Isangoma

mary whalen · 10 Jul 1998, 10:26 · from urth-v0016.mbox · original

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From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Subject: (urth) Isangoma
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 10:26:03
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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
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