Just Like You

Chapter 4: Losing a leader

The understanding that every adult on the Great Land was equal with every other was so deep, and the idea that they might not be so incomprehensible, that no one gave it any thought. In the Woodlands, it described the actual situation precisely. Further north, the concept of equality became more fluid after the adoption of the Luxalian philosophy. There was certainly no named ruler, but from the earliest days the priests found they were able to exert great influence by telling people what they claimed Luxal had told them, even though this had not been the original intention.

A hierarchy soon developed among the priests themselves. At some point several were put in charge, by means which were never recorded and quickly forgotten, of various activities. Soon there was a Head Priest of Farming, another of Money, a third of Engineering, two more of Inland and Coastal Fishing, several of various types of Building and Mechanics, and so on.

All reported to the Chief Priest, who lived and worked alongside a small group of administrators, guards and other staff in a palace not far north of the Transition and approximately in the middle of the Great Land. Sometimes the Chief Priest would visit a Head Priest if there was anything of immediate and outstanding importance to discuss, but the usual course of action was for the Head Priests to visit him.

He would accept or reject their proposals after, in the latter case, robust discussion about exactly what Luxal’s opinion on the matter might be, which was invariably agreed, perhaps with good grace and perhaps not, to be whatever the Chief Priest said it was. In other societies, his position would have been described as that of a monarch or president, but such a concept was unknown in Luxal, at least to the ordinary people. The death – or, rarely, retirement – of the Chief Priest obliged the Head Priests to choose a successor, a process usually completed quickly in the early days. As the society matured, the clarity of Luxal’s thoughts on who should be appointed became less obvious, which led to increasingly complex theological discussions lasting, in some cases, many months.