On the Disappearance of Haraal.

It has come to my attention that nowhere in my recent writings have I actually addressed the vanishing of Haraal. And while it is my first instinct to assume that any potential readers of these mad scrawlings would be intimately familiar with the major cultural myths of the known world, assuming is exactly what I should not do. Indeed, perhaps one of you right now lives far and away from knowledge or influence of Deneroth.¹ I would be remiss in omitting anything which could contribute to a more complete understanding of the world in which I write, and the context of powers that currently be.

Haraal, unifier of the Ersuunian tribes, emperor of a burgeoning empire, living culture-hero on the receiving end of cult-like levels of reverence even before his deification, removed his crown and abdicated from his throne one day after a strange visit, leaving without a word, never to be seen or heard from again.

Of course it isn't so simple as that, but those details are all that can be agreed upon between sometimes starkly contradictory sources.

First, we are unsure of exactly how long Haraal reigned as king-chieftain. Histories of All by Yashka the Sage reports a reign of 114 years and this number is often regarded as canon, particularly in Deneroth. But Yashka wrote his chronicle several centuries after the disappearance of Haraal. Mythinterpretations of History by the late Berschut Groz offers a more conservative estimate of 70-80 years. Both theories either explicitly or implicitly support the idea that Haraal was blessed with supernatural vitality and long life, but neither gives Haraal a definite point in the timeline of history which we so enjoy using. We can relatively safely say that he reigned no earlier than 800 years before the time of Yashka however, putting Haraal no more than 2,300 years in the past.

Second, we are unsure of where Haraal disappeared from. We do know that his imperial palace-camp was somewhere in the northwest region close to the sites of his last great battles, but its exact location has remained a mystery shrouded in myth, with more than a few frontier folktales and cunningfolk assertions clouding it up further. It is assumed that the camp was located on a relatively flat area of land where the royal herds could graze comfortably, but that still leaves a very wide possible range of area. Again, we can only judge by the broadest limits, and say that the palace must have been located somewhere south of modern settlements such as Bluehill, and that it would have given the Axebite a wide berth- even Haraal was cautious of some dangers, it seems.

One day, traditionally emphasized as being just like any other with no foreshadowing or warning, Haraal was adjudicating cases brought before him in his throne room. After the third or fourth defendant graciously accepted his imminent beheading after prolonged exposure to The Presence and The Gaze, a hush suddenly fell upon the court. There was a muffled sound in the distance, outside, and it was slowly growing in clarity and volume. Haraal took notice of this after he found his servants not immediately responding to his commands, and had the doors to his court opened wide in order to better hear what the disturbance was.

It was crying.

Deep, gut-wrenching weeping, growing in volume and in voice.

Haraal waved a hand to send two of his guards out to investigate, but in a matter of moments they filed back into his throne room with limp arms, stunned expressions, and thoroughly overactive tear ducts. Again, he sent guards out to confront the issue, sending four this time. Four sobbing messes returned to him. A third time, sending six guards, Haraal was once again confounded. This almost comical mix of repetition and escalation continued for some time until Haraal had dispatched his entire royal guard, to no avail.

The other members of his court were growing concerned by this point, so Haraal rose from his throne and cast his aura upon them. Calmed somewhat, they begged their lord to go and see what this dreadful thing was. He proclaimed that he was already on his way to doing so, and then strode out into the light of day. Huge, dark-bottomed clouds were already approaching on the horizon, but his eyes fixed on something far more immediate.

At the base of the hill which his palace crowned, his people had fallen into disarray in droves. Hundreds of men, women, and children had absconded from their duties and their leisures to add to the mournful cacophony. They did not heed their lord when he commanded them to rise, to rejoice in his presence. They only bowed their heads lower in grief toward a single point in the distance. Haraal's smoldering bronze gaze tried to fix it in place, but it only continued its approach.

A small, greyish hunchback of immeasurable age was hobbling his way up the slope, one withered, useless arm clutched tightly to his side. He was weather-worn and almost hairless, with one enormous shoulder and a clubbed foot which he dragged along the ground. His scabrous, diseased-looking skin was stretched tightly across his emaciated frame clad in nothing but rags soaked in morning dew. Despite his disabilities, he moved with surprising speed, and his voice, though labored, sounded not the least bit short of breath. For the hunchback was the loudest of the crying voices- only his weeping was song.

It was wordless, lacking in any real rhyme or meter. But what it lacked in composition, it made up for in dreadful emotion. They were the sounds of raw, ageless sorrow and loss. Of grief and regret for everything that has ever happened or never happened. Of a child yearning for a mother.

And that was exactly what he asked, when at last he climbed the hill and halted before Haraal, eyes only dimly registering the man towering over him as they rose up from their naturally downcast state.

"Have you seen my mother? I was lost by her. I have not found her. Have you seen her?"

These questions were all that he interrupted his quavering song with, and he repeated them again and again as he stood pitifully before the emperor. His words were strange and rustic to Haraal's ears, like the tongue of some of his most distant Ersuunian subjects, many centuries removed. Haraal, being uncharacteristically compassionate, was able to look beyond the breach of conduct in addressing a chieftain which would have ended in a greater man being beheaded on the spot. He made an exception for the strange creature, and asked him his name.

Depending on the age or dialect of the account, the hunchback's name varies in form. But each name is generally a recognizable cognate with the others others, for his name when taken literally was "Grief".

Haraal treated with Grief then, all the while becoming increasingly suspicious of the outsider and the effect he was having upon his subjects. It seemed that the influence of Haraal was mitigated in the hunchback's presence, for he could merely quell their weeping rather than elevate them to an exultant state more pleasing to his senses. But Grief would not bend to Haraal's will. Nor did he even seem to be conscious of the effect his presence seemed to be having on the palace, as if he had spent so long in his current state that this was his 'normal'. He asked over and over for news of his mother, whoever she was, and patently ignored any of the emperor's attempts to assuage his anguish and coax him into staying and reveling at his court.

Things might have gone very differently, had Haraal decided to quit his attempts at dominating the will of the hunchback.

But there was no challenge insurmountable to the son of the pine tree, scion of the sacred peak. No individual had ever resisted him, and a hunchback would not be the first. He butted heads with the cluelessly resilient Grief until his own followers were red eyed, vomiting, and bleeding from their noses with the force of that sympathetic misery. He promised rare silks, jewels, and iron to him if he ceased his weeping. He promised him a place in his court if he told him his story, and the root of his cursed power. He promised him a mended body and thousand purebred horses to draw an army of chariots across the land in search of his mother, if he would kneel before him. All of this and more was ignored by the hunchback, who continued to whimper the wordless lullaby of his missing parent.

At last, Grief announced that he needed to find her, and turned his back on Haraal to begin ambling back down the hillside.

This is said to be what sealed the fate of Haraal.

He went after the hunchback, quickly overtaking him with his long stride full of indignant purpose. The chieftain put himself in the way of Grief several times as he tried to shuffle away, each time demanding that he halt and show him the reverence which was due. Each time, Grief slunk around and sidestepped the tall, bronze man. Finally Haraal seized the hunchback in his hands and lifted him off of the ground, shaking him violently as he commanded him to come to heel.

Grief locked eyes with Haraal for the first time, then. His song and his mourning stopped, and a silence fell over the campgrounds so heavy that it could be cut with an obscure bladed weapon of Ersuunian origin, the identity of which is still fiercely debated in some highly semantic circles.² Then, slowly and deliberately, Grief began to move his arm. Not the "good" one with its swollen shoulder joint, but the shrunken and skeletal one which had been held to his chest for the whole time. Ruined joints popped and cracked loudly as he extended his limb toward Haraal, who regarded it strangely but did not pull away, even as the bony fingertips touched him upon the cheek, and then reached around to the nape of his neck.

There shouldn't have been any observers of the event capable of seeing through unclouded eyes by this point in time, but the narrative nonetheless states that Grief appeared to grow in size suddenly, while Haraal shrank. Perhaps he also shrank back in fear, despite the long-held belief that Haraal knew no fear. The hunchback met his stature and then exceeded him, somehow standing tall and straight despite his shape remaining the same. Then his other massive arm rose up to embrace the dwarfed form of the chieftain, almost like a parent would a child.

