SymNES II - Ash Like Snow

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Confirming Bessariondze, and lamenting the success of the proto-Ialian but noting there were no real alternatives.

Confirming Nengal, expressing satisfaction over location and color. Referring to own actions in third person present tense.

Pegi Rente CONFIRM'D. Didn't initially expect the societies to be this far-flung at the start, though it does make sense in retrospect.

Retroactive deletion.

Information gathered from the previous thread and updated in the light of the new data.

The Pegi Rente society is a clan-based one. The individual clans are large and tightly-knit. They have relatively little contact with one another, aside from a tradition of exogamy between different clans (and endogamy in the Pegi Rente world as a whole). That said, both the internal unity and the external isolationism are presently declining due to the expansion and the growth in both population and production. The economy of the clans is centered on animal husbandry, with farming on the second place. The importance of the latter is rapidly growing as well now that a large and fertile river valley has been overran by the spreading Pegi Rente clans.

The Pegi Rente worship the Uda Sebe gods, who personify various forces of nature. There are many gods, but the five most important ones correspond to the five celestial bodies that can be seen with the naked eye (Dilaca, the most important god, is associated with the Sun). The cults of the lesser gods are now decreasing in importance (with the exception of those that function as totems and so remain very important to their respective clans and somewhat important to their allies and trade partners), while the cults of the five celestials are steadily becoming both more influential and more organised, in part thanks to the growing contact between the priests of different clans.

Life Overview of an Alarkien

Early Alarkien society was based upon small villages, led by a single political, religious, and military leader known as the Alark'tangat, roughly translated as Person of the Balance. The modern name for the society is an elongated version of Proto-Alarkien's word for Balance, Alark. The Alark'tangat was responsible for the maintenance and leadership of the village. Anyways, before moving on to more complicated ideas about the Alark'tangat's purpose, we will first go through the life of an average Alarkien of the time.

Alarkiens would be born to parents that had been previously recognized as capable of child-bearing by the Alark'tangat; one of his purposes was to choose those who would be allowed to breed, as well as with whom they were allowed and when. This was utilized to keep populations generally stable to prevent the need for great expansion, as well as preventing the mixing of characteristics, as primitive Alarkiens were strong believers in the idea that children would adopt the mental and physical qualities of their parents.

The child would be raised by its parents and given no name. When it spoke its first word, it would be taken by the Alark'tangat to be taught language properly, as well as the traditions and customs of the village and society, which we shall come to later. This teaching by the Alark'tangat would continue until such a time as he believed the child was ready to move on. The child would be allowed to take its own name only when completing this course on customs and language.

As many as fifty children might be taught by the Alark'tangat at any one time, and they would live and sleep together in a building constructed for this purpose and be taught by the Alark'tangat when his time became available; the communal housing and identical teaching helped to build a strong sense of both community and common culture with other Alarkien villages, even though the people themselves rearely traveled. This was the first in a long line of apprenticeships through which young children had to pass before becoming adults.

When succeeding at their apprenticeship to the Alark'tangat and taking their first name, one of their choice, they moved on to be taught by the various adults of the village what was necessary for their life. This included various teachings on poisonous plants, assistance in harvest, and other basic tasks spread among the various necessities that were required for the village to function. There was no set order in which a child passed through the various apprenticeships, and no one adult was expected to teach more than one child at a time besides the Alark'tangat.

When the child had successfully passed each apprenticeship, he was not yet considered an adult. The next step was the assignment of a Hakamei by the Alark'tangat. The Hakamei was a position within the tribe that one would fulfill for the entirety of one's life, a custom that greatly increased specialization and perfection of tasks. The decision was reached by the Alark'tangat through a general assessment from the various apprenticeships through which the child had passed. Once reached, the child would take a second name based upon his Hakamei and be considered a full adult, fit to perform his single task for the rest of his life.

Hakamei ranged from farmer, to fisher, to hunter, to warrior, all essential positions that had to be filled. Hakamei made little differentiation between males and females, only between natures. It was considered an essential part of the Alark, or Balance, to maintain one's position, as the Hakamei was said to refine one's basic nature throughout life in preparation for death and rebirth. If one had performed one's Hakamei well, one might be reborn as a human with a nature considered slightly better; if one performed one's Hakamei poorly, than one might not be reborn at all, or reborn as some animal to repay through his short life the sin of damaging his or her village.

Anyways, to move back to the average life of an Alarkien at this time, when one had been given a Hakamei you worked on perfecting it for your entire life, doing few other non-essential tasks. While goods were not shared communally, but both poverty and wealth were considered damaging to the village as a whole because they damaged the quality of one's work. Working hard was considered a virtue, but the gathering of property was not.

Throughout one's life, one would go through a cycle of wealth and poverty because of the Hei. Hei were the traditional feasts hosted by a single person from a village who had amassed a great amount of food or other goods which could be traded for food. One would invite the entirety of the village to the feast, and all would eat until the food was gone. This ensured that no one became overly rich nor overly poor, but went through a cycle skirting with each.

No one person lost much because of Kapei'uerunta because others would hold Kapei'uerunta as well, repaying that person with a position of honor at their own Kapei'uerunta, as well as the best food. Kapei'urunta were also considered as a sort of payment that would further refine one's nature for the eventual rebirth after death.

