The ancient Junda had a mixed religion, which developed over thousands of years. It combined ancient tribal belief in shamanic ancestor-worship with a wider nationalist mythology, in a cosmos containing a variety of gods. These deities represented the forces of nature to which the sea-faring island people were constantly exposed. Their marginal life, threatened by weather, tides and storms, created a complex spiritual system.

God-Spirits

The Junda had a host of gods and spirits, though their pantheon is too extensive to cover here. They had a great story-telling tradition. Junda tribes passed the evenings relating tales of gods and heroes, modified and embellished over the centuries. But certainly, the first god was called the Shape-Shitter.

Creation Myth

In ancient times the universe was one great body of water, in which lived all the deities great and small. In the most highly developed Junda creation myth, the Shape-Shitter, a cantankerous and objectionable spirit, grew tired of company and split the waters into two seas.

He kept the Skysea above for himself alone, and exiled all the other spirits to the Worldsea below. (Twinkling stars are the waves of the Skysea.) To show his contempt, the Shape-Shitter squatted over the Worldsea, grunted, strained and defecated a huge mass into the pristine waters. This became the first land in the Worldsea.

The Shit-Witch, his daughter, crawled out of this stinking filth, spontaneously created like flies and maggots. (Junda believed that flies, maggots and other creatures came to life spontaneously from filth.) She copulated with her father, spawning all the crawling creatures of the earth.

Katred, the Storm Lord, had become king of the Worldsea. He was enraged by the Shape-Shitter spoiling and polluting the waters with his filth. He fought a great war against the Shit-Witch and her spawn, driving her back and nearly destroying her. He filled his waters with hostile life that snapped at the new seashores and swam up the rivers to kill her children. He sent monstrous storms to ravage the land and flood it.

Until one night the Witch came to him with offers of peace. She gave him water to drink - but it was actually her urine, a potent brew. She got him drunk and seduced him, and humanity was their offspring: flesh of the land, with the blood of the sea.

The First Men

These people were cunning, fed and nurtured on the corruption of the Witch. They hunted and killed Katred's creatures, drove them back, and were powerful foot soldiers in the war against their father. However, the Junda, of all people, eventually came to despise their foul Mother, and took their Father as Lord, swearing to be his soldiers. (This is told in later legend.)

Katred ascended into the Skysea. He battled with the Shape-shitter, who either left or was defeated, or was burned to become the fire of the sun. Katred then became the white star that heralds the Storm Season.

Storms

This mythology was used to explain the dangerous seas and the semi-annual storm-tides that wreaked terrible damage on the fragile islands.

Katred continues this ceaseless war, forever sending storms against the mother to destroy her. The Junda, his children, he loves when they serve him, but they were still the product of a contemptible union. When he is angry, when they defile the sea or betrayed his will, he could lash out at them with a whim.

Ancestor Worship

Junda ancestor-worship was a much older, separate tribal tradition. Whereas mythology was stories told for entertainment, education and to unite the tribes against their enemies, the shamanic tradition private family ritual.

Junda believed that when their honoured ancestors died, their spirits remained in the ether, and could be contacted by shamans through ritual. This belief tied into their death rituals, and underlies modern Hartheran religion.

Death Rituals

Being an island people dependent on the sea for their livelihood, many Junda died at sea. The sea-god mythology developed because of a need to know that the spirits of loved ones passed on to another place, although the body was lost for ever.

So, the sea was seen as the best place for the dead: they returned to Katred, their mythic Father. Those who died on land were cleaned and wrapped, and ritually deposited at sea. As time progressed, those who could not be buried at sea were burned. The spirit was in the body's water, so when a body was burned it was turned into steam, which rose into the air and returned eventually to the sea.

Blood Rituals

Believing the spirit was contained in the body's water, the Junda developed many blood-rituals. Marriage, for example was the mixing of blood between two people, physically enacted by binding slashed skin together.

Spilling blood upon the ground was a terrible taboo, because it contained shreds of the soul's essence. Blood had to be washed off in water and either drunk, or poured into the sea.

Women had particular rituals about menstrual blood, which was seen as magical. They created life. Unlike men they and had a spontaneous fountain of life-blood, which was used in secret rites of fertility and strengthening warriors.

Warriors drank the blood of the defeated, taking the life force into themselves. Ritual blood-drinking also made captives into slaves. A victim was bled to the point of unconsciousness or even death, thereby stealing their spirit. If they regained their strength they forever enslaved by the one who contained their soul-essence.

Invocation of Ancestral Spirits

Ancient belief was that the spirits of ancestors could be evoked through shamanic rituals. Junda believed that when a person died, his spirit was freed from its corrupt earthly body, and joined the Storm Lord in his battle against evil.

The ancestor watched over his descendants people, seeing who was fit to join the Storm Lord, and who was not. Spirits of particularly strong and honoured ancestors could even intercede to bring good fortune, in life and in battle.

Shamans evoked the spirit by meditating and chanting over a pot of boiling water, laced with certain herbs. The steam represented a blending of water and ether, a conduit for the spirit to speak through the shaman, or even temporarily enter his body. The spirits advised, comforted or cursed the wayward, setting them on a path bringing honour and success to the tribe and family.

Talismans

Shamans developed a ritual system of preserving fragments of an ancestor's body, containing blood, bone and skin in a ritual talisman. This talisman could be used to prevent the spirit passing fully into the Skysea, ensuring that the ancestor remained between worlds, watching over the living, as long as the talisman was intact. Talismans were worn by a family member, usually a son or daughter, for guidance, protection, and a reminder of how the ancestors watched over them.

Junda Magic

Some Junda Shamans had true spiritual powers. Using only an intuitive ability to harness elementals, without any conscious knowledge of Magistry, they often bound elementals to these talismans, thinking of them as ancestor-spirits.

These true devices could give real powers in battle, and had some healing ability. Devices were supposed to be destroyed after the bearer's death, but cults of devices developed around certain relics, and this idolatry led to the later degeneration of the Junda faith.

Cultural Conflict in early Harthera

Junda mythology created serious problems when they conquered Saloya.

Firstly, the Saloya were seen as followers of the Shit-Witch, evil in every way. They also consumed alcohol and other recreational intoxicants. Alcohol was the piss of the witch, and Junda were forbidden from drinking it.

Junda ate only sea-products: fish, amphibians, sea vegetables and wild grains growing near the shore. Saloyans ate almost entirely the unclean creatures of the land; a despicable heresey to the Junda.

Even the Saloyan language caused tension. It was seen as soft, effeminate and disgusting. Courtesy, deference and respect were an integral part of the Junda language, and the Saloyan language, despite their high culture and complex society, was in comparison rude and arrogant.

This was more than simple religious preference: Junda truly saw Saloyans as a nation of perverts that drank piss and ate shit. It is little surprise that there were such problems of integration.