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I. THE "OLDER STYLE" MUSIC |
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THE TOTTERING OF THE SPINNING WHEEL
The First Frivolous battle (Village of Lipari)
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The primal goddess Aunan, spinning on a
celestial spinning
wheel, created the cosmos as a great harmonious web, but three of her
company
of deities (Sant, Cerdo and Belili) became jealous of her abilities and
conspired to steal and destroy her wheel. In the battle for the wheel,
it was the cosmic spiders, Marpessa and Chapalu, who held the assailants
at bay, though not without damage to the axis of the wheel, which ever
after spun off-kilter.
It
should be noted that two recent studies (LaCoste, 1977 and
Mota,
1989) conclude this is a more recent version of an older myth and both
see in it an explanation for the "Precession of the Equinoxes".
Neither,
however, explains just how Anaphorians might have perceived this shift,
but both call for a re-evaluation of traditional scientific bias
against astronomical knowledge in so-called prehistoric societies.
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THE GHOSTS RETURN TO THE SQUARE
Second Frivolous Battle (Town of Derketo) |
| Marpessa and Chapalu later weave
the earth and
all its living creatures out of the dew (i.e. stars) that has collected
in the web of Aunan. Meanwhile, Sant, Cerdo and Belili, determined to
take revenge on Marpessa and Chapalu, were able to enlist aide from the
Macha people. The Anaphorians were protesting the presence of the Macha
in the square of the circular town of Derketo when the Macha attacked
and
either (a) "ruthlessly slaughtered" or (b) "magically scattered
throughout
all the world" all those present. Within a month, the Anaphorians left
on the island, regrouped and planned a counterattack, which at first
appeared
quite hopeless due to their relatively small number. However, on the
very
eve of their planned attack, "the Ghosts of Derketo" fell upon the
square,
so frightening the Macha people that they not only fled the town but
returned
to their own kingdom. This myth is often referred to in other
Anaphorian
legends in which heroes/heroines "return" from where they have been
scattered.
In other stories, it is their descendants who miraculously reappear in
times of travail. Certainly, this is one of their primal myths, and
undoubtedly
it has shaped the attitude toward strangers that modern researchers
find
so bizarre. It is a widely held belief in Anaphoria to this day that
Marpessa
and Chapalu will continue to intervene in the lives of their "children"
until they are all returned home. As a direct result of the Great
Missionary
Influx of the 18th century, the story received a popular revival that
is
now widely believed to be responsible for the Great Missionary
Expulsion
of 1823. |
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THE BIRD'S REINSTIGATION OF THE BATTLE OF TREES:
Third Frivolous Battle (City of Ravenna): |
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In a time when the main body of the priesthood
appeared
on the verge of gaining complete political control for their own
selfish
ends, the following event is said to have taken place. During a
religious
ceremony in the provincial capital of Ravenna, a lone, talking bird
entered
the temple, reciting the Anaphorian alphabet, but in an apparently
jumbled
order. The people recognized this as a sign, especially after the
priests
panicked and attempted to kill the bird. After several attempts in
which
the bird repeatedly eluded and continued to heckle them, an elderly
woman
rose to her feet and announced that the "gibberish" the bird was
spouting
was, in fact, a very old and secret sequence of the Anaphorian alphabet
that had once been common knowledge but had long ago been suppressed.
Failing
in their effort to rid the temple of the bird, the priests themselves
abandoned
the place. (It has since, of course, come to be the renowned Center for
the Study of Alphabetical Sequencing, and people still make the pilgrimage to the Center from
all over the island bearing clues to the riddle.) Since most of these
new
notions were counter to priestly dogma, the priests, still maintaining
a strong, though tenuous, hold over the people, resisted. Thus occurred
the Great Schism, which, sadly, continues to the present. And while the
bird's alphabetical sequence is now widely, even commonly, accepted
throughout
the island, there remains to this day a hard-core group of alphabetical
reactionaries (21% of the population) who refuse to use it at all. |
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MUSIC FROM THE LAKE ALOE FESTIVAL |
| In the month of Zio (late
July-early August),
an annual festival is held around Lake Aloe, Anaphoria's largest. It is
a time of great rejoicing. Among the rituals performed is one in which
the island leaders are seated in a mud pit amid a sprinkling of orchids
while endless songs of ridicule are sung at them. A given leader's
reaction
to this annual indignity is the Anaphorian's most reliable barometer of
a leader's potential for greatness. Leaders who have tried to suppress
this ritual were killed. (Although not strictly a part of the creations
myths, the origin of this one has been reliably dated to Neolithic
times.) |
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II. THE "NEWER STYLE" MUSIC |
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GENDING BOEHME |
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Having developed their own tradition of alchemy,
Anaphorians
found uncommon parallels in the works of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624),
whose
formulations and treatises were translated into Anaphorian as early as
the 1930's and have continuing popular appeal to this day. Music plays
an important part in alchemy as it is traditionally practiced in
Anaphoria.
The most commonly played metric sequence is a 79 beat pattern
(subdivided
8-8-8-5-8-8-8-5-8-8-5), which just so happens to be, perhaps
coincidentally,
perhaps not, the atomic number of gold. This "gending"
(composition)
utilizes this basic 79-beat cycle with a nuclear theme limited to
tetrads (four notes for the four elements) intervened by counter-themes
relating to the octahedron (six notes formed as a result of combining
two
out of four elements). It must be said that the symbolism exists on too
many levels to be wholly coincidental. |
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THE CREATION OF THE WORLDS |
A favorite ending piece at concerts
in Anaphoria,
this particular composition has caused great consternation and misconceptions
among scholars, but it can only truly be explained away as a canonic
(at
the inversion) passacaglia incorporating rhythmic and melodic ideas
from
the evening's performance. The description of it as a "recapitulation"
misses
the mark; for Anaphorians it is a reminder of the ultimate source from
which all musical entities originate. It is as if we are hearing what
was
heard first, at the source, last. |
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