A beginners guide to the Ancient Past: the Suru

"There's always an extra connection, another link that joins two words that most of mankind quite blithely believe to be separate (...) I would start with a single word and then connect it to another word and then to another word and so on and so forth until I was exhausted and could do no more."

— Mark Forsyth, Etymologicon

Introduction

This is the part two of the series explaining the nature of things in the Ancient Past of the Sáveni, Aškari and more. This time the main topic of discussion is the Suru tribe of the high-mountain region, where the rivers supplying Lake Yüründ begin their course.

Summer is all the rage

In ancient times, back when Asu were prosperous, there was an inhabitted desolation, named after its people -- Suru. Back then people inhabitting the desolation came to the conclusion that the tumultous high-mountain winds and the raging, unpredictable fires in summer were the very same thing. Anyone who have felt a fit of high temper in the summer heat should consider themselves lucky and unusual in the same time.

Summer was once, all the rage. The heat in the Surian land was often so bad, that it didn't even let the small struggling bushes live in peace. In fact, they were the ones to suffer the most; and were the biggest benefactors of the large area fires. For first, the branches and all the green parts were gone and all the effort put into growing them was gone and turned into ash. In the same time, though, the hard shells covering the seeds were able to open and germinate in the soil in peace, with all of the competition literally burned to the ground.

Summer fires were a sign that the summer was at its peak and what followed them were typical summer storms, with short but intense rains. The bushes were called the messengers of summer, since the large area fires they caused could be seen from miles away. As they were messengers of the gods, they were not to be touched, and were to be cared for if need be. People learned that in order to survive in Suru one should keep a safe distance from things that were too close to the gods. One can speculate how did the Surians learn of that and whether it was a divine intervention, but in all likelihood it was the grim route of trial and error.

What follows after is the meaning for "rocky desolations", which in Surian translates directly to "safety". If you see a barren, rocky place, devoid of life, you are probably safe; from the fire, from the ice, from the wind. The wind is a tricky one, and gives an additional meaning to "safety" as "exposed" or "under trial". This is due to the dualistic nature of the rock forming a shield from the wind which, much like a shield, is one-sided. One can either be on the "safe side" or on the "exposed side" of it. In the latter, one is exposed to the will of the wind gods, or "undergoing a trial".

Many things find shelter between the rocks, and if they do, they need to get out at some point. One of those things is water, which shares a common trait with one of the animals.

Snakes are messengers of water

If there ever was an animal strikingly similar to a meandering river, it was the snake. And a small leap from that thought comes a conclusion that snakes, as rivers come from the underground. To be more precise, snakes do prefer to hide between the rocks and stones, but in the windy region of Suru, who doesn't? This argument may crawl in some of the arguments about the snakes being divine creatures. In fact, one can almost sympathize with the little, resourceful fellow, finding a way out of the gust. And if not, it feels at least polite to find the behaviour inspirational.

For a long time Surians believed that the snakes were born underground and traveled above as a natural consequence of all living things going up. Plants, goats and Surians certainly do, so it must be universally true and as the saying goes: "what rises above, must return below". Some versions are more specific and share a connection with the snakes, i.e., "to crawl back" means simply "to return to the place of origin", sometimes "to die". But if it is that the snakes crawl back underground and it is there that one finds bones of the long gone, then snakes are not only messanger of water and life, but also of death. If so, they obviously are the relays between the worlds of life and death.

And with this comes a potential deceit, for if one follows a snake it is not certain whether it is to ones life of death. The rebirth is backed up by the solid fact that snakes regularly shed their skins and become visibly younger. Thus, in rebirth matters they can be considered experts of the highest standard. Funnily enough, this connects things back to the summer fires. All of the plants living in the Surian landscape have long gotten used to being reduced to the ashes and growing back. Those who didn't were no longer part of the Surian landscape. And it so happens, that after the raging fires, the land becomes covered in white fluffy ash, very similar to the fluffy snow feathers in winter. This gives us the connection and "summer snow" is a Surian idiom for "the ash", often but not always directly connected to the initial "summer ash".

