Chapter Twenty-Three: The Celebration Ceremony
The Bastitt Temple of the Holy Cat State is in the southwest corner of the city, of course, the entire temple and the Holy City cannot be compared, but it is indeed the largest and most luxurious temple in the border region, which is mainly Jet's masterpiece, of course, Menes is not so recognized, why is it not good to have so much money? Isn't it fragrant to have a variety of acres of land?
The villagers are not as free and easy as Menes, in their opinion, the gods need to be served, and they can get the blessings of the gods with a powerful, luxurious and beautiful temple, and they are proud to have face and security when they go there.
This kind of thinking is like building landmark buildings in modern society, we must build high enough, bold enough, your house has 100 floors, we need 200 floors, probably this is the truth.
The ceremony begins at the wharf of the Nunn River, where the lavishly decorated sun boat floats from the upper reaches in a pretend, and the priests of the temple greet the sun boat of the god Ra at the pier, and the god Ra is next from the ship, and the large palanquin carried by sixteen people is only prepared for the pull of the sun god plate on the head of the eagle-headed man.
The priests slowly placed the god Ra on the palanquin in the majestic and low music, and walked into the city with uniform steps along the avenue of the holy cat, symbolizing the advent of the god Ra.
At the gate of the temple of Bastith, Jett led a group of priests to welcome the arrival of the god Ra, and of course Menes must also stand there to greet the god Ra reverently.
The people of the city gathered on both sides of the temple avenue, and the flowers, green leaves, rice, and ears of wheat were scattered by the priests of the temple and sprinkled on the statue of the god Ra, and the people cheered in unison, fell to their knees, and shouted and prayed for the arrival of the god Ra.
Followed by the beautiful and graceful goddess Bastit under the care of the two holy women, slowly walked out of the temple, the holy cat goddess is beautiful and dignified, colorful, teasing the soup balls and spring heartbeat, taking advantage of Nana's excited arms to wave her arms, escaped, went straight to the cat-headed body of Bastitt, jumped to the feet of the goddess statue, very doting on the goddess's feet, made Jet off guard, for fear that the rice balls would do some indecent actions.
Nana was also frightened, but fortunately, the rice balls were very well-behaved, just lying at the feet of the goddess, enjoying the warmth, and the onlookers saw this scene and shouted loudly, "The holy cat goddess elf has appeared, the son of the holy cat goddess, the beautiful Bastith!"
The people regard the rice balls as the possession of the holy cat goddess, and they rush to worship, and the rice balls proudly enjoy the worship of the people.
The statue of Lord Bastith was carried by the holy woman to the palanquin of the god Ra and knelt down to greet the god Ra.
Jett walked over, brandished his magic wand, chanted words in his mouth, and with a wave of his hands, the statue of the god levitated, floating towards the holy cat goddess, and then a golden light appeared in front of him, and a low voice came from the depths of the earth, "Bastith, my child, I accept your hospitality, the door of the gods is always open for you, and the people of the holy cat state will be sheltered." ”
The onlookers buried their heads deep in the loess, not daring to raise their heads, and all the others bowed their heads and remained silent, waiting for the blessings of the gods, only Menes stared at the god with wide eyes in curiosity.
Menes had been here for a few months and had seen some of Jett's magic, but she was still not sure, was it really magic or if Jett could do magic?
Menes worshiped and doubted this unexplained and uncontrollable power, and could only accept it, hoping that she too would be protected by the gods.
The light disappeared, the crowd cheered and praised the gods, Jett slowly retreated into the temple, and the palanquin of the god and the idol of Bastith also returned to the temple, and Menes followed, in this sacred occasion, Menes seemed to have no status, everything was the gods first, and the priests were dominant.
The priestly ceremony in the temple is still going on, and the joy of the world has begun to enter the square outside, and the small merchants and vendors who set up stalls in the square early are shouting, and ordinary people have a rare opportunity to relax, so they naturally take the whole family around to play, and there are many teams invited to perform in the square.
All kinds of acrobatics, singing and dancing, and performing arts attract the public to stop and watch, and there are exclamations from time to time.
Children hugging their parents' thighs to buy snacks to eat are a time of joy all year round, but any parent who can come up with a little money will meet their children's requirements.
After the temple ceremony, Menes went to the platform on the second floor of the temple and exercised her rights and duties as a lord to announce the beginning of the grand feast.
The square was quickly emptied, and huge long tables and benches were set up, connected in a line, enough to seat thousands of people, and those who received the invitation today came to the scene dressed up, and those who did not receive the invitation could only lament the fate from afar.
There were also gifts for those who could not enter the center of the square to receive the hospitality, and the generous Menes prepared food and drink for everyone, and there were places along the main avenues to collect food and drink, which the people could go to collect free of charge.
Menes' kindness and generosity almost led to a tragedy, but Nacht arrived in time to bring the situation under control and there was no stampede, but the free supply of wine and food was stopped.
Menes sat on the steps of the square, Jet, Ipuya, and Nana all sat together, surrounded by the main nobles of the realm.
A nobleman whispered in the audience, "How can a slave sit at a table, and a concubine deserves to sit with his master?"
"What an insult to the dignity of the nobility!"
"How can my daughter marry such a nobleman!"
"You still want to marry Menes like your daughter, you think too much!"
"What did you say?"
The nobles in the audience were very dissatisfied with Menes' indulgence of Nana, but there was nothing they could do, anyway, did Menes do less than anything out of line?
Treat the untouchables as fellow villagers, the civilians as officers, tear down temple statues, eat well without hands, use two wooden sticks?
As a horn sounded, the scene fell silent, and Menes picked up her glass and said loudly, "Thank you to the gods for the harvest, thank the villagers for their hard work, please have a drink!"
There was a huge cheer from the audience, and the nobles also pretended to shout together, but the words of gratitude to the villagers were missing.
After months of on-and-off training, Menes' mummy is now a master of dancing, dancing to the sound of the drums, drawing bursts of applause and laughter.
Now Menes' mummies have shown their faces in front of the villagers, and even if the mummy goes to the street to buy things in the future, the villagers will no longer be afraid, Tang Yuan had a good time, and he also ran to the center of the venue to dance with the divine punishment mummy, and accidentally tripped over the No. 7 mummy.
The Dance of the Mummies ends, and the nine mummies return to Menes as bodyguards.
During the pause in the performance, the main nobles and representatives of the industry and commerce in the realm began to carry out the traditional allegiance ceremony, that is, the dedication, Menes actually hated the cumbersome ceremony, but Jett insisted on this ceremony, which was a thousand-year-old tradition, a necessary part of the harvest celebration, to take the opportunity to proclaim the sanctity of the lord's rule.
In this kingdom, vows are binding by mana, and vows made in front of the gods must be kept, or they will be punished by the gods.