Swamp Continent religion
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The Swamp Continent around YP contains a multitude of ethnic groups, engaging in a multitude of different economic activities and speaking another multitude of languages. What all these groups have in common, however, is their self-identification as being part of one of two loose religious groups: the Cihlae and the Katnahl.

Both of these groups have shared religious and cultural traditions traceable to older tribal beliefs and practices. Of the two, the Katnahl are perhaps the more cohesive, since they consist of the peoples who converted to the Kangshi religion after it was written down and exported alongside the Kangshi institutions of writing and metallurgy.

Cihlae



Katnahl


The Kangshi religious tradition, which we will call Khaism after its principal deity (Old Kangshi: qv-xah; the sky, heaven, the realm of the spirits, the supreme God), is largely a written codification of ancient Kangshuic shamanic practices and oral history, much like Hinduism; also like Hinduism, there exist multiple heresies of it that have established themselves as independent religions; and in the same vein, the original theology and practice have been almost completely supplanted by what started out as radical sects.

All varieties of Khaism share a set of cosmological assumptions. In the Khaist myth, the world is suspended like a pearl in an all-encompassing spirit world. The world had always existed, but was barren until the gods descended upon it from the spirit world and made it lush and verdant. The first humans were descended from those of the spirits who decided to stay and inhabit the world they had made, with the blessing of Heaven, to whom they made obeisance as the power who had granted them the world as their fief.

In traditional Khaism, as recorded in the oldest scriptures, and still practiced in part of the backwaters of the Zhjumna foothills, the theology largely ends there. Religious practice in these communities largely consists of shamanic rituals to commune with and appease the spirits. Chief concern in this variety is with the familial and clan ancestors, who are considered to be the entities with the most power over the immediate life and afterlife of humans. The greater spirits and gods, even Kha itself, are more distant and invoked only rarely.

The mainstream lowland varieties of Khaism largely descend from a philosophical shift that spread around the time of the first Kangshi empire. This held that Kha is the ancestor to all spirits and thus of all life, and deserved special worship ahead of all other spirits, as the greatest and ultimate progenitor. In these “properly” Khaist beliefs, worship is confined almost exclusively to Kha itself and the immediate familial ancestors, although their influence is considered much reduced compared to the traditionalist practice. Lesser gods are marginalized, and in later exegesis often considered emanations or aspects of Kha itself, rather than fully independent entities.

A further development on this line of thought led to the variety of beliefs known as Metkorism, and practiced most widely among the Rau. This tradition claims that emanations of Kha occasionally “descend” from the spirit world to inhabit humans, who then become prophets of the cosmic law and right human affairs when they have forsaken the way of Kha. Such a person is appropriately known as a “descent”, or Metkor (Old Kangshi: sv-gmvtkog). Founded by Qila Metkor (OK: svQwadaz svGmvtkog), a charismatic leader who claimed to be such an emanation, Metkorism has spread widely among Katnahl peoples. Usually, only one Metkor is accepted to have existed in recent times, although at least one other individual claimed to be one with widespread acceptance during his life: Shquqou the Destroyer (however, after his defeat, claiming divine status for him was outlawed in many Katnahl jurisdictions and generally faded quickly).

Kemerten



Only one Metkor claimant is generally accepted, but there are other Metkor claimants with some followings, such as Kemerten (Qoa: kimməṭäṇ səmeqqɔɔ).

Kemerten was a member of the kṣättəpaɔk clan of traveling Metkorist metalworkers, which was caught up in an anti-nomadism initiative of the Big Yeet provincial government - the whole clan was forcibly settled, and Kemerten was indentured to the shipbuilder Psegit. He responded (so the story goes) by proclaiming himself Metkor, leading a revolt of indentured servants, and stealing both Psegit's ship and his daughter, who became his most influential convert.

Kemerten taught that, because the gods had made the world verdant, civilization and agriculture were affronts to Kha, and because humans were themselves descended from gods, indenture, taxation, and arranged marriage were illegitimate. Civilization produces moral, physical, and spiritual degradation, and is contrary to the way of Kha, which was represented by the primordial, anarchic state of the first spirit-men - hunting, gathering, communal anarchy, and sexual libertinism. By the same logic, he repudiated the distinction between the shamans (Qoa: səpṣəkät) and the common people, and communalized the performance of rituals.

Such habits and patterns of social organization have not made the teachings of Kemerten popular with the surrounding agricultural states, and the concentration of bands of his followers in coastal areas originates in the Decree of Expulsion of Kangshi Emperor Marzo Zdafsey (Old Kangshi: Magdzoz Svdcbtsedx), who saw the social order in his realm so threatened by the growing influence of this subversive movement that he acted with the utmost brutality to suppress it, ultimately resulting in the death or flight of near a tenth of the population.