It so happens that both winter and summer ash often come in the same form of big fluffy feathers. So, "to be clad/covered in feathers" means "to get past a big changing event" and "to get prepared for a big change". Indeed, raging fires and the tumultous blizzard of thick snow are things that change the landscape beyond recognition. The landscape being visibly cleared of the old is a strong suggestion to take a chance and start over. There is, however, a small but significant difference. The summer snow is often thinner and covers the charred remnants, which is a bit ominous and gives the "or else" vibe to it. The winter snow is more forgiving and its coverage is thick. The "winter snow" is more about the memory, forgetting and learning new things, whereas the "summer snow" is an opportunity paired with a warning that choices have consequences and that some memories are not so easily forgotten. So summer is much less forgetful, often more intense, and is more about living here and now.

The Spring of Death... or Life... or both

If winter stands for "Fade" and summer stands for "Rage", then spring is inevitably connected to "Death". This is because life itself is complicated. For one, life is and always was connected to movement. For anything to stand still meant to eventually die often from a trivial thing such as thirst and starvation. The complication of understanding life arises due to its connection to water.

For reasons unknown to the Surians water seems to form rivers and go down, that is, below, which is, underground, which is... Death. In the same time, most of the rivers spring from a single, small point, called... a spring. It is in the nature of springs to bring the water up from the underground all the way to the surface, where it can flow its course down again. The defiant nature of springs is the very reason they are connected to childhood but we are digressing from the main subject.

To stand still means to eventually die, but as in all the rules exceptions are made. Some smaller brooks and streams eventually gather to form small rivers, which in turn form bigger rivers. Life of an individual is rarely big and spectatular on its own. It needs to group to make an impact and leave a meandering mark on the land and that is why people form families, families form clans, clans form tribes, and so on and so forth. The verb for "joining" in the sense of becoming part of a bigger whole has the same sense as "pouring in" or "pooling in". This has always been true with two exceptions: lakes and glaciers.

The memories pouring in

Lakes, especially the high mountain ones, are the hot pots of life. There are bugs and fish, and water plants. Even the mountain animals fancy a drink of crystal clear water from time to time. For a lake to live it needs to sustain its water level and remain warm enough throughout the year. If the lake is overgrown, it can no longer be called a lake and transforms to other forms, like moors.

A lake is exceptional because it becomes a safe haven for the life growing inside and around it; much like a country, and how the more admirable leadership systems work. The old term for "leader" and "king" are the same as "lake". To provide is the second most admirable quality one can possess, at least among Surians. The utmost admirable quality is connected to the second exception to the "movement is life" rule, which are the glaciers. This is because to Surians glaciers are less about the frozen water and more so the memories of the previous generations compounded into a single entity. The most admirable quality to Surians is "to remember" and "to gather". In fact these are the same words.

Gathering knowledge is the most admirable thing to do, since coming spring, it can be released into streams and become a source of life around it. Many high-mountain lakes have once been glaciers and some more ancient ones still have a glacier above it in a small corrie. Clumping together the two exceptions of the lake and the glacier one gets a recipe for the most sought Surian leadership: through compounded knowledge, memories and wisdom, to provide and nourish the land. And what better leader than the deity itself, waking up from a thousand year old slumber?

The waking of the moon eyed-snake

Great leaders in history always had their ways with the divine, either as their offspring or their representatives but the greatest of all leaders were the gods themselves. Taking this one step further, the greatest leader among the greatest leaders must inevitably be the one that has compounded all the knowledge of the times passed and has given it back to the people. Was there ever such a leader? No. However... this did not discourage people from dreaming the leader out into a prophecy. It requires a snake, a moon and a glacier.

Legend has it that there was a moment, when the land (the land where Suru now live) was wind-swept (that thing hasn't changed in ages, apparently) but with only limited snow in the summits, usually high above the clouds. Then one day, on a clear moonlit night a warm wind came rushing from the mountain tops. And with its roar the snowy peaks began to blacken and form hundreds of silvery snakes crawling hastily down the slopes. The many have formed the one. They reached a flattened place, where all of them joined and came down the slope as a single, powerful entity. Thus, the lake of memories was formed, shaped like a snake's eye. By the end of the night it was no longer a lake and became a solid piece of ice, more commonly known as a glacier. The eye resemblance remained uncanny, however, and the light of the day and rapid freezing made it look as white as snow, or... a moon. And so, the Snake Eye Lake became known as a Moon-eye Lake, Moon-eyed snake Lake, or even a Blind Lake with no connection to the initial story whatsoever.

Over time the days have become much colder, the weather harsher, the ice and snow more frequent. And people did what people do best in such situations: they found a meaning in their new circumstances; a divine meaning, if anyone had any doubts. Gods have sent the Ice Snake (or Moon Snake, or Moon-eyed Snake) to inspire people of the land and follow "the way of remembering". The moral of the initial story was clear. The warm wind brings memories and releases them from long slumber. They then gather into a single powerful entity by most people called "a story" and form a pool for all the generations to drink and learn from. As this happened during a night, the night time is when the stories should be told. The night should be warm which in this climate often results in the stories being told by the fire, inside a shelter and away from the tumultous wind. The day is when the stories fade out and the fire is left to die out to symbolize its end. But since people are practical and don't enjoy being cold, tradition permits that the stories be told by a dedicated fireplace. And Surians, being practical, remain very traditional and prepare a separate fireplace. The day is when the stories are no longer spoken but that doesn't mean they die out. They are meant to be preserved, much like the water is preserved in ice; or a glacier.

Over innumerous generations the Snake-eye Lake has never once melted away into the liquid form. The Lake part is the only memory left of its initial form. What Surians took from it was a sign that this is "the memory of memories". It is the single commonly shared story which has never faded away. If there is an entity powerful enough to change the surrounding ground and remain remembered it is the one people should turn to if there was a memory to be preserved. It is only reasonable to think that. It comes to no surprize that the Lake was dubbed the "Lake of Memories"; and that people leave their memories to become part of the acummulated memory of the generations. Legend has it that one day the Moon-eyed Snake will awaken and lead its people to invoke the memories of the days gone. One can only assume, that likely all Surians have at least a handful of stories immortalized in the permafrost. It is therefore likely that should that time arise, most if not all of the Surians will follow the River of Memories, or the "Snake of Memories".

Now, while in higher parts of the mountains the spring thaws are not necessarily a big thing, since most of the water is pretty much dispersed, in the highlands and lowlands it is pretty much an annual event. The mythical event may therefore not be a pleasant one and so people living in the lower parts of the river share a different version of the story. It involves woodpeckers.

The feast of the woodpeckers

Birds come in all shapes and sizes and woodpeckers are no exception to that. There are small ones dressed in blacks and whites of the birch, and there are raven-sized monsters draped in charcoal blacks and ember reds. But size aside all woodpeckers rejoice in a widely recognized pastime of well... pecking on the dead wood.

Laqrian highlands are the ones where the Surian influence was the most prominent and some stories have come rushing down the mountains, typically in the form of trading goods, other times in the form of one-sided brutal exchange. Suffice to say, the relations between the two groups had a shade of complexity to it. In the more peaceful times, what permeated the two cultures were mostly good stories told deep in the woods by the warmth of a shared fire. And here their appearance the woodpeckers make not. The Surian climate is so harsh that not many trees get to see their teens. On a rare occassion that they do, they likely live a long long life, most of it covered in some form of snow or ice.

