Excerpt from a recent working paper. Comments and feedback are much appreciated!
Working Paper: Religious non-Answer as Informative, reconstruction of a Khurite tradition
Scholarly research on the religious practices of the various Khurite tribes that span the steppes is by now well-established and has made significant strides describing the wide array of practices and belief systems of Myrland Khurites. Yet, the heterogeneity of the tribes themselves (and their individual worship methods) leaves the door wide open for further documentation. This paper explores the rites belonging to a subset of Khurites inhabiting the Northern Steppes, and the unique way in which they commune with their spirit deities. These practices first and foremost center around the interpretation of silence from the spirits, and the appropriateness of interpreting the lack of a response as informative. More than merely filling a gap in the literature, this paper presents a nuanced understanding of the lack of divine intervention in Nave as a form of message from the divine themselves, which is mostly absent in other more mainstream Khurite ritualistic practices.
According to records, communion with spirits would take the form of the ritualistic carving of the question or request onto a particular piece of firmwood (often from pine trees abundant in the Northern Steppes), and then charring the wood in a very specific way, as to leave the words mostly intact. Elders would then interpret the shape and color of the charcoal left after the ritual is complete.This particular tribe also used a unique syllabary in their writing, and thus we keep the surviving original names intact for future scholarship reference. Because the ritual centers around the burning of firmwood, this Khurite tribe’s word for pine is engraved onto each request (松), to the point that we will use it synonymously both with the ritual itself, and the deity being contacted.
What is particularly interesting about these religious practices is the fact that interpreters would be able to obtain not only information directly from the ashes and charcoals after a request was answered, but that they would also interpret the lack of an answer as an answer. In other words, records show that when their deity failed to provide a response, it was the job of the elders to determine whether the spirits were simply occupied elsewhere, or whether they had chosen not to give an answer intentionally. This second possibility is fascinating because no other Khurite group has such a sophisticated view on divine non-response. To these elders, the fact that the spirits could have answered, but chose not to, reveals that were the spirits to answer the prayer, the answer would be either dangerous, or inopportune, or too revealing of future/past events. In other words, the divine could answer, but the answer might inadvertently reveal too much.
The paper will proceed as follows, the first section documents key characteristics of this unique tribe, and their similarities and differences from their contemporaries. The second section documents the archeological process by which some of these artifacts were recovered and the extensive translation work involved. The third section describes the method through which non-answers were interpreted, and the surprising record of disagreement among elders surrounding which non-responses were informative. The next section presents a formal model of signaling which we hope captures the key dynamics both the elder and the divines faced. The last section concludes and summarizes the findings.
Working Paper: Religious non-Answer as Informative, reconstruction of a Khurite tradition
Scholarly research on the religious practices of the various Khurite tribes that span the steppes is by now well-established and has made significant strides describing the wide array of practices and belief systems of Myrland Khurites. Yet, the heterogeneity of the tribes themselves (and their individual worship methods) leaves the door wide open for further documentation. This paper explores the rites belonging to a subset of Khurites inhabiting the Northern Steppes, and the unique way in which they commune with their spirit deities. These practices first and foremost center around the interpretation of silence from the spirits, and the appropriateness of interpreting the lack of a response as informative. More than merely filling a gap in the literature, this paper presents a nuanced understanding of the lack of divine intervention in Nave as a form of message from the divine themselves, which is mostly absent in other more mainstream Khurite ritualistic practices.
According to records, communion with spirits would take the form of the ritualistic carving of the question or request onto a particular piece of firmwood (often from pine trees abundant in the Northern Steppes), and then charring the wood in a very specific way, as to leave the words mostly intact. Elders would then interpret the shape and color of the charcoal left after the ritual is complete.This particular tribe also used a unique syllabary in their writing, and thus we keep the surviving original names intact for future scholarship reference. Because the ritual centers around the burning of firmwood, this Khurite tribe’s word for pine is engraved onto each request (松), to the point that we will use it synonymously both with the ritual itself, and the deity being contacted.
What is particularly interesting about these religious practices is the fact that interpreters would be able to obtain not only information directly from the ashes and charcoals after a request was answered, but that they would also interpret the lack of an answer as an answer. In other words, records show that when their deity failed to provide a response, it was the job of the elders to determine whether the spirits were simply occupied elsewhere, or whether they had chosen not to give an answer intentionally. This second possibility is fascinating because no other Khurite group has such a sophisticated view on divine non-response. To these elders, the fact that the spirits could have answered, but chose not to, reveals that were the spirits to answer the prayer, the answer would be either dangerous, or inopportune, or too revealing of future/past events. In other words, the divine could answer, but the answer might inadvertently reveal too much.
The paper will proceed as follows, the first section documents key characteristics of this unique tribe, and their similarities and differences from their contemporaries. The second section documents the archeological process by which some of these artifacts were recovered and the extensive translation work involved. The third section describes the method through which non-answers were interpreted, and the surprising record of disagreement among elders surrounding which non-responses were informative. The next section presents a formal model of signaling which we hope captures the key dynamics both the elder and the divines faced. The last section concludes and summarizes the findings.
