The Saturn
Presentation of this planet and its moons, including ring and creatures
- Chapter 47 -
More about the inhabitants of the lowlands. Commerce and trade. Banishment of dishonest people. Mode of life, matrimony, procreation and burial.
In the lowlands, especially in the regions of the lakes and large rivers, the people carry on with some kind of bartering. They usually deal with the sort of merchandise with which women adorn themselves in the manner previously described.
2
It does happen that a merchant may think deliberately of somehow gaining an advantage over another person. But he is in real trouble when someone discovers the fraud. The women will scratch the merchant with all kinds of pointed objects. If he should be caught again after he has been given this kind of a lesson, then a ship will be prepared and the swindler and his family will be taken to a far-off place. He will remain at this place for a specified time, which is always considerable, or he may have to remain there forever, depending on the extent of his second fraud. On Saturn this punishment is known as purak or "eternal banishment." Whosoever is banished for a specific time only is allowed to take several "ship fruit seeds" (chaiaba) along, so that he can sow these seeds in the country of his exile and eventually prepare a ship from this fruit.
3
Those who are sentenced and exiled for life are not permitted to take the seeds of the chaiaba plant with them. It usually happens that the mountain dwellers of one or another country are informed by the spirits of the pitiful state of the exiled people. The mountain dwellers do not waste much time they travel to where these people are exiled and welcome them and take them to the mountains, where they usually make the best human beings out of them.
4
Quite often they are given accommodation in the mountains to keep as their own property. It happens at times that the very people from the lowlands who sentenced these people to a life's exile may travel to the mountains and find shelter, hospitality and tutelage in true religion. When the guests recognize their hosts, usually one surprise replaces the other, whereby the guests cannot comprehend how their present hosts escaped the life-long exile and came to this place in the mountains.
5
On this occasion they show their amazed guests that the Great Spirit is capable of many things, of which the wisdom of the people who live in the regions of the lakes or ocean know very little. When the surprised questioners receive such an answer, they usually wring their hands and lament bitterly about the nonsense which is customary in the lowlands, upon which they are again seriously admonished that upon their return home they should contribute to the best of their ability to the elimination of many or most of such follies.
6
Through this approach it has happened in many of the large continental countries that the people of the plains are now on the same level as the mountain dwellers. But there are still countries where there exists a huge difference between the people of the lowlands and the people in the mountains.
7
Concerning manual skills and commerce, the lowlands and the highlands are comparatively similar, except for a few luxury trades which are nowhere to be found on the mountains or highlands, where even the dyeing or coloring of a thread is considered a sin.
8
The nourishment (with the exception of the milk of the large cow) is the same in the lowlands as it is in the mountains. Only some of the patriarchal families have the beautiful large white rocks on the lakes prepared as pleasure castles (as mentioned in one of the previous chapters). While they occupy these pleasure castles they often tickle their palates with many delicacies that are a little more artificially prepared. But in due time they have to suffer for these indiscretions; and on account of this behavior, many wise medical doctors have much to do.
9
Remember, you have the same problem on earth! If you were to live a very simple life in accordance with nature and eat the fruits of the earth the way I prepare them -with only a few exceptions, and they simply have to be softened by cooking them on a fire - then your language would have four words less, one of which would be "doctor," and much less would it know of "medicine" or "apothecary" (pharmacy). It would not know the aforementioned three words because the first word, "sickness," would not exist. First you have very skillful cooks, followed by the medical doctors and the pharmacists with their even more skillful kitchens. And from these kitchens you obtain a completely perfect kind of fare (medicine) through which the ailment in the body of a patient becomes a permanent guest.
10
This is how it is in the lowlands of Saturn, though not to the same degree as on the earth. That is why the people of the lowlands do not grow nearly as old as the people in the highlands.
11
Concerning marriages, in the lowlands the patriarch joins husband and wife in marriage just as in the mountains, except that in the lowlands there is usually much more external pomp.
12
Procreation is the same as in the highlands, though it does happen in the lowlands that if the man does not possess enough belief and willpower, he undertakes a journey with his wife to the mountains in order to increase his willpower and belief. At this point, I do not have mention the purpose.
13
The burial of a human being in the lowlands is done in two different ways. For those who are on a higher spiritual level, the funeral is the same as in the highlands, whereas for the somewhat heathenish nations who regard the light ring as a kind of divinity, the funeral is considerably different. They place their departed on one of their ships and then sail with them onto the ocean, especially when the ocean is not far from their abode. When they have sailed far enough, the corpse is thrown into the water without any further ceremony; on this occasion they immediately find a living grave, which very greedily eats the corpse. Once such a funeral has happened, the so-called gravediggers return and the minute they arrive in their homeland the entire funeral ceremony has come to its conclusion.
14
This is in addition to what you already know from the occasional information about the most remarkable and noteworthy customs or traditions of the valley and plains people on Saturn. We shall now leave the inhabited countries of Saturn and travel by the shortest route over the snow and ice regions of this planet to the ring. And this concludes today's information.