[Glorantha] Nature of Worship

[Greg Stafford]

> From: CJ <cj at falster23.freeserve.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Glorantha] Collecting Folktales...

>  I here think of Andrew Lang collecting folklore in the last quarter of
> the 19th century.

Considering that he was collecting them because they were being lost as the
cultural ways of life died out in the modern age makes me appreciate 
more fully
the idea that someone may have had to “rescue” the Darkness Ways.”
However, the key stories of those ways would have ben active and useful to the
people, a part of their ancient identity, and not lost at all.

> However two questions arise - what is the difference
> between Myth and Folklore, if any?

A classic definition, not entirely accurate but useful nonetheless is:

Myths = tales of the Gods.
Legends = tales of Heroes
Folklore = tales of (often anonymous) people.
The same story can theoretically be told in each of these methods.

I would need to expand these in a Gloranthan context:
Myths include the rites, secrets and powers of the actual world-making events.
Legends are recapitulations of those myths in a varied manner by people for
similar ends.
Folklore is stories derived from myths and legends, but which have no 
secrets or
inherent power. These are a form of entertainment, not spiritual power. 
This is
one of the reasons that they vary wildly from the “original” myth.

> Now I wonder if we can differentiate between myth and folklore, and
> whether attempting to not collect variants but to "correct" folklore
> might open you to charges of being a Godlearner?

This is the kind of thing that has no universal answer, but would 
depend on the
locals.
Probably not if it is being done with folktales, but perhaps with myths.

> From: Nic Hughes <nicolas.h at virgin.net>
responding to
> Simon Hibbs <simon.hibbs at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I suspect that the Great Darkness wasn't an external event that
 &tc
>
> One possible view on this is to look at all the correspondences to
> Sun/Fire and assume that they were mythically weakened during the great
> darkness. The organ associated with fire is the brain so perhaps anyone
> without specific means to counter the effect were mythically brain
> damaged, or the functioning of their brain was inhibited.

I would not put any universal faith in Hepherones correspondences.
Plus, please recall hat there is a vast net of interrelationships, not 
simply an
association with an organ, a sense and so on.

> Fires would
> not have spontaneously lit after the dawn and higher intellect may not
> have spontaneously returned even though obstacles to its returning no
> longer existed. This of course become a trap in a way that the inability
> to light a fire does not, if your brain is inhibited you would lack the
> insight to see a way to remove the problem yourself even when the
> external cause of the problem is removed.  I can certainly see some of
> the more philosophically inclined Gloranthans believing something along
> these lines.

Despite my warnings above, this is not a bad comparison.

> More practical Gloranthans probably give it little thought, its just a
> fact of history.

Absolutely.

> From: "Malk Williams" <malk at malkavius.com>
> Subject: [Glorantha] Belief, Deities and their Worship.

> There is quite a common theme in a certain sort of book, to espouse as
> fact, the idea that gods are created by the belief of their worshippers,
> and moulded into what their worshippers believe them to be.

Not exactly a Gloranthan idea, although certain schools of the God Learners
adopted it.

> It seems to me that the deities of Glorantha are rather too integral
> with the world and its people to really fit that mould, at least fully,
> though I'm sure an argument could be put otherwise if someone really
> wanted to do so.  Nevertheless, the fact remains that gods are perceived
> and worshipped in vastly different ways in different places, and I was
> wondering to what extent that effects the True Nature of the deity in
> question.

Not much.
For this we need to understand the True Nature and he accretions that have
accrued to the entity.

> I think that the nature of heroquesting is such - if I understand
> correctly - that the nature of a thing, even a god, can be changed by
> it,

This is a theory that is widely held, because sometimes minor entities can be
altered. The externalities o their worship can be changed relatively easily (
will use a knife instead of a sword, I will use granite instead of quartz,
seawater instead of blood, etc.). However, even these will affect the 
worship’s
effectiveness, and enough of them will disable it. How much? Well, that is
unknown and is one of the reasons that sometimes a ritual fails and sometimes
it succeeds.

> but when there is no direct conflict, no deliberate attempt to
> forcibly alter something, are deities still changed by the perceptions
> of their worshippers?

No.

> The deity I was considering when I first thought about this was Waha the
> Butcher.  In Prax, he is the Khan of Khans, and accomplished so many
> diverse feats to enable the nomads to survive in the Greatlands that it
> is hard to see him otherwise.  But in elsewhere, (Peloria?) he is
> worshipped merely as the god of slaughterhouses.

Please note that this is “one of the gods of slaughterhouses.” Peloria has is
own butchers.
Waha worship was introduced into Peloria during the Dawn Age when the Praxians
assisted the Unity Council in fighting against the Dara Happans. Later some of
the Praxians lords ruled over regions, and of course worshipped their own
spirits. (Except in Rinliddi, most of these rulers and heir worship has
disappeared, leaving a modern non-Praxian bison lineage here, a sable wyter
there, etc.)

> Now it seems to me,
> that if I were Waha, I would be less than happy with this state of
> affairs, even downright insulted - assuming that I was an entity with an
> independent sense of self.

Waha cannot be unhappy. He gets this little bit of worship from these people,
and it is not a source of joy or sorrow.

> Granted, as a god who is bound by the Great
> Compromise, his ability to actively do anything about it is limited, but
> even so, unless the gods of Glorantha are just so much divine putty, to
> be moulded into whatever shape their worshippers want, surely they have
> some say in the manner of their worship?

No, not any more. Not in being able to correct people, who DO have freedom and
will. Their manners of worship were established long ago, and the people are
responsible for keeping those channels open hrough correct worship. It is one
of the main reasons that people are naturally averse to change—that human
conservatism that I keep mentioning.

> Or is it just that a fairly
> localised god like Waha is grateful for whatever worship and sacrifice
> he can get, and isn't about to turn people away just because they don't
> call him by his favourite name?

He is neither grateful not disagreeable about it.

> I expect that I'm not the only one here to have read Neil Gaiman's
> "American Gods",

A book that would have been better as a comic but really did not do justice to
real mythology.
Nonetheless


> and it puts me in mind of the scene at the end, where
> the protagonist goes to Iceland and meets Odin, and talks to him about
> "Mr Wednesday", the rather diminished version of Odin as he existed in
> America.  Odin's answer was that Mr Wednesday was indeed a part of him,
> but that he was not part of Mr Wednesday.  Would this apply?

Yes, it would, and is a pretty good example of what you are talking about.

> Would
> there be an almost complete separation between Waha the Khan of Khans,
> and Waha the god of the Slaughterhouse?  Or would they be the same,
> indivisible entity, simply worshipped in different aspects?

Think of it like this: the Praxians worship the whole entity, the Rinliddi
butchers worship a hand, enclosed in a glove that was made by a foreign 
entity.

Now, I have in the past mentioned how “new powers” can be discovered by
worshippers. These are not new to the god, they are new to the worshipper. So
it might be that some sorry butcher slave, sent to Duke Raus as a slave, and
escaped in to Prax might pray to his petty little god in desperation for help,
and then be visited by a spirit that takes him to some food. Wow! New power?
For that guy, you betcha. For Waha? Nope.


========================
Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

Issaries, Inc.
2140 Shattuck Ave., PMB #2030
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA

========================
Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

Issaries, Inc.
2140 Shattuck Ave., PMB #2030
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA