Crawling in at the last minute with a quick and dirty vlog. This is the face of a woman who has been working on character sheets and layout all day and is tired. Oh, so tired. But not too tired for Inuit mythology.
Question: With the Inuit on the poll now, could you tell us a little bit about their mythologies, themes, and some of their gods?
Haven't watched the vlog yet, but just based on what you wrote before the question, take the rest of the night off and do something to relax.
ReplyDeleteI can promise you she is not going to do that.
DeleteFascinating! Horrible, but in a fascinating way.
ReplyDeleteGoodness, though, I'd hate to think what the Inuits thought of eclipses...
They thought exactly what you think they thought. An eclipse indicates that the moon has caught up to the sun and had his way with her before she manages to escape once more.
DeleteThere are not very many mythologies with more horrible sun/moon myths.
Well I know if I ever play a high Appearance Sun Scion I'm avoiding Inuit territory.
DeleteGeoff should probably watch his back, too, though I guess he has Sangria for that.
He does have Sangria for that... but you just have to get like a 10 on an Illusion boon and she's out of play, so he should probably hedge his bets.
DeleteIf these are the gods I'd hate to see the Titans.
ReplyDeleteWell, ironically the most Titanic figures I can make out on the spot, Sila, the sky father god of breath, and Nunam, the earth mother goddess of soul, are relatively nice compared to the younger gods: Nunam is described as downright nurturing and Sila, while having his moments (like slaughtering his brothers-in-law and/or sons for defying him), is most often steered towards more benevolent acts by his wife (like reviving those mentioned above) and is generally a protector of mankind (being the source of shamanic powers and giving them intuition to warn them about coming dangers). It sounds like an interesting concept: Good Titans, bad Gods.
DeleteYeah, they have a lot of seriously nasty folkloric figures - monsters that eat people, creatures that hide under the ice and drag people to their doom - but most of them aren't on the same scale we would normally put a Titan. I'm very excited to get to work with them someday and really dig in to what they feared most and what parts of their religion were positive/negative to the common folks. :)
DeleteI know that the concept of Taboos/Rituals to make up for breaking them is a big concept too with the Inuit that could be a good candidate/element for their PSP.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you have to do your rituals right. If you don't, Nanook may let the bears eat you, and then you have no one to blame.
DeleteIt sounds like a lot of Inuit were just mortals before they got promoted to gods. Is this true?
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily, although you could play it that way if you wanted to. Inuit myth, like those of a lot of cultures around the world, doesn't make an explicit "these are humans and these aren't" division; the Orisha are similar, with some of their stories referring to them as gods and others simply calling them men and women. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Inuit didn't think of them as gods, but rather just that their storytelling style didn't feel the need to be obvious about it. When you talk about Sedna, everybody knows who Sedna is, so you don't have to emphasize her origins; and discussing them as members of communities makes sense to the Inuit worldview, in which such communities are all-important and necessary to survival.
DeleteAlso, most Inuit myth we have now was recorded from oral retellings and had been influenced by Christianity by the time we got any of it. Just like some of Norse mythology says the gods were really humans thanks to Christians recording the stories either not understanding the distinction or actively discouraging it, so Christian recorders of Inuit myth probably intentionaly euhemerized figures into humans so they could call the stories harmless folklore and divorce them from any competing religion.
One of the things I find interesting is that the Inuit story of Malina and Igaluk is very similar to the story of the Cherokee moon god and sun goddess. The big difference is that the moon god doesn't rape her, he's her lover, she just doesn't know who he is, as he always comes at night. Eventually she dips her hands in ash and discreetly rubs it on his face. When she finds him the next day he's so ashamed he won't go near her ever again and stays far away from her in the sky. When he does have to get close, he becomes as thin as a ribbon so she can't see him. So basically, its nicer than the Inuit story, but still oddly similar, especially seeing how far apart the Inuit and the Cherokee are from each other and how different they viewed their gods.
ReplyDeleteThat is really neat! I love it when myths in different parts of the world have echoes, because it's one of those cool places where humanity just tends toward a particular story or idea sociologically rather than by sharing it directly.
DeleteIt also reminds me of the Japanese myth - not lovers, but again siblings, with the male moon and female sun, who follow each other through the sky out of avoidance.
You just made me very happy that I finally ended up voting for the Inuit some time ago :D
ReplyDeleteThey sound like one of the most interesting Pantheons yet...not to mention it seems they could well overtake the Aztlanti in the Black Sheep of the Pantheon family department. I mean, the Aztec Gods get tonnes of bad rep (thank you again, Familial sacrifice >:(), but at least all that human sacrifice is genuinely because the Gods care for humanity, and would rather see one dead than all dead...not to mention they regularly sacrifice themselves.
The Inuit Gods...hmmm, I like morally ambiguous team mates!