And then he whispered something into Haraal's ear.

What was whispered is unknown, but it is one of the most highly speculated-upon pieces of history and/or mythology to day.

Whatever the hunchback's words were, in a span of seconds they broke the spell. Grief was shrunken and warped again, Haraal as tall and statuesque as he'd ever been. Grief was singing anew, and ambling down into the wilderness beyond the reach of the Haraalian camp. The wracking sobs which had plagued the palace subjects subsided at long last, much to the relief of all. But when they looked up to their lord uninhibited, they saw him turning away.

Haraal had a haunted look about him. His burning eyes were darkened and glassy, and they looked around wildly as he staggered back from the spot where the hunchback had grabbed him.

Then he screamed.

He screamed, and clutched his ears as if it were ringing in his own ears, and then he fled in a frenzy across the palace grounds before leaping atop and unbroken horse and riding beyond the horizon. As he passed by the ever-growing tapestries which lined the thoroughfare leading to his court, it is said that their intricately woven programs twisted and morphed to depict not their history and grand achievements, but a bleak future of clouds and blood. Haraal fled into reaches unknown, forsaking crown, throne, and people as the failing of his powers and the ineffable words of the hunchback shook him to his core.

Sober-minded from the catharsis of the hunchback's influence, and free of Haraal's Presence and Gaze both, his subjects are said to have promptly burned the settlement to the ground and then dispersed, the site of that short-lived capital forever lost to history.

Traditions which venerate Haraal as a deific figure tend to describe his confrontation with the hunchback as a penultimate battle against good and evil, which ended in Grief being banished at great personal cost to Haraal, who vowed to return to his people one day once all pain and decay had been driven from the land. Belief in the imminent return of Haraal has waxed and waned with the centuries, growing particularly strong during times of hardship when many such millennialist movements are taking root, but dissipating soon after it becomes apparent that the end is not nigh.

Even among less dogmatic communities across the Ersuunian Basin, where birth defects and deformities often set an individual apart as special or touched by divinity, the possession of any aspects associated with Grief is a universally dire social stigma lacking in any duality or complexity of meaning.

The streets of Porylus seem to be free of such anxieties as we pass them by, but I have heard rumor that Haraalian movements are beginning to come back into fashion with the approach of the three-hundredth year After the Rupture.





¹ If so, please tell me about this distant place so that I might move there.
² The "skirpha" referenced originally by Yashka the Sage has been variously interpreted as a sword, long knife, grain-scythe, or horseman's axe, with concessions to the theory that it was a generic term for "blade" being few and far between. Our own Professor of Fencing & Swordsmanship Berchtold Vogt claims in a footnote in the Appendices of the recently released second edition of his Manual of Masterful Martial Maneuvers that the skirpha was actually a pole weapon having more in common with an earspoon spear with a weighted, metal-capped butt. As his theory goes, the weapon was not actually meant to slice the silence at all, and Yashka's description was actually a subtle infiltration of the old Nambarish tradition of metaphysical poetry, in which the fundamental properties of poetic subjects are altered dramatically for emphasis or coded layers of meaning. Though remarkably deep and compelling compared to his usual area of... expertise, Vogt's theory has only drummed up more conflict among etymologists.

Qut.

Now that I'm inching back into activity here on the blog (I honestly thought I'd be gone longer), I realize it's time for another one of my posts that can't decide between history and mythology. And what better topic to address in that mindset than the millennia-old concept of sacral kingship, in order to quell the need to go back and edit my college research project?

Sacred kings, past and present, are broadly defined as monarchs (male or female) whose temporal rule holds religious significance. They may hold religious authority, in which case they may hold some similarities to an outright theocrat, or they may simply be an otherwise earthly ruler reigning with the legitimacy conferred on them by a sacred figure or institution. Sacred kingship took a huge variety of forms around the world throughout history, arguably being present on every single continent with the exception of Antarctica.¹ The divine right of kings and mandate of heaven were enormously significant in the western and eastern halves of Eurasia respectively, but I want to look into a form of divine legitimacy that was carried by rulers of states which often straddled Europe and Asia- nomadic pastoralist empires.

The khan named Temüjin consolidated the disparate Mongolic tribes and officially formed the Mongol Empire in 1206 CE. After this date he became known as Chinggis Khan. He, like so many other khans of the Mongol people(s), had previously been invested with his power by a böö, or shaman, at the feet of the mountain named Burkhan Khaldun, located in modern day Khentii Province. This was a sacred mountain for the Mongols, and according to the account of his life, Temüjin once escaped certain death after a lost battle by taking refuge at the mountain. Burkhan Khaldun is traditionally believed to be a sort of axis mundi connected to heaven and the sky-god Tengri. By propagandizing the unlikely victories, narrow escapes, and seemingly miraculous events of Temüjin's life, it was easy to demonstrate to the Inner Asian world that he was a legitimate authority figure, surely under the guidance and protection of Eternal Heaven.²

But Burkhan Khaldun wasn't the only source of sacral kingship that Chinggis Khan benefited from. Humans live between heaven and earth, after all. And that is why he chose to place the capital of his nomadic empire at the literal and figurative center of the nomad's world, in a place called Ötüken.

Ötüken, often referred to as Ötüken-yish or Ötüken-jer, meaning "forest" or "land" of Ötüken, respectively, is an area of land that is difficult to pin down today. One theory put forth by Mongolist Thomas T. Allsen is that it stretched from the Khangai Mountains of central Mongolia to the Sayan Mountains of nearby Tuva³, though this doesn't quite match up when you try to place its most central landmark, the Orkhon River Valley, at its center. This is further muddled by the frequent claim that Ötüken is also a single mountain at the center. Though to be fair, spiritual geography can be very vague or flexible based on the needs of the time.

The Orkhon Valley, located at the tentative heart of Ötüken as well as about 320 kilometers west of the modern capital city of Ulaanbaatar, was where Chinggis Khan founded his first imperial city of Karakorum. But it had also once been the site of the city of Ordu-Baliq, seat of the Uyghur Khaganate almost four hundred years prior. Yet the Uyghurs had come there centuries after the fractious Göktürks had done the same twice over, and before them had come the Rourans, and even before them it is possible that the Xianbei and Xiongnu confederations had centered their states on the river valley. By the lifetime of Chinggis Khan it was the site of over a thousand years of cultural continuity and habitation by prestigious nomads whether they be Mongols, Turks, proto-Mongols, or other poly-ethnic or uncertain groups. Chinggis Khan's decision to place the seat of his new empire there was as natural as it was calculated.

And with good reason: thanks to a local microclimate, some of the greatest grazing lands in the Mongolian Steppe are located here, in addition to a breathtaking array of forests, mountains, rivers, and lakes. I believe it was as close to a paradise as the harsh steppe landscape could have offered to ancient nomads.

But it wasn't just a beautiful landscape with practical or tactical value and a long history.

Orkhon Valley is the place from which qut emanates.

Qut is a divine power which originates in Ötüken and spreads outward, granting the local ruler the divine right to unite and rule all of the tribes of the land. It was an extension of the favor of the spirits of the land, or yer-sub, whose mood and disposition toward humanity was said to be seen reflected in the weather and bounty of nature, in particular the fruit trees of Orkhon. The valley was recognized in writing as being vital to imperial power as far back as the early 8th century CE, when one of the rulers of the Göktürks, Bilge Khagan, inscribed on a stele at the site that "If you stay in the land of the Ötüken, and send caravans from there, you will have no trouble. If you stay at the Ötüken Mountains, you will live forever dominating the tribes!"⁴

It is also no coincidence that Ötüken is one of many names given to the earth-goddess of Turko-Mongol mythology, commonly seen as second in power only to Tengri, who was often presented as being her husband or relative. By controlling both Ötüken and Burkhan Khaldun, Chinggis Khan had the exceptional ability to say that the two greatest divinities of the world were on his side.

