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First of all, the Dinganni live in a definite cosmology. By cosmology I mean a living, interacting universe. Barsaive is not a place where the Dinganni live. They do not ride on the plains and travel after herds and water. They are a part of Barsaive. The Dinganni are a river. Water moves in a river from one place to another. The river alters the land it passes through, and the land alters the river. The Dinganni are a part of the world, not beings that exist within the world. This point is vitally important to understanding the Dinganni. Most of Barsaive, and certainly Thera and the Elves of Wyrm Wood, believe their Name-giver status puts them at a higher level than most of the life around them. The Dinganni do not believe this. They are the same as any other thing, living or dead in the environment, they just serve a different role. They name things and add to the Great Pattern.
The Scourge served to shift much of the focus of Dinganni spiritualism from the Great Pattern to kinship. The Dinganni were not known as the Dinganni before the Scourge, but by the word in their language for People. However, I will refer to them as Dinganni for simplicity. By themselves the Dinganni people before the Scourge could not have possibly survived the coming of Horrors. They were widespread, and often fought each other. There were definite bonds between the people as a whole, but the individual clans took precedence to a level where blood feuds could erupt between clans. With the coming of the Scourge the Dinganni were forced to work for surrounding people for protection. The Dinganni were a warrior culture, they traded this for protection from Horrors. The Dinganni grew separate in the years before the Scourge, especially considering this was over the course of several human generations. Children were born and raised not knowing any other clan but their own. The clans separated in order to survive. Some hired their warriors out as mercenaries. This is one way in which the Dinganni grew to hate the Rider's of the Scorched Plain. One clan, Deep Lodge, or Dark Lodge. The word translates to either, actually moved north of the Serpent River and traded their skills against the Riders to earn a place in a Kaer.
Another clan, the Silver Mane, all but died out before the Scourge when the clans separated. As their numbers dwindled one, Dim Stars, had a dream. He dreamt that silver stars fell out of the sky, leaving it empty of lights. As they fell they landed among embers. When the stars fell they rekindled the embers and fire sprung anew. The fires grew and spread across the plains until all the plains burned from the fires of the different embers, rekindled from the falling stars. Dim Stars was an Elder in his dying clan, and counseled that all of the people of the Silver Manes were to master the history and myths of the Dinganni, then separate and live with the other clans in the coming Scourge. The Silver Manes spread out and went in to the Kaers with all the other clans, all but one.
The Silver Manes sought to continue the culture of the Dinganni. The original Silver Manes all had died soon after the entering into the Kaers. The legacy had not. The tradition of setting aside historians and myth keepers had existed, but now it served a greater purpose. The Dinganni grew to feel a close kinship for all the people they never knew scattered under the ground all over Barsaive. These ties of Kinship caused the Dinganni to travel back to their old lands between Kratas and the Mist Swamps as they emerged from different Kaers. The Dinganni came together as a people and the clan structure lessened as effort was made to cross that and build the people to a united whole.
Dinganni feel kinship towards their people as a whole, but actual kin are especially important. You are not more important than any of your relatives. If a cousin admires your sword, you give the sword to that cousin. He deserves it, and the kin is far more important than anything physical. The second basic concept is the Great Pattern. The Great Pattern is a source of energy that pervades everything in the universe. Everything has it's place, and most things form a part of the pattern if just a tiny nexus. Named things have an entire tiny piece of the pattern themselves. Their piece meshes with the pattern around, then draws and lends power to and from it. This power is called halkan. Whenever energy is needed, it is lent through halkan. When a pattern is created halkan is drawn into that pattern, giving it form. This energy is not to be taken lightly, and can be very dangerous. It is power, it is numinous. In it is the potential for everything, good or bad.
All of Dinganni spiritualism draws from these two ideas.
I was lucky enough to meet a Dinganni who was in the process of keeping a pattern. He is in fact where I draw most of my knowledge of the Dinganni from.
When a person dies and someone believes that person to be especially important, as a friend, or a good worker, or a person especially espousing the ideals of life, the ritual of pattern keeping commences. One person chooses to be the Keeper. The keeper first divulges themselves of all their possessions. Everything is given away down to their last clothes. The one exception to this is thread items with a thread connecting them to the Keeper's pattern. These are considered a part of the Keeper's pattern. Standing naked the Keeper begins a ritual which is lead by another who has gone through it. Shadow Jar, my Dinganni friend, would not relate the details of the ritual. He said that the knowledge of it drew halkan from the ritual, and was unnecessary. If I were ever to desire to perform the ritual, it would be taught to me.
I do know that during the ritual the Keeper adds the deceased's name to their own. After the ritual the Keeper takes possession of all the deceased's material possessions. These are still the property of the deceased, who now has his pattern extended through the Keeper.
Also, during the name taking ceremony, a bundle is made for the deceased. The bundle contains items personal and representative of the deceased. I believe that it basically contains pattern items associated with the deceased. The Keeper keeps this bundle with him at all times for the remainder of the ritual.
For the next year the Keeper speaks for the deceased whose pattern is being kept. He represents that person, as well as himself. Having traveled with Shadow Jar as he underwent this ritual for his brother, I watched as his personal pattern changed. I can only assume that it drew to incorporate the deceased's name into the core of his true pattern. Shadow Jar said that the ritual keeps the best of the deceased alive in the Keeper.
At the end of the year, the best parts of the person being kept have become a part of the Keeper. As such the pattern may be released as the important things exist in the Keeper now.
The possessions of the deceased are all given away, and a feast is held by the relatives of the Keeper. At the feast goods are given to the Keeper to help him in his life. I have seen where Shadow Jar gave up the pattern he'd been carrying the nine months I'd known him. He was happy at the event for the essence of the pattern now lived in him. He ended up receiving gifts from all the Dinganni present. I personally think he was better off materially at the conclusion of the year long ritual than before.
Reward anyone completing this ritual with a nice dose of LP's. This ritual hurts, and is grueling to do correctly. The player must consciously try to think as the deceased would, as well as his own thoughts.
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