The Origins of Kahonua and Kosinbia

  Sacrificing yourself for the greater good is a virtue. Dying for nothing is a sin. -Amanirena “snake-cutter” Thákame, herald and prophetess of Kahonua. Prayer of Moto Mapokeo Ya (Fire Folklore), Volume Five.

     Why Kahonua and pyromancers are so important on Kosinbia, to the point that the region despises and even vilifies another ways of magic and other gods? It is because the very idea of "Kosinbia" was born through the pyromancers and the volcano goddess.
     

     The whole region was once divided into countless tribes and groups which could share things such as language, race and difficulties, but didn't saw themselves as equals or part of something greater. In fact, the most common trouble for all were the rivalries and fighting with neighboring tribes.

     In this fragmented world, there were two nomad tribes, unique and somewhat accepted by all:

• Oayas, predecessors of the pyromancers, were as respected and feared as witches, shamans or wizards, bringing troubles and solutions in equal measure. They worshiped the zebra-goddess Nuami, one amongst many other deities exclusive of one tribe or another. Their blend of supernatural martial art and ritual dance was based on zebras fighting, and practiced in the surroundings of volcanoes.

• Khayas were iron miners and traveling blacksmiths. But because they kept their techniques to themselves, they were mystified by the other tribes, for they knew how to "turn the earth into spears and swords". Their totem was the termite, called Kahomi, for the clay of the termite hives was one of the secrets used to make their furnaces.

     Both groups had no affinity between themselves. Sometimes, a child of the Khayas was sent to the Oayas for their family thought she had a talent for pyromancy and vice versa. This was common among all the tribes which specialized into an art or craft and had youngs which didn't fit for one reason or another, many of which had nothing to do with talent: a benign way to exile the "black sheep" of the community.

     This was the origin of the future prophetess Amanirena Thákame. She was born among the Khayas, but was taken to the Oayas after her parents died in an orc attack which also prevented her relatives from raising her. The girl wasn't killed in the attack because she managed to throw the orc which killed her parents into the furnace they used. It was seen as a sign that her future was tied to fire.

     Being a teenager when she entered the pyromantic tribe, her perspective ended up being a mixture of a blacksmithing childhood with flaming maturity. In some uncertain moment she defined the idea of union among people hostile to each other, but which knew how to speak and love, against a greater evil: the orcs.

     The oral folklores offer several versions for how she united the two tribes in such a way, that the deities themselves fused into a new goddess which mixed fire and earth into the symbol of the volcano, Kahonua. The romantic version is that she managed to do a wedding ritual for a couple of gods which already loved each other from far away; the most mundane version claims she impressed the blacksmith tribe with a fire so hot it could make steel and the pyromantic tribe when she produced "fire from stone", gunpowder, and thus convinced both how the whole could be more than the mere sum of its parts; another version speaks that she married or got involved with important men on both tribes, influencing them through such men; there are also versions more sordid or peaceful, tragic or mystic. Perhaps those sages which try to rebuild the facts by merging the many versions are closer to the truth.

     What is clear is that she started to lead a nomad alliance which used steel and fire as carbon steel blades, martial arts tempered with impressive magic and something completely new, the first firearms. Primitive cannons and handgonnes, cast in iron and bronze, using a mixture that, perhaps, no one would have discovered without the cultural and religious motivation for it: gunpowder. It was hard to counter the argument that union brings strength when the result breaches stone walls, scares men and animals, kill orcs before they touch you and can be used by anyone with minimal training.

     However, Amanirena didn't use firearms. She wielded the spear Wachumatu and the machete Nyoka-Auaye, both made from the iron which was left in the furnace into which she pushed the orc which killed her parents, now shaped as red-hot blades. The prophetess taught that kill someone was a waste, for a life may and must be sacrificed only for the greater good. Punishments were another matter. With her incandescent blades, she cut and cauterized criminals: fingers, ears and other parts which the guilty had to learn to live without. Executions happened only when someone committed so many crimes that there were no parts to cut anymore.

     Thirty years later, she unified the tribes, organized them into principalities, instituted the amani tradition and began the construction of the Sacrificial Bastions. When her duty was fulfilled, came the reward: the goddess of fire and earth turned her prophetess into the first Nyokakuba, mother of all the others. And in this shape Amanirena lives until today in her nest, the sacred volcanic caldera called Kahonuterasi.