After having lived many years, an Alarkien at this time would begin to decline and, once incapable of performing his or her Hakamei, would sacrifice his or her own life for the good of the tribe, generally by committing suicide or having another kill them. Upon death, the body of an Alarkien would be roasted and consumed by all, ensuring that no part of the body went to waste. The Alark'tangat would, at later dates, keep the bones for the fashioning of currency, ensuring the continuance of the barter and Kapei'uerunta system even with the invention of currency. The death ceremony was believed to help ensure rebirth as a member of the village, as no part of his body had left the village in any way.

Upon death, goods were distributed by the Alark'tangat to others of the dead's Hakamei. This was to ensure that tools were never wasted upon those who could not use them, and also greatly increased cooperation between members of a Hakamei.

Leadership, Expansion, and Travel

The leadership of the Alarkiens was limited to small villages, ruled by a single person, generally male: the Alark'tangat. However, leadership did its best not to stagnate regardless. When a child was given the Hakamei of Alark'tangat it would, after having passed all of its apprenticeships, be given food, water, and other supplies and banished from the village, never to return. The child would also be given records of the villages customs and any new discoveries, expansions, or other important events that had occurred since the last Alark'tangat was banished.

This child would wander until it found another Alarkien village or until it died. Upon finding another village, the child would find its Alark'tangat and make a gift to him or her of the recordings in return for further apprenticeship, which could last many years. This apprenticeship included extensive training in customs, conflict resolution, and the Alarkien's reading and writing system, which generally remained a mystery to all but the Alark'tangat.

Once such an apprenticeship was completed, one of two things would occur. The first, and more common, result was that the mentor would die or commit suicide so as to leave the village to his or her apprentice. In this case, the village would continue in much the way it had before, but with a new Alark'tangat.

The other result is that the older leader will decide to leave and found a new village elsewhere. In this method, the mentor would take one half of the people, provisions, and tools of the village and leave to found a new village elsewhere, with the hopes that the wisdom and stabilizing influence of an older leader and great amounts of resources would allow the new village to take root without many problems.

These various customs helped to prevent stagnation in leadership, as a sort of communication was constantly carried on; the changing leadership also assisted the Alark'tangat in remaining neutral arbiters in all disputes, as they would know not a one of those in the village they ruled from their childhood or earlier days.

Finally, we shall touch upon travel. Travel is generally only allowed in these very controlled settings, as it is considered an upsetting of the Alark, the Balance. In a great emergency or in the destruction of one village, a single man, generally the swiftest runner with great knowledge of the surrounding terrain, was given an additional Hakamei of Rabaer'tangat, or runner person. This honor was generally given to a hunter, and the purpose of this Hakamei was to move as quickly as possible in an attempt to spread word of disaster to other villages before it reached them.

Feasts and Gifts

Hei were ritual feasts that played an enormous part in Alarkien society. There purposes were many the greatest of which was, to many Alarkienae, the avoidance of both wealth and poverty among the various members of the community. Although private property was respected until death by the customs of the Alarkienae, the Hei often functioned as an early form of charity, ensuring that all would have food.

Another, more subtle, aspect to the feasts was the gaining of respect among those of the hosts village. A large, grand feast would be remembered for many years, possibly even recorded by the Alark'tangat; also, one who traditionally gave large feasts would receive more favorable seating at other's feasts.

Hoka, or gifts, often served a similar purpose to Hei and were given, great or small, at any meeting with someone not of your family. Often small gifts would be given, as meetings in the small villages were somewhat common and unavoidable. Often, the giving of gifts set the tone for the meeting, with the more powerful, wealthier person giving the other an extravagant gift, while the less powerful would give smaller gifts. Some gifts were even symbolic in their meanings, from aggression to affection.

The Hoka assisted in maintaining a fairly even distribution of wealth among the Alarkiens, as it was considered a grave offense to give a small gift when one was capable of giving a larger one; if someone weaker than oneself offered a more extravagant gift than your own, you would suffer great humiliation as the story spread. They were commonly presented at Hei's as well, making the feasts even larger and more important.

The Hoka were also used as a sort of payment to the Alark'tangat for his services. Alone of the Alarkienae, the Alark'tangat was capable of receiving gifts while giving none. However, a gift given by an Alark'tangat was considered the greatest of treasures, regardless of the actual value of the gift. The occasional Alark'tangat did, of course, corrupt his impartiality by this practice, but the mentality of the Alarkienae generally kept this corruption to a minimum and, even when it occurred, the corrupted generally measured all gifts based upon the wealth of the giver, ensuring a sort of fairness even within corruption.

OOC: A slight complaint. As you took the early application I posted, and not the later one, the name is spelled incorrectly. There is not a Ch or Ea sound in the Alarkien language. If you could change it, that would be much appreciated. If not, it is not of major importance.

Confirming Shaituhu.

Confirming Kalioko

Ardias is confirmed by me.

Tsai here!

I feel strongly compelled to note that "tsai" is how Chinamen in Russian jokes pronounce "tea". Please forgive me.

To make this less spammy - should we expect some kind of a guideline for orders soon?

Lurker's Comment: I'll be keeping an eye on this thread symph, we expect great things from you

And thlayli, I'm watching you.

Confirming my people. I'm going to play them like playing a few tribes/countries, I hope it will be good enough.

Retroactive deletion.