MENACE TO MASTER-AT-ARMS: THE ORCISH INTEGRATION INTO THE LATE THIRD-ERA IMPERIAL LEGION
‘ORCISH HISTORICAL MEMORY AND METHOD’
BY MORVEN ASHWING [1]
The historical memory and method of the ‘civilised races’ of Tamriel is around for the citizen of Tamriel, be they schoolboy or scholar, to see. [2] One need only stare at the architecture of the average household in Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Hammerfell or Morrowind for a moment before it seeps into the mind. [3] But when one looks upon either the enfranchised city-Orc or the fearless and devout tribal Orc, their memory is invisible, as opaque as the darkest night. [4] They have no ancestral homeland to look back upon as the other races do, ever-travelling, having been harried at every temporary settlement. [5] However opaque the methods and memory in Orcish history seems, it can be found with a certain amount of (both literal and metaphorical) digging and separated into oral traditions and written sources provided by the Orcs themselves.
A DEFINITION OF ORAL TRADITION
Oral traditions of the Orsimer have henceforth been defined as ‘practices, sayings or rites, originating in a non-written medium.’ [6] Their use in everyday life, for both city and tribal Orcs, is prevalent in many aspects of their lives – from the reverence of Mauloch and the reciting of the holy law, the ‘Code of Malacath’, to the shouting of curses in taverns. [7] Yet the oral traditional oral history of the orcs is much more deeply ingrained in their culture than these examples would initially suggest, for one can see clearly that cultures with an assigned provincial homeland, taking an example of the Nords of Skyrim and Solstheim, have a similar set of overt oral traditions. [8]
ORAL TRADITION OF TRIBAL ORCS
The oral tradition of the Tribal Orcs focuses firstly on the role of Malacath in the creation of the Orcish race, and reverence to the code that he assigned his changed followers to follow. [9] The fact that the code is a set of unwritten rules, pasted down from one generation to the next through the primary socialisation emphasised by the stronghold life, places oral tradition as the most pious and devout form of honouring both Mauloch and the Orcish heroes who have achieved great thing for their tribe and race. [10] The honouring of Malacath through prayers and rituals - in embracing their pariahdom in the presence and protection of their natural patron - creates, through the sensual arousal emotion that oral tradition can invoke in the mind, a more effective rally against adversity that the Orcish pariahs are subject to in lacking a homeland. Furthermore, the focus of life on combat and survival principles inevitably leads to a deficit of literacy in the tribal community, for it is not necessary in the community that places such an emphasis on oral tradition. [11]
ORAL TRADITION OF ‘CITY-ORCS’
The oral tradition of the tribal Orc’s stronghold life permeates through into the ‘city-Orc’ communities throughout Tamriel. [12] Many of the city-Orcs are those who have left the stronghold of the tribal orcs, transferring – knowingly or not – this culture to their offspring and fellow city-orcs. The Code, with its emphasis on strength, endurance and the crafting of the community’s items, place many ex tribal-orcs with the great opportunity as shock troops and armourers for the Imperial Legion. [13] The tradition of the tribe yet has a subtler effect; for both city-orcs from birth and by situation, it has transferred the importance and position of the oral, despite the emphasis of the Imperialised settlements on written sources. [14] Finally, it has transferred the social acceptability of Daedra adherence in any ethnic subculture since the Dunmer’s abandonment of the Tribunal Temple. [15] It is common for city-orcs to make many references to Malacath, much in the way that Dunmer make reference to Azura, but with the added adherence to his code of his reverence, a focus on smithing and meeting their fate with a strong heart and thick skin. [16]
EXCLUSIVITY OF ORCISH ORAL TRADITION
The contrast between the emphasis on oral tradition between the ‘civilised races’ and the Orcs are staggeringly defined. [17] Bane himself mentions only briefly that “Tales of Orcish barbarity precede written record”, yet swiftly moves on from the reference of oral tradition to the written source of Jastyaga – implying that the oral tradition of the Orcs was as detestable to dwell up as they themselves were. [18] The Empire, its maintenance depending and survival upon the effectiveness of its bureaucracy, and its Imperialised provinces that provide an ancestral homeland for its ethnic inhabitants relegated the relative important of oral tradition to little but entertaining mead hall stories for the workers after a hard day, when compared to the effect that manifests in the Orcs when their historical memory remembers their perpetual ancient ostracization, homelessness, and adherence of their code of conduct. [19]
