Hello fellow kids, I come baring both writing and the usual art. Thank you to @silly-little-diary @skyrim-forever @sanzas-reverie @pocket-vvardvark for the tags (I'll be looking at posts as I wind down, also if you want to be tagged in these let me know. I'm kinda rebuilding a mutuals list).
Been doing a lot of writing and art recently since I started feeling a little less stressed. It's been good, and I've genuinely enjoyed what I've been making.
So, first we have some more of the Khan render.
Got gold and swords done and now we properly enter all the beads and Joshi's Madstone. I want to do one of him when he's older, post Dragon Crisis. Should be a fun comparison.
Next is a chunk of the paper I've been writing on Ashlander Burials and Mourning Practices. The idea is to write what is intended to be the first draft of a book on Ashlander Culture that Josh is writing for the benefit of his kid.
Please note, this whole section talks about cremation, embalming and mummification as well as animal sacrifices. So fair warning over clicking on the "Read More" button. (1.2k)
This next step, the cremation, is usually witnessed by the entire tribe and is officiated by the Ashkhan and the Wise Woman together.
This is meant to be a joyous time, where we remember the life of the deceased and their importance to the tribe. This usually involves feasting and will be detailed further in this chapter. Our main concern in this section is the preparation and lighting of the pyre. This is where the Ashkhan steps in.
Once the pyre is built, the hunters and scouts inform the Ashkhan, who will then join them in the guar pens on the camp’s outskirts. Usually, the deceased clan will join us for this step, as it is imperative that the right guar is chosen to join the deceased.
We chose to send guar with our dead as it is believed they will help guide us in death as they do in life. Guar are an integral aspect of our survival out in the wastes. They give us companionship, they carry the weight of our camps as we move through the ash, they help alert us to danger, and they provide us with food and clothing. If we did not have guar by our side, the tribe would be doomed to poverty and will either be absorbed into a larger tribe or simply die. This is not a fate we wish for those still living and thus is not a fate we wish to bestow upon the dead.
I, myself, have both observed and naturally, participated in this practice over the centuries in my capacity as Ashkhan. In my experience, we allow the family to choose a guar from our herds, one that speaks to them. A prayer is said, usually one chosen by the family, but “Words on the Wind” remains quite popular. This is when we invoke the recently deceased Ancestor Ghost to accept this first offering of companionship.
After the guar is slaughtered, usually by the Ashkhan, it is then prepared by the hunters. We believe that the bones of a guar calls the beast’s spirit after death, much like our own, and thus we collect and clean them in a manner that reflects how we prepare our loved ones. In this case, we keep a few of the bones, usually a rib or a femur, to inter with the dead. The rest is eaten by the living, and the skins are used to create a very durable leather.
We use the guar’s meat for the feast that occurs in tandem with the funeral pyre, though naturally the edible meat is prepared separately, whilst the organs and remaining bones are cremated in a secondary funeral pyre, so that they are separated from the deceased and the ashes can be collected separately. These ashes will be placed in a specially marked urn and placed with the deceased alongside the chosen bone.
The whole celebration usually runs until the early morning, with guests only dissipating once the pyre has fully burnt itself out, and only the ashes remain. The ashes are then gathered by the Wise Woman and seers into separate urns, one for the guar, one for the deceased and taken back into the embalming yurt. The ashes are then mixed with the same spices and herbs that are used in the ashsalt bath, and the urns are stored until the skin has dried out sufficiently. As stated above, this can be up to eighty days.
What becomes of the skeleton? As mentioned earlier, some of the smaller bones have been cremated alongside the soft tissue and organs. We choose to save certain parts of the skeleton, namely the skull, spine, ribs and pelvis. Sometimes the deceased may want their arms and leg bones saved [the femur is most popular], others specify the whole skeleton [usually the case for Ashkhans]. Regardless of how much of the skeleton is saved from the pyre, the next steps are always the same. The Seers and Wise Woman carefully clean the skeleton, removing any remaining flesh and sinew from them. Each bone is then inscribed with a series of magic imbued glyphs, the knowledge of which even I am unaware. Ilaba’andul-Maesa Ki has told me that generally they use an Ashland variant of the Daedric Alphabet, and it is written vertically along the centre of the bone. It is a practice that allows the deceased Ghost to find their remains upon their first summoning, like a set of instructions the spirit can read to find their loved ones.
