Between Festival years, all sectors of the city other than those occupied by the few perpetual tenants — sectors which totalled over 250 square kilometers — were shut down. A crew continually maintained the closed sections, keeping the city prepared for the next decade's Festival, but the workers themselves resided in surrounding suburbs; the God Emperor did not intend that his Festival City be used for any lesser purposes.
Security was provided by the Onn garrison, a group of Fish Speakers second only to the Citadel Guard in the ranks of Leto's military. These women patrolled the streets, detained any unauthorized entries and maintained order among the various factions who occupied the Embassy Quarters. While relatively few disturbances occurred, primarily owing to the Fish Speakers' rigorous protection, those which did were generally extremely violent. Perhaps the best-known example was the Sargus Rebellion of 12293, when a group of malcontents commanded by a renegade Bene Gesserit and an Idaho ghola attempted to demolish the Fish Speakers' school with a pirated store of high explosives. The attempt very nearly succeeded, being foiled only by the defection of a minor member of the conspiracy.
The Fish Speakers, outraged at this attack on their school, their students and, by extension, their God, called for volunteers, who deafened themselves for protection against the Voice, and assaulted the Bene Gesserit embassy. By the time the God Emperor's order to withdraw could reach the troops, the Idaho ghola and every Bene Gesserit, from Reverend Mother to lowliest acolyte, had been killed. Leto earned the undying enmity of many of the Sisterhood by commending his soldiers and demanding an apology from Wallach IX before allowing a new delegation to be sent to Arrakis.
After the God Emperor's Fall, Onn underwent a series of drastic changes. The Fish Speaker school was closed; the Sacred Chamber was sealed; the plaza was drastically redesigned, with much of the floor area used as building sites. Homesteading of most of the unused buildings was encouraged, and within a few decades the city was indistinguishable from any other on the planet.
Using maps and charts found among the Rakis Hoard, archeologists have located the sections of the city once occupied by the Sacred Chamber and other places important to the city during its millennia of use in Festivals. Excavations which should shed still more light on the history of Onn are expected to begin early next year; because of these plans, those sites have been cleared and are now as empty as they were in between-Festival years during the God Emperor's time.
C.W.
Further references: FISH SPEAKERS; SIAYNOQ; Mustava S-Aletari, The Psychology of Political Rituals (Chusuk: Salrejina); Krosta Frenalaz, "Excavation at Onn," Archaeology, 91:17-34.
OPAFIRE
A precious jewel highly valued by the aristocracy of the old Imperium. Opafire was a hard, highly luminescent substance found mainly on Aarafan, where the Ixians maintained mining and refining operations. Jewels of opafire were notable for their soft, iridescent colors, ranging from pink to various shades of blue. The most desirable gems were of blue or turquoise. Princess Irulan Atreides-Corrino possessed a famous collection of opafires, now lost, to which she refers in passing in her volume, Conversations with Muad'Dib.
Lady Margot Fenring demonstrates the social significance of opafire in Arrakis and After, when she alludes to the fact that only Duke Gorski, of all her lovers, made her a gift of a fine opafire gem known as the "Heart of Laura." She cherished the gem all her life, as well as the memory of the man who gave it to her.
The importance of opafire diminished along with the power of the aristocracy during the Atreides period. It is noted, however, that Emperor Leto had a private opafire collection, and was occasionally known to reward a loyal retainer with the gift of a gem.
ORAL HISTORY
The Oral History, together with the Official History, provided the totality of information about the reigns of the Atreides before the discovery of the Imperial Library on Rakis. Yet for a source of such importance, few nonhistorians could define what the Oral History is, or where one would go who wished to consult it. To begin with, there is no single source called the "Oral History"; on the contrary, the term is used to designate a variety of materials, some of which, despite the name, were never transmitted through oral tradition. The professional historian, when referring to the "Oral History," uses the jargon of his calling for the multi-volume work Studies in Atreidean History (SAH),1 which the Institute of Galacto-Fremen Culture began to publish in 13850, and which now extends into the thousands of volumes (the seventeenth edition of the index, the most recent, runs to thirty-three volumes alone).
SAH is an immense conglomeration of documents, plays, ballads, nursery rhymes, wall slogans, cartoons — everything from the most literate and enduring of works to the most ephemeral — having in common only that they in some way provide information on the reigns of Paul, Alia, and Leto II. Much of the material was preserved by word of mouth until the middle of the 139th century, when its collection began. Other works, such as the plays of Harq al-Harba and other Atreidean dramatists, were in print almost from their conception. But the primary emphasis of SAH has always been the information from the separate oral tradition which, because of its independence, could serve as a confirmation of or check on the official records.
Several examples of material from the Oral History will clarify its nature.
