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The Axial Impetus of Kay Pacha.
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Religion in Kay Pacha
KAY PACHA
"Tʜɪs EᴀʀᴛʜʟʏSᴘᴀᴄᴇ"
Rᴇʟɪɢɪᴏɴ ɪɴ Kᴀʏ Pᴀᴄʜᴀ
This textile icon is a composite depiction of
of Ai, the staff-wielding fertility god of the
empire, and Si, the slumbering oculate
prophecy-god. Take note that these deities
belong to separate religious institutions.
Before examining the differences between the religious trends, currents, sects, and cults of Kay Pacha, the similarities between them must be addressed first. While some remote communities in the Kanichanawl and Wilkayaramayūchka frontiers maintain pre-centralization forms of cosmology, ritual, and pantheon, the mountainous landscape that characterizes the rest of the empire is a catalyst for both interior religious diversity within its hostile, compartmentalizing terrain, as well as uniformity when compared with exterior religions that have been geographically isolated from the Rūnakūna until very recently.
mythological and artistic motif that depicts
common anxieties about the animistic
sentience of objects. Above is an example
in the P'Husūkumanta ceramic style.
Animist - Personhood and willpower are present in many mundane things. Rūnakūna do not believe that spirits dwell within these objects, but the things are assumed to have a sort of latent sentience that emerges from the same metaphysical understanding of the world that justifies mummy-veneration. Interaction with these thinking-objects is limited, however they can be communicated with by different rituals that are unique to localities.
Apotheotic - The emperor is a divine entity, and his cadre, military, and courtiers are emanations of this divine source. In the lens of history, the reigning ruler is uniformly a result of Good, while those who were weak, unpopular, or deposed in coups were a result of Evil. Before imperial centralization, petty kings, tribal chiefs, and temple-state priests also legitimized their positions by similar means.
Dualist - Good and Evil are cosmic forces of comparable power, and all things, beings, and phenomena can be characterized as products of either of these essences. A robust intellectual tradition of Good-Evil classification, along with accompanying commentaries and debates, has produced a considerable written, oral, and tactile corpus of dualist ontology.
Eschatological - Time is a linear progression, however human civilization is cyclical. Having started from a state of savagery (earlier epochs are never characterized as Edenic or innocent), mankind passes through periods of cultural ascent and decline. With each renewal of ascent, the culminating civilization becomes a more sincere imitation of the Solar Design, which is an idealized and harmonious ordering of society whose reappearances throughout history are catalyzed by human progress and imperial absolutism. These groans in the fabric of civilization are punctuated by periods of savagery, or "Doom". At an unknown point in the future, the earth will collapse in on itself, and the sleeping creator-god Si will be stirred from his slumber. If he finds that the staff-god Ai has sufficiently enlightened the species through his god-king sons, mankind will be spared from destruction.
The current cycle of civilization is the fifth. The first was the bestial age (Wēracocharūna) in which humans had not speciated from llamas. This occurred in the centuries that followed Ai's flood, which is what allowed the human population to regain its numbers. The second age was the (Warē), in which humans hunted other animals and lived nomadically. The third was the (Purun), when war began to be practiced, and roving barbarian armies clashed for obscure causes. The forth and most recent was the (Auka) in which humans finally settled down into cities and formed communities and kingdoms. Each lapse into Doom reduced mankind to animals until they returned to their elevated form by the god-king.
Polytheist - A vast pantheon houses numerous divine beings. However, most of these entities would not be described as gods under strict scrutiny, as the propensity to anthropomorphize natural phenomena leaves considerable room for debate as to which is which. For example, a river-god could appear as merely a river in one narrative, entirely a god in another, or anywhere in between. Imperial standardization has cleared up some of these uncertainties, however the government's deity-catalogues vary with changing agendas and administrations.
Progignotheist - The consciousnesses of the dead do not leave their bodies. The energizing force that gives the mind command of the corpus dispels at death, will be received by the gods if done in a sacrificial ritual, yet the mind of the person lives on in a half-dreaming half-observational state. Mummification is standard practice in Rūnamanta communities, and the bodies of loved ones and respected leaders are sometimes exhumed in the future to be consulted in times of crisis. The mummies of the nobility and aristocracy maintain their possessions after their death. Past emperors' personal property and private lands are maintained by their children and relatives who did not inherit the throne itself; a guaranteed easy life to satiate any ambitious younger sons. In times of crisis, the reigning emperor will exhume the mummies of his predecessors and set them alight in a public display to symbolize the rewriting of history; a corpse reduced to char never existed in the first place. This is a notion that is possible in the metaphysical logic of a Rūnamata understanding of history, however ready acceptance of an alteration in one's own memories creates a puzzling phenomenon to any outside observer.
Syncretic - The primary concern of imperial religious standardization is to dissolve regional identities and to enshrine imperial divinity above all other religious complexes. While this ensures a liturgical uniformity across the state, there is considerable inconsistency in different ethnoliguistic groups' interpretations of the standardized religious material.
Tʜᴇ Rᴜʟɪɴɢ Gᴏᴅ
The staff-god Ai is a domineering figure. His iconography
demonstrates his role as a caretaker and a provider, yet
also an imperious and callous master.
