I formulated the “disguised description of a mundane situation” hypothesis pretty early. Unfortunately, I thought it was Christianity, not everyday life, so I read some details I thought I could match, like the holy water bit, and some that I couldn’t, like the everyday rituals as opposed to weekly rituals. My other, dominant, hypothesis was that this was a genuine attempt at description of a tribe that had mistaken something obvious due to false assumptions, and under that line of thought I managed to correctly identify the chest as a medicine box (I was thinking in terms of traditional medicines unfamiliar to the anthropologist, though). Then I got to the part about a “small bundle of hog hairs”, recognized the ritual as brushing, and everything fell into place, complete with the whole “ohhhhhh, so it WAS that, you sly little trickster you” effect. That feeling is rather pleasant, so thank you for posting this.
Incidentally, I didn’t get the “Nacimera” thing until explicitly pointed out (“latipso” followed naturally).
I formulated the “disguised description of a mundane situation” hypothesis pretty early. Unfortunately, I thought it was Christianity, not everyday life, so I read some details I thought I could match, like the holy water bit, and some that I couldn’t, like the everyday rituals as opposed to weekly rituals. My other, dominant, hypothesis was that this was a genuine attempt at description of a tribe that had mistaken something obvious due to false assumptions, and under that line of thought I managed to correctly identify the chest as a medicine box (I was thinking in terms of traditional medicines unfamiliar to the anthropologist, though). Then I got to the part about a “small bundle of hog hairs”, recognized the ritual as brushing, and everything fell into place, complete with the whole “ohhhhhh, so it WAS that, you sly little trickster you” effect. That feeling is rather pleasant, so thank you for posting this.
Incidentally, I didn’t get the “Nacimera” thing until explicitly pointed out (“latipso” followed naturally).