In 10330, Rauvlee Ludgwit published a collection of children's verses from Arrakeen and the surrounding villages. The volume included counting rhymes, nursery rhymes, mnemonics, verses for jumping rope and other games, and similar items. Ludgwit's compilation was one of the first works to be reprinted in the SAH (Sãtra Shonjiir, trans., Ludgwit's Arrakeen Child Lore, SAH 37). Item 941 in the collection is a rhyme transcribed in. 10324, yet one that obviously refers to Paul's use of atomics to breach the Shield Wall near Arrakeen, allowing his defeat of the Imperial forces. Shonjiir's translation preserves the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the original:
Paul, Paul, came through the wall,
Adam Shaddam had a fall;
All his hawets, all his men,
Couldn't lift him up again.
The word in the third line, hawets, makes no sense in its context, since it means "fish," a creature known on Arrakis only after the importation of predator to guard the qanats. Nor do fish play any part whatsoever in the incident upon which the rhyme is based. Ludgwit operated on the principle of oral transmission that meaningless words are replaced by meaningful words, often at the expense of the overall sense of the passage, and he argued that the original word in line three had been hawats, meaning " Mentats," from the name of Thufir Hawat, the Mentat of Duke Leto, who accepted service with House Corrino after the death of the Duke. The poem shows that Hawat was associated in the popular mind with loyalty to the Imperial House and therefore was regarded as more or less of a traitor to the Atreides. But the recent finds on Rakis have made that long-held conclusion very doubtful.
A longer example from SAH challenges the official version of an empire during Leto's reign sunk into a glacial placidity, with its capital at Arrakeen the foremost model of well-satisfied burghers and craftsmen. Hardly a chapter of the Official History does not extol the contentment of the ordinary man or woman through that long stretch of time. There is a historian's rule of thumb that one finds the truth where the Official and Oral Histories agree, but the Oral History constantly contradicts the official version of "The Garden of Arrakeen." One of many works to project a different image of the capital during Leto's reign is the ballad "Lewin at the Wall," taken down from a troubadour on the out-of-the-way planet of Stormstile in 13934. The troubadour gave the title of the song as "News from Arrakeen." The figure in the first of these titles is historical: Iir Zhiil Lewin, (11835?-11891?), a carpenter originally from Libermann who eventually settled in Arrakeen. He is cited in the Municipal Court Rolls of that city as being arrested for licensing violations in 11890, and his case was publicized as an example of governmental vigilance in protecting the consumer from sharp dealers. According to the fina
l disposition of the charge, Lewin died in prison awaiting trial. The ballad2 gives a different story:
As Lewin cut his apple through,
He found a worm inside.
He killed it with his heavy shoe,
And spoke then in his pride:
"The worm has eat the apple's core,
Beneath the skin lies curled,
Just so, many a man lies sore,
From the worm within the world."
So he took his brush and tar and awl,
And walked outside a way,
To find a space upon a wall,
On that to have his say.
And he painted up the wall that night,
To tell the world his tale,
And showed the town in morning light,
That one was not for sale.
The temple priests, they hunted him,
And set on him a price;
But the hope they had was none or slim,
Until they offered spice.
Then Al-Badwi, the butcher's son,
Said, "Bring a dozen hands,
And go down by the cattle run,
And take him as he stands."
They came then in the dark of moon,
When shadow covered all,
And heard there Lewin sing his tune,
As he painted on the wall.
O, the Fremen guards were fast and all,
But Lewin faster yet,
And the first that come up to the wall,
The tar was what he met.
The second swore upon his word
To kill him with his hand.
But Lewin pulled the Fremen sword.
Poured his water in the sand.
The third cat Lewin at the knee,
A cut that brought him down;
But with his awl full readily,
Lewin turned him round.
When Lewin lay upon the ground,
They tied his hands up fast.
And he called, "O friends, O friends around,
"This day will be my last"
Now Lewin we will see no more,
The walls, they scrubbed them clean;
But a worm still hides inside the core
Of the town of Arrakeen.
Whatever may be the historicity of the ballad, it should be noted that the folk do not as a rule make heroes of "sharp dealers."
Many of the materials from the Oral History show a biting satire and a keen appreciation of political reality. In The Little Book of Riddles, probably published anonymously on Giedi Rime, Riddle 88 is this: "What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs in the afternoon, and slithers in the evening?" And the answer is "Nothing that I know of." The contents of the Little Book are generations older than its first publication, about 13499 (SAH 534, trans. Hwen Urtorn).
These examples can do little more than suggest the riches that the Oral History contains. Its value is measureless in more than one way for it provides not only an independent source of historical information, but also reveals the mind of the folk, sharing with us their understanding of their culture, and displaying their hopes and fears. These last insights are exemplified in "How Muad'Dib Got His Name" [see entry] (a Fremen folktale3 that weaves together wholly imaginary incidents from the wool of fact: Paul Atreides' adaptation to the desert and Fremen ways and how the invention of the thumper is attracted to the figure of Paul), his coming to terms with his supernormal powers (as expressed in the magic of the djinn), and above all his conquest of himself. In the long run, it matters little which side Thufir Hawat was on; what is more important is the way that people structured and ordered the flux of their daily lives and made sense of the swirl of great events. In this and other folktales, in ballads, in even the humblest games, we have that record.
