>Subject: Re: Burning Corpses
>But Vres... How do mountain dwellers dispose of their bodies? Seeing what the
>Flowery Ones do, Vres should eat them - giving it back to people. But
somehow it
>still doesn't seem like "them"... They cannot bury, they cannot burn...
Have to
>find out...

How about air burial?
I mean the one in which the body is disected and fed to carrion birds,
after which the bones are crushed and thrown away, ect.
Nothing remains to stink or anything like that, nice, clean. No burial
grounds.

Not my idea though. A short story in The Sandman had this idea so you'll
have to thank Gaiman for putting it in my head (wonder where it's
originally from).

-Warma

On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Tatu || Vantte Kilappa wrote:

> Do you think that your universe reflects especially your thoughts?

Probably, but not deliberately. If it reflects my thoughts it's
because it's me who thought of it.

> Do you think that your friends could tell your universe from this other
> guy's universe without knowich which belongs to whom?

I don't think so; there's nothing particularly me-ish about it that
other people couldn't have come up with. I don't design it to be
"me", after all, I design it to be itself.

> Do women create somehow different universes than men?

Different people create different universes. I don't think there's
such a thing as a particularly masculine or feminine style. I've seen
violent universes created by men and women, and peaceful universes
created by men and women, and I don't think there's a correlation.

> Does age have effect in the style of the culture?

Probably, because older people have more real-world knowledge that
they're likely to use.

> Should culture creation be, in a way, opinion-free? What I'm trying
> to say, is that is it a bad habit to take sides concerning cultural
> aspects or forms of governments when creating worlds?

I don't think there's such a thing as "should". Anyway, if you try to
invent something without making choices (which is what "taking sides"
amounts to) it can't be anything but bland and boring.

    Irina

--
            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@... (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas

>From: "gokce altin" <yellowheadgokce@...>
>Reply-To: conculture@egroups.com
>To: conculture@egroups.com
>Subject: [conculture] Re: Anyone wants to contribute ideas
>Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 00:47:17 -0000
>
>John, Y chromosome is no help. It is found out that Cohen Y
>chromosome
>came from Palestine. Does it mean that modern Ashkenazi Jews' genetic
>makeup is mostly Palestinian? Nay, it only means that the ORIGINAL
>Cohen patriarch was Palestinian and this makes perfect sense to me.
>Modern Ashkenazim mostly ressemble their historical Slavic, Western
>Steppes gentile neighbours and this is not due to "convergent
>evolution" in cold climate, but because the original Cohen
>patriarch(s) mated with gentiles.
>The Burgandian origin of Yiddish suggests rather strong West European
>influence on the Ashkenazim, but this might be PRIMARILY CULTURAL.
>We are darn sure that the descendents of Khazars live, both among the
>Estonian Karaims and the Polish Ashkenazim. There is no need to cover
>the history of the Jews. We are not Nazis.

Thank you very much.

The irony of this whole affair is that I only wanted to recommend what I
still consider to be an excellent book. Since I had absolutely no intention
of starting any form of discussion over pro-or anti-semitism I must actually
admit feeling a bit disappointed with certain people who seems to have
interpreted my intention as such.
JF.
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>
>But Vres... How do mountain dwellers dispose of their bodies? Seeing what
>the Flowery Ones do, Vres should eat them - giving it back to people. But
>somehow it still doesn't seem like "them"... They cannot bury, they cannot
>burn... Have to find out...
>
>Henry

How about "sky funerals" like the ones practiced in Tibet before the Chinese
occupation? It goes something like this: The body is being taken to a high
mountain, where it is laid down for the birds to eat. In Tibet the body is
actually dismembered and the bones cleaved so they can get to the marrow.
The practise is excellent for several reasons: It requires no wood for
cremation, does not take up sparse land for burial, and even provides
anatomical training for doctors and surgeons. Just a thought. By the way,
check out the excellent Scorsese film "Kundun", which includes a scene with
this custom.

JF.
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>In fact, a lot of colors seem to have both bad and good connotations:
>Green = jealousy, envy, greed; but also life, beauty, nature
>Red = anger, violence; but also vitality, passion
>Yellow = cowardice; but also happiness
>White = bland, cowardly [wave the white flag]; but also purity
>And so on.

I believe that in China white is the colour of mourning.

-JF.
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Moved over from CONLANG:

> What's "throat-singing"?

