Art Exhibition: Etyries Goodears

This is a departure from the blog's usual format, which the translator hopes will be acceptable to the audience. Rather than being more translations directly from Mianmo, this is one of the translator's original works, as she has been tapped to provide a blurb for Seven Mothers, Seven Moons, Seven Wanes: How the Lunars Conceptualized their Past. The translator's work on The Lost Book of Etyries Goodears came to the notice of the curator in charge of the exhibition, and thus came about this commissioned piece describing a gorgeous Seventh Wane icon painting of Etyries Goodears herself.

This icon was recovered from the excavation of the Trader Temple in Furthest. Enough of the original pigments remained that professional conservator-restorer Katrin Dirim was able to recreate the icon painting as it existed during the Late Heortling period. Despite being an icon painting, which were usually modestly sized, this depiction of Etyries Goodears was set into an alcove in the Trader Temple, taking up the upper two-thirds of the alcove.

Here we see Etyries in her aspect as one of the elurae. This was likely a deliberate choice by the cult of Etyries in Tarsh, emphasizing the goddess's connections to the region and playing on already-existing fox woman iconography to make the Daughter of Issaries palatable, rather than coming across as an invader goddess.

Etyries is here depicted with the "waves of thick red-gold hair," "arms carefully shaved," "pale skin," and "eyes like warm amber" described in the The Lost Book of Etyries, Named Goodears. Her eponymous ears peer out from two slits in her hat, a common sartorial accommodation among the sa-elurae. Illusion sits between her vulpine eyebrows and reoccurs on her hat, jar, and earrings as a reminder of her origins as one of Elura's daughters.

However, her role as a merchant is even more heavily emphasized. Freckles across her skin remind the viewer that she was a merchant's daughter and often worked outdoors. The Trade Rune (also known as Communication) is incorporated into her scales, into her earrings, and into the Moon Herself. A beautiful brooch in the shape of Trade pins her shawl in place, flanked on either side by a silver crescent. Her gilded girdle and golden facial jewelry suggest prosperity, the kind that every merchant in Furthest would have been striving for. She flashes the three fingers of Harmony in its open-palmed variant - often used elsewhere to display imagery on the palm, but here to hold the scales between index finger and thumb.

Her iconography is politically charged. The jar she holds has Oslir rice jutting from its mouth; this was common to her Zero Wane depictions and represents Etyries as a provider of food to the people. Its use here suggests that the cult wishes to remind Tarsh that it cannot live on maize alone, and that Etyries still has a role in making sure that everyone gets to eat. The scales she holds are even more direct: here we see the winged vajra, a symbol of Orlanth and the Storm Tribe, being outweighed by the Red Moon. The imagery would have immediately connected Orlanth to counterfeit currency and fraudulent deals, nowhere as valuable as the Way. (Etyries is often depicted with crooked scales in all her guises; the implicit message is that her deals always advantage and benefit the Faithful.)

A Lunar halo blazes above her head. While it is tempting to suggest that its flare was inspired by the lesser Esrolian peacock, evidence suggests that peacocks all the way from Teshnos were kept at the Royal Palace in Furthest as an exotic pet. The three dots of Illusion on each tail are common to depictions of Elura herself, but between them Etyries cradles eyes suggestive of her famous Illumination, which fell upon her in divine revelation when she first met Teelo Estara. The Red Moon itself, shining Harmony down upon the world, hangs above her head.

In total, the piece would have communicated to the cultists of Issaries and Etyries who looked upon it: I belong here at the heart of the world. I bring the light of the Goddess to the unenlightened and material bounty to her followers. I tell the lie of money's intrinsic worth so well that it changes the world. We will overcome the barbarian gods together, because We Are All Us.