The Solar Design, the Imperial Cult, or the Cult of Ai is the religion of the state. The sun is worshiped as the deity which sustains the existence of the world through its gifts of heat and light, and the emperor and his family are of the same substance as the sun. The Imperial Cult sustains social cohesion and keeps the forces of chaos and disorder in check through the doctrine of the Solar Design, which is an idealized ordering of human life beneath the guidance of the divine empire. The priesthood directly appointed by the royal family, and clerics may be defrocked or relocated at-will by the government. Priestly education is the most rigorous and demanding for admission into the clergy, and all rituals are performed in the state-sponsored All-Human language. Because the Imperial Cult is intended to maintain social stability above all else, its primary expression of piety is through dutiful work and obedience to the state.
Official iconography of the sun god Ai is depicted as a face framed in rays or a crown, and carries two staffs in either hand. In earlier cultures these vertical pillars were depicted as weapons or bundles of wood. As the empire's centrally planned food allocation became the primary function of the bureaucracy, the attributions of the emperor as a provider and gift-giver replaced these staffs with serpents or sheathes of maize. Another iconographic anachronism is depicting Ai with feline facial features, which were likely meant to depict jaguars in the north or pumas in the south.
While he is revered as a solar deity and is frequently depicted with warm colors in his icons, his priests are known by their green garments and his temples by their verdant décors. This is reflective of his fertility function.
Anthropogenetic narrative
Before his adoption and standardization by the empire, Ai was present throughout Kay Pacha as a fertility god, which in turn assigned him an important position in human history. While Si has long been believed to have constructed the earthly world or the entire universe because of the perennial influence of the Dreaming Cult in Rūnamanta history, Ai is credited as the creator of mankind in regions where the title was not already assigned to Si. The most common anthropogenetic narrative described Ai as having first created a race of giants from the boulders of the mountains. The giants were disobedient and unwilling to sacrifice their own to him, so he flooded the surface of the earth and only those who were small enough to float to the surface were allowed to continue the lineage of humanity in its diminished form.
He is also held to be the father of nations. After the flood, he took handfuls of dye and painted the bodies of mankind, which then hardened into fabric. Those with similar garments joined one another and became the ancestors of the modern-day ethnolinguistic and national identities of the world. This narrative has been more strongly reinforced by the empire, however, as it allowed authorities to de-legitimize the cultural autonomy of groups that were targeted by the mitmak regional dissolution policy by denying their creation by Ai due to similarities in their dress to standardized imperial styles.
Tʜᴇ Sʟᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ Gᴏᴅ
Icons of Si are identifiable by skewed heads. Sacrificial imagery
and departures from humanoid proportions create a fittingly
nightmarish impression of the dreaming primeval being.
The Dreaming Cult or Cult of Si or Prophetic Cult or Cult of the Oculate Being is the second most widespread practice in Rūnamanta society. While its theological adherence to the Solar Design are rigorously audited by imperial inspectors, the Dreaming Cult's clergy are autonomous from the state. This faith is based in the temple-city of Wakacheena within the imperial capital. The Dreaming Cult reveres Si, the sleeping deity, who is held to be the creator god of the universe. The Sleeper labored for thousands of years to build the world with his hands. After he finished, the task had tired him so much that he laid down to eternally rest beneath the earth that Wakacheena was later built upon.
The Dreaming Cult practices divination. The head of the priesthood is the Oracle at Wakacheena, who imbues his or her clerics with the ability to catch and inspect "whiffs" of the Sleeper's dreams which escape from the earth. These dream-fragments do not directly affect events in the human world, rather they offer glimpses at the immutable future of predetermined events. The cult's localization results in its followers' primary expression of piety being pilgrimages. A robust network of roads facilitates easy and safe travel to the city.
Si's temples are elaborate and sprawling complexes with sunken courts and winding subterranean labyrinths. The negative space in the center of the temples are usually open-air, and are placed at the top of pyramidal earthworks to obscure the rituals from the public. There intentional design flaws in many of these structures which allow spectators to catch a "forbidden" glimpse at the ceremonies and sacrifices the exterior courts. This is done to enforce the notion that the hidden rituals are performed in earnest.
The underground labyrinths may be entered by pilgrims, and poorly illuminated and decorated with haunting carvings that employ contour rivalry to create a supernatural effect. Hallucinogens are offered to pilgrims to enhance the experience. At the deepest chamber of the labyrinth in the chief temple at Wakacheena is a monstrous carved being. The slight curvature of the monster's stone medium uses a wrap-around carved pattern to create a unique appearance every time it is perceived. This holy place is called the Stela of Stelae by outside sources, and it is believed to be the only protrusion of Si's body that is accessible by humans; the very tip of a single strand of hair from his head. This site is important in the prophetic ritual; Si's priests process down to the chamber to "collect" dreams to take them back to the surface for public declaration.
His priests and priestesses wear black garments, however his temples are decorated in numerous colors. They typically wear fearsome masks with prominent eyes when appearing publicly, hence the designation of Si as the oculate god.
Relationship with the state
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