I see qut as sort of a hybrid sacral kingship model, which combines the elements of a few others. It comes from a physical location which must be seized and controlled in order to harness it, yet it takes the form of an empowering supernatural energy that is non-exclusive with, similar to, and distinct from the general favor or protection of the chief deity. I'd dare to say it resembles the power of barakah conferred upon people, objects, and places by God in Islam, though on a comparatively very limited scale, and with very specific stipulations attached.

Today we don't have a lot of world leaders claiming that they are empowered by magical leyline energy, which is probably for the best. But the beauty and history of the Orkhon Valley are preserved by a UNESCO heritage site designation.



¹ Though to be fair, we aren't sure about how the Elder Things governed themselves.

² Franke, Herbert. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 6. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Page 347.

³ Allsen, Thomas T. "Spiritual geography and political legitimacy in the eastern steppe." Ideology and the Formation of Early States. Brill Academic Publishers, 1996. Pages 124-125.

⁴ Drompp, Michael R. "Breaking the Orkhon Tradition: Kirghiz Adherence to the Yenisei Region after A. D. 840." Journal of the American Oriental Society 119, no. 3. American Oriental Society, 1999. Page 391.

Going Downhill: The Pem-Pah, Part 2.

Click here to read Part 1. 

"The bugs, the waves, the roaring... I can't sleep like this!"
- Tabren Achek, first Pach-Pah Yul ambassador to the cyclopean city of Anqoh.

"Just try counting the thunderclaps, oh Commendable One. That is what I do when I am restless."
- Apota Dolj, his local guide. They lost count somewhere after 186.



In the vast cosmology of the Pach-Pah Yul, there is a clear delineation between good places in the world, and evil places. The underground is feared as the underworld- not because of any malevolent spirits or gods of the dead abiding there, but because it is understood that the place is simply a natural anathema to anything with a surface-born nature, as the People of the Earth possess. The peaks of their homeland however, are pure, cleansed by their proximity to the breath of their greater gods who dwell in the space between the land and the sky.

The lowlands, meanwhile, are theoretically livable in mythological concept, and explicitly so in day-to-day life, yet they lack the protection of the spirits and ancestors. So while the rest of the world is not explicitly forbidden, it would be folly to try and dwell there, because a Pach-Mih would never truly "belong" there. This is the logic which has been used by highlanders to understand the perceived bizarre way in which Pem-Pah culture has developed over the centuries since their genesis. And it his stuck and gained cultural currency, even after years of gradually increasing contact with the Pem-Pah. Because one could be easily forgiven for mistaking the land of Khaitam-po as a cursed and forsaken place.

First, it must be understood that in the unique case of the Pach-Pah who perpetuate this idea, they are spectacularly adapted to their homeland. In addition to their generally stockier builds protecting them from the cold better than those of taller men and women from the lowlands, they are also resilient to the debilitating effects of thin air which have been reported by many a rangy-limbed traveler.

This specialization, however, seems to have a reverse side.

When traveling from high altitudes to low ones, many of the Pach-Pah have been observed to experience a prolonged period of weakness characterized by such symptoms as headaches, fatigue, dizziness, inability to sleep, loss of appetite, and even an overactive bladder. These ailments are generally worse the lower one goes, reaching their ironic peak at sea level, which is exactly where the entirety of Khaitam-po is located. To a person informed by the logic of gods-breath and discouraged or forbidden places, it is natural to believe that this weakening is a very real, very serious treat to one's health, and proof of the bond between people and land.¹ Though the Pem-Pah still visibly share many aspects of physiology and size adaptation with their cousins uphill, it can be surmised that they transitioned into lowland living over a long enough period of time in the ancient past that low-altitude sickness became nonexistent for them. Tall folk seem to lack this handicap, and their contributions to the ethnographic record have been considerable, but I don't believe that each half of these people will be able to form a full and rich appreciation of one another until this divide has been more thoroughly circumvented.

While it is known that a handful of Pach-Pah have been able to temporarily acclimatize over a period of days or weeks throughout history, few other than dignitaries, traders, mercenaries, and adventurers have done so, and virtually none of them have been bothered to do so for the sake of staying deep within Khaitam-po, thanks to the number of other oddities which the location boasts.

In addition to the air being thicker, keen-eyed outsiders have observed that it has a strange, perpetually yellowish-green tinge to it in the atmosphere. Certainly, it is more humid and salty thanks to close proximity to the sea, but many have reported less clearly discernible aspects as well. There is a stifling quality to the air, which can cause a tickle in the throat of outsiders. There is also a discreet odor to it which tends to cling to things, including the clothes on one's back. The Pem-Pah are entirely unfamiliar with these experiences, and have playfully taken to referring to outsiders as being "baby-nosed" as a result.

Flora and fauna are far more diverse in Khaitam-po than elsewhere, with an uncomfortably high percentage of both being harmful to people in some way or another. Toxic plants and venomous pests are known throughout. These things too, the Pem-Pah are adapted to, in the sense that they learn early and thoroughly from their elders how to deal with each one. It is remarkable, though also somewhat off-putting, to see a man casually handle and show to outsiders a species of horn-backed spider whose bite can kill in under five talecks.

Chief among the oddities are sea and storm, however. I have to believe that these alien phenomenons came about some time after the Pem-Pah had founded in their new homeland. Because if they willingly settled down in full view of those ominous sights, I am afraid to wonder what horrible circumstances of their migration caused them to decide that permanent lightning storms and aptly named "Killing Tides" were preferable to what laid behind them on their journey.



¹ This logic has also informed the argument by some of the more isolationist camps within the spectrum of P.A.S.C.O.P.P.Y. nationalism, that other peoples outside of their homeland should not be consorted with in any meaningful way.  This has been another significant obstacle to trade and integration.

Going Downhill: The Pem-Pah, Part 1.

[In a remarkably short period of time, Roberick Bertrum Litte's already haphazard subscalanean office/dormitory has become even more disheveled. With no one to man the half-door to the utility closet during Litte's extended archaeology leave (all two days of it so far), its discount stationery and other discreet acquisitions have been ransacked by his usual customers. For the most part they haven't intended to disturb his personal effects, but when the wooden board nailed to the half-door was bumped into during an entry, the makeshift desk was nearly torn free, and all of its contents scattered across the minority of the floor which was not already taken up by shelves and a bed. While many papers have been looked over for "thesis seeds" by desperate freshmen, this sheaf of unpublished papers is the only one which has been read through with any amount of interest so far.]



"It is the well-known law both domestically and inter-communally that the possession of this volume of taboo metals and gemstones is strictly forbidden. You are fortunate I am not also charging you with intent to smuggle or sell."
- Ortej Tella, customs officer of Quibgyal Commune.

"N-Now tarry just a moment! Surely you know that the laws also state that a provision is made for the cultural folkways of all ethnic lowland-folk! And I'll have you know my grandmother was one quarter full-blooded Pem-Mih!"
- Junral Chyok, amateur peddler, clueless to the fact that Ortej was a matrilineal cousin of his.



It would be entirely remiss of me to suggest that the Pach-Pah community¹ is limited only to their ancestral mountains as well as a handful of border towns on the slopes to their north. Their ancient history was filled with pioneering folk, as well as those whose bravery and soaring imagination brought them down from the peaks of their birth. This led to the ethnogenisis of many inspired peoples who continue to exist in some capacity to this very day, not least of which among them being the Pem-Pah.

Pem-Pah is an exonym of highland origin, meaning "the people who went downhill to water". This is quite an apt description of the group's migration and eventual settlement along the southwestern coast. However, in everyday speech in their native dialect, the people known as the Pem-Pah refer to themselves simply as "the people". For the purpose of keeping the two groups distinct in my writing, I will continue to use the term Pem-Pah.

At some point in prehistory a group of people from the Pach-Pah Yul began to migrate away from the valleys and watered slopes of the mountain chain's interior, moving outward in successive waves toward the west and south. Eventually these waves of settlers pushed past the borders of the mountain range and the hills at its feet, into the lowlands and coastal regions bordering on the western sea. The highest concentration of people during these last settlement waves seemed to be in and around the Khaitom-po, a massive body of water fed by several rivers which has been described variously as a bay, estuary, or brackish-water lake.

