Khokarsa
Encyclopedia
Khokarsa is a fictional empire in ancient Africa that serves as the primary setting for Philip José Farmer
’s prehistoric fantasy novels Hadon of Ancient Opar
, Flight to Opar
, and The Song of Kwasin (the Khokarsa series).
's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa
" (1891
), in which the narrator's spirit visits an ancient fallen civilization. Over time, Farmer states, the syllables of the name "Khokarsa" were transposed so that the civilization eventually became known as "Carcosa
." An examination of Farmer's notes relating to the Khokarsa series has indicated that he also drew on classical sources to create his fictional civilization, such as Robert Graves
' The White Goddess
(which inspired the matriarchal basis of Khokarsan culture), Jessie L. Weston's classic Arthurian
study From Ritual to Romance
(whose "freeing of the waters" theme influenced Farmer's conception of the downfall of Khokarsan civilization), and the plays of Euripides
(Farmer drew his depiction of the Khokarsan oracles directly from Euripides' description of the Oracle of Delphi).
when the Khokarsa series begins, Sahhindar has brought the Khoklem from the Old Stone Age
to the Bronze Age
. “The Chronology of Khokarsa” addendum in Hadon of Ancient Opar hints that Sahhindar is actually John Gribardsun, the time-traveling protagonist from Farmer’s 1972 novel Time’s Last Gift.
and the Kemuwopar to the south in the Congo Basin
. Around 13,000 B.C., a group of tribes called the Khoklem (the People of Kho) emigrated from the temperate savannas of what would later become the Sahara Desert after the end of the Ice Age
, reaching the shores of the Kemu and pushing the Neanderthal
s and Neanderthal-human hybrids (the Klemqaba, or People of the Goat) to the south, and possibly assimilating some of them. Another group called the Klemsuh (the Yellow People) arrived in the area at approximately the same time. These peoples made livings fishing and hunting and gathering until the appearance of Sahhindar, the Gray-Eyed God, who taught them agriculture and advanced their culture dramatically. In 11,800 B.C., the hero Gahete of the Klemreskom, the People of the Fish-Eagle, was the first human to land on the island of Khokarsa in the northern Kemu. This island would eventually become the capital and hub of the great Khokarsan Empire. In the series, Opar is merely a mining outpost city in a much larger civilization created by Farmer.
By the time of Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar, the Khoklem had settled the shores of both primordial inland seas and founded the expansive Bronze Age civilization of Khokarsa. The Khokarsans had a written syllabary
, understood the principles of algebra
, employed catapults and Greek fire
, had an advanced navy of unireme, bireme
, and trireme
galleys, implemented a solar calendar
, and established a samurai
-like class of swordsmen called the numatenu who wielded iron broadswords.
The Khokarsan civilization was matriarchal
, with the high priestess of Kho serving as queen and controlling everything in the society but military, naval, and engineering sectors, these latter being under the direct jurisdiction of the king, the high priest of the sun god Resu. At the opening of the Khokarsa series circa 10,000 B.C., a power struggle between the priestesses of Kho and the priests of Resu has been ongoing for over 800 years. This conflict erupts into civil war when King Minruth IV refuses to relinquish the throne to the hero Hadon, whose victory as champion of the Great Games of Klakor should bestow upon him the traditional right to marry the high priestess and assume the kingship. Because of Minruth’s play for power, the thirty queendoms of the empire are thrown into a state of bloody revolution as the priests attempt to assert their newfound authority over the priestesses.
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
’s prehistoric fantasy novels Hadon of Ancient Opar
Hadon of Ancient Opar
Hadon of Ancient Opar is a fantasy novel by Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in April 1974, and reprinted three times through 1993. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977...
, Flight to Opar
Flight to Opar
Flight to Opar is a fantasy novel by Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1976, and reprinted twice through 1983. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977....
, and The Song of Kwasin (the Khokarsa series).
Literary Origins
Farmer has stated that he derived Khokarsa from Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa
An Inhabitant of Carcosa
"An Inhabitant of Carcosa" is a short story by 19th-century journalist, short-story writer and occasional horror-story author, Ambrose Bierce....
" (1891
1891 in literature
The year 1891 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Guy de Maupassant is officially diagnosed as insane.*Tristan Bernard has his first work published in La Revue Blanche....
), in which the narrator's spirit visits an ancient fallen civilization. Over time, Farmer states, the syllables of the name "Khokarsa" were transposed so that the civilization eventually became known as "Carcosa
Carcosa
Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" . In Bierce's story, the ancient and mysterious city is barely described, and is viewed only in hindsight by a character who once lived there....
." An examination of Farmer's notes relating to the Khokarsa series has indicated that he also drew on classical sources to create his fictional civilization, such as Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
' The White Goddess
The White Goddess
The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine, corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961...
(which inspired the matriarchal basis of Khokarsan culture), Jessie L. Weston's classic Arthurian
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
study From Ritual to Romance
From Ritual to Romance
From Ritual to Romance is a 1920 book written by Jessie L. Weston. The work is notable for being mentioned by T. S. Eliot in the notes to his poem, The Waste Land:...