There are not many trees in Suru, and even less ones with enough worms to feed a small woodpecker family. So when Surians and Laqrians met in the huge highland forests of Laqru, the most ominous thing they found were "the red-headed ravens". The little beasts didn't seem to hunt mice or pick worms from the ground like normal birds do. Instead, they ripped huge chunks of precious wood creating holes big enough for small birds to call home. This is why, although by means of destruction, some Surians came to call woodpeckers "the builders" but back to the main story. As all sane people know, things don't just happen by themselves; they all happen for a reason and every religious person will testify to it. So when Surians learned of a bird black as soot, red as flame and feeding on wood, they came to the sane conclusion that woodpeckers are the bird incarnations of fire, summer and everything else loosely connected to heat and scorch. A woodpecker is like a torch, whose flames feast on the wood. A woodpecker... is an omen of death that comes after the lush green life of spring. Woodpeckers are the messengers of flame, pretty much as torches are and the two coulnd't be more alike. In fact, the southern Surians go as far as to use the same word for torch and woodpecker altogether.

One of the consequences of too much water is the subsequent drought and this is a result of a broken balance. Too much water makes the roots rot. No roots means no water. And no water results in death by thirst. Trees and plants pick their homes based on the availability of water. The more they like it, the wetter the ground they prefer. Some trees like their grounds boggy and moist. Laqrian forests, though, were not typically boggy and moist and if anything they fancied but a medium-sized shower from time to time. The annual spring floods clear the river banks of anything except small plants and occassionally larger ones are a reminder to the trees and bushes to keep their distance. Dried corpses of their predecessors serve as a warning but since trees don't have ears, the cycle keeps repeating itself every couple of decades.

After their numerous encounters with Surians, Laqrians have deduced that should their be a great flood, then the woods be left dry and dead with only woodpeckers to gnaw on their grim corpses. And for Laqrians, whose lives depend on the prosperity of the green woods, this would be pretty much the end of the world. Hence, woodpeckers are the messengers of death and their arival is said to be followed by a great fire that will turn all to ash. Thankfully, people have found a way to prevent the worst. The tradition calls for a ground, a burning and a home but in a different order.

The home of fire

Taming fire is not possible and if anyone claims otherwise, they briefly skip through the "save for that one time" part of the story. If fire was a creature it would be a simple one. It eats, it sleeps, it dies and sometimes in between it rages out, typically after a good meal. Occassionally it it can lay dormant for hundreds of years, which is a reason why moors should not be the first choices for celebrations involving bonfires.

What fire needs is a place, a fireplace or, if it is cozy enough, a home, a firehome. Fire is such a fundamental asset that Surians have coined their own words for several types of constructions to keep the flames at bay. The simplest one is formed from a ring of stones. It is called a "firefence", because much like lifestock the embers cannot escape neither above nor below and so the fence is just enough to keep them civil. Next comes "the firebed" or "a firepot", building upon the previous idea with a cozy lining of sand, stone, clay, or any other material inedible ember-wise. Firepots and firebeds are the most often used in Laqru and Yrkyt, thanks to the abundance of flammable goods like sappy wood, moors, etc. But what Surians have, or had to, develop was a full-fledged firehome, with a roof and walls and even a basement.

The construction is so well known to the Surians, that over the years it sprouted many varieties. The simpler ones, often built outdoors in haste, are called "the shelters". To the outsiders they looked like stoney passages to the hills, very similar to some monolytic passages found in the highland cairns, and it took only several outside visitors to the Surian lands to spread the rumors of the spirits inhabiting the wind-swept hills and summits of Suru. Undoubtedly, people said, these spirits feeded on fire, which was offered with other goods to the flames. And these flame spirits moved the winds of the Surian lands, making them uninhabitable for them average people.

With the story being passed down with the riverflow through Laqru, Yrkyt, Ašrat, Kaḷna and Ašu, "the hill-fire cult" became established whenever the hills were spotted and even in lowlands hills sometimes have a small stoney construction similar to the Surian fire shelters to feed the fire gods of the hills and make the air move and bring a change of weather. Fire, and especially "the hillfire", by the connection to the wind became connected to the weather, weather to the crops, and crops to the hunger. Over the years lighting hillfires became a widely recognized tradition, even though the initial Surian link vanished entirely. More importantly, as people's satiety and moods were dependent on the wims of weather, hillfires were perceived as having power to change the current state of affairs. And thus, slowly, the fire itself became connected to the very nature of change and life itself. It was seen as bringing out the light and life out of the objects, leaving nothing but ash. Much like other creatures known for bringing life to the surface.