A DEFINITION OF WRITTEN SOURCES
Written sources of the Orsimer have henceforth been defined as ‘practices, sayings or rites, originating in a written medium, either as a direct recording at the time of the origin of the source (primary); or practices, sayings or rites, originating from a non-written medium, but transferred to a written medium later (secondary)’. [20] While not as numerous or prevalent in the Orcish historical method or memory as in those of ‘civilised races’, these sources are still equally as important in revealing the exclusivity of the Orcish historical memory. From the primary source of the Old Orcish Prose, Torug ag Krazak, to the secondary sources, from both Orcs – such as Ramurbak Gro-Abamath, Mauloch, Orc-Father - and non-Orcs – such as Amanda Alleia, The Code of Malacath – the few written sources in which Orcish history is told sheds much light into the complexity of their culture and psychology. [21]
TORUG AG KRAZAK AND HISTORICAL MEMORY
The one and only plentiful source of primary written sources of the ancient Orcs is contained in an inscription, inscribed in Old Orcish, a three-stanza poem dedicated to the founder of the First Orsinium, Torug gro-Igron. [22] While the exact date of the inscription is unknown, it is thought to be a primary source inscribed very shortly after Torug’s death. [23] The Old Orcish language, being crude and fluid, lacks the use of articles (definite or indefinite) and plurals. [24]
The flexibility of the written language used in the inscription tells us much about the psychology and the culture of the ancient orcs writing it. The language of the ancient Orcs represents, in its crudeness and flexibility, its struggle with its ancestral homelessness. [25] For a society that could call no province its own – unlike the Bretons and Redguards that provided an immediate source of mutual hostility – thusly placed such emphasis on oral tradition, that suited the race that lived a ‘raided-raiding’ lifestyle. [26] When compared with the bulkiness and immobility of written sources written in the languages of the imperialised races, the simplicity of the language’s structure allow the Orcs to find a home, wherever they travelled, while still trying to claim Orsinium as their ancestral homeland by producing the vast majority of their linguistic corpus that is available to us, on an immobile cairn. [27]
ORAL TRADITIONS TRANSFERRAL TO WRITTEN SOURCES
The secondary set of sources that show the Orcish historical memory and memory are those that record the traditions by non-Orcs or are else recorded by Orcs when the tradition has been portrayed orally since times immemorial. [28] ‘The past is a wolf’, record the Sayings of the Wise – this saying is not only true in its ordained sense, but also in the sense that in Orcish society in the past but also today, tribal orcs and city-orcs alike, are still without a provincial homeland and have not transitioned their historical method from orality to literacy. [29] When even the cunning diplomacy of the Orcish warlord Gortwog gro-Nagorm attempted, yet failed, to achieve Imperial provincial recognition for Orsinium in exchange for the Orcish integration into the Imperial Legion, the potential transferral stalled to a standstill. [30]
Yet the majority of secondary sources of oral tradition, mainly written by non-Orcs, prove to pose a dangerous manipulation in the historical memory of the race. Bane’s The Pig Children and a minority of other anti-Orc pamphlets still in-print in the Fourth Era non-withstanding, this manipulation may be a passive one, but it is still dangerous nevertheless. The ‘civilised races’ that write or transcribe the majority of the secondary sources of historical memory are not in a situation to feel the full extent of the effect on the Orcish method; No matter how they may try to integrate themselves into Orcish society, they – being from a race that has a static ancestral homeland – distort the tradition in their own ignorance of the Orcs ancestral homelessness. [31]
CONCLUSION
So, due to the limitations of the primary sources in the Old Orcish language and the wide-spread passive manipulation of Orcish oral traditions in the written transcriptions of tracts written by non-Orcs, the truth of Orcish historical method and memory exists, nigh solely, in the oral tradition of its people, whether from the imperialised cities or the tribal strongholds. Without the achievement of the evasive ancestral homeland, the Orcs are the only race to have an exclusive focus on oral tradition, as opposed to the ‘civilised races’, with their imperialised focus on literacy in historical memory and method. Even the general population of the Nords with the Skaal tribe of Solstheim, nor the Dunmer with the Ashlanders of Vvardenfell, could boast such an exclusive method.
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