As evidenced by the handful of digs which have been conducted outside of the Pach-Pah homeland, the ancestors of the modern Pem-Pah readily took to fishing here. This has inspired a cuisine vastly different from that of their cousin culture, as well as more than a few unique cultural points of view or folklore tropes. First the spear, and then the hooked line and net were used, after which developed the earliest boats and rafts known to the people in and around the mountain chain.

This is thanks in part to the relative abundance of wood found in the lowlands, compared to the scarce and carefully conserved pygmy forests of the mountains. Reedy grasses and palm trees unheard of in the highlands allowed for the construction of wooden vessels as well as buildings, alongside the tradition of stonework which--due to the Pem-Pah lack of involvement in the events leading up to the Collapse--was never forsaken. The settlers maintained their traditional forms of herding and weaving throughout, but also broadened and intensified their practice of agriculture to include and take advantage of the wider variety of crops which could not thrive in the mountains. Even jewelry which makes use of precious stones or metals continues to be made in Pem-Pah territory, much to the chagrin of those who were against the inclusion of Khaitom-po into the Communes with partial membership.

The people who would come to be known as the Pem-Pah proper are first mentioned in civil records from the imperial age of Pach-Pah Yul starting at about 400 years prior to the Collapse, and the death of the last Miqh Pach-Pah. These records are of trade and business transactions, suggesting that the Pem-Pah were already quite established as a culture and an economy, and that commerce and exchange between them and their upland neighbors was at least somewhat regular and normalized by that point. But because the Pem-Pah were not a part of the Pach-Pah empire and an effort was apparently never made to incorporate them, they do not often appear in official, imperial records. According to the reckoning of the Pem-Pah themselves, they were established no less than 1,200 years prior to the time of that exchange. This would make them contemporaries of the earliest incarnation of the empire, as well as the last of the pre-imperial petty-kingdoms. Little work has been done by uninvolved scholars on these old records however, owing to the extreme rarity of visits to the Pem'Pah homeland by outsiders.

This paucity of visitors is not from lack of effort or hospitality, however. Many travelers throughout the eras were known to have set off for the lands of the Khaitom-po, with few of them making it many leagues beyond the border markets.

By that point, they tend to either run screaming back home, or to collapse from need of urgent medical attention.



¹ I would also like to apologize to the Pach-Pah community for my varied and repeated mistakes in rendering its name. Being that Pach-Pah literally means "People of the Earth", it has been brought to my attention by thoughtful readers that all of my uses of the phrase "Pach-Pah people(s)" or the colloquialism "Pach-Pahs" have been erroneous and redundant. I will also make an effort to use the grammatically correct singular Pach-Mih, or simply mih² when appropriate.

² I would also like to point out to my uninitiated readers how mih is etymologically linked to--though very separate in meaning from--the old kingly title of Miqh. Mih is a person, while Miqh is a "great" person.

Riverine Despotism in the Ersuunian & Early Haraalian Periods.

As we pass farther away from the cesspits downhill from the alehouse, my mind relaxes as chances of some strange tricks on the part of Elrusyo diminish down to the minimum level of risk one always runs when consorting with herb-hermits.

In place of that mental exertion, I'm able to appreciate the river, now broadening and clarifying steadily, for what it is. It, like so many other bodies of running water across the Basin, is a vein of life running through the heartland of so many former states.

And, like real arteries, one need only apply a little pressure to them in order to affect change in the body at large.

The Ersuunians, and the people of Haraal who would eventually subsume or supplant them, are famed in written history as well as modern popular culture for their vast forces of cavalry, able to wash over any opposition like crashing waves. They conquered their enemies and then held onto their winnings through the threat and force of that mounted elite, which would grow increasingly landed and powerful as time went on. They remained the focus of warfare and political might until the appropriation of dry-stone building from Esgodarran architecture eventually met with mortar and resulted in the first fortified and stone-walled cities, which complicated the art of the siege and seriously hampered a cavalry focus.

But an equally important component of control was water access. As mixed and settled Esgodarran-Ersuunian petty-kingdoms formed, pastoralists and montane herders alike became more and more discouraged from true nomadism, and the ability for them together with their entirely agricultural neighbors to move to a new area in the event of drought became practically nonexistent. Recognizing this, chieftain-kings along the Basin's periphery exercised control over the wealthier heartlands by building the most elaborate series of earth dams the world has ever known- excepting the irrigation systems of inland Nambar of course. By limiting or allowing the flow of water into a particular region, the rulers of the northeastern reaches (where the highest percentage of rivers have their source) were able to exert formal or de facto control over groups who were downstream of them and had no way to rectify the issue or displace some other tribe in a better position.

We know this because the descendants of Haraal utilized the exact same methods of control centuries later, as evidenced by one passage offered by our ever-present friend Yashka the Sage, in which "the sons of the conqueror restored to use the old choke points of the rivers."¹ Opposition to this view traditionally argues that the dams must have been an invention of Haraal himself, and the restoration was by many later generations of his descendants whose forebears had let them fall into disrepair. I would argue against that by pointing toward the trend in existing literature of painstakingly and in excruciating detail exulting all of the achievements and creations of Haraal or his known lieutenants. Nowhere within that swollen body of chronicles can be found mention of the river controls. I know- every sophomore-level student at the ITU is expected to have them memorized.²

Today, the majority of the dams and other earthworks are lost along with much of the rest of the architecture present during the height of the Haraalians. Those that remain have been converted from weapons of war to tools of commerce, being used to aid river navigation or at times irrigation. If we are fortunate enough to develop a funded archaeological community in the near future however, I do not doubt that many spectacular artifacts of that bygone age could be found.

It could even shine light on--or put to rest for good--the notion that once upon a time, up until the migrations of the Ersuunians through the eastern highlands, the River Khesh flowed not south into what would become the Deltas region, but east into what we now know to be foreboding wastelands.

What cataclysmic event could have caused that? Had there once been a green east?



¹ Verse 28,441, line 8 of the Histories of All, Yashka the Sage, 1284 BR.

² And while it is officially attributed to Haraal's spontaneous knowledge and intuitive battle-prowess, I would argue that a broad, inherited cultural knowledge of the Ersuunian Basin's waterways from preceding generations played a large role in his conquest of the western reaches. This was one of his last campaigns, which culminated in the battle at the Masib River, south of the Oron'er Mountains. The river's original name is unknown, but today it bears the name of the Masibi people, apparently a distant offshoot of one of the mountain tribes, who believed that the river was the gateway into the afterlife, and as such traditionally set their dead adrift on rafts down its current. Haraal demonstrated that he was no stranger to dramatic irony when he first ordered the flow of the river to be cut to a trickle,  then released it in a flood that swept away the surviving Masibs who hadn't been pinned and cut down upon its banks by his army.

The Goats Who Stare for Men.

"I send Hhicza with you for fourteen stalks, a good deal for a friend. What? You sail against the wind, through the Pinholes? Twenty-eight stalks, and not a grain less!"
- Tal ad-an-Perap, a savvy priest-herder known for his somewhat questionable credentials.

"You'd think with such a pampered lifestyle, they'd at least taste a little better cooked. Worst thing I ever got tried as a heretic for."
- A tattooed and prodigiously paunched man standing about ten feet behind me as I write this. Name unknown, and not about to be asked for.



For some reason which eludes my understanding, I have the thought of the maritime traditions of Nambar stuck in my head- right in between the splitting headache and the worry that this breakfast might have been spat in. At least the hunk of cheese I was given seems to be from a goat, rather than the pig dairy "delicacies" which we are treated to back up in the higher tiers of Deneroth.

Goats, as the case happens to be, also occupy a long and storied place in the history of Nambarish seamanship.

