Caamora is a Giantish ritual to purge grief from one’s soul by sticking selected limbs into the kernel of fire. As the skin and flesh - including body hair - of Giants can endure extreme temperatures, they suffer no physical harm in spite of the intense pain.
Donaldson keeps cavorting in his tub of double meanings and wordplays. Holding this detail in mind, the made-up expression could consist of several verbal building blocks. For instance, Gaelic gives us caa mora, “call a delay in bringing a claim”. Sadly, this does not leave the reader much wiser than a codfish left alone with a helicopter, so one must glance at some other languages. Ca amora, where the latter stands for “mulberry” in Portuguese, or might refer to something amorous, leads us to pursue different galaxies of meaning. Or then again, there's the Egyptian ka, the spirit staying alive after death, and the Latin mors, “death, annihilation”, which might bring the speculator nigher to any rational meanings, but then again, this might be a random string of gibberish that “just sounded cool” in the author’s echo chamber of ideas. Who kens? Perhaps he snickers at the baffledness of the analysis-manic fans behind a virtual reality bush at the very moment...
Description of the Ritual[]
Fatal Revenant is the first book to actually record a multi-participant purification rite since its invention in the 70’s. During the aftermath of losing two companions to grotesque, blasphemous abominations that probably were puissant and crepuscular as well, Rime Coldspray and her hird must scrub the blood away from their mental dancefloors. The event proceeds as follows:-
One of the Giantesses consecrates the ground by bowing to it, perhaps asking for the acceptance of the earth spirits. Thereafter, a large fire is built, and stoked up to maximal heat. Coldspray addresses the “fault”; how she is but a mere mistake-making mortal, and how she would both accuse and forgive herself. Then, the scorching of hands begins, and at the end of her ordeal her heart appears to be cured. The other Swordmainnir continue by telling each other tales of the fallen comrades and remembering both gladsome and dire moments, then taking turns at heating their hands in this unpleasant campfire--no marshmallow-roasting in sight. Buckets of tears and snot are shed, exceeding any amounts ever exuded by Linden. Akin to all Giantish events, it draaags and draaags on for decades till the Wildwielder and her companions have expired of boredom and turned into moss-clad mummies. Well, not precisely that long, but uncountable hours drift past in any case, during which the Giantesses appear unable to detach themselves from the ritual. Sometime later, they fall asleep and snore so ferociously that the ground trembles and little fuzzy forest critters whimper in fear in their hidey-holes.
{The last paragraph was probably typed by someone with no experience with grief or how to deal with it. Any similar such edits are probably by the same ignorant individual. That individual most likely needs to seek therapy immediately.}
During the First Chronicles, Foamfollower solo-caamora’ed himself after slaughtering scores of Cavewights, and later waded through the local cackling dark lord’s lava pool (seriously... who tutored Lord Foul in the arts of evil overlording? Skeletor?) which, aided by Covenant’s wild magic, scrubbed him spotless of all soilure. Female fans have regretted the lack of illustrations of his naked emergence from the molten rock soup (as long as it’s not the infamous Darrell K. Sweet with another green-skinned Shrek sporting a dislocated jaw...).
(tba)
The Last Dark includes the most bizarre example of mental purification. After losing a good half of the hird in a battle involving so many kitchen sinks its coherence begins to unravel, the distraught Swordmainnir broil their hands by clasping Covenant who has transformed himself into a flaming wild magic log. At one point, when he almost loses the control of his power, Linden intervenes and tempers the fire by embracing him, allowing the mourners to continue. Well, perhaps a hug-fire works as well, as long as the "logs" do not start snogging passionately and pushing wild magic sausages into the oven...