behaviour and the study of artefacts, which has been the preferred scientific method for most of my predecessors.
In answer to your question concerning the ghemphs: no, we personally saw none of the creatures, nor anything like them. However, the mythology about ghemphs seemed remarkably consistent on all the Islandoms we visited. Everyone questioned agreed that there had been such an alien species once, living throughout the Glory Isles, and that they had been responsible for the insertion of citizenship tattoos until they had all mysteriously disappeared, within recent memory. As far as we could ascertain, this supposed ‘Exodus of Ghemphs’ occurred at different times on different islands, throughout the period known as ‘the Change’. The Change started some time around 1742 (which is the time frame for the events recounted by Blaze) and continued for a number of years. It was over, and all ghemphs had vanished, by the time our first Kellish explorers and traders discovered the Isles in 1780.
Most people we saw who were more than ten or twelve years old had citizenship tattoos, apparently given to them shortly after birth, and they all agreed that these had been made by ghemphs. No children under this age had such tattoos—none.
We did not, however, find any pictorial representations of ghemphs, neither in any artwork nor in texts. We were hampered in our research of written records by (with exception of Nathan) our inability to read the language of the Glory Isles, but we employed some of our own Kellish traders as translators and it seems that there are no records of ghemphs in tax archives, property ownership files, court files for both litigation and criminal matters, or in legal agreements filed with the registrar of records. In short, if they ever existed, ghemphs were never taxed, never legally owned property, never owed anyone money, never committed a crime, never signed an agreement, never registered a birth or death—and, more intriguingly, were virtually never mentioned in other people’s records. If they were real people, then they were almost invisible!
Glorians usually kept extensive written records of daily transactions throughout the Islandoms, especially where these concerned citizenship, so we were led to the conclusion that ghemphs must have been more mythological than real. Moreover, when we tried to trace ghemphic skeletal remains, we were told they consigned their dead to the sea. When we investigated areas where they were said to have lived, we found no artefacts.
This discrepancy between oral history and tangible evidence is one of the most intriguing mysteries we encountered on the Glory Isles and is worthy of further research. It will be difficult work, as there is a marked reluctance on the part of many people in the Isles to even mention ghemphs. Why there was a necessity to invent mythological creatures in the first place is unknown. I suspect that it has something to do with the shame people feel over the old citizenship laws, which were apparently draconian. It may have been a socially acceptable device that allowed Keeper officials to enforce these laws, while maintaining a myth that it was an alien race who was really responsible for them. I might add that when we did find citizens ready to talk, such as the elderly woman Blaze Halfbreed, their belief in ghemphs was so deep-rooted as to be ineradicable. Perhaps for such people, memory and time has blurred the line between myth and reality.
The present people of the Glory Isles are, of course, deeply superstitious and gullible, as their belief in old magic indicates. Do not be fooled by the level of their material development. That may be well above any other indigenous peoples we Kells have found on our voyages of discovery during the past century or more, but they still have not reached a level of philosophical sophistication anywhere near our own! When I saw the sailing vessels they possess, and observed their weaponry, I was
In answer to your question concerning the ghemphs: no, we personally saw none of the creatures, nor anything like them. However, the mythology about ghemphs seemed remarkably consistent on all the Islandoms we visited. Everyone questioned agreed that there had been such an alien species once, living throughout the Glory Isles, and that they had been responsible for the insertion of citizenship tattoos until they had all mysteriously disappeared, within recent memory. As far as we could ascertain, this supposed ‘Exodus of Ghemphs’ occurred at different times on different islands, throughout the period known as ‘the Change’. The Change started some time around 1742 (which is the time frame for the events recounted by Blaze) and continued for a number of years. It was over, and all ghemphs had vanished, by the time our first Kellish explorers and traders discovered the Isles in 1780.
Most people we saw who were more than ten or twelve years old had citizenship tattoos, apparently given to them shortly after birth, and they all agreed that these had been made by ghemphs. No children under this age had such tattoos—none.
We did not, however, find any pictorial representations of ghemphs, neither in any artwork nor in texts. We were hampered in our research of written records by (with exception of Nathan) our inability to read the language of the Glory Isles, but we employed some of our own Kellish traders as translators and it seems that there are no records of ghemphs in tax archives, property ownership files, court files for both litigation and criminal matters, or in legal agreements filed with the registrar of records. In short, if they ever existed, ghemphs were never taxed, never legally owned property, never owed anyone money, never committed a crime, never signed an agreement, never registered a birth or death—and, more intriguingly, were virtually never mentioned in other people’s records. If they were real people, then they were almost invisible!
Glorians usually kept extensive written records of daily transactions throughout the Islandoms, especially where these concerned citizenship, so we were led to the conclusion that ghemphs must have been more mythological than real. Moreover, when we tried to trace ghemphic skeletal remains, we were told they consigned their dead to the sea. When we investigated areas where they were said to have lived, we found no artefacts.
This discrepancy between oral history and tangible evidence is one of the most intriguing mysteries we encountered on the Glory Isles and is worthy of further research. It will be difficult work, as there is a marked reluctance on the part of many people in the Isles to even mention ghemphs. Why there was a necessity to invent mythological creatures in the first place is unknown. I suspect that it has something to do with the shame people feel over the old citizenship laws, which were apparently draconian. It may have been a socially acceptable device that allowed Keeper officials to enforce these laws, while maintaining a myth that it was an alien race who was really responsible for them. I might add that when we did find citizens ready to talk, such as the elderly woman Blaze Halfbreed, their belief in ghemphs was so deep-rooted as to be ineradicable. Perhaps for such people, memory and time has blurred the line between myth and reality.
The present people of the Glory Isles are, of course, deeply superstitious and gullible, as their belief in old magic indicates. Do not be fooled by the level of their material development. That may be well above any other indigenous peoples we Kells have found on our voyages of discovery during the past century or more, but they still have not reached a level of philosophical sophistication anywhere near our own! When I saw the sailing vessels they possess, and observed their weaponry, I was
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