The People of Ilenweewa: A Brief Overview

[This article was originally published in the catalog of an exhibition of artifacts found in the valley of the Charpentier Mountains on the third of sixteen expeditions to the distant planet Ilenweewa, by Drs. Philippe Lamgard and Edwina Martinsen Lamgard, in 1978, presented at the Museum of Extrastellar Archeology in London.]

The Valley and its People:  The Charpentier Valley, a verdant and wooded expanse between the mountains of the same name to the west and the more rugged Inner Range to the east, on the extragalactic planet of Ilenweewa, was once home to a vibrant and creative people who called themselves, according to our best current knowledge, only the People. The valley itself, cut through with a wide, fast moving river known as the Renard, has areas of soil that are rich and nutritive, where the People grew their crops, as well as much vaster areas of clay, from which the People fashioned their dwellings, as well as many of the items that they used in their daily lives, their rituals, their private meditations. The climate of the Charpentier Valley is mild, and plant and animal life abundant. It is unclear whether the People in this area died out—nothing has so far been found in the way of burial mounds or necropoli—or simply, for reasons not yet known to us, moved on to another area. Further excavation and study will be needed to answer many of our questions. 

The People were a subset of cultures that existed to the west and south of the Charpentier Range, where societies were somewhat more industrialized and populations more densely packed. The People originally came from these metropolitan cultures, moving to the Charpentier Valley in search of a simpler, more creation-centered lifestyle. Their cosmology and sacred artifacts appear to have been unique to the Charpentier Valley and differ considerably from those found in the urban centers of Ilenweewa. We might think of the People as a somewhat utopian culture, eschewing the more industrial trappings of their planetary mainstream in favor of a life based on creation, celebration and thanksgiving. Apparently, they maintained some trade with the mainstream metropolitan societies, as evidenced by their use of refined papers and pigments and such, as there is no evidence to suggest that they had facilities or tools to produce such things themselves.

So far, only a small fraction of the presumed remaining artifacts of the People has been excavated, this from a small village of interconnected clay dwellings close in to the base of one of the larger foothills at the southwestern edge of the Charpentier Range. From these pieces we have learned much, but there is much more that remains unknown. There is only one manuscript extant from excavations to date; this details the People’s cosmology. [This is known as the Lamgard Manuscript, after its discoverers, Drs. Philippe Lamgard and Edwina Martinsen Lamgard.] The manuscript is considerably less expansive than those of other known utopian or so-called industrial-abrogative cultures, containing primarily their creation story, the enumeration of their Eight Great Gifts and corresponding prayers. Thus, what we know of their religion, what they seem to have called the Way, is incomplete. We believe that less emphasis was placed on death and afterlife by the People than on the celebration of life itself, on artistic creation of all kinds, and on their focus on the eight gifts. 

There is considerable evidence to suggest that the People practiced a religion based on what we would most closely call jazz music. There is even some speculation within the field of extrastellar archeology—currently out of favor within mainstream scholarship in the field—that the People may have had contact with early space-time travelers who could have brought with them devices containing recordings of twentieth century American Earth jazz. What is clear, from the sheer volume of simple musical instruments found within the Charpentier settlement—and indeed, is suggested by their creation story itself—is that music played an important role in the lives and Way of the People.

The Stele and the Manuscript: One of the most important finds in the Charpentier Valley by Drs. Lamgard and Martinsen Lamgard was the Stele of the Eight Great Gifts, currently housed in the British Museum. The eventual translation of this stele by the Lamgard’s son Bertrand unlocked the meaning of the Lamgard Manuscript, which contains the People’s creation story and prayers based on the Eight Gifts, and is the basis for our current understanding of the religion or Way of the People. The Eight Great Gifts enumerated in the stele are these: 

The power of exuberance.

The power of honesty.

The power of invention.

The power of unique expression.

The power of clear communication, from mind to mind, from heart to heart, from soul to soul. 

The power of coming through from sorrow into joy.

The power to move in endless variety, though multitude varieties of our experience of movement through time.

The power to move in appreciation of the rhythm of our own unique soul, given to us by She who came from before the beginning, in appreciation of our uniqueness.