While not often considered the proudest of animals in our reckoning, goats are highly prized and symbolic in Nambar. Owing I think to the pastoral traditions of the inland folk who would eventually join with their coastal kin to form something of a (relatively) unified people, goats have ritual importance imbued with the memory of practical considerations. While they themselves might not be considered very clean, they are the cleaners of society by having such a hardy constitution and adventurous appetite. Of course the stories of goats eating one's entire pouch of tin coins for dinner are fancy, but they do help to keep the streets of towns and cities clear of refuse. They also serve as apotropaic protectors, either as a whole or in pieces, and it is frequent that those with a stronger belief in magic will keep around a lucky goat, or an amulet made from the bones of one. The unusual pupil of a goat eye is likewise imbued with power, being just unnerving enough to cause the Evil Eye to blink and avert from its target out of discomfort. Because of this, goats are associated with more than a few protective deities, and may be sacrificed or sacrificed to. More mundanely, they also serve as very effective producers of milk, fur, and meat.

All of those are reasons to bring a goat along on an uncertain voyage where supplies may run low or the waves of an angered deity might rise up high. But far more fascinating is the goat to which no harm is ever, under any circumstances, permitted. These are the Mir u'Yam, or Goats of the Sea in our language.

No voyage into uncertain waters out of red-shored Nambar is considered complete without a dedicated, multi-functional sea-goat. They tend to be specially bred and trained from a young age to be obedient, patient, observant, and above all, stately in demeanor. The responsibility of breeding them tends to fall to the devotees of one of the associated deities, such as the blue-bearded and resplendently robed figure of Hhuuzt, who also brand their goats or dye patches of hair--such as the chin--a deep blue.

Once introduced to the appropriate vessel, a sea goat's first duty is to calmly and smoothly guide the rest of the voyage's goats up the ramp and into the holding pen where they are to remain until the ship's return to port. For reasons not entirely known to outsiders, the Mir u'Yam have a particularly pacifying effect on other, less well-bred livestock. After this, and once the ship has properly departed, a crewman hefts the Mir up on his back in a specially-designed harness, which allows him to ascend the rigging of the ship's (usually solitary) mast up to its highest point.

There, the goat is placed in a small, cage-like nest which gives it a full, uninterrupted view of the sea in every direction. Provisioned with fodder and water, the goat stands placid yet alert as a lookout. Thanks to the wide vision of goats, they may see a very broad swath of the horizon at once, and have to only turn their heads a bit. Thanks to the training of their breeders, they are not utterly and totally bored to death by the job of being lookout. It is given periodic exercise breaks down on deck, both otherwise its voyage is solitary and high-altitude.

In the event that something interrupts the wine-dark waves around the ship, the Mir u'Yam produces a trained series of bleats with particular intonation conveying different messages of direction and distance. Typically, one bleat refers to sighted land, two bleats refers to another ship, and three indicates that something other has been sighted. The ocean accessible from Nambar, truthfully or not, is believed to be filled with all manner of terrifying monsters, and those daring yet superstitious types who make up the ranks of their seafarers like to have some advance warning on when they should arm themselves with lacquered bows and toggle-spears. It is said that particularly brave and battle-hearted sea-goats even adorned the masts of the long warships which sailed into battle against the Gertish proxies of the Third Trade War.¹

When at last a ship returns safely to portage, the Mir is brought down from the mast for the last time, and kissed between the lozenge-shaped eyes by every member of the crew out of gratitude, captain included. Then it leads what remains of the supply flock ashore, depending on how many needed to be eaten or sacrificed to appropriate spirits. Finally, it is either returned to its previous handlers, or given over to a comparable group for safekeeping in the new location. Rented sea goats can come at considerable expense, however, so most find their way back to their priest-herders.

In the event of the premature death of a sea goat, whether by incident or natural causes, many sailors might fall victim to utter despair at this absolute omen of impending doom. But others, at least frequently enough that anecdotal evidence of it exists in amusing tales all across Nambar and beyond, might take a more self-determined approach. More than once, the careful eye of a priest has found that a very different goat from the one they sent off has returned to them, done up in a rough approximation of the proper branding and regalia of a Mir u'Yam. As for how the ships continue to navigate without a sea goat, I presume that no decent crew would ever let their own skills as lookouts atrophy completely.

Perhaps we should consider painting one of our own mules in lucky colors before resuming our travels today.



¹ While I don't currently have access to a verifiable source on this subject, I am quite confident that the above is correct, given that I have previously studied the events and effects of the Third Trade War, specifically in the context of how it led to the creation of Hylek's Hundreds. In lieu of a better citation, I can at least provide evidence that the occurrence is well-known enough to have become a popular subject of literature, resulting in it having been featured in the second half of Tirti Naorut's Twenty Children's Bedtime Stories from the Occident, 231 A.R. ²

² What? There's nothing wrong with carrying around a token from one's childhood. And it's as lavishly illustrated as any old codex in the library, I can say that with confidence!

On the Origins of Haraal.

Despite my strong feelings on the subject, I have to retain some small shred of impartiality, lest I become no better a writer than any member of the mid-tier faculty back at the ITU. In writing for a broader potential audience (all half-dozen of you), I must assume that no piece of history is universally-known. And that even extends to the life of Haraal, who incidentally was exactly the sort of figure who wanted his own name to be universally known.

According to the most common legend which supposedly stems from his own account of his early life, Haraal was not born. But he was birthed.

Upon the slopes of a mythical peak known as Yorl'di, there stood a weathered old tree which could generously be called a pine, alabaster in color and of the bristlecone variety. It was gnarled, bent and bowed by the unremitting wind and cold of those desolate slopes, such that it could scarcely grow more than a few needles facing away from the breeze. To any observer, it would appear almost completely dead.

But what it was actually doing was channeling its life inward, rather than expressing it outwardly. Over the span of a year, the tree's bent trunk swelled and distended until bark split and the integrity of the whole plant was compromised. When this massive protuberance at last ruptured, out came the body of a fully grown adult male, a bit sticky with sap but otherwise no worse for wear considering the year he'd just spent inside of a frozen tree. As popular depictions are quick to agree, he was bronze-skinned, black-haired, and possessed of a smoldering icy-blue gaze the likes of which one could see in an ice floe shattered by a sudden winter storm. It is no coincidence, I think, that he so closely resembled the aesthetic ideal of the old Ersuunians.

In all of his glory he stood up, dazed and nude, and turned to behold his dead "mother".

Instantaneously, the full scope of knowledge of life and death and the nature of the world blossomed within the man's mind. This would not be the only time the man would be known to instantly acquire knowledge- time and time again, often at the most convenient and dramatic moment possible, he would suddenly come into complete and masterful knowledge of whatever practical or philosophical issue was at hand. Whether this knowledge was gifted to him by a miraculous source, or it was innate to him and merely needed "unlocking" has been a topic of hot debate among priests and scholars alike for several centuries.

Whatever the nature of his genius, he did not however obtain the knowledge of how to walk properly in that first insight. Upon turning away from the splintered tree, he tripped and fell down a precipice, nearly painting a cliff face with his own insides.

Fortunately for this as-of-yet unnamed man, he was not killed by the fall, though he was badly hurt. Miraculously, the daughter of a shepherd from the lowlands just so happened to be gathering herbs and berries from the more mild scree-fields by the base of Yorl'di, and saw the man fall. She then took him back to her family's home and nursed him back to health, and in doing so, the man learned language. When he rose from bed one day, having healed at an astonishing rate, he pronounced that his name was Haraal.¹

This was also the moment of awakening for two of Haraal's other remarkable qualities; the Presence, and the Gaze. Both of them abilities which would be instrumental in his future successes.

Somewhat (un)fortunately for the shepherd's family, Haraal thanked them for their hospitality by testing both of these qualities on them.



¹ Officially, Haraal learned how to speak the language of the shepherds (as well as all other languages known to man) simply by watching and listening to them from his bed. Controversially, some scholars have argued that it may be that the shepherd's daughter was the one to directly teach him the spoken word, or even to name him, when he had neither before then. This theory pokes a hole in the idea of Haraal's immaculate or innate knowledge however, as well as places him in a position of tutelage--and therefore subordination--to another person, and a woman at that. To see this theory in full, as well as the rebuttals to it by Haraal's hardline faithful, look to the expanded introductory chapter found in annotated copies of Origins of Instruction: A Comparative Examination of the Earliest Instances of Formal Education in Recorded History by Apla the Elder, BR 82.

