DIRK-1
Recording P-002 [Transcriber’s Note: Most pauses, mis-speaks, mispronunciations, and occurrences of “uh,” “um,” and “you know” have been edited out.]
Dirk: So, to review: What’s the name of this House?
Rowan: House of Dog.
Dirk: That’s right; and the name of the House over there?
Rowan: House of Falcon.
Dirk: And down Falcon River, to the south?
Rowan: [Thinking] House of Porcupine!
Dirk: No, they’re to the north, along with Badger and Hedgehog, and I haven’t told you this, yet, but House of Fox. A little one—a mini-stronghold—but Fox even so.
Rowan: [Indulgently wide-eyed] Wow!
Dirk: That means a lot to you, eh?
Rowan: [Nods guilelessly]
Dirk: So, to the south?
Rowan: Uhhhh, House of Monkey!
Dirk: [Chuckling] No, it’s not House of Monkey. House of Whale, remember? And a real small House of Cat branch. A “fragment,” they call it.
Rowan: Fragment of Cat?
Dirk: Yes. No; they still call it House of Cat, even though it’s a fragment. I suppose, well, I don’t know whether it’s officially something like Fragment of House of Cat, or just House of Cat. Maybe it is Fragment of Cat; I’ll have to ask.
Rowan: What’s the biggest House?
Dirk: The biggest house? That’s a tough question, because, well, it’s a tough question for several reasons.
Rowan: [Helpfully] When I ask Mind a tough question, he starts asking me questions.
Dirk: Yeah, people don’t like to admit they don’t know things. Just say, “I don’t know,” it’s no big deal.
Rowan: [Nods and waits]
Dirk: The first reason it’s a tough question is because nobody takes a census. Well, they do, but the way they do it, they just ask the Houses how many members they have; so they’re relying on the accuracy as well as the honesty of every single House.
Rowan: [Nods uncertainly]
Dirk: And that’s not good. As far as accuracy goes, I’m sure that some Houses just don’t care what their population, or member count, or whatever you want to call it, is, so never take the time to count it up, and others have incompetent administration, and probably mis-count their numbers. And as far as honesty goes, well, there’s not many honest people out there to begin with, and Houses have motives for misrepresenting their numbers. Like during a drought or something, the higher they say their numbers are, the more aid they’ll get from House of Leopard. See what I mean?
Rowan: Yes. No. Yes!
Dirk: Okay. The second reason it’s a tough question is that, well, what House is the biggest depends on whether you mean one stronghold of a house, or all the strongholds (or fragments) put together; and even then it’s unclear.
Rowan: Huh?
Dirk: Take House of Bear. They’ve only got a couple of places, strongholds, outposts, whatever you want to call them—they call them houses, but that gets confusing because then you don’t know whether they’re talking about the one place, or the whole House—the house or the House. But anyway, Bear’s only got a couple of these, but those two are quite big, possibly among the biggest individual outposts in all of Lenima. Whereas, well, House of Dog, here, this is a little place, but…
Rowan: [Laughing]
Dirk: Why are you laughing?
Rowan: Because you’re being funny. This is a big place.
Dirk: [Laughs] No, it’s really not. There’s 35 people here. Those House of Bear places I was mentioning, they have hundreds.
Rowan: [Laughing, and shaking his head] You’re tricking me!
Dirk: No, they really do. I’m serious.
Rowan: Really?
Dirk: Truly.
Rowan: Wow! 35 is a lot, though.
Dirk: It’s pretty small compared to those House of Bear places, and across all of Lenima, none of the House of Dog strongholds are very big, certainly nowhere close to as big as those Bear fortresses. But there’s a whole bunch of them, of Dog houses. There’s a conglomeration out west—there’s even a city called Dogtown—and there’s a conglomeration down south, and a smattering in between. So, there’s more Dog outposts than Bear outposts, but the Bear outposts are bigger, so the total number of Dogs versus Bears might be pretty close. See what I mean.
Rowan: Yes: eight times two is the same as two times eight.