The eternal fight between life and death

The most suspicious of all animals are moles. Not only are they black and glistening, much like the earth itself. Their single favourite activity is moving earth while making elaborate tunnels. People are nothing but observable and if ground means death, then all animals that move it upwards are inevitably the messengers of the underworld. Moles therefore bring the dead back to life, much like they move the underworld above the surface but from here on things get a little tricky.

In Surian landscape the land is not as welcoming for growth as it is in lower parts of the mountains and highlands with their thick forests. What follows this insight is the subtle lack of moles, in favor of smaller critters. What is abundant though are the snakes and these never had quarrels with moles and mice, much alike wolves never have quarrels with goats. They speak the predator-prey language fluently and their hierarchy is pretty much fixed.

Snakes have always been seen as the cunning ones. So if moles are messangers of the underworld as snakes are but must abide to their rules, there must've been a past conflict, resolution of which we witness to this very day. Thankfully, mythology comes to the rescue. One myth states there was once a banquet in the Underworld to which all creatures were invited. Most of the creatures tried to reach the halls but could not dig deep enough. Several, however, somehow managed and all have been invited to compete for a position of the Messenger. The rodents dug their way up but the cunning snakes waited until the last moment and ate their competitors right before they broke through the surface. Over and over the same scenario played out and over and over the snakes got the better of the rodents. So now the snakes are the chief messengers of the Underworld and all rodents must answer to them. "To snake away the prize" is another memory of the event, which means "to snatch away the prize in the last moment", usually in a despicable manner.

Now, that could be the end of the story but some tribes were not content with the position of the Overworld and its lack of retaliation against the cunning snakes. If only there were any observers of the naughty deed ready to act upon it right away.

The watchers

Every human pastime needs a set of rules and a group to uphold them. It turns out that as much as people value stories with an unhappy ending, the triumph of wit over hard work is not stomached lightly. This is why most Surian stories share a moral or a rule to uphold. And many times the one to stand for it is seen as taking the better ground, or "spring ground" or "green ground" as it is known in Suru.

For many years the animals with the signalist role have changed but many of them were more or less related to todays marmots. Marmots are nothing but majestic and graceful, especially shortly before the winter nap. They also share a common feature of watching carefully over the neighbourhood and whistling when something is off. The whistling is similar enough to the howling wind for people to make a connection. Some lowlanders go as far as to connect the fire shelters as being the offerings places to the marmots and other messengers of the winds to hear peoples' prayers. That is not the case, though. At least not in Suru.

In terms of the view even the highest hills fall short to the boundless skies and their inhabitants, the birds of prey. Falcons and eagles are known for several things but the keen eyse are definitely high in the ranks. Nothing gets past them easily and many animals have fallen pray to their lightning fast snatch, snakes included. If the snakes are messengers of the Underworld, then the marmots and the birds of prey are the ones to keep the Overworld in balance. People are not meant to be brought back to life and many believe this is what messengers do beyond guiding the souls to the afterlife. The watchers, as they are collectively called, observe the world constantly and deal a harsh fate of those who oppose.

The birds of prey find a way in weeding out the problems. Marmots, however, are a tricky bunch, as they widen the existing tunnels and create additional branches. In a way they are more welcoming to the crawling visitors but in the same time much more difficult to navigate. They are the tricksters, who will take pleasure in playing pranks on the messengers of death and making their journey as cumbersome as possible. The Surians go as far as calling them "the guardians of life and death", since it is by their whim that the souls rise and descend from and to the Underworld. They are the guardians of balance and balance is a good and a highly valued prize. One could argue, though, that in a land freezing with cold and snowy days more abundant than the warm ones, the job must be quite a hassle. The Moon Lake's influence was a perfectly enough explanation but people, especially those living in cold and windy places need more layers to make it more palatable. It is almost as if the gods wanted to preserve the place as is but somehow failed to succeed. As it happens there is no better distraction than a heartwarming meal.