On the Arrival of the Ancient Ersuunians.

It occurred to me as I wrote the last complete parchment of my current travelogue that I have never given a great deal of attention to those commonly alluded-to progenitors of ours, the Ersuunians. I often write as if my audience has received the same general schooling in history as I have, or at least a fraction of it, but as I try to write for a readership not confined to the upper levels of Deneroth, I realize now that I leave far too many gaps and vistas of untouched possibility in my works. This will never be completely remedied, but I will attempt to remain conscious of the issue while moving forward.

Or in this case, even farther backward.

Disregarding for a moment the Esgodarrans, the Pach-Pah lineages, the tribes of the Oron'er Mountains, half of the ethnic admixture of the Nambarish, the Gertish, the aboriginals of the Khokhantipa Mudflats, and the Delta-dwellers¹, the Ersuunians were the catalyst for the development of complex and wide-reaching civilizations in all of the known world.

According to classical depictions, they were a tall and broad-shouldered folk with dark hair and dark or sometimes blue eyes, possessed of a bronze complexion and, in the case of the men, truly impressive mustaches. With that said, I point to the much wider diversity exhibited by the groups descended from them as an indicator that this was simply one of many phenotypes found among them and their constituent peoples at the time of their arrival on the landmass.

More verifiably, the Ersuunians were well-established pastoralists who carried or carted what little material wealth of theirs which couldn't be herded. According to tradition these other articles of wealth included finely crafted iron tools and weaponry, and the materials used to create them, but it is unclear how they managed to maintain both a pioneering lifestyle and a long tradition of blacksmithing. Perhaps their carts were larger and more numerous than commonly reported, or perhaps the speed of their expansion across the continent should be measured more in centuries than in decades.

The Ersuunians were accomplished riders, and the horse is strongly associated with their culture to this day, though it is unclear whether they had such a surplus of horses that all had a mount, or only the nobility and warriors--those most likely groups to have records or accounts about them extant--had access to such resources. By "nobles", I mean the tribal chieftains who led a group in practical as well as ritual affairs, and who commonly passed their title down through a patrilineal like of succession. These chieftains would host a court and establish fortified camps for at least as long as winter lasted, often building them so that they resembled an ovoid or more rarely crescent (perhaps even horseshoe?) shape.

They originated from somewhere far to the east, beyond the lands which have since become dried and parched. Either they dwelt in those regions soon to become desert until they became less favorable, or they passed them up directly in their efforts to find or claim a new homeland for themselves. Wherever they or their own ancestors originated from beyond what is now wasteland is lost to unwritten history, for the extent of those trackless and dangerous lands is unknown either by land route or sea. Whether the Fokari lived in the area at that time is also unclear, but I speculate that if they did, the Ersuunians had one more reason to push further west, rather than contend with established tribes and their herds.

Settling first in the highlands to the east of the rivers and the corridors of steppe country north of there, the Ersuunians spread out over the region over a period of time which might be better guessed at if the University begins to develop an archaeological studies group in the next few years. I imagine that they moved with less than burning purpose, with those who arrived first establishing themselves and their families in decent grazing lands while those behind either passed beyond into the newest frontiers, or forced their erstwhile neighbors ahead of them in return.

Eventually, or "forty-by-forty generations before the cracking of the alabaster bristlecone pine's trunk and the birthing of Haraal" to be exact ³, the Ersuunians would come to the basin which now bears their name.

When they did happen upon this vast and comparatively quite verdant depression, they also encountered the Esgodarrans living there. Exactly how these two peoples related to one another at first is unclear, but at some point their relations turned hostile. It may have been a matter of land dispute, because the mounted Ersuunians were victorious over the Esgodarrans and "drove them into the hills" of the basin according to the Histories of All written by the sage Yashka, circa 1284 BR.⁴ The implication is that the Esgodarrans were present outside of the hills prior to that conflict, and the resulting clashes allowed the Ersuunians to move in and occupy the territory by themselves. This too needs better research than I am able to attempt at the time being, but were I to make the attempt, I would seek to cross-reference these histories with those surviving in Esgodarran accounts, oral or otherwise.

Whatever the catalyst or the series of events, the result was that the Ersuunian tribes now controlled vast swathes of rich new territory, which they quickly adapted to their lifestyle. It was only so long until exploration into the agriculture practiced by several of their new neighbors began, and after that it was a sad inevitability that the first chieftain arose up among them who got the wild horsehair up his backside and decided that he wanted all to refer to him as "king".

Fans of my short piece on the Pach-Pah Empire might be able to spot history repeating itself here.



¹ Why yes, that is quite a substantial list of peoples to ignore when discussing the qualifications for "original" civilizations.² Almost seems like our definition of the term is worth revisiting, doesn't it?

² Let me also preemptively admit to my bold-faced hypocrisy in not including the Longfolk of the Reossos or the Fokari of the eastern wastelands in this list. Much to my chagrin, I cannot treat all of my sources on those peoples as accurate after two to four hundred years have passed since their (arguably) shaky formation. In the latter case, sheer distance has prevented recent exploration by any daring adventurers, and in the case of the former, our modern brand of daring adventurer tends not to be very arrow-proof. Let me also acknowledge the unwritten word which must remain so even now, lest I return home to find my accommodations back at the ITU completely and wholly dismantled despite what any technicalities in the University's code of law and conduct might say otherwise about the matter. Even so far south, I can still feel the shadow of Adelbramp's black marker looming close.

³ Verse eight, line eleven of the Histories of All, Yashka the Sage, 1284 BR.

⁴ Because the passage in question is not drilled into each and every freshman's brain by orientation courses for three semesters straight like the citation just above, and because I am far away from the text at this moment, I cannot state with a great degree of accuracy where in the Histories this information may be found. However, I am reasonably confident that it is located somewhere within the first 48,000 verses of the narrative, narrowing one's search down considerably.

Ko-Fi CuPost #1.

"How about a peek into ITU's hierarchy and faculty?"

-TheLawfulNeutral

Why is it that the farther away from the University I travel, the closer I seem to be linked to it?

Very well. I will do my best to illuminate the nature of my lodgings.

The exact hierarchy and composition of the echelons of the Ivory Tower University are an impenetrably convoluted mystery, even (and sometimes especially) to its own members and higher-ups. At the time of the school's consecration during the life of Grand Scholar Laizij, the bureaucracy was already a broad and robust machine with many lateral offices divided between a considerable number of tiers of authority. In concept it mirrored the specialized and staggered structure of the whole of the city of Deneroth, embodying the perfect form and function of Laizij's greatest creation.

In practice, it introduced bloat and chaos into the mix forevermore.

I use "chaos" in its literal, mythological sense of undifferentiated formlessness, rather than in its sense of randomness, anarchy, and/or man-made lawlessness. The red tape and regulations in place, however arbitrary they may have been in origin under Laizij, are dutifully followed by all members of staff and faculty centuries later, especially in regards to the procedure used to determine where exactly one falls in the hierarchy relative to another individual. You might ask "why would one's position in the hierarchy be in question at any given point?" And that would be a perfectly valid question for which you would be fired, demoted even lower (and then tasked with finding your new ranking), or banished to the libraries in exile on "probation".

You would not be removed before you got the full answer, however. The faculty is quite proud of it.

Here at the University, every position held has a numerical value attached to it. These numbers range from 76 at the lowest, to 0 at the highest. You read that correctly- seniority increases as the number decreases, with various thresholds limiting or enabling an individual's privileges. The first guidelines for the scale were put in place by Laizij himself, and while the number range has remained unchanged in the centuries since, the means of navigating it have ballooned into a textbook's worth of formulae and rules for irregularities and exceptions. Because raw number overrides position within the spine, it is very possible for someone of quite low standing to achieve a very high rank through a combination of judicious school politicking, dumb luck, and bureaucratic blunder.

