Script Discussion Frame Backfill Session

Hmm... just think of Ramadan, Vesak, Diwali, Saturnalia, Chinese New Year or mid-autumn... i believe there must be dozens of such gift-giving traditions all around the world. I actually believe Yule wasn't even one of these in the beginning... it probably was a sacrifice to the winter spirits before it became conflated with Christmas and St. Nicholas.


If it was a numenorean tradition it would be probably Turuhalme/Amanar... but not among black númenóreans! Also i am not sure if a sauronic festival on christmas is what we should go for... a harvest-festival on late summer or maybe autumn i'd like better.

When do west african people do their harvest festivities? Some december on solstice, some midsummer, some about August or whenever the local rainy season ends...
 
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Haerangil said:
Hmm... just think of Ramadan, Vesak, Diwali, Saturnalia, Chinese New Year or mid-autumn... i believe there must be dozens of such gift-giving traditions all around the world. I actually believe Yule wasn't even one of these in the beginning... it probably was a sacrifice to the winter spirits before 7t became conflated with Christmas and St. Nicholas.
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But how old is the gift giving associated with those feasts? Current common gift giving is associateded with industrialisation and avalibility of little trinkets to be exchanged by everyone.
Before it was grain, cakes, coins, eggs, bread, or drink (beer) given out by those who had them, meaning those in power - at least the head of a household.
If you check the gift-giving aspect, then the best would be Roman New Year - the Kalends - even if that feast is associated with the introducion of the new Julian Calendar and not older. The Saturnalia's gifts were figurines thought to represent the original human sacrifices to Saturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigillaria_(ancient_Rome); not "real" gifts.
 
Sure. What sort of gifts are we talking about? In old times you always gave gifts... to a host, to a guest, to a neighbour, to another family or tribe, to a newly wed couple.

Gifts are a thing, an old thing.Our modern gifts have to do with mass production and consumption for sure. Ancient gifts were about practical use, making allies, diplomatic relations, bonding between families.


Gifts as fake-human sacrifices are definitely a thing. Or symbols pars-pro-toto. I believe a lot of these things are exaggerated by modern folklorists, but still 7nteresting.
 
Haerangil said:
Sure. What sort of gifts are we talking about? In old times you always gave gifts... to a host, to a guest, to a neighbour, to another family or tribe, to a newly wed couple.
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Exactly. This was occasion driven, not connected to a specific festival.

Haerangil said:
Gifts are a thing, an old thing. Our modern gifts have to do with mass production and consumption for sure. Ancient gifts were about practical use, making allies, diplomatic relations, bonding between families.
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But the feast after the sacrifice of an animal when its meat was shared and eaten by the family (distributed by its head) and the rest distributed among the poor - ths is one of the origins of the connection of gift distribution to a sacrifice to a god.

Haerangil said:
Gifts are a thing, an old thing. Our modern gifts have to do with mass production and consumption for sure. Ancient gifts were about practical use, making allies, diplomatic relations, bonding between families.
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Haerangil said:
Gifts as fake-human sacrifices are definitely a thing. Or symbols pars-pro-toto. I believe a lot of these things are exaggerated by modern folklorists, but still 7nteresting.
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Roman Gifts

Historians trace midwinter gift giving back to the ancient Romans. The Romans bestowed gifts and good wishes on friends and family during Kalends, their new year festival. The oldest and, th
christmas-celebrations.org christmas-celebrations.org
"Historians trace midwinter gift giving back to the ancient Romans. The Romans bestowed gifts and good wishes on friends and family during Kalends, their new year festival. The oldest and, thus, perhaps the most “traditional” of these gifts were small twigs from the groves of the goddess Strenia. Later, the Romans added cakes and honey (symbolizing a “sweet” new year), and coins (symbolizing wealth) to the roster of traditional new year gifts. The Romans called these gifts strenae after Strenia. The modern French word for new year’s gift, étrenne, echoes this old Latin name. In addition to exchanging gifts with friends and family, many Romans offered gifts and vota, wishes for prosperity, to the emperor. The Romans also gave one another gifts for Saturnalia, a winter festival occurring about a week before Kalends. Traditional Saturnalia gifts included wax candles called cerei, wax fruit, and clay dolls called signillaria. These gifts, too, expressed the good will of the sender."

