Since John's out of commission today and some requests have come in, let's do another storytime vlog! In this one, I'll tell some stories from Polynesian mythology, ramble incoherently and try to blame New Zealand for my failures.
Thanks for watching, as always. I'm off to put a bunch of chocolate in my face and type about Irishmen/Hawaiian gods/Illusion boons until I fall asleep.
1) *applause*
ReplyDelete2) Hearing some of these pronounciations is always really helpful - I've evidently been calling them "MOW-ree" instead of "MAY-o-ree" for years. :/
3) "Detachable Murder Vagina" is going to crack me up for at least the rest of the weekend.
I gotta admit, I actually suck at pronouncing "Maori" (long habit of doing it wrong). It should be closer to "mah-o-ree", without the strong "ey" sound. Shame on me.
DeleteSo if you combined your pronunciation and mine, you'd get about the right thing. :)
Totally sniped my comments on all accounts.
DeleteI'm not as sure as you about Hina-nui-te-po's benevolent side. Isn't she kind of famous for frying and eating the souls of the dead in some islands (with the underworld even being called Miru's Oven, with Miru being her, heck, I think Samoan alias)? Or am I again mixing up all those Polynesian underworld gods?*
ReplyDelete*And I'm not mixing her up with the Hawaiian ghost king Milu, that I know. I checked it, Miru is not always = Miru. Because Polynesia's greatest sport is seemingly not surfing, but confusing us!
I've actually seen quite a few sources that claim she protects the world from Milu/Miru, acting as a sort of gatekeeper who prevents him/her (depending on the area, though I've seen male more often?) from being able to get out and scourge the world too much and keeping too many souls from falling under his influence.
DeleteThere are seriously a ton of underworld gods, though, and a lot of them have changed over time with the introduction of Christianity (which usually makes religions demonize their underworlds/death gods to match Hell if they weren't already doing that). She definitely also has many scary associations, probably more now than she used to.
You're right, Milu doesn't always equal Miru, but different islands do seem to be talking about the same figure a good deal of the time as well. The cannibal Miru who eats the souls of the dead is Mangaian, but I don't think she's the same person as the Maori Hine-nui-te-po.
I, for one, really enjoyed this, and it's definitely made me more interested in the pantheon and what we'll see from your next Pantheon pdf!
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, my vote for the next 'storytime' is the Guarani. I think I saw them mentioned on the Scion forums by John as one of the pantheons he'd love to see done but, like Anne's beloved Hittites, are a less well-known pantheon.
Gods of the Amazon are pretty mysterious, so I feel you. I'll keep them in mind. :)
DeleteThe Rapa Nui gods are the most confusing for me to fit into the pantheon. We know next to nothing of their original religion, and the Bird-Man cult, at least to me, doesn't seem to be similar to any other Polynesian religion. Then again, I used to think the Hawaiian gods were there own thing and just recently realized how much in common they had with the Maori, so maybe I just need to do more research on them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Rapa Nui, because it's so very far away from the rest of Polynesia and fairly isolated, developed pretty differently from everyone else. Most of the information we have about their religion is about its social functions, like the Birdman Cult, not really about its gods, who were a lot fewer there than in some other areas of Polynesia and subsequently getting less press. It's possible that Makemake was just so important that he sort of eclipsed most of the other gods away (still there but just not as important as they would have been in other parts of Polynesia, similar to Tangaroa's surprising importance in Samoa), or other scholars theorize that the religion of Rapa Nui grew away from gods and toward heroic ancestor worship more than did the rest of Polynesia. They do still have gods in common, though - Ta'aroa and Hina are familiar faces, at least.
DeleteActually, I think the Bird Man Cult is going to be awesome as something to use in a Scion game - clearly magical shenanigans going on there!
Detachable murder vaginas make the most use out of the creature birthright. No one would see it coming either.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was going to join a Werewolf game as one of the Rokea I looked up into Hawaiian myths and came across the Kupua. Would these be good to include?
John's going to squeal whenever he gets around to seeing this comment. He loves him some Changing Breeds.
DeleteKupua is sort of a catch-all term for "evil/malicious/dangerous demigods/gods/spirits", so I'm sure some of them will be making appearances as antagonists.
Aw yeah, changing breeds are the best! I can say I pretty much liked all of them, aside from the Nuwisha. (And that is just an opinion, reading through their little chapter I was annoyed. It seemed to me that the indigenous Bastet and Gurhal were better, and that the Coyotes were lucky that they suffered from population issues.)
DeleteI was just wondering how'd you use them. I thought perhaps something along the lines of the Aztec Nahual or just as a generic term.
From my understanding, it's a pretty generic term for a lot of different kinds of critters, not necessarily a specific "breed" of Titanspawn, but more research is of course in the works. :)
DeleteYou listed cannibalism as a great tapu (understandably so). However, I do recall hearing about Maori warriors practicing ritual cannibalism on fallen foes to gain access to their Mana. I understand the social concept of consuming fallen foes to gain their mystical power, but how does that work in a culture that appearantly forbids the practice?
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons cannibalism is so tapu is that it represents an erasure of the person who is being eaten; in essence, by consuming their flesh, you swallow their mana into yourself and make it part of you. They aren't just dead but actually destroyed, and they will never be honored ancestors for their people. Warriors ate the flesh of their fallen enemies as the final triumph and insult to them; they were literally saying, "Not only have we killed you, we now erase you from the universe, we replace you with ourselves, you are literally nothing."
DeleteSo it was highly tapu to ever do it under normal circumstances, but it was used as a massive fuck-you to enemies.