The Lamgard Manuscript further states, “These Eight Great Gifts are the basis of our Way, which we guard without jealousy, protect without limitation, give of freely, without depleting of our own great share, cherish with the deepest depth of our souls.” Each of these gifts is then honored with a prayer, illuminated in the manuscript. (A translation of the prayers may be found in our 1997 article in the journal Archeologica EGL, "Prayers of the People," along with a translation of the creation story.)

Vessels:  What has been found in abundance at the Charpentier site (which we are calling, optimistically, Site One) are vessels, which we believe were used for many purposes, some sacred, some commonplace. For those vessels that have as an element of their decoration a form of writing, thanks to the translation of the Stele of the Eight Great Gifts, we have a relatively clear understanding of their purpose; others remain a mystery. Many were probably simply jars or canisters of quotidian, everyday purpose.

There appears to have been nothing like a potters wheel in the community of the People. The vessels and other objects have been made of clay slabs rather than coils, and we have yet to unearth anything like the typical extragalactic pinch pot. The reasons for this remain unclear. Every vessel found, as well as ritual implements and beads, has been painted in lively colors, from the simplest ointment jars to the most significant prayer boxes. (Luckily, due to climactic conditions on Ilenweewa and the apparent lack of looting or vandalism of the village site, these colors have retained their vibrancy.) What seems, then, to have been most important to the People is not the construction of the object, but the decoration of its surface. This decoration often includes a word, a symbol based upon their alphabet, a phrase, poem or prayer. This suggests to us that the People regarded the vessel as a means of conveyance not only of objects but of ideas, and worthy of some consideration; the painting seems to have imparted to the vessel a significance beyond its function, even if that function was a mundane one. Indeed, it is believed that many of the vessels served no other function—albeit, for the People, a most important one—than the containment of other objects, which would have been used in rituals or in the private celebration of the Eight Great Gifts. The translation of the writing on some of the vessels further supports the idea that the People attached a strong spiritual meaning to the very concept of vessel as a means for carrying—their water, their food, the implements of their daily lives, their sacred instruments, their prayers; and because nothing has so far been found in the way of burial mounds, possibly also the ashes of their dead, though so far, no such remains have been found.

Because of the common division of surface decoration into panels, albeit connected to one another through the use and placement of motif, we believe there may be an element of story telling or an indication of the passage of time in the decoration itself. (Think of the story/cartoon panels found in the early twentieth century on the planet New Alcea IV.) Along with the vessels, often inside or alongside of them, were found items such as bracelets, beads, rattles, and a kind of miniature totem figure—again, each brightly colored. Often the juxtaposition of these items seems indicative of their use. Vessels decorated with prayer verses were often found to hold bracelets, totems, smaller vessels. From this we infer that these items were used in ceremonies or in private meditative rituals. 

Exchange Cards:  Also found at Site One are what the Lamgards called Exchange Cards. There is evidence to suggest that these were exchanged in a ceremony of some kind, as a way, perhaps, of connecting and, subtly or not so subtly, offering advice, encouragement or guidance to other members of the group. It’s believed that this was done in a private one-to-one fashion, to avoid possible embarrassment should the contents of the card imply a need for improvement on the part of the receiver. 

The messages on the cards could be encouraging, admiring, admonishing, sometimes opaque. It is believed that they were always created by the giver him or herself. The cards are always of the same size, with a grid containing enough squares to contain the letters of the message. Thus, while it seems that involvement in the ceremony was required of all adult members of the group, it appears that the People were encouraged, in this way, to limit the advice or admonishments they would pass along to their peers.

Further Exploration and Study:  More expeditions to the Charpentier Valley have been planned by the Lamgard’s successors, though currently funding for such has been placed on hold by the Department of Extrastellar Archeology, due to budget cuts. We hope that the current budgetary constrictions on extragalactic archeology will be loosened with the incoming Administrator, in order that our knowledge of the People may continue to grow, enriching our understanding of this creation-centered, off-world humanoid culture. Studies of artifacts, their materials and meanings remain ongoing, at not insignificant cost to the investigators themselves.