Tamddaism

The Essenaɤ Tamdda or Vulture Icon displayed over the entryway is the distinguishing feature of a Tamddaist Beyt.

Tamddaism, also known as the Cult of Ishel, is a syncretic sect of Sakbe originating in the eastern Ninva in the early 18th century. It is one of the youngest major religions in the world and among the major branches of Sakbeism with more than 40 million adherents in the Ninva and elsewhere in central Scipia.

The Tamddaist sect emerged as an offshoot of the P'al community in eastern Scipia that migrated into the cities of the Ninva desert. The early years of the sect were overseen by the Desert Oracle, an enigmatic Mutulese religious figure regarded by modern Tamddaism as an immortal prophet. As a splinter strand of the wider movement of Sakbeism in the Ozeros, Tamddaism retains versions of Mutulese myths, deities, philosophies and religious practices introduced to the Ninvite peoples by the Oracle. The Desert Oracle also incorporated the existing ancient Deshritic pantheon and the ancestral Tenerian beleifs into his teachings, integrating entire cults of existing Ninvite deities into Sakbeic practice. In particular, the popular cult of Nekhbet in the east Ninvite city of Azut was converted by the Desert Oracle and their vulture goddess was syncretized with the Sakbeic Ix Chel, worshipped in modern Tamddaism as Ishel. The Cult of Ishel in Azut formed the basis of the Tamddaist strand of Sakbe and enabled its rapid dissemination across the desert cities including the Awakari imperial capital at Agnannet where the first true Tamddaist holy site, the Tazzarat, would be established.

Name

The term "Tamddaism", derived from the Tamashek Tamdda meaning "vulture", is the widely accepted name of the sect and religious movement internationally. However, it is not the most common endonym. In the Ninva, Tamddaism is most commonly referred to as Ashnitan Addin (Tamashek: ⴰⵛⵏⵉⵜⴰⵏ ⴰⴷⴷⵉⵏ, "Blood Faith"), based on the archaic Mutulese term Kik' K'uhunak which was used to refer to Sakbe in the Ozeros at the time that the Tamddaist offshoot developed, while use of the term Tamddaism is generally found among non-Tamddaist Ninvites and visitors to the country. Although it is generally considered to be an offshoot or a sect within Sakbe, Tamddaism is generally not referred to directly as "White Path" or Sakbe as this term is reserved to the minority of non-Tamddaist Sakbeists in the Ninva locally referred to as the Puritans and who are known to adhere more directly to the Mutulese version of the religion.

Beleifs

Cosmology

The cosmology and worldview of the Tamddaist sect is based on a concept known as the Wheel (Tamashek: ⴽⴻⵔⵓⴻⴽ, Keruker), an evolution of the Sakbeist concept of cyclic reincarnation also known as the Sacred Cycle. Much like the extremely cyclical nature of mainstream Sakbeic cosmology, the Wheel is applied to many aspects and processes of the temporal and spiritual worlds including the span of a human life, the cycle of life and death, the rise and fall of nations and the lifespan of the known universe. Each of these processes and lengths of time is beleived to pass through the three phases of the Wheel in similar ways despite doing so at radically different timescales. The three phases of the tripartite cycle, generally corresponding to life, death and rebirth respectively, each have many aspects and attributes which are not always fulfilled in every instance of the Wheel. Different processes, for example the lives of two different individuals, are associated and rationalized using the mechanism of the Wheel in different and specific ways depending on the particular conditions.

• The Mundane is the first phase of the Wheel, the phase of Life. It is invoked in Tamddaist texts using the phrase "It is Born", and typically corresponds to the processes of basic formation. In the common context of a human life, the Mundane corresponds to the formative years of childhood and adolescence while in the cycle of reincarnation the Mundane describes the period of life in the mortal world. The Mundane phase is the period in which the thing, be it a human life or an iteration of the universe, revolving through the processes of the Wheel is not only created in a litteral and material sense but goes about gathering various charachteristics and undergoing rapid growth.
• The Moribund is the second, harsher phase of formation in the Wheel. It is invoked as "It is Formed", and its considered the lowest point of the Wheel. In borader Sakbeist cosmology the Moribund is strongly associated with the Sakbeist underworld, Xibalba, a realm in which the souls of the dead are subjected to difficult, cruel and sadistic trials and challenges by the Lords of the Underworld which they must overcome in order to find their way into a paradise after death. However, in the context of the Wheel the invocation of Xibalba's trials is often not litteral and instead refers more generally to a period of difficulty or hardship which must be overcome. As the Moribund phase sets in, the trials must be overcome at great cost and in so doing much of the growth of the Mundane phase will be challenged and destroyed while the remaining traits are galvinized by the process. It is also possible for the Wheel to "break" under the pressure of the Moribund phase, describing the outcome in which the tribulation overcomes everything that was established during the Mundane phase and the thing, be it a person or a soul, is litteraly or metaphorically lost to Xibalba and effectively destroyed.
• The Idyllic, the final phase and apex of the Wheel, is generally correlated to the Tamddaist heaven known as the Field of Reeds. It is described through the phrase "It is Free" and is connected to both post-Xibalba paradisiacal afterlife as well as the event of reincarnation, rebirth and new life which returns the Wheel to the Mundane.

Deities

Ishel Isana-Re Tanit Kaharna Ihemod