There are people in a later period who don’t realize things have changed, they live as if time had stood still, and they write as if the things that were acceptable in their younger days haven’t changed and are in the present moment regarded as disgusting, racist, and sexist. Such attitudes are never adequate to the Senetha and other people of the mythical world. During the many centuries, there had been constant battles in the Senetha council; the older council members were unwilling to change. They considered themselves the guardians of the tradition; the people in the street had said what practices? What are the rules of the Senetha? Every opening up of the council required elaborate ceremonies. The swan ceremony had four hundred participants; folded paper swans were made in the thousands, requiring great labor; they were stacked high on a white plate and brought into the council chamber with fifty fourteen-year-olds; some didn’t like this, some were honored, and the parents wished this for their children, a way to obtain favors from the council. Girls wore knife blades in their hair to symbolize the warrior’s past when women were required to protect themselves from the dangerous elements of the forests and surrounding land. This was the coming-of-age ceremony, with a long procession of girls who came to the council before the actual session started.

Chants were heard for a time, and light drapes opened in the council hall. Many Senetha cities, villages, and towns were silent regarding the council’s opening and in honor of the four seasons. The lamps of the perpetual were lighted by hand, although they were continually lit because they landed themselves. Still, the children of the ceremony used rods of flames, pretending to burn them. Symbols representing whatever, the various clans are rod scepters with elaborative decorative characters portrayed in the opening ceremony, which was long, tedious, tiresome, and an endless procession come in on infinite parade of boring; each is a council member with their retinue than when it seems over another long line comes in with dances and hand gestures representing purification. Finally, after many other symbolic arrivals, it’s over. As time has gone by in the past centuries, the ceremonies were cut short. There was always resistance from a generation that opposed the change. The girls coming of age were eventually no longer required to walk in procession; it could be done with families or in the privacy of their homes. Yet as everything becomes simple, elaboration starts again.

Chiefs govern Senetha villages; they are elected and hereditary; people had questioned if chiefs were needed and that a council of three judges might be an improvement. The administration wasn’t a good example for the people, and the chiefdoms remained. There had been changes to this responsibility; chiefs once were almost absolute rulers, the council taking their orders, and gradually the committee gained more power and corruption. Some chiefs were once philosophers or chief priests with the functions of a governor and head of the council. A study in philosophy was considered necessary, but gradually that became less of a way of governing; the wealthy merchants said they should advise the chief. Still, there were objections from ordinary people. Others said it would be reasonable to listen to the forests and waters or the sacred tree, representing nature. The chief should go into the woods to listen to the universe. There were objections to that. The elders said centuries before that they should govern, advising the chief. They rarely changed with the times. Intelligent devices from the future existed, and a belief developed that these devices should manage or advise people. The responsibility of a chief had transformed itself into many forms; the ways of being a chief were so different that such practices would be unrecognizable to people in the past. In more recent times, the tribal chief was more like the governor. None truly comprehended what the chief was.

Around the home, stone lamps continued to glow without interruption for centuries; these rocks glowed when a fire was touched. It was considered an evil form for the light to cease; it represented the Senetha people like a nation’s flag. Questions began to be asked by the young why such a useless practice was kept. Some artisans got the inspiration to make the stone lamps into attractive forms that defied tradition; tradition always said that lamps must be rounded, bowl-shaped, and rough-hewn, looking as if no skill was used to construct them. The artisan turned them into S-shaped objects conforming to elongated tubes that would glow itself in blue light, the inner as an orange hue. Forms such as a twirling shape would light an intense glow at night, attracting people to its beauty. Millions of bodies were eventually created by other artisans.

Giving donations from people’s strenuous efforts was eventually abandoned because they couldn’t deliver, as it would destroy their incomes and violent rebellion; as a result, spiritual structures began to cease and fell into neglect. Now they’ve been covered over by sand, forests, and water. Defying tradition, people started building spiritual places in their minds and abodes. For the mythical people, changes have never been going back to time unremembered and remembered; the younger people were constantly reminding the older generation that their times weren’t good. This resulted in arguments; progress always won out. Time has inched, walked, and ran forward into the future. This was and is the characteristic of the mythical world. People wishing to go backward were always forgotten and defeated.

Robert J. Matsunaga