URTH |
From: mary whalen <marewhalen@yahoo.com> Subject: (urth) Isangoma Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 10:26:03 This is Sean Whalen (prion). Mantis, when I looked through the _Lexicon Urthus_ and the Errata Sheet, I noticed that on the sheet you put the correction that Tokoloshe are from Africa, so you speculate that Robert and Marie may be in equatorial Africa. I think that they are probably in South America, but it is Isangoma who is from a different place. The future. Studying the section, Isangoma talks like the other people of Urth many times. He talks about killing hesperorns and oreodonts, both of which are exctinct animals in Earth, but not in Earth. He also uses the LATIN word Numen to describe his god, and it is unlikely that R and M would have taught him that word, or the previous ones I mentioned. It's for this reason that he says tokoloshe, that's not the word he's using, it's just the closest translation of the Urth term he's using and need not be a South American word (the entire Book of the New Sun takes place in SA but words from many places are used to translate the words of every character). Apparently, Robert and Marie probably went to South America, but came to the exact spot where Inire had put (one of) the entrance(s) to the Jungle Garden. When they looked for a tribe to preach to, they came to one of the Urth tribes Inire had put into (or connected purposely some other way) the Garden who lived near or by the entrance to the past and actually began to try to teach the primitive people from the future. I don't think that R and M are people from Urth who have been brainwashed by Inire, because it seems odd to put a perfect replica of 19th or 20th century Earth into their brains if he doesn't change the brains of Isangoma and his tribe (who still know about the animals they have aroun). Also, Severian can clearly see the plane, which is probably real. Also, this wouldn't explain why Robert could see them and Marie can't. Robert, if a real person from Earth, would be able to see them because he's an artist, and trained to see what is there, rather than to see what he expects, as I believe Wolfe has said at at least one time. On a slightly different subject, in the _Lexicon Urthus_ the listing is for the Botanical Gardens; this should be the Botanic Gardens. prion _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com *More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/