Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ

Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ, or the Carving/Coring of Vëtam, is a central event in the mythology of the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid and the legendary founding the Ïlýrhonid Tribe. It recounts the circumstances of Vëtam's death, through which the tribe would be sustained in enough time for the return of Hyvam and the completion of the 12 families.

Like all other facets of the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid, the Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ is only referred to in trace documents of the Gaðërïŋ-Hýša but elaborated on greatly in the Gaðërïŋ-Tïspamoŋ. It is one of only two surviving myths alongside the Hyvam-Üðrënak, both of whom complement each other and make up the mostly-complete legendary founding of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe.

Background

Occurring during the larger Hyvam-Üðrënak myth, the Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ myth assumes the existence of the Zar-Isyer-Akwor, that being inky, black creatures with powers of shapeshifting, deception, and a voracious appetite for the Ibrófeneð species. At the start of the Hyvam-Üðrënak myth, what is inferred to be one of the last surviving large colonies of Ibrófeneðs were fleeing their previous settlements and coming to the Amoŋot Desert from the east. These consisted of six families, that is, one-half of the final Ïlýrhonidian population, and were led by Hyvam, a member of the Farïnýð Family.

The six families settled on the mouth of the Kairn River System, secluded from the rest of the land by the Nuzowli Mountain Range, Volain Forest, and other natural barriers. While arriving here, however, Hyvam had spotted several other survivors a bit farther away, and volunteered to go alone to retrieve them. During this second expedition, Vëtam, Hyvam's best friend, would be placed in charge of the settlers.

Narrative

The Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ occurs a bit after the start of the Hyvam-Üðrënak. This latter myth features the gathering of the first 6 families of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe before Hyvam embarks on a second voyage to seek the last 6. The Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ takes place during this second voyage, when the 6 families already here were residing in the Ïlýrhonid Tribe. Vëtam, a dear friend of Hyvam, would be in charge of these families during Hyvam's expedition.

According to the accounts, these families could not harvest the rocks or the soil of the surrounding environment, owing either to their primitive state or the unfamiliarity of the surroundings. Thus, the families were left without the means to harvest food, and as time passed, they looked to Vëtam to help them. Being a newcomer himself, Vëtam chose to systematically tear off his own legs to act as a makeshift source of sustenance, cooking them over a bonfire to increase their nutritional value. All throughout this process, Vëtam himself would slowly bleed out and eventually die.

The smoke from this bonfire would alert both the nearby Zar-Isyer-Akwor and Hyvam's group, and both would travel to the Ïlýrhonid Tribe as guided by the smoke. This would also mean that Hyvam's group would be constantly ravaged throughout this return journey, and in his desperate attempts to protect them, he would devolve into madness. This would be furthered by his seeing of Vëtam's dead corpse, which did away with the last of his sanity and left him a raving, quarrelsome shell.

Morals and Symbolism

Curiously, the myth shows virtues and vices of both main characters.

Hyvam is seen as exemplifying self-sacrifice both in a physical (braving the dangers of the outside world) and mental (bearing the mental brunt of the ordeal), but shows little resilience, falling prey to madness easily.

Vëtam also shows a profound example of self-sacrifice in the more literal sense, and in a way shows the first major example of Žömëp-Fýtaŋ, where Vëtam's identity becomes an integral part of the populace through consumption of the body. In later representations of the duality of the tribe, Vëtam would come to represent the plebeian populace by way of this symbolic transferral of identity. However, Vëtam also shows little regard for knowledge, ignoring the potential for agricultural sustenance due to the lack of experience with the region. Thus, although his death is seen as heroic and exemplary of tribal compassion, it is also seen as tragic, almost needlessly so.

It is thus ironic that, by the Arfarotï Period, Vëtam would be established as symbolic of the ground, especially the ground around the river, and the many species, like Žawrülhë and Vëtam-Wëðašïŋ, that would grow from it. This is done mainly in opposition to the Zar-Isyer-Akwor's supposed dominion over the powers of the air, such that the burning (Aparaŋ-Ïlýrhonid) of these plants and crops would symbolize Vëtam's symbolic defenses against them.

Tribal Evolution

This distinction between the two variants of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe's culture (those being the religious stances at the time of the myth's writing and at the time of other, much later writings like the Gaðërïŋ-Hýša) shows the extent to which the Tribe has evolved between these two time points. This would spread to other tribal aspects, like its established worldview and governmental approach as seen in later periods like the Arfarotï. Unlike the religious and intellectual rigidity of these later times, the Tribe at the time of this myth's writing seems to have been encouraging the pursuit of a greater ideal beyond the flawed personalities of both Hyvam and Vëtam. Namely, these flaws both characters are shown to have seems to be so trivial and simple that they are written to seem easy to overcome. With just a little effort, one could see beyond the constraints, whether physical or spiritual, and thus gain access to other tools that even Vëtam would not have dreamed of, and in this same vein, one could train oneself to gain mental resilience that allows perseverence and longevity beyond that of Hyvam.

For Vëtam especially, his virtues and vices ironically represent the stance of the tribe of the Arfarotï Period, that being the inability (or perhaps just the unwillingness) to see the tribe's surroundings as anything beyond the domain of their predators. Like Vëtam, this would then lead to the tribe's fragmentation as environmental stressors forced the government's hands in one way or another. Of course, the trivial nature by which these vices are portrayed renders the tragic fate of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe as being motivated by bad decisions, immoral deeds, and other such avoidable traps. This may have been a further source of motivation for the Ïlýrhonid Tribe's successors, whose societal outlooks suddenly rearranged themselves around the simple idea of a collective tribal preservation.

Portrayals

The Vëtam-Rëhotïŋ myth is the more popular of the two when it comes artistic depictions. This is most attributed to Vëtam's associations with many different tribal aspects, like the ground itself, the tribal populace, self-sacrifice, and even his own literal relics in his legs and other body parts. Perhaps the most binding of the many symbolic meanings is that of Vëtam as the collective joining of disparate families. Each family saw themselves as being an integral part of the family not only in a societal sense, but in a semi-biological sense; they were as important to the overall health and capability of the tribe in the same way that Vëtam's legs were important to Vëtam's own health as well as that of the early populace with which he fed. As such, the most important portrayal wasn't a small-scale artpiece but the overall layout of tribal lands; the circular nature of the tribe, as well as the equal-sized pieces each family was given, showed them as the essential parts of a tribal whole, as though the tribe itself was a 12-legged Vëtam.