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Re: Religious text in Conlangs

From:Peter Bleackley <peter.bleackley@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 30, 2003, 13:13
Staving Jan van Steenbergen:
> --- Jake X skrzypszy: > > > How many of your concultures have religions? Sacred texts? > >No, the Veneds are normal Catholics, so they use the same sacred texts as we >do. I haven't thought much about the religion of the speakers of my other >languages.
On Huna: Wizards are monotheists. Magic is a remnant of the powers of Mallapont (the Creator), which he left in the world for the benefit of humanity. Wizards consider themselves His servants. There is a creation myth explaining all this, which I have yet to translate fully into Khangaþyagon. The Wavolar are part animist and part monotheist - they regard nature spirits as aspects of The Sky Chief, He-of-Many-Spirits. They have an oral tradition of bardic poetry recording their history. Some of the more important poems are considered sacred, such as the vow that a Wavol woman takes at her coming-of-age ceremony, never to speak or learn any alien language. The 27 Clans of the Jade Mountains are syncretistic polytheists. Each clan worships principally its own god, paying due honour to the gods of other clans, especially the Emperors. In the protectorates of their Empire, they consider local religions equal to their own. Since some of these cultures are monotheistic, they regard the idea that all the gods are aspects of one God as reasonably plausible. They mythologise their history. The Iron People have a mystical cosmology based on the idea that the universe is formed by the actions of pairs of complementary forces. There is popular belief in a sun god and mine demons. The Most Noble Order of Knights Errant has a religion ultimately derived from those of the Wavolar and the Jade Mountains. There is a strong emphasis on "Knightly Virtues", such as justice, chivalry etc. The Desert People practice a form of ancestor worship. The Theocracy of Southland were very aggressive polytheists, similar in some respects to the Aztecs. They ferociously oppressed a monotheistic culture called The Children of the Last People. When the Old Empire conquered Southland, the Theocracy was destroyed, although some of its cults remain. Pete