A how-to page, though I haven't had much luck in the little practice I've
done:
http://www.mmjp.or.jp/booxbox/nodo/how/how.html

I tried it myself and had NO luck, and I'm usually good at everything I do.  :P

Neat topic on vocal styles of the world, and the chants of Tibetan Buddhist
monastic tradition.

Incidentally, I'm brainstorming on how Techian vocal music would sound.
Origins are in Ethiopian and general African culture, with Byzantine influence
(for church music), then later Arabic music, then the various styles of
African-American r&b, soul, hiphop etc....

=====
DaW.

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have
to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." [Frank Zappa]

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Huns, were likely a mixture of peoples..
Scytian/Samartian people, or Gothic, or like people mixed in with
some
Turkish (early Turks). Turks only moved in much later, namely after
being pushed west by their cousins the Mongols, Mongols got pushed
some by the Manchu related people. While the Han Chinese are not
related.. Seperate lingo..

There is stories of a hun like people who had invaded western china,
but were repelled, and they could have been the Huns.. I know the
Huns
were a major reason for the Goths to move west..
I do think some info on the language (that we know of), the weapons,
customs and like need to be found about them and posted.. No not me.

Mike

I have some possible ideas. Like why do the Dwarves in Tolkiens world
not have many females? I think they had some form of breeding habits
like Termites, namely they had a "queen" who birthed the children
either eggs, larva, or like marsupials, the child would be raised by
a
non-queen female, or just another female, so that there was a way to
have large numbers of males, but not that many females..
Maybe Dwarves are marsupial, and the males are the ones who hold the
child in a pouch?

Mike

--- Mike Adams <abrigon@...> wrote:
> I have some possible ideas. Like why do the Dwarves in Tolkiens world
> not have many females? I think they had some form of breeding habits
> like Termites, namely they had a "queen" who birthed the children
> either eggs, larva, or like marsupials, the child would be raised by
> a
> non-queen female, or just another female, so that there was a way to
> have large numbers of males, but not that many females..
> Maybe Dwarves are marsupial, and the males are the ones who hold the
> child in a pouch?

Hmm... I don't know since I'm not a big Tolkien expert.  (I still haven't
finished reading the "Rings" trilogy; just _The Hobbit_ so far.)

Incidentally, my version of the Orcs (since several list members have Orcs of
their own?) have a male-to-female ratio of 3:1.  Apparently a side-effect of
the Cybertech experiments that resulted in their evolution -- or more
precisely, retrovolution.

Orcs have little or no marital tradition either.

=====
DaW.

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have
to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." [Frank Zappa]

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On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 11:16:34 -0700 (PDT) Danny Wier <dawier@...>
writes:
> > Barry Garcia wrote:
> > > Another meaning is "horny". I remember in HS everyone saying
> people
> > who
> > > liked/wore green (something like that)  are horny.
-

Interesting....in my highschool it was only if you wore green *on
thursday*.


-Stephen (Steg)

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Steg Belsky wrote:
> Interesting....in my highschool it was only if you wore green *on
> thursday*.

Weird!  Did it have any meaning on other days of the week?

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor

As you may have noticed, Nata suggested me the same... And I had thought about
it myself, yes, thanks to that one Sandman short story. Gaiman is a god.

On Sun, 01 Oct 2000 01:07:20
  Tatu || Vantte Kilappa wrote:

>
>How about air burial?
>I mean the one in which the body is disected and fed to carrion birds,
>after which the bones are crushed and thrown away, ect.
>Nothing remains to stink or anything like that, nice, clean. No burial
>grounds.
>
>Not my idea though. A short story in The Sandman had this idea so you'll
>have to thank Gaiman for putting it in my head (wonder where it's
>originally from).
>
It's really done, as you probably read from Nata's message.

Henry


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Great minds think alike, it seems.:D Everyone talks about the same thing!

And, once again, yes, was ne of my ideas... but. Since
the Hleiangnas and the Flowery Ones do something traditional, I thought Vres
could do something really original...

Is there any other method than eating the corpses to benefit the living? (Ok,
Fremens take the water...)