W.E.M.
NOTES
1See Lors Karden, Truth and Fancy in the Oral History (Yorba: Rose), for an introduction to the series Studies in Atreidean History.
2Zheraulaz Kiit, ed., Ballads from the Border Stars, Studies in Atreidean History 263 (Paseo: Institute of Galacto-Fremen Culture), pp. 156-7.
3"How Muad'Dib Got His Name" is from Ibrahim al-Yazizhi, Fremen Folktales from Onn, SAH 313.
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE
THE FUNDAMENTAL SCRIPTURE OF THE IMPERIUM
[The following essay has been attributed to Paul Muad'Dib, and it is one of the few complete works by this historical figure to have been found in the Rakis Hoard. Paul was known for his profound interest in the Orange Catholic Bible, and its tenets played an important role in his legendary life. — Ed.]
Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. Early space travel, widespread though it was, proceeded in a fashion largely unregulated, slow and uncertain. Before the Guild monopoly, it was accomplished by a hodgepodge of methods with successive waves of general expansion and cross-migrations of large populations. Space travel was not lightly undertaken; a once-in-a-lifetime experience was quite enough for most people, who were driven at first only by necessity to commit themselves to the dark void that was space.
From the beginning of the travels, space gave a different flavor and sense to ideas of Creation. Genesis was a dark mystery. The difference is seen even in the highest religious achievements of the period. All through religion, the feeling of the sacred was touched by anarchy from the outer dark. As one of our more poetic, though anonymous, historians expressed it: "It was as though Jupiter in all his descendant forms retreated into the material darkness to be superseded by a female immanence filled with ambiguity and with a face of many terrors."
The ancient formulae intertwined, tangled together as they became fitted to the needs of new conquests and new heraldic symbols. It was a time of struggle between beast-demons on the one side and the old prayers and invocations on the other with no clear decision, but there were innumerable adaptations, some more grotesque than others. The evolutionary history of religions in space is vast.
During the early period of space travel, it was said that Genesis 1:28 was reinterpreted, permitting God to say: "Increase and multiply, and fill the universe, and subdue it, and rule over all manner of strange beasts and living creatures in the infinite airs, on the infinite earths and beneath them." Thus the idea of God expanded with the idea of history. Eschatological questions, forced to postpone themselves to yet more distant futures in "real time," were (though never dismissed from speculations of fear and hope) forced to yield to more immediate and local issues. Thus the idea of God diminished, opening a way for those who could (or who pretended they could) offer promises for the immediate future based on an arcane development of oracular power.
It was a time of sorceresses whose powers were real. Women with the power to control and attune their bodies and minds to the rhythms of history seized their opportunity to dominate world populations. It was a time of goddesses, such as Kubebe of Komos, Hawt of Humidis, Serite the All-knowing of the Wallach group whose worship spread to many planets, Veaera of Gamont, and many others. It was a time when Kali unveiled many of her most dread faces to reign supreme over the destinies of men. The measure of the witch-priestesses who served at her altars is seen in the fact that they never boasted how they grasped the firebrand in her loins. Not content with their rule over single planets, they saw advantages in joining together (their own form of ecumenical movement) so that they might shape the universe. Thus flourished the power of the Bene Gesserit and the establishment of their breeding program.
Then came the Butlerian Jihad, causing generations of chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised: "Man may not be replaced." This B.G.-sponsored campaign removed from men a rival power of futurological control. These generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind. Men of insight looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.
/> It was time for a new and greater ecumenical movement to begin. Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions in planetary purges and interplanetary wars began meeting to exchange views. It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar travel through its superior navigators, and by the Bene Gesserit, who foresaw increased opportunities for furthering their own plans, although their hopes were not all to be realized in the event.
Out of those first ecumenical meetings came two major developments:
1. The realization that all religions had at least one common commandment: "Thou shalt not disfigure the soul."
2. The Commission of Ecumenical Translators.
"Thou shalt not disfigure the soul"; but who is to decide where modification ends and disfigurement begins? The Fremen believe that the land of your birth makes you what you are. "Are there strange animals on your planet?" they ask. The Fremen themselves consider that they are the Undisfigured Ones, yet their blue-on-blue eyes, the sign of spice addiction, their cruel and secretive customs, their sietch orgies and their worship of the dragonish Shai-Hulud, are sufficient indications to most people that they are rather (to use the words of their own text) the owners of diseased hearts. Nevertheless, there are many admirable individuals amongst the Fremen. Abomination happens within the heart or soul; it is not imposed from without. Let us be humble enough to acknowledge that, however fair we may consider our physical appearance, soul disfigurement might be lying in wait for us, might even have happened to us without our knowledge or consent.
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