Answerer can gain no visions of the two strangers. (They have come from the future so maybe there is nothing to be seen yet.) Maybe they have cast spells against his. This might be possible because the Cloud People have come:
"'...far from the graves of our ancestors. Later we left our dead behind us as we trekked onward. Thus far in this place there are very few to help us.'" (p. 213)
Snowstrider has died here and his ghost must be strong but it is one:
"'Against how many of the Vole men's?'" (ibid.)
Answerer does not know whether the Vole People's ghosts linger or whether the Vole People tend graves or remain friendly with the dead.
A modern person would just assume that his own beliefs about a hereafter apply to everyone whereas Answerer accepts that Vole People's ghosts and Cloud People's ghosts might be in different spiritual conditions because of the different respective practices.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The ideas of the Cloud People about their dead seems a lot, in some ways, like those of the Chinese and those other nations deeply influenced by China. No surprise, I'm assuming the North Asians who became the Han shared remote common origins with those of the Cloud People.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Partly. Amerindians are about 60% archaic East Asian, and about 40% Ancient North Eurasian, the latter a "ghost" population that no longer exists. Europeans and their descendants have a variable but substantial bit of Ancient North Eurasian too, via the Yamnaya and Corded Wear migrations.
This caused a lot of confusion in genetic analysis before Reich worked it out -- there seemed to be a "European" element in the Amerindians that couldn't be accounted for by post-1492 mixing.
It turned out to be (very remote) common ancestry.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I thought that very interesting, That European Indo-Europeans and American Indians have quite a lot in common, genetically!
Ad astra! Sean
It's something you could guess by looking at them -- particularly if you take into account that the tan-to-pink complexions of Europeans are a fairly recent genetic development.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have that in the back of my mind, that Indo/Europeans and many American Indians don't really look all that different from one another.
Ad astra! Sean
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