19. MESSAGE TAKER: IBORIIS, 15^TH CENTURY,

POST IMPERIUM

This Robe is one of the few that reveal the origins of the Iboriisi. Message carrying by means of sticks wrapped in complex patterns and colours is practised both on and Iboriis, and on Irusaq among the Forest People. The Iboriisi claim that their ancestors were Irusaqi revolutionaries who fled in order to set up their own independent government, free of all the restrictions of life on Irusaq. However, Archaeological studies on Irusaq do seem to point unequivocally to the fact that the Iboriisi were deported as dangerous dissidents and marooned on Iboriis, opossibly in the hope that they would die in the inhospitable climate.

While knowledge of Iboriisi customs is now fairly extensive, anthropological studies have been fraught with dangers. One of the earliest students of the Iboriisi communications system was subjected to the barbarous custom of "Stranger Gift" – the giving of strangers to the Bird God, to be torn apart by the great birds in order to predict the weather. Perhaps because of this the role of the Message Taker has not been studied more deeply. But it is thought that the Message Taker is somehow linked with the Songman, and like him, plays an important part in keeping groups in contact with one another, thus avoiding the inevitable conflicts caused by separation and unfamiliarity.