There is a long period between this phase and the next, and this time is filled with preparing the deceased a place within our traditional burial caverns [SEE SECTION THREE]. Once the forty to eighty days have passed, the next and final phase begins. This is where the deceased is reassembled and shrouded, ready for their final resting place.
 Again, the particulars of this are not widely known outside the Seer circles, but Ilaba’andul-Maesa Ki has explained it to me as such:
The various preserved elements are gathered together and arranged in order of application. The first being the bones and trama root required for the posing of the mummy.
The skeleton is reassembled using the prepared bones and held together with twine. Trama root that has been carved into long dowels that are used to support the skeleton as it is posed into a sitting position. It is usually used to support the spine and as support or replacements for the arms and legs. These are posed according to the deceased’s wishes or that of their clan. Usually, they are holding weaponry or some object that would have been used in life. Books, alchemical supplies or the tools of a craftsman are amongst the objects placed in the mummy’s hands. Though these objects are added at the end.
The heart is hung in the centre of the chest cavity, and the skin is placed around the skeleton and stitched shut with twine, leaving only a few openings for the next phase.
The mummy is then stuffed with the ash from the pyre, giving it bulk but also returning everything to its origin point. Once the urns are emptied, the mummy is then sewn back together.
A final layer of ashsalt is applied to the skin, the belief is that a thin layer will help continue the preservation of the remains.
The mummy is then wrapped in linen bandages, and the various objects the deceased’s clan had gathered are then arranged on the mummy. This includes the aforementioned weaponry and tools of trade, but also includes the deceased’s madstone and robe if they are married, and any jewellery they might wish to have interred. The mummy is then wrapped in a shroud, and a garland of fire fern flowers is placed around their neck. A weaved crown of fire fern may also be placed on the mummy’s head if they hold sufficient rank.
I am sure there are a plethora of nuances in this process that I have missed, as always, each preparation is unique and not all elements will be needed or more may be added at the Wise Woman’s discretion.
The above is our usual method of preparing a body, however, there are circumstances where there may not be sufficient soft tissue to create a mummy. Maybe the dead had been lost and were allowed to decay naturally, maybe they met their end in a way so that their remains are damaged. My father, Ensirhaddon-Ammu Yani am ’Erabenimsun, was such a case.
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Another snippet of the thing about the death rituals
Ashkhan Ensirhaddon-Sero’Sul Teldryn’am Urshilaku of the Unified Tribes
As We Lay Dying- The Rites for the Dead
Our rites begin before our bodies take their final breaths, as I’d wager is common amongst any culture on Tamriel. Each choosing their own comforts to take with them as they transcend to the next plane.
Both settled and nomadic Dunmer do not create much distinction between the planes of Mundus, Aetherius and Oblivion. They are simply separate parts of the same whole that one can traverse if one knows the right door. Our death rites are that door.
Spiritual work amongst the tribes is seen as the domain of Wise Women and the Seers who apprentice to them. It is traditionally seen as the domain of women, those who wield the capacity and maturity to confer with our ancestors. Those with the gift of prophecy and unrivalled magical ability who might hear the calls of our dead. A Seer or Wise Woman is required to ensure a safe, calm transition towards the next plain, in a way similar to how someone in the Imperial city might call upon a priest of Akatosh to guide their loved ones. In the end, we all look for that comfort.
There is a poem that my late husband favoured, it is a mourning hymn, one often sung during the final moments of life and again as we are laid to rest. It talks of rebirth, how our souls might live on through the light of those around us. He had always said it was meant to be uplifting, and he took comfort in the promise of renewal. He always saw the good in things.
I had not been conscious when he passed, but I was told that he had whispered the hymn before he welcomed his end. He had chosen that hymn to be his summoning rite, and I and the wider unified tribes have chosen to make this poem, Words of the Wind [May I Shrink to Dust] one of our primary mourning hymns in his memory.
The poem, an Ahemmusa verse, goes as follows:
May I shrink to dust
In your cold, wild Wastes,
And may my tongue speak
It's last hymn to your winds.
I pray for the herder
That whistles to his guar at play.
I pray for the hunter
That stalks the white walkers.
I pray for the wise one
That seeks under the hill,
And the wife who wishes
For one last touch of her dead child's hand.
I will not pray for that which I've lost
When my heart springs forth
From your soil, like a seed,
And blossoms anew beneath tomorrow's sun.
In the years following Red Mountain’s eruption, our seers and wise woman have chosen to recite this hymn in place of others as a prayer for the safe guidance of our dead into the arms of our ancestors across the mortal coil.
