From: "Alice Turner" <al@interport.net>
Subject: (whorl) Sacrifice and god activity
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 06:14:13 


[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]


 
> So alga appears to be correct-- a non-Quetzal agency did something that
> stopped the gods from coming around.  But Quetzal also seems to say that
> human sacrifice is one of the factors that will awaken the sleeping gods,
> or contribute to theophanies.

It is definitely puzzling. If the Fliers, who are the Crew, did it, how
come they are so obedient to the re-activated Tartaros? Who did the
technical work for the Lemuroid bodies--it was one of them, wasn't it? Not
Potto, maybe Loris.

> Jerboa sacrificed a child?  I'll have to look into that!

He sacrificed a monkey that looked like a child, and it upset him very
much. 

We should  think about this sacrifice thing, the technical aspects of it.
Trivigaunte performs no sacrifices--has no theophanies either. Viron
sacrifices like crazy--has had no theophanies for 30 years, but that's
because the god programs have been deactivated. When they are reactivated,
Scylla speaks of a generous sacrifice as "getting her attention." There
used to be human sacrifices up till Q's cognizance (33 years). One positive
aspect of sacrifice is that, in a poor parish, it gets protein to the poor.
The remains of the sacrifices feed the tunnel-dwellers and "gods" (bufes).

Those are random thoughts; anyone want to put together a theory?

BTW, what does "bufe" mean, in what language? And what would the study of
chrasmology  be?  

-alga-

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