The Ashahnemas

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World Heritage Sites & Treasures List entry:
The Ashahnemas
Nation: Zwangzug
Type: intangible treasure
Number on list: 48

The Ashahnemas are a collection of folktales from Zwangzug.

In many cases dating back over 1500 years, the oldest stories originally trace to the first inhabitants of the nation: rainforest dwellers in the nation's southwest. They are still told in indigenous dialects. Over time, other legends have been added to the set, and even today there is no precise list of which stories do or do not qualify.

Thematically, the stories cover common human subjects: war and peace, love and loss, honor and shame. Common messages include the value of wisdom and the danger of tyranny, though these are never explicitly "tacked on" but rather interpreted. These morals have always had relevance to the people of Zwangzug. A common joke describes a professor that assigned the Ashahnemas as reading material to understand the national psyche. A student returned several days later, complaining that he had tried to read them, but they were complex, eccentric, and incomprehensible. "So?" shrugged the professor. "You have become educated."

The Ashahnemas are included in the World Heritage Sites & Treasures List; Zwangzug has promised to "preserve and protect" them. Due to their widespread popularity, there is no danger of their loss. However, the simultaneous inclusion of the rainforests of their origin implies the much more ambitious task of defending the indigenous peoples and their languages. With many tribal youth migrating to more urban areas, the survival of their peoples has often seemed precarious. A governmental commitment to their conservation represents a change to a more dedicated policy.

Various translations of the Ashahnemas exist, mostly into Descriptive English. Perhaps negatively, the version popularly regarded as most "authoritative" is the Holtz-Schmidt translation, itself relatively old. The lofty language used by the translators has made the content itself seem outmoded and inaccessible. The recited versions are likely to be much less formal. More modern translators consistently work to bring phrasing in line with current usage, as well as creating Algebraic English versions. It is hoped that inclusion in the WHSTL will promote translation into more languages for a worldwide audience. Indeed, a translation into Wymgani was recently published in Ariddia.

Few (though perhaps more in the rainforest of their origin) would attest to the absolute accuracy of the legends. Due to the absence of reliable historical study in Zwangzug, there is little against which they can be compared. Despite this, many scholars believe that at least some of the stories are based in fact.

The best way to understand these stories is, of course, to read them. As it would be prohibitive to post them in their entirety, however, these examples are given instead. These are both from the Holtz-Schmidt translation, with recent commentary.

Example 1

Once there was a king, and great and many were his lands. But a baron that ruled under him grew mad with war, and raged most bitterly against him. Blood ran rife and hearts ran wild, and friend turned against friend. Finally, the king let the baron keep his land and be free of the rule of the king. The baron rejoiced and proclaimed great festivities and merrymaking. Throughout his new realm, workers left their crops and celebrated with their families. But while their fields lay fallow in the heat of the summer, a great flood rose up, and neighbor opened their door to neighbor. In the lands of the baron were told epic stories from a scribe in the lands of the king, and it warmed the souls of all through a night of storm.

Commentary

This rambling story is as good an example of the Ashahnemas as any. Several insights can be gleaned from the tale. Mention of a "scribe" indicates some knowledge of writing systems, which may explain how so many stories survived so many years. The story also mentions the (partial) defeat of a monarch, a common plotline: it has been wryly observed that there aren't enough ruined empires to account for all the Ashahnemas. While the nation's founding myth is the best-known example, there are many others.

Nevertheless, the hypothetical student's confusion is evident. For one thing, the characters have no names, a common occurrence. For another, it is difficult to determine where the focus is supposed to lie (with a crazed secessionist? a natural disaster? a popular scribe?). It is difficult to tell where one story ends and another begins-a problem made even clearer in the following example.

Example 2

A prince once desired that the women of the land adorn themselves, and he issued a proclamation that he would find a woman exceedingly beautiful to take as a wife. Far and wide he searched, until his eyes beheld a woman of surpassing appearance, and he asked her to be his bride. With gladness she accepted, and with gladness her family prepared her to be wed. But her sister too had yearned to wed the prince, and though she was gladly honored that her sister would, her desire to marry the prince seemed to turn to jealousy. So her father implored with the prince to take a second wife, for in his land such things were done.

But while the officials of the court were inquiring as to whether it could be done, the prince went out among his people. Among the throng that clamored to greet him was a farmer who toiled most diligently amongst the furrows, and bore his tool in hand as he attempted to greet the prince. His tool swung and hit the prince's face. The farmer fled in shame, for once the prince awoke, his face was disfigured. The sister of the maiden who would wed the pricne grieved, for her sister's joy would be diminished. She did not temper her pain with the thought that a prince with a scarred face would be easier to wed. But the court declared that she could not marry the prince.

So the maiden first selected married the prince. Her eyes wept when she beheld his face, and she felt guilt that her sister could not too marry him. Torrential rain fell on their gala. But her parents prepared a great dowry for her sister when she was married, and so was she consoled. In years to come, it would still give her great pride to be known as the sister-in-law of the prince.

When her sister learned of that pride, she found the power to forgive herself for her victory. She and the prince grew to love each other deeply: they had long lives and many children.

Commentary

This story implies, for one, monogamy among its original narrators, as the phrase "in his land such things were done" (emphasis added) implies that it is an explanatory note detailing a custom with which its first hearers may not have been familiar. The mention of "torrential rain" once again shows that the rainforest environment may have influenced it.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is the existence of what Holtz and Schmidt classified as a separate story. It recounts the comic and tragic tales of a royal dynasty plagued by various negative incidents. One of its characters, a prince, suffers a disfigured face from the accidental strike of a furrow-worker who is blamed by the kingdom. The nearly-identical accounts imply that there is some commonality between the accounts, but the difficulty in deciding whether a sequence of events constitutes one story or two is a common reason why so many numbers of Ashahnemas are given. But despite their varied connections and plotlines, the stories almost overwhelmingly finish on a hopeful note.