Henry

On Sun, 01 Oct 2000 22:20:39
  John Faerseth wrote:
>
>
>>
>>But Vres... How do mountain dwellers dispose of their bodies? Seeing what
>>the Flowery Ones do, Vres should eat them - giving it back to people. But
>>somehow it still doesn't seem like "them"... They cannot bury, they cannot
>>burn... Have to find out...
>>
>>Henry
>
>How about "sky funerals" like the ones practiced in Tibet before the Chinese
>occupation? It goes something like this: The body is being taken to a high
>mountain, where it is laid down for the birds to eat. In Tibet the body is
>actually dismembered and the bones cleaved so they can get to the marrow.
>The practise is excellent for several reasons: It requires no wood for
>cremation, does not take up sparse land for burial, and even provides
>anatomical training for doctors and surgeons. Just a thought. By the way,
>check out the excellent Scorsese film "Kundun", which includes a scene with
>this custom.
>
>JF.
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
>http://profiles.msn.com.
>
>


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On Mon, 02 Oct 2000 03:37:47 -0400 Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> writes:
> Steg Belsky wrote:
> > Interesting....in my highschool it was only if you wore green *on
> > thursday*.

> Weird!  Did it have any meaning on other days of the week?
>
> --
> Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
> God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
> ICQ: 18656696
> AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor
-

Nope, it was just "if you wear green on thursday, you're horny."


-Stephen (Steg)
  "...emes emes /
   ki atò hu yoyçròm /
   v'atò yoydeya yiçròm /
   ki heim bòsòr
   vòdòm..."

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> I have some possible ideas. Like why do the Dwarves in Tolkiens world
> not have many females?

My personal theory was that there was some sort of genetic disease that
Dwarves had, that caused about half of ther female babies to die soon
after or before birth.  I couldn't quite figure out the math that would
give me a nice even fractional mortality rate, so I never developed the
idea beyond that.

--
Shreyas
Lothlorien Gallery 77
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/s/s/ssampat/ssampat.html

Henriikka Julkunen wrote:
> Is there any other method than eating the corpses to benefit the
> living? (Ok, Fremens take the water...)

Using the body as fertilizer?  I don't know if any cultures actually do
that, but it's a possibility.

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor

conculture@egroups.com writes:
>Using the body as fertilizer?  I don't know if any cultures actually do
>that, but it's a possibility.

I was thinking of something that i'm not sure is unique or not, but
perhaps burying the corpse int he ground (of course, you'd need to be able
to dig), perhaps just in a sheet (maybe highly embroidered, or just a
simple color, or just white), or a simple casket, and a tree planted right
over the spot in the ground. Perhaps an animist culture could come to
believe the tree served as the inhabiting place of the person's soul?

Was thinking of incorporating that into the Saalangal Culture.

Mechacool!!  I love this stuff:)... I found a page
online, Michael Emory's guide to throat singing which
was amazingly helpfull... this was months ago,
though... I've got it down pat, now, but it did take a while.

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--

On Mon, 02 Oct 2000 20:49:26
  Nik Taylor wrote:

>
>Using the body as fertilizer?  I don't know if any cultures actually do
>that, but it's a possibility.

How, and more importantly, WHY would anyone fertilize rock?:D Vres are
mountain-dwellers after all, and that
is the main reason they do not bury or burn their dead.

Henry


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--

On Mon, 02 Oct 2000 18:10:58
  Barry Garcia wrote:
>
>I was thinking of something that i'm not sure is unique or not, but
>perhaps burying the corpse int he ground (of course, you'd need to be able
>to dig), perhaps just in a sheet (maybe highly embroidered, or just a
>simple color, or just white), or a simple casket, and a tree planted right
>over the spot in the ground. Perhaps an animist culture could come to
>believe the tree served as the inhabiting place of the person's soul?
>


Ain't that pretty much what the Christians do with their burial grounds? Well,
they do not supposedly believe the plants they plant on the grave to have any
spiritual meaning...

But why make the grave look nize then? For the living or for the dead? Latter
shouldn't be the case, for worshipping the dead is forbidden, so shouldn't the
first then be also...

Well, whatevet, one of my favy debate subjects is the Christians' hypocricy over
dead...

Henry


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conculture@egroups.com writes:
>Ain't that pretty much what the Christians do with their burial grounds?
>Well, they do not supposedly believe the plants they plant on the grave
>to have any spiritual meaning...

