Re: ghosts, flames, and fox fire; was: a bit of...

>Let's put flames to good use here:  how many of you in your conlangs and
>concultures have a word for electricity?  Is it related to fire in any way?
>or lightning?  What about fox fire? methane gas?  are ghosts a kind of cold
>fire?  What about dynamite?  Anybody have language for firecrackers?
>fireworks?
Electricity isn't even a concept that's familiar to the Xinkutlan.  I guess
if you explained it to them, they'd probably classify it as a kind of
friendly "dzalaqu" /dzalaq'u/ (a kind of spirit that can possess and
animate tools.)  Friendly dzalaqu are kind of like the elves in the fairy-
tale of "the elves and the shoemaker", except invisible unless you're a
shaman-priest.

Lightning is "dzak taqan" ("sky fire" or "fire of the upper air")

Fox-fire, I have to confess, is an unfamiliar substance.  Explanation,
please?

Methane gas in a marsh or swamp is again, a kind of spirit. (Hey, it's the
bronze age.  Most things have some sort of spirit associated with them)
This time, they're called "nepec" /nep'eS/ from the word "nep" meaning
marsh or swamp.

Ghosts- well, it depends what _sort_ of ghost.  There are ancestors, who
are basically benign unless you do something to make them not like you,
hero spirits, which are a sort of god-spirit who happened to be alive once,
other people's ancestors (decidedly risky to approach) and the Dead, who
are divided into haunting kinds, possessing kinds and the really dangerous
sort that do both.
I haven't made up the words yet, but this should give you a little insight
into some of the Xinkutlan cosmology.

Firecrackers and gunpowder are also unknowns.  They'd consider the
explosion to have been made by a powerful fire spirit ("xeru
kudzak" /tSe'ru ku'dzak"/ literally "nature-spirit of-fire") under the
command of a shaman-priest.

G