[Glorantha] Ancestor Worship

[Simon Phipp]

Hiya All
   
  I've been having a few thoughts about Ancestor Worship recently, mainly because one of the PCs in my current campaign is an ancestor worshipper, but also to tie in with ideas about shamans, spirits and things in general.
   
  Way back in the old RQ days, if you worshipped Daka Fal, you could not belong to another cult. However, trolls could worship Kyger Litor and also worship ancestors (e.g. combined worship of Kyger Litor/Mistress Sazdorf) but they seemed to get their spells through Kyger Litor/Sacred Ancestors rather than directly from Daka Fal.
   
  In HeroQuest terms, I assume that ancestor worship is either a Helper Practice for the main Spirit Tradition, or is gained through worship of a hero/founding ancestor and uses specific feats.
   
  Now, putting the exact mechanisms aside, I have some fundamental difficulties understanding why ancestor worship precludes worshipping other deities. Imagine a Yelmic family, who can proudly trace their descent back to Yelm himself. If one of them decided to worship his ancestors, he could not worship Yelm, so his sons would lose their Yelmic status. So, they would have Yelmic ancestors but be cut off from Yelm themselves. This seems very odd indeed. The same situation occurs when looking at Lunars descended from the Red Goddess and when anyone is descended from a mighty hero or god. They cannot participate in both ancestor worship and the cult of their particular ancestor.
   
  Another question is about the ancestors themselves. Currently, people can only summon their direct ancestors - parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. This also seems a bit odd. What about other people in the family? Can they not be summoned? What if I had a great-uncle who was a powerful person and important to the family? Could I summon him? What about my grandfather's cousins? They are all part of the ancestor-family, but are not direct ancestors? Should I be able to summon them?
   
  In the film Emerald Forest, when someone in the native american tribe dies, they are cremated and their ashes are added to a sacred pot, which means they are reunited with their clan/family. I would say that this makes them available to be summoned as an ancestor even if they are not a direct ancestor.
   
  In the film Gladiator, which I know is not particularly accurate, he has figurines of his ancestors and his family in his personal shrine. I can see people's figurines being added to personal or family shrines, thus making them eligible to be summoned.
   
  Perhaps we should call it "Extended Family Worship" rather than Ancestor Worship.
   
  Finally, although ultimately all ancestor worship derives from Daka Fal, how important is Daka Fal to ancestor worshippers generally? Prax has Daka Fal worshippers, but also worshippers of Grandfather Morokanth and Grandfather Baboon. Duke Raus is said to be an ancestor worshipper, but does House Rone have links to Daka Fal? What about trolls, they worship their clan ancestors, Mistress Sazdorf and so on, but do they particularly care about Daka Fal?
   
  I reckon that they see Daka Fal as an originator, if they see him at all. So, he would stand in the same kind of place as Umath as the Father of Storms, or Aether as Grandfather Sky. If they thought really hard about it, they would see that Daka Fal was the first, primal ancestor cult, but their House/Clan/Whatever worships its own ancestors through whichever clan founder they worship.
   
  OK, perhaps "worship" is the wrong term, perhaps "honour" would be better. I suppose in HeroQuest terms, animists don't worship their ancestors and Theists worship their Founder rather than the ancestors themselves.
   
  What do people think?
   
  See Ya
   
  Simon