Adapted from an article by Laura Reinhardt, research student at the Department of Textual Studies
Texts recovered from the Lye Planet describe symptoms common to both bacterial and viral diseases. Treatment, particularly in response to larger outbreaks, was often informed by mythological conceptions of the planet as a single organism, as exemplified by the practice of land treatment to fend off particularly aggressive contagions. Here is a quote from LPA419.440.26 on the subject:
The emergence of unwell bodies on the land must be countered by the unveiling of soil. Bury under the soil river stones; fire pit ashes; any circular whispers. Cross their bodies over the span of the unwell and once past it. Mark their position on the ground with other stones, not to exhume them while working for crops. And do not cease to tend them and disappear for grasping panic.
The placing of objects with merely ritual significance into the soil is not as naïve as readers might think. For one, the practice may have helped outsiders to know where an afflicted population was situated. The reference to ‘river stones’ possibly indicates that inhabitants understood the importance of water in treating and cleaning infection (sound treatments for the sick were widely shared, as numerous illustrated texts, instructing the preparation of medicines for a wide range of illnesses, can attest). Like many Lye texts, the folio is keen on framing its concerns within the context of communal responsibility: empathy towards all beings and a wider consideration for the unified world-organism as they conceived of it. The burials acted as a precursor to more direct applications of these dual convictions (as the final phrase in the quote above implies).
Nevertheless, there is no record of organised, mass quarantines or protective sequestrations in any of the decoded texts; this could be the result of a belief, partly derived from ritual land treatment, that epidemic diseases literally spread through the land, burrowing into the soil like viral molecules in living tissue. Given that a disease was taken to already be within the (world-)body, communities instead resorted to more dramatic forms of land treatment — the deliberate flooding of plains and the setting of large fires — but did so in addition to aiding afflicted individuals. Ironically, these dramatic actions probably did help to dissuade communities from mixing and prevented further outbreaks. What’s more, there is some evidence to suggest that inhabitants had reason to disregard the notion that infection was transmitted between community members, for it appears that many of their most severe diseases spread indiscriminately across species. Some of the most extensive outbreaks of these illnesses, for example, were preceded by a reduced crop yield, or in one case, a pronounced discolouration on the bark of local trees.
LPA640.321.53, one of the few pieces in the LPRU’s pre-Decline collection, describes the journey of two farmhands fleeing an outbreak of disease that has afflicted most of the living beings in their settlement. Believing that the sickness spreads beneath the ground they walk on, they are constantly kept on the move. Despite the farmhands’ dislocation, the themes of community and natural symbiosis so common to Lye literature persist:
Circling the hills, circling of the moons and the flow of red whisperers — Passing above their tongues red under grass — Their faces are not face-red, but flames, their roots and breath become flame-red — When they were not brought back to their stems we crossed over — At river partition we slept well beneath two trees but by dawn they had set fire – We fled in great bellows across a wide valley where the stems were all red — Later then dug deep into brown soil for traces of red where there were none — We were joyous, twined our bodies and branches lent in to our breath — Later then we rested
[...]
In the last circle his body gave in — A travelling guardian gave stone-oil but blankets of red held him on both sides — Hand in mine the wind and valleys bowing weaving breaths of dust I kissed him — Star-fire flowed into rivers — Rivers of red-flame air carried red into the bellies of mountains — Circling the hills, then as a stem, become riven
[...]
Far ahead they traced our stem with welcome bellows — Their roots are warm, they have given reeds to rest on — Later then the youngest nearly gave but sap revived him — Later then still, not stem-fire, but a true warmth from colour — Circles — Food now hurries to our table, leaves turn folding in dance in families’ orbit — I — Seeds then took to hills by our breathing — See that the trees are well tall and star-filled — At night the tall grass gathers his voices — Far ahead from here his roots will circle our markings — At sun’s unwinding — Later then his song will weave wind colours at our threshold