For example, a freshman student with zero involvement in any clubs or extracurricular activities possesses a 76, which entitles them to room and board, lavatory access, and basic utility and facility usage across campus within the weekly minimum curfew hours. A 5th-year senior who is head of their dormitory's division of the sporting club however, might have a number closer to 52. This would potentially place them above the ranking of their own nontenured professors starting at 55, assuming the student was still enrolled in entry-level classes of course. But if one such professor possessed the title of Committee Head, which is worth a score minimum of 40, then those scores would be averaged together to a respectable 47.5, which would enable them to shut down just about any student attempting to call a referendum on their course materials.

There are ten tiers of importance making up the "spine" of the University, if you will. Various departments confined to each hence radiate outward like "ribs". The topmost rank is made up of the deans of each supra-department, the composition of which is a constantly changing thing, as well as the head senior administrator. These individuals, alongside the biggest contributors to the funding of the University (including at least one representative of the family of the Stewards of Deneroth) make up a Board of the Directorate which modifies all member's rankings to a flat 0, or alters their average, depending on whether or not the Board has been in session in the past eleven days. The Directorate is the single highest decision-making body in the University, and each member enjoys approximately the same weight of importance, involvement, and irritability. Each semester, a vote is conducted by the Directorate to determine who besides the investors has earned the floating title of Inheritor of the Grand Scholar, which among other things possesses a rank of -1. Therefore, the highest seniority number achievable is -0.5 for a period of about sixteen weeks.

The next three tiers are the proper bureaucrats and administrators of the University, who oversee the valuing of titles and positions, the tenuring of professors according to those values, the allocation of funds not decided upon by the Directorate, the regulation of all clubs and committees and their rules, and other matters. Tier three is the level to which my infamous colleague Senior Editor Adelbramp belongs, as both the Provost of the Board for Historical Ordination and Associate Vice-Dean of Affairs for ITU Publishing. He currently sits at a lofty 12, but the latest rumor is that the venerable Chairman Lomeus Bielo of the Treasury is contemplating retirement¹, and acquiring the right position or title left behind in that vacuum would allow Adelbramp to ascend to 8, the threshold for becoming an audience member to the Directorate's meetings.

The next four tiers include the actual professors, instructors, teachers, and graduate students in the University's employ. This vast army of educators is at times even more severe and cutthroat than the realm of bureaucrats, which goes a way toward explaining how hidebound some individuals within these tiers may become- their very livelihood often depends on whether or not the theories they built their careers on remain unchallenged or not for the rest of the year. I am often derisive and hard on many of these men and women (and the occasional squirrel in a waistcoat), but I do not envy the razorwire on which they must balance while also battling for the respect of their walleyed students. Diverse fields dealing with every conceivable consideration or recreation of the sciences, as well as the study of humanity and its many arts, can be found espoused within the classrooms of this at times vexing, other times delightful mess of scholars.

The last tier is composed of the thousands-strong student body itself, but as many introspective pieces produced by students and alumni alike will suggest, a whole separate and intricate web of hierarchies and social dealings is imbricated within, hidden just beneath the surface. At the risk of being over-reductive, I will observe that most of these hierarchies derive from some permutation of clique, academic performance, gang club membership, and family status/background. The seemingly placid, anemic masses of nebbish university-goers is far more vigorous than one might expect.

"But Mr. Litte," you might ask once more, wonder and amazement still etched upon your face, "where is the tenth tier? You've only described nine of them."

Well, my observant reader, you are correct.

Officially there are ten tiers, but the proper tenth receives something of a False City treatment in day-to-day life. The lowest tier is occupied by any and all members of staff deemed to be menial in nature. This includes tenders to the campus grounds, physical laborers, janitorial and/or custodial staff (with the exception of the keepers of the Ivory Tower itself, who are in fact Tier Two administrators), and those who are employed from outside of the University proper work to in or manage various supply offices and commissaries, an exception to the general rule that "outsiders" are not permitted within the gates outside of designated hours. The lower level of Gatekeepers who perform the opening and closing rituals each day while being barred from University entry also occupy this tier, as do stationary adjuncts such as myself.²

All of this is a simplification of a system which must be articulated in several volumes rather than on a few sheets of parchment, of course. One or two nuggets of lore on the subject may have escaped my memory, but I hope I have still made an appreciable contribution to a topic which I have less than absolute fascination for.

¹ It was recently discovered that for the last decade, Bielo had been accidentally sending redeemable treasury checks to University business partners in triplicate, rather than sending records of the transaction down to the Office of Finances. Thus his "retirement" may in reality be mandated. Then again, someone probably should have started to ask questions four years before that, when he turned 89 years of age and began to become confused as to whether he worked at the ITU, or its cousin campus twice removed at Porylus Mons.

² Yes, this is why I am able to maintain the same approximate role and status within the campus despite being dematriculated and then unofficially expelled from the Humanoid Ecology program eight years ago. No, I will not go into this in any greater detail than I absolutely must.

WHY THE MONGOLS (probably) DIDN'T STINK (any worse than the other unwashed masses of Medieval Eurasia)!

As my indecisive caps lock above indicates, this post is an attempted balance between reasoned caution in approaching the study of history, and impotent nerd-rage.

Some of you dear Burrowers may recall that I was in school for a degree in Historical Studies up until recently, with my area of interest being medieval Inner Asia. Ergo, I'm a huge nerd for the Mongol Empire, as well as any and all pastoral steppe nomads who came before or after.

The Mongols tend to get a bad rap across most of Western Europe. And Eastern Europe. As well as Western Asia- especially Western Asia in a lot of respects... Parts of the Indian Subcontinent, too...

Alright, they get a bad rap in most places that they encountered in their hay day.

Not all of it is unmerited either, because their sometimes very brutal tactics on the battlefield or in administration resulted in them fashioning together the largest contiguous land-based empire in history, and that empire produced a lot of unhappy historians from victimized groups. On the other hand, their warriors practiced violence in what was already (and would continue to be) a very violent world. But that's not what I'm here to argue about, because one trogloxene college student on a rinky-dink fantasy blog isn't going to resolve over 800 years of ethnic and cultural tension.



Overview:

What I am here to talk about today is one of the secondary beliefs about the Mongols, which contributed to but wasn't central to others' perception of them as the quintessential barbarian. This was the idea that the Mongols never bathed, and never changed their clothing until it literally rotted off of their bodies.

Here is a discussion of the topic on reddit which I originally stumbled upon for reasons I can't recall, and which initially got me thinking about that idea, how popular it is, and how true it may actually be. I quickly took a skeptical stance, as you will see if you manage to slog through this whole thing.

The basic idea is that these unhygienic behaviors were enforced by the Mongols' own rulers for some reason or another, and that the two practices came together to contribute to a rank smell that was allegedly so horrible that an approaching Mongol army could be smelled before it could be seen.

The original reports of these decrees against washing or bathing come to us in highly fragmentary form from various 13th-to-15th century historians and travelers, primarily of European and West Asian/North African background, who were attempting to describe the character of the Mongol Empire's Yassa Code.

The Yassa Code was a private customary law code which was used by the Chinggisid rulers of the Mongol Empire and its successor Khanates to inform their decisions on public policy. Allegedly, the Yassa was compiled from the scattered reports of the deeds and sayings of Chinggis Khan so that those who came later could benefit from his wisdom- almost like a secretive, non-religious Hadith.

Because the Yassa was secret, intended only for the nobility of the Mongols who sometimes followed it and sometimes did not, it was never made public in a clear, written form. The only indicator that the actual laws of a region in the Mongol Empire were written with the logic of the Yassa in mind was if the authorities of the time said so. Thus, even contradictory edicts could plausibly be said to have been informed by the contents of the Yassa.

That didn't deter outsiders from trying to understand it like an actual written body of laws, so any practice which could be said to be derived from the nebulous Yassa was written down by the visitor as if it was a law. Because of this, it wasn't difficult for misunderstandings or plain fiction to enter into these accounts. And again, these accounts were themselves fragmentary, with none describing the entirety of what it called the Yassa, and not all of them even corroborating the same laws.