(whose "freeing of the waters" theme influenced Farmer's conception of the downfall of Khokarsan civilization), and the plays of Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
(Farmer drew his depiction of the Khokarsan oracles directly from Euripides' description of the Oracle of Delphi).
Fictional History
The origins of the Khokarsan civilization date back to 12,000 B.C., as the Khoklem people were expanding over the northern shore of the Kemu (the prehistoric northern inland sea of Central Africa). At this time, a man known as Sahhindar, the Gray-Eyed God, appeared in the region and came to be regarded by the locals as the god of plants, of bronze, and of Time, reputedly having been exiled from the land by his mother, the fertility goddess Kho, because he stole Time from her. Sahhindar appeared and reappeared among the Khoklem over a period of two thousand years, teaching them how to domesticate plants and animals, mine copper and tin, and make bronze tools, as well as teaching them the concept of zero. By circa 10,000 B.C.10th millennium BC
The 10th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic period, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch. Agriculture, based on the cultivation of primitive forms of millet and rice, occurred in Southwest Asia...
when the Khokarsa series begins, Sahhindar has brought the Khoklem from the Old Stone Age
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
to the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
. “The Chronology of Khokarsa” addendum in Hadon of Ancient Opar hints that Sahhindar is actually John Gribardsun, the time-traveling protagonist from Farmer’s 1972 novel Time’s Last Gift.
Geography and Culture
The empire of Khokarsa was centered around the shores of prehistoric Africa’s two great landlocked seas, the Kemu to the north in the Chad BasinLake Chad
Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...
and the Kemuwopar to the south in the Congo Basin
Congo Basin
The Congo Basin is the sedimentary basin that is the drainage of the Congo River of west equatorial Africa. The basin begins in the highlands of the East African Rift system with input from the Chambeshi River, the Uele and Ubangi Rivers in the upper reaches and the Lualaba River draining wetlands...
. Around 13,000 B.C., a group of tribes called the Khoklem (the People of Kho) emigrated from the temperate savannas of what would later become the Sahara Desert after the end of the Ice Age
Quaternary glaciation
Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere...
, reaching the shores of the Kemu and pushing the Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
s and Neanderthal-human hybrids (the Klemqaba, or People of the Goat) to the south, and possibly assimilating some of them. Another group called the Klemsuh (the Yellow People) arrived in the area at approximately the same time. These peoples made livings fishing and hunting and gathering until the appearance of Sahhindar, the Gray-Eyed God, who taught them agriculture and advanced their culture dramatically. In 11,800 B.C., the hero Gahete of the Klemreskom, the People of the Fish-Eagle, was the first human to land on the island of Khokarsa in the northern Kemu. This island would eventually become the capital and hub of the great Khokarsan Empire. In the series, Opar is merely a mining outpost city in a much larger civilization created by Farmer.
By the time of Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar, the Khoklem had settled the shores of both primordial inland seas and founded the expansive Bronze Age civilization of Khokarsa. The Khokarsans had a written syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
, understood the principles of algebra
Algebra
Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
, employed catapults and Greek fire
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect as it could continue burning while floating on water....
, had an advanced navy of unireme, bireme
Bireme
A bireme is an ancient Hellenistic-era warship with two decks of oars, probably invented by the Phoenicians. It typically was about long with a maximum beam width of around . It was modified from the penteconter, a ship that had only one set of oars on each side, the bireme having two sets of oars...
, and trireme
Trireme
A trireme was a type of galley, a Hellenistic-era warship that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans.The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars on each side, manned with one man per oar...
galleys, implemented a solar calendar
Solar calendar
A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicate the position of the earth on its revolution around the sun .-Tropical solar calendars:...
, and established a samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
-like class of swordsmen called the numatenu who wielded iron broadswords.
The Khokarsan civilization was matriarchal
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
, with the high priestess of Kho serving as queen and controlling everything in the society but military, naval, and engineering sectors, these latter being under the direct jurisdiction of the king, the high priest of the sun god Resu. At the opening of the Khokarsa series circa 10,000 B.C., a power struggle between the priestesses of Kho and the priests of Resu has been ongoing for over 800 years. This conflict erupts into civil war when King Minruth IV refuses to relinquish the throne to the hero Hadon, whose victory as champion of the Great Games of Klakor should bestow upon him the traditional right to marry the high priestess and assume the kingship. Because of Minruth’s play for power, the thirty queendoms of the empire are thrown into a state of bloody revolution as the priests attempt to assert their newfound authority over the priestesses.
See also
- Opar (fictional city)
- Hadon of Ancient OparHadon of Ancient OparHadon of Ancient Opar is a fantasy novel by Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in April 1974, and reprinted three times through 1993. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977...
- Flight to OparFlight to OparFlight to Opar is a fantasy novel by Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1976, and reprinted twice through 1983. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977....