Well no. First of all, the bodies are usually hermetically sealed caskets
set in a cement sarcophagus 6 feet under ground, or in niches in large
burial buildings (what's the right name?). And, most cemeteries dislike
trees right over graves (no graveyards i've been to ever have trees right
on top of graves. Perhaps near them, but never on top.
>
>
>
>Well, whatevet, one of my favy debate subjects is the Christians'
>hypocricy over dead...

But, as respect for the various people and their beliefs, on the list, we
wont ever get into this discussion, right?
>
>Henry

Um, I usually use those words in the subject when I'm talking about
meat-eating. Strict vegetarian as I am. But this time I'm referring
to Henriikka's words.

Sahi dravvaij:
>Is there any other method than eating the corpses to benefit the
>living? (Ok, Fremens take the water...)

The cannibals of Oseania suffered some fatal diseases. Humans who eat
dead human flesh easily get ill and suffer for example "hullun
lehmän
tauti" ("mad cow disease", I have no idea if it is called that way in
English).

Your conpeople aren't Humans, so you can decide this is not their
problem. Besides, I don't know if the Aztec Indians got ill though
they ate human hearts etc. Maybe the secret is in the age of the
corpse. If you pull out the heart and eat it immediately, you won't
get ill, or... but hey, I don't know how long did the Aztecs wait...
And I'm getting nausea of this subject so I stop :)

Natalia

> From: "Barry Garcia" <barry_garcia@...>
> Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 00:33:00 -0700
>
> conculture@egroups.com writes:
> >Ain't that pretty much what the Christians do with their burial grounds?
> >Well, they do not supposedly believe the plants they plant on the grave
> >to have any spiritual meaning...
>
> Well no. First of all, the bodies are usually hermetically sealed caskets
> set in a cement sarcophagus 6 feet under ground, or in niches in large
> burial buildings (what's the right name?). And, most cemeteries dislike
> trees right over graves (no graveyards i've been to ever have trees right
> on top of graves. Perhaps near them, but never on top.

The sealed casket and concrete thing seems to be a Usonian aberration.
(And from what I've read, it's usually prescribed by local ordinances
so that everyone has to do it, Christian or not. Except perhaps Native
Indians).

In Denmark, for instance, people are normally buried in wooden caskets
and nothing more, and the plot can be reused after twenty years unless
the family wishes to keep it on. In sandy soil, there will be nothing
left after that time.

And if you've ever tried digging up the roots of something like a
large birch, you'll know that a distance of six or even twenty feet
from a grave won't hamper it.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

> From: "Natalia Gruscha" <natalia.gruscha@...>
> Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 07:42:58 -0000

> The cannibals of Oseania suffered some fatal diseases. Humans who
> eat dead human flesh easily get ill and suffer for example "hullun
> lehmän tauti" ("mad cow disease", I have no idea if it is called
> that way in English).

It seems that when someone went back to find out who actually got the
disease, it turned out to be mostly the older women who performed
funereal rites which involved contact with brain matter. The tribe may
or may not have been cannibals, but that wasn't the path of infection.

(The Oceanian version was called Kuru. Cows get mad cow disease aka
BSE, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. In Western humans it's called
new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease).

That aside, there are lots of more traditional illnesses, both
diseases and parasites, that could very easily spread that way. But
perhaps it wouldn't be a significant added risk in the hunter-gatherer
lifestyle --- and the habit seems to lose favor quite rapidly with
more technological people like goat herders.

(There are apparent exceptions like the Aztecs, if that wasn't just a
Spanish defamation campaign. But according to some, the Aztecs only
started when they had run out of arable land, and their society and
culture was in rapid collapse under the population pressure --- they
were desparate, and didn't have time anyway to discover that it was a
bad idea before they ran out of neighbouring tribes to conquer).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

On 3 Oct 2000 17:24:08 -0000 Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...>
writes:
> (There are apparent exceptions like the Aztecs, if that wasn't just a
> Spanish defamation campaign. But according to some, the Aztecs only
> started when they had run out of arable land, and their society and
> culture was in rapid collapse under the population pressure --- they
> were desparate, and didn't have time anyway to discover that it was a
> bad idea before they ran out of neighbouring tribes to conquer).
>
> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour
> NOT marked)
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to conculture-unsubscribe@onelist.com
>
-

Actually, i learned a theory that it could have been *Aztec* propaganda,
in order to scare their enemies into sending them tribute and not
rebelling.  The theory goes that they probably practiced limited
cannibalism in association with their sacrificial rites, but nowheres
near the huge amounts of people who they claimed to have sacrificed and
eaten.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment
   that you touch perfect speed.  And that isn't flying a thousand
   miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light.
   Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have
   limits.  Perfect speed, my son, is being there."
                     ~ _jonathan livingston seagull_

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Henriikka Julkunen wrote:
> Well, whatevet, one of my favy debate subjects is the Christians'
> hypocricy over dead...

