A few words :
« This is a big cluster » : what follows is nothing but a sneak peek into a single clan beliefs. Thankfully, animism doesn't care much about ortho/heterodoxia, it lives plenty of room to worldbuild a little.
This isn't about how a clan beliefs were corrupted or fell from some ideal, but how those beliefs changed and evolved in the course of time and events. I've tried to chose words as carefully as possible to reflect this point of view.
It lacks order. I know.
« The clan » is Adreena's one and I'm still unsure how to call it ^^
As usual, feedback, critics and suggestions are welcomed !
The clan has lived free for a little more than a century. While its golden legend says that it remained true to the old ways for the centuries of slavery, some traits seem to be an heritage of this period :
*They are extremely prudish ; while in other clans some important rituals involve nakedness, only the voluval ceremony requires the youngs to be naked -and it is deemed to be the main ordeal of the ceremony.
*The ci'nal, a ceremonial knife, is unknown.
Many rituals were forgotten, but the stories were remembered. As the part of their identity they clung to, they're deemed sacred, and play an important part in the daily rituals and spirituality. Some consider the universe to be nothing more than a collection of stories ; other that stories are just a particular kind of spirits, though a very important one, and the closest there is to mankind.
The rituals that mark the rhythm of the various moments of the day, year and life are another Amarr legacy : prayers and songs switched their object, but remain prayers and songs, the posture, rhythms and melodies drawn from Amarrian traditions. There isn't temples or altars : important ceremonies are conducted outside, daily ones by the elder of an household. The explanation concerning the function of said rituals varies greatly from one individual to another : some don't question it and just consider them important without looking further, some view them as a form of pleasing/appeasement and others as a form of contract that keep balance between this world and the spiritual one.
The shaman is of course a central figure : her role is to know and to remember. Ideally, a shaman is supposed to know laws and customs to settle disputes, to remember the stories accumulated during the years and to know the various rituals for various occasions. While some individuals were able to live up to this ideal, more often than not those functions are split between several shamans.
The old stories usually mention there were talismans for this and that occasion, but rarely what the talisman looked like or how it was made, since such a knowledge was common when they were first told. The clan's talismans are often simple in material and shape, usually small pieces of metal ; they're carried around with necklaces or bracelets, or sometimes nailed to a plank or a stick planted in the ground. They're engraved with a few sentences of a story, chosen depending on the talisman purpose.
Tattooing such a talisman on one's skin isn't unheard of, but extremely rare and only justified for exceptional circumstances and individuals.
Due to the importance of perpetuating the stories of old, Huginn and Muninn are highly revered. Pator and Matar (often called All-Father and All-Mother) are considered more powerful, but remote spirits, almost oblivious, prayers and songs rarely address them, preferring the two ravens.
Either a direct legacy of their original beliefs or a reaction to the Amarr's ones, members of this clan consider there are no gods, only spirits of varying power. While to the outside viewer the distinction that makes Pator and Matar « powerful spirits » rather than « gods » could be nonexistent, pointing it out would be considered extremely rude and foolish.
As for the spirits, they are countless, since everything is alive and has a spiritual counterpart. This is true not only of natural beings and phenomenons, but also of artifacts (from trucks to spaceships) and even abstractions and ideas (stories are the most obvious example, but also scientific discoveries -whether the discovery gives birth to a new spirit or the other way around is sometimes debated, and often shrugged off as a matter of little consequences).
Spirits aren't view as immortal beings : they are born, they live and they die.
A common explanation for the existence apparently immortal spirits is that they just benefit from a very long lifespan : Huginn and Muninn will die when the last consciousness dies, All-Father and All-Mother when there is no life left in the universe. Another explanation is based on this example : each wave is born, lives, and dies on the shore, but as long as there are waves, the sea as a whole endures.
The afterlife is granted as long as the stories one was part of are remembered ; whether this afterlife is a survival of one's personality or something more ineffable and nebulous varies from one to another.
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Topic: An example of a Sebiestor Clan spirituality (Read 1296 times)