{"id":20835,"date":"2022-10-28T14:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=20835"},"modified":"2022-11-18T00:44:56","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T05:44:56","slug":"the-kingdom-of-tokavsk-session-4-the-golden-hawk-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2022\/10\/28\/the-kingdom-of-tokavsk-session-4-the-golden-hawk-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdom of Tokavsk, Session 4: The Golden Hawk, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a myth of how the Kingdom of Tokavsk was founded.\u00a0 The text has been translated and supplemented with footnotes to clarify certain phrases for modern readers.<\/em><\/p>\n

A hundred generations after the Melting of the Sun1<\/sup>, there lived a young chief.\u00a0 He assumed power in the midst of a famine that had stricken the tribe.\u00a0 Having lost his father to the famine, he was determined to find a steady food source and save his people.\u00a0 Now the chief was a very devout man, and he lit his torch and bowed to the trees2<\/sup> every morn and night.\u00a0 One night, as he was beseeching the Great Sky, he heard a hawk call from outside his dwelling.\u00a0 Afraid to break his prayer, he continued with the mantra, only to be interrupted by the hawk again.\u00a0 He resumed once more, and a third time the hawk called.\u00a0 Sensing this was more than the caws of a wild bird, the chief rose and set out into the forest in the direction he had heard the cry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He soon came to the cusp of the woods, where the firs abruptly ended and snowy hills rolled outward into the great beyond.\u00a0 He had never traveled far beyond the trees, but he was unafraid and had faith in his heart.\u00a0 The clouds above him gathered dark and gray, but before long a soft glow formed from behind them.\u00a0 A soft wind blew from the south, and thusly the clouds parted to reveal an infinitely gray sky and down swooped the Hawk.\u00a0 He had the body the size of a tree and wings winder than ten men, and his feathers, beak, and claws were of solid gold.\u00a0 His eyes gleamed as burnished gems, and his formed gleamed like a sheet of stars.\u00a0 He floated high above the chief\u2019s head, not needing to alight for the winds that heeded his call.\u00a0 \u201cChief,\u201d boomed the Hawk in a voice a hundred times deeper than the lowest voice of a man, a hundred times louder than tumbling walls of snow.\u00a0 \u201cHeed my call.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI hear you,\u201d responded the chief.\u00a0 \u201cYou are to lead your people west,\u201d said the Hawk.\u00a0 \u201cThere, you will find an abandoned settlement upon a river.\u00a0 This is to be your new home.\u00a0 Stay there, and your people will never go hungry.\u201d\u00a0 The chief, understanding the Hawk was a manifestation of the gods3<\/sup>, promised to lead his people there with his life.\u00a0 \u201cBe warned,\u201d said the Hawk, \u201cfor a life-swearing can never be broken.\u00a0 Your life is now tied to the finding of this new home, and upon its discovery so shall your life end.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI am not afraid,\u201d the chief replied.\u00a0 And the Hawk stretched upward into the clouds and became the orb in the sky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The ancient Tokavskan creation story describes the world as having been formed from a great celestial cataclysm. This resulted in parts of stars and planets dripping (in some versions, \u201cweeping\u201d) downward to form the ground, water, trees, and snow.\u00a0 The entrails of the Sun formed light by which to see and the first living beings, hence why the dripping, or melting, of the Sun was considered the most important.<\/li>\n
  2. Referring to ancient customs of the Tokavskan folk religion. A torch or branch was lit outside every home to welcome benevolent spirits and signal faithfulness; similarly, bowing to the trees was a way to pay homage to nature and perhaps to spirits or ancestors.<\/li>\n
  3. The early Tokavskan religion did not have a pantheon in the traditional sense. They were monotheistic in that they believed in one God, yet they also believed in spirits both good and evil that could control nature and fate.\u00a0 The use of \u201cgods\u201d here may be an error in translation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following is a myth of how the Kingdom of Tokavsk was founded.\u00a0 The text has been translated and supplemented with footnotes to clarify certain phrases for modern readers. A hundred generations after the Melting of the Sun1, there lived a young chief.\u00a0 He assumed power in the midst of a famine that had stricken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2243,"featured_media":21360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1852,1221,1611,1257,1179,420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20836,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions\/20836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}