Brewing of the fate

Even though fate cannot be brewed the idea itself gives life a little more spice. How the notion of cooking became entangled with everyday lives is anyones guess. A promissing theory, however, is deeply ingrained with chaotic and unclear survival of hunter/gatherer tribes particularly those inhabiting a desolation of sorts. Such desolation could be a steppe, or a desert. Nobody really knows where it all started. It most likely did not start in the high-altitude desolations of Suru.

The ancient forests of Laqru offer an abundance of game. Should the idea arive to Suru it must have been firstly imported from somewhere else prior to the tribes' journey. This is because brewing requires many things but the most primary is a ware mildly resembling a pot and withstanding fire long enough for the soup-like being to be ready for consumption. Pottery is one answer to that demand but is quite heavy and can fracture or break. It is more likely to be made on the spot than tucked up all the way into the mountain heights. Pottery, however, requires clay and it is more abundant in the lower parts of the land. The idea of making pots would therefore be of lowland origin, presumably Asu. But since the oldest versions of the saying never include a mention of cracks or breaks, the other explanation would be in metal.

Several metals are available in Suru but copper and silver were the ones best known even in the most ancient of times. Copper is even more probable, since it gave people pots, arrows, knives, jewelry and many many more but that is subject for a different topic. Copper pots were common enough for the Surians to be used in every household. They were lighter than clay pots so they could be more easily transported so lets stick to that theory for now. For practical reasons, arising from the raging winds and the scarcity of wood, the position of fire in Surian culture was close to sacred. Its connection to the preparation of nourishments is a call for celebration and often gathers many people at the same time.

The firstmost consequence is of course to share the food. Another one is to let people share their warmth by the nature of gathering. In more than one way the gathering is about the survival and dependence on the group and the food. Is some way the people gathered around the fire could relate to it in many ways. Their lives had been kindled, relied on constant supply of food and presumably ended in a pile of ash. It had its moments of peace indoors and had to fight for survival outdoors with the raging winds.

Fire and wind seemed to have always get into an argument with one another and had to be separated. In times they did get along, though, the result was disastrous.

The raging fire

Several rare sights are a must to behold in ones life and a flaming whirlwind is certainly not one of them. The word for whirlwind in Surian comes from the root "SRS", often mispronounced to "ShRS". Why? Likely, to make the sound resemble circular nature of the phenomenon. Because Surian language has waged a war to most of the vowels and made peace with minimalism, the exact pronounciation for whirlwind can take many forms. The one most often used of which we know is "SuRuS/ShuRuS" but other variants function as well: "SeRaS/SheRaS/SaRaSh" and "SiRaS/ShiRaS" (summer forms), "SoRuS/ShoRuS" or "SuRS/ShuRS" (winter forms). Influencing is realized in Surian by using the influencers as suffixes. "Flame" is "JiR" (pronounced "YeeR"), so a "flaming whirlwind" would theoretically give us "SuRuSJiR/ShuRuSJiR" but practically is trimmed down to "SuRJiuR/ShuRJiuR" or "SuRJiuS" or "ShiRJiaR".

In a way, flaming whirlwinds spread the fire but concentrate for a short period of time. Wind was typically connected to the act of breathing and the Surian gust was the breath of the mountain gods, with eternally elevated spirits. Fire, on the other hand was connected to life and if anyone had troubles remembering why, they usually had a frostbite or two to remind them. A whirlwind, and especially a flaming one was, at least to Surians, a living creature; and a powerful one. It was the very embodiment of life and one that could be seen predominantly in very hot summers. A person who saw the gods was considered lucky if they managed to survive. What beats luck, though, especially in young age is fame. Now, one does not become famous by being passive but by taking risks and emerging victorious. And one particular action gave rise to a handful of proverbs.