So, our current understanding of the Yassa is formed by bringing all of those reports together and comparing their consistency, as well as taking into account the reliability of the people who originally wrote them down.

This leads to two issues. The first is that actual laws or customs could have been taken out of context and exaggerated in their reproduction. The second is that not all of these writers had what we would consider perfect intellectual integrity.



Issue 1:

The evidence that Mongols never washed themselves or their clothes comes from fragments written by a Mamluk Egyptian historian from the 14th-15th centuries, named Taqi al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn 'Ali ibn 'Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad al-Maqrizi. We will stick with just al-Maqrizi for now, as most other sources do.¹

The logic for this prohibition, according to what al-Maqrizi either wrote or repeated from earlier scholars (more on that later) was that the Mongols did not wish to pollute sources of running water and thereby anger the powerful spirits or "dragons" who controlled the water cycle. The Mongols were (and to a degree still are) a shamanic and animistic people, and belief in spirits who influenced natural elements like water is not out of the question. But the conflation of spirits with dragons is unusual, because of the rarity or almost complete absence of dragons from the native mythology of Turko-Mongols. Dragons are prominent in Tibetan and especially Chinese beliefs however, which makes me suspect that if it is authentic, this prohibition was recorded in a region where Chinese or Tibetan Buddhist cultural influences had already been embraced by resident Mongols, as much as a century after the life of Chinggis Khan. This presents the reality of Mongols living in and around increasing numbers of Chinese and Persian cities which often had public baths. It also may have been that the prohibition was developed in a non-Mongol context by some other subjects of the Empire.

Further, the original edict might have been mangled in translation, a bit like a game of telephone. A later historian and French Orientalist named François Pétis de la Croix (17th-18th century) with access to Al-Maqrizi's work formulated that the original prohibition may only have been against washing or bathing in water during a thunderstorm, due both to the inherent danger of that act, and a need to respect the power of the Mongols' supreme sky god, Tengri. Russian-American historian George Vernadsky, writing in the 20th century, agrees with Pétis and argues that the original prohibition was not nearly as restrictive as the  fragments we've received would indicate, and that it originally served a "partly ritualistic" but also "realistic, or scientific" goal.² And even if this law should be read as referring to the use of water for washing at all times, it still only specifies running water- therefore, water collected in a vessel and used indoors would probably be omitted from this rule.

Water could be very scarce on the steppe or in the surrounding desert-like environments of Inner Asia, and conservation of existing water sources is a totally valid concern, and I don't mean to diminish that reality. One would probably save most available water to drink or water animals with, if the choice was between that and bathing. But a traditional nomad who performed military service but did not experience urban luxuries alongside the imperial elite would probably not need to bathe that many times in a year to be comparable in cleanliness with the rural populations of much of the rest of Europe and Asia. I say this being aware of the misconception that people of the middle ages "never" washed, but also aware of the reduced availability of bathing facilities outside of large towns or the private homes of the wealthy, in a time when the majority of people belonging to a polity or state were still rural and directly concerned with food production, whether agrarian or pastoral.

The specific myth that Mongol armies could be smelled before they could seen could probably be chalked up to a combination of folk belief, and the reality that all soldiers on campaign tend to get pretty ripe, especially if they are cavalrymen.



Issue 2:

Once again taking issue with al-Maqrizi, I point to the fact that both he and his sources may not have been trustworthy. Maqrizi allegedly received all of his information on the Yassa Code from a contact of his by the name of Abu-Hashim, who insisted that he had seen a copy of the entirety of the Yassa housed in the libraries of Baghdad, during his brief political exile there. We know little about the accomplishments of Abu-Hashim today, and nothing about the materials he supposedly studied, if they existed at any point. But what he toted as the entirety of the Yassa Code was a comparatively small list of offences and punishments (including bathing and clothes-washing) from the supposed criminal law of the Empire, so either Abu-Hashim was wrong or lying, or al-Maqrizi only paid attention to a very narrow section of what he was given.³

Further, al-Maqrizi does not acknowledge that in his writings on the Mongols, he borrowed heavily from a scholar named Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari, who in turn wrote his material based off of what he knew from the even earlier historian, Ata-Malik Juvayni. Juvayni was an accomplished official in the Mongol Ilkhanate, as well as the author of the History of the World Conqueror, which is famous for being one of the most complete and unbiased accounts of the Mongol conquests under Chinggis Khan of the 13th century, despite much of the subject matter pertaining to the conquest of Juvayni's own homeland.

Juvayni does include the Yassa stipulation about bathing in his work, but it specifies that it could not be done during a certain time of day during the spring and summer months, which is when thunderstorms are most common, and is not repeated in al-Maqrizi's work. Additionally, the entire edict is presented so that Chagatai Khan could throw the law straight out the window and demonstrate his mercy and wisdom as a ruler by pardoning and then giving property to the poor Muslim man who was caught bathing in midday.⁴ This gives the entire entry something of a didactic or praise-literature character that was, despite Juvayni's admirable attempts at historical accuracy, one of his primary responsibilities in writing his History for the Mongols of the Ilkhanate. So, it may be that the law was present only in a small portion of the post-division Mongol Empire, little-known and little-enforced in its hay day, if it did exist at all. Juvayni, after all, was working with the same limited knowledge of the real, secret Yassa Code that most other historians were.

The section plagiarized by al-Maqrizi, dealing with criminal justice, seemed also to be chosen for a very particular purpose which has to do with the political climate in which al-Maqrizi was involved at the time of his writing. Al-Maqrizi, as an aristocrat and historian living under the Egyptian Mamluks from 1364-1442, had perhaps an understandably sour opinion of the Mongols, and the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde in particular, who represented the aftermath of some of the most brutal conquests of Muslim-majority states by the first waves of Mongol invasion. But the Mamluk elite itself, derived from administrators and slave-soldiers taken from areas of Turkic Central Asia, possessed numerous Mongol influences. This included their own law code called the Yasaq. As the similarity in names might indicate, there was a line of influence and continuity, or at least a perceived line of continuity, between the Mongolian Yassa and the Mamluk Yasaq.

When the political tensions between the Mamluks and the religious scholar elites of Egypt resulted in the Yasaq being applied to cases which were normally under the exclusive jurisdiction of Muslim judges and the interpretation of Shari'a law, al-Maqrizi was very vocal in defaming the practice. He even referred to the original Yassa from which the Yasaq was derived as being "Satanic" (lit. shaytaniyya).⁵ Therefore, al-Maqrizi's already plagiarized and de-contextualized observations on the Yassa Code have a distinctly negative, propagandist attitude, as he attempted to diminish the Yassa in comparison to the schools of jurisprudence favored by the religious scholars of Egypt, whom al-Maqrizi was strongly in support of.



Conclusion:

To try and form a concise thought out of all of this, we know next to no complete details about the Mongol Empire's Yassa law code. We should be extremely cautious in treating any fragmentary writings by outsiders pertaining to it as if they accurately depict it and apply equally to the entirety of the Empire and its lifespan. Historians such as al-Maqrizi (who could be a very attentive and respectable historian otherwise) were not above using the Yassa to take a political stance, and the popular myths which have sprung up around these centuries of scholastic smack-talking should not be taken at face-value as truth.

The Mongols probably did not smell much worse than any other political group in medieval Eurasia. To our modern senses of hygiene, they may have smelled unpleasant, but this would have been the same for any other imperial power of the day possessed of large numbers of soldiers and even larger numbers of horses.



References:

¹ Vernadsky, George. "The Scope and Contents of Chingis Khan's Yasa." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 3, no. 3/4 (1938): 337-60. Pages 340-341.

² Ibid, 352-353.

³ Ayalon, David. "The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān. A Reexamination (Part A)." Studia Islamica, no. 33 (1971): 97-140. doi:10.2307/1595029. Pages 101-104.

⁴ Juvaynī, ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn ʻAṭā Malik, John Andrew Boyle, and David Morgan. 1997. Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Pages 204-206.

⁵ Ayalon, David. "The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān. A Reexamination (Part A)." Page 105.