Dirk: Hey, yeah! That’s great! There’s also the question of whether all of the strongholds of a House actually constitute a House, or not. It depends on the cohesiveness of the organization of the House. House of Dog, for instance, there’s no real relationship between us and the guys down south. I suppose if it came to a war between houses, which there won’t be because of House of Leopard, but theoretically, if it did, I suppose we’d band together, although I’m not completely sure of that, but as far as industry and agriculture goes, there’s no sharing of resources or bounty or even information as far as I know. Maybe if one stronghold has a really really tough year or something; but we have very little contact with them. So are all the Dog houses one House? I guess, but like with House of Cat or House of Tiger…
Rowan: Tiger? What’s that?
Dirk: Uh, I think this is one of those times where I start asking you questions.
Rowan: Okay, go ahead. I’m ready.
Dirk: I meant I don’t know. Remember what you said Mind does when he doesn’t know something?
Rowan: He knows it, he just won’t tell me.
Dirk: I guess a tiger must be an animal. Vonnae said she once came across a reference to a tiger in an ancient book, and it was referenced in the same place as a lion.
Rowan: House of Lion!
Dirk: Yeah, as in House of Lion—but we know what a lion is, it’s like a cougar, but bigger. You find them way out west sometimes, not around here. So she thinks a tiger is probably sort of like a lion. Most of the names of the Houses are animals, although there are a few I know of that aren’t, House of Bone comes to mind, and House of Rain, so it seems likely that Tiger is an animal of some sort. Same with Crocodile and Yak and Cyborg and a bevy of others that nobody knows what they refer to. I’ve scoured the library and I can’t find any trace of any of those words in any book except in reference to the Houses themselves. Those are all minor Houses, except for Tiger. It’s a great big House.
Rowan: It’s the biggest?
Dirk: One of the biggest. Yes, to get back to your original question, yes, as I was saying, like Dog, here, the affiliations between the different Dog houses is pretty loose; but like Cat, down the river, you know, Cat [pointing], they’re a tight organization. All the different Cat strongholds, and there’s not that many of them, but all of them, they’re interconnected pretty intricately.
Rowan: They share stuff?
Dirk: Yeah, revenue and like I was saying, the bounty, the resources, information, everything is divvied out in equal portions, or pretty much so, between all the houses—all the strongholds, even the “fragment” down there. And the same for Tiger, and Tiger has quite a few houses, and most them are big ones, too, so it’s a big big House. Maybe it is the biggest, I don’t know. From what I hear, in terms of revenue, Jaguar might be bigger, that’s another animal I’m not sure about, and Wolf.
Rowan: I know what a wolf is.
Dirk: Me too, that’s not what I meant. I meant like Jaguar, Wolf might be bigger than Tiger,
Rowan: Is there a House of Yelg Wolf?
Dirk: I don’t think so. At least, not that I know of. Who would name their house yelg wolf? Ha! So, to answer your original question, I guess I’ll go with, well, there’s one more thing I was going to mention, you’ve also got to consider alliances between Houses. Like the Houses of Squirrel, Rabbit, Chipmunk, and Raccoon have a longstanding alliance—so longstanding in fact, that a lot of the other Houses have a name for the conglomeration of the four, “The Underworld.” I think there are a few other tiny houses in the alliance, too. And any House is likely to form an alliance or an association with any other House, even now, with Leopard’s oversight. But I guess the Underworld isn’t a House, per se, so, I’d probably have to go with Wolf for sheer numbers, maybe Tiger for influence—other than Leopard of course. But I don’t know, and I might be way off. All the information I’ve gotten could be inaccurate; adults aren’t exactly careful about what they tell kids, you know.
Rowan: I could ask Mind?
Dirk: Would he tell you?
Rowan: No, he’d start asking me questions about what I thought the biggest House was. But maybe I could tell him to show me the biggest House, at the present time, and then I could describe to you what it looked like, and you’d know based on what it looked like which House it was.
Dirk: Hmm, that could work, I suppose, but I’ve never actually been…
[commotion in the background, long pause]
Dirk: We’ll have to resume this later. Adults think you’re a lazy bum if you’re not doing something that’s convenient to them, or producing something that is helpful to them.
Rowan: Okay.
End recording.