We still have gifts being given out by the head of the house to the "Kalends/Carols/Easter" ot the "Sankt-Martins/Halloween" singers going from home to home singing blessing songs (or threating misfortune) for the new period of time commencing.

So the New Year of any kind could be an ocassion of gift distribution, but still it seems the patriarch/matriarch should be the primary giver. The recipients would be primarily dependants, clients, children, and gifts could be food, coins (if there); clothing, small pieces of jewerly. This would mainly enhance the social status of the giver and strengten the patron-client bond but also reestablish the giver's dominance and the recipient's dependence - in the end a display of power.
 
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Haerangil said:
What do we call it? "Yôzara","Yôzra","Yôzarê"?
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What should it be? Just a New Year, a season, related to a god or an anniversary of something? Considering the latitude, when should it be? What should the name mean, or should the meaning been already lost to the ages?
 
I was thinking of adûnaic, or adunaic influenced Haradic. Something like Yô(z), "gift" + (r)â ,suffix, or *arê ,"day". I guess these people probably do not speak a very good Adunaic... more a watered down version of it much like Westron. As a "secular" holiday that is connected to harvest, not a specific deity (any more at last) i think it could be the festivity near the end of harvest season, when..? I do not know, late August was my proposal as it fits with some west african harvest festivities.
 
Haerangil said:
I was thinking of adûnaic, or adunaic influenced Haradic. Something like Yô(z), "gift" + (r)â ,suffix, or *arê ,"day". I guess these people probably do not speak a very good Adunaic... more a watered down version of it much like Westron. As a "secular" holiday that is connected to harvest, not a specific deity (any more at last) i think it could be the festivity near the end of harvest season, when..? I do not know, late August was my proposal as it fits with some west african harvest festivities.
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Works with me. As for the variant, try to pronouce each 50x and decide which is easiest to. ;-)

Edit: the timing reminds me a little of Michaelmas.
 
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In Ethiopia, September is the end of the cold rainy season, and also the time of two important holidays - New Years on September 11th, and Meskel (a religious holiday) later in the month on the 27th. This is the time of year when the land is as green as it is going to be, and also is warm again (in the Highlands, the typical 70's and sunny that it will remain until the rainy season returns). Meskel is celebrated with bonfires; new years day is celebrated with new clothes. Both are holidays and feast days.

However, we did agree not to depict a monsoon season during our frame in Harad, so that there would be a sense of 'unchanging' atmosphere there until the fateful festival arrived. So, whatever is being commemorated (harvest, etc), it should not be a change-of-season festival.
 
I'm of the opinion that figuring out the timing of the festival is the most important thing here, although I am not 100% on that. Basically it seems to me that the "when" of the festival ought to help with informing the "why" of the festival, because that matches the image of how actual festivals develop in my head. I don't have a deep enough background in sociology to be very confident in that image, but that's what makes the best sense to me (until someone who knows better chimes in to teach me better). 😛
 
ouzaru said:
I'm of the opinion that figuring out the timing of the festival is the most important thing here, although I am not 100% on that. Basically it seems to me that the "when" of the festival ought to help with informing the "why" of the festival, because that matches the image of how actual festivals develop in my head. I don't have a deep enough background in sociology to be very confident in that image, but that's what makes the best sense to me (until someone who knows better chimes in to teach me better). 😛
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Well, the original "why" of the festival, we know, but what the people are celebrating now is less clear.
 
Liberation day, how great!

I find it so wonderfully ironic, they celebrate their ancestors liberation from Númenor annually, yet they try so hard to be "Númenóreans" even still giving their children Adûnaic names... the Mouth certainly would build up on that.

