he will
generally grow up to be a mahalek.

Mahalek are not a stable fixture of Tokana life (not every village has
a mahalek in residence).  Instead, they pop up from time to time, often
attracting large groups of fanatical followers.  Mahalek are viewed
by the Tokana as a highly disruptive, but also highly natural, part of
life.  Tokana folktales are full of stories about the exploits of
particularly mad or powerful mahalek.

Matt.