What hypocrisy?  We mourn because they're no longer with us, not because
we believe they are no longer.  We have elaborate ceremonies both to
respect the deceased (not "worship", I've never heard of a Christian
"worshipping" the dead) and to help the living cope with their loss,
just as you might have a going-away party for a person leaving for some
distant location, both for the benefit of the person leaving, and also
for the benefit of those whom (s)he is leaving.  We bury our dead, or
burn them and preserve the ashes, so that the living can have a reminder
of the deceased, and a place where the living can feel close to the
deceased's spirit, to honor their memory.

Please, tell me what "hypocrisy" exists in our attitudes toward death.
The closest I can think of is mourning when we should be rejoicing that
the person is in a better place.  But do you not feel sad when a good
friend moves somewhere far away?  Even if they're happier where they are
then where they were?

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor

Barry Garcia wrote:
> And, most cemeteries dislike trees right over graves

Indeed, only a neglected ceremony would have trees over the graves.

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor

Steg Belsky wrote:
> but nowheres near the huge amounts of people who they claimed to
> have sacrificed and eaten.

That seems reasonable.  I would have a hard time accepting the numbers
that were claimed to have been consumed.  Surely it would be very
difficult to have a stable society with that many people being
cannibalized!  :-)

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor

conculture@egroups.com writes:
>The sealed casket and concrete thing seems to be a Usonian aberration.
>(And from what I've read, it's usually prescribed by local ordinances
>so that everyone has to do it, Christian or not. Except perhaps Native
>Indians).

True, older graves here (say from the 1700's like the graves of Spanish
colonits) probably have nothing left, except for the skeletons. The
cemetery for Monterey for instance has newer graves (where you find the
hermetically sealed coffins placed in cement sarcophagi), as well as very
old graves.

>
>In Denmark, for instance, people are normally buried in wooden caskets
>and nothing more, and the plot can be reused after twenty years unless
>the family wishes to keep it on. In sandy soil, there will be nothing
>left after that time.

If I were to be buried, I'd rather be buried in a wooden casket rather
than a metal one. I mean, what a waste of metal. I'm not too sure how long
they keep bodies in graves here. I notice in Monterey's Cemetery there are
graves for people who probably have no relatives around anymore (such as a
secluded grave I found of a soldier from the 1800's......it was between
two of the crypt buildings in a very small space. It seems as if they
purposely left a small patch of ground open for his marker). I think it's
the historic aspect.
>
>
>And if you've ever tried digging up the roots of something like a
>large birch, you'll know that a distance of six or even twenty feet
>from a grave won't hamper it.

True, but, well......for exhumation purposes (as in someone is killed and
they find out that it seems to be foul play), a large, 80 foot high
Monterey Cypress on top of a grave (the common tree in Monterey's
cemetery) would really hamper exhuming the corpse :). Of course, the roots
from the trees make digging a little harder (they spread out quite far),
but that's nothing that a backhoe couldnt handle. Generally, the trees are
here and there among the burial plots, but mainly lining the roads. The
protestant section of the cemetary has few trees, but the Catholic side
(the older side, since it was established in Spanish Colonial times) has
many more trees.

(Burning corpses) Nik Taylor wrote:

  > Using the body as fertilizer?  I don't know if any cultures actually do
that, but it's a possibility.>

IIRC in John Brunner's _Stand on Zanzibar_, corpses were cremated/processed
in some way to get the phosphorus (P2O5) for fertilizer in that very crowded
world.

Natalia wrote:
>The cannibals of Oseania suffered some fatal diseases. Humans who eat
dead human flesh easily get ill and suffer for example "hullun
lehmän
tauti" ("mad cow disease", I have no idea if it is called that way in
English).>

Specifically (again IIRC), this involved a tribe in Papua-New Guinea, who
picked up this retro-virus from eating the _brains_ of the dead.  Their term
for the disease (essentially the human variety of mad-cow, BSE)  _kuru_ (?)
has I think been adopted by western medicine .