I wonder if their Adûnaic-schtick actually was a retro-fashion originating from the days they wished to be allies of Gondor and possibly their young princes growing up at the court of Minas Anór or Osgiliath.
 
Haerangil said:
Liberation day, how great!

I find it so wonderfully ironic, they celebrate their ancestors liberation from Númenor annually, yet they try so hard to be "Númenóreans" even still giving their children Adûnaic names... the Mouth certainly would build up on that.

I wonder if their Adûnaic-schtick actually was a retro-fashion originating from the days they wished to be allies of Gondor and possibly their young princes growing up at the court of Minas Anór or Osgiliath.
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Was Adûnaic not the language of the Sauron worshippers in Numenor? Have they not forbidden Quenya? Is this not the reason Gondorian nobles know/are tought Adûnaic but seldom use it? They speak a derivate of Sindarin instead. Because Adûnaic became tinted by association with Sauron?
 
Yes, why?

Oh, i see! Question is, what sort of "Liberation from Númenor" are we talking about...
I understood "Liberation from Númenor" as Ûrilôni's (was this the name of this land?) Liberation from númenórean colonialism... that is... it happened when Númenór sank and it's inhabitants became free to govern themselves as their own realm?Or maybe the years after when remaining Black númenórean domination waned with the fall of Sauron to the end of the last Alliance?

What other liberation could be there... the Nazguls rebellion against the King of Numenor i guess, but Ar-Pharazôn reconquered all these lands supposedly so... with Sauron in Númenor and everything under the kingsmen the colonies, including Ûrilôni, all again were part of the númenorean empire... so speaking Adûnaic.Liberation must have happened after that.
 
Haerangil said:
Yes, why?

Oh, i see! Question is, what sort of "Liberation from Númenor" are we talking about...
I understood "Liberation from Númenor" as Ûrilôni's (was this the name of this land?) Liberation from númenórean colonialism... that is... it happened when Númenór sank and it's inhabitants became free to govern themselves as their own realm?Or maybe the years after when remaining Black númenórean domination waned with the fall of Sauron to the end of the last Alliance?

What other liberation could be there... the Nazguls rebellion against the King of Numenor i guess, but Ar-Pharazôn reconquered all these lands supposedly so... with Sauron in Númenor and everything under the kingsmen the colonies, including Ûrilôni, all again were part of the númenorean empire... so speaking Adûnaic.Liberation must have happened after that.
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I've alway understood Adûnaic to be the language supported by Sauron and a sign of allegiance to him (at least from the time of the Fall of Numenor)?
 
I don't think Sauron cared much about language, though he most likely hated elvish.It was at the beginning the language of his enemies, then of his adherents.But the people of Ûrêlôni had stopped being the latter and never started being the former.

Adûnaic is just a more archaic Westron, some people in Gondor have still adûnaic names in addition to elvish or indigenous.It is not a language of evil.Sauron's direct followers would have used black speech... but in this case it is, i guess, just an indigenous language preserved by the nobility who happens to have some numenorean ancestry.
 
Haerangil said:
I don't think Sauron cared much about language, though he most likely hated elvish. It was at the beginning the language of his enemies, then of his adherents. But the people of Ûrêlôni had stopped being the latter and never started being the former.

Adûnaic is just a more archaic Westron, some people in Gondor have still adûnaic names in addition to elvish or indigenous. It is not a language of evil. Sauron's direct followers would have used black speech... but in this case it is, i guess, just an indigenous language preserved by the nobility who happens to have some numenorean ancestry.
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No, I do not think it is considered "evil" in Gondor - but slightly suspicious when overused. If one were to switch his household's language to Adûnaic, his neighbours would get slightly worried, I would think.

It might have been a more developped language than the local languages with more specific terms for relevant technologies. And then accepted the way English is in Ireland.
 
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