The Culture Column
Cuisine
Because of its height Wendeko Wando Dolkar effectively has a range of climates and so all sorts of food can be grown at this altitude and situation or that one. A grain-like plant called alao is one of the staples of the Arward Lartvoni diet after the potato. Unlike many other cereals it is an excellent and balanced source of amino acids and proteins, and on long trips Arward Lartvona eat "the mother of all grains" together with fat in order to have a complete diet which supplies them with all their nutritive needs.
Potatoes, of course, are the main food of Arward Lartvon and every meal includes it and every farm grows it. There are hundreds of varieties of the crop and even more ways to incorporate it into a meal. Sauces are made from an edible form of clay called dejton, as well as the entrails of the cas (which might be more recognizable by the name "guinea pig"). The cas is a popular source of food since it can subsist on table scraps and breeds extremely quickly. It is most often cooked by stuffing hot stones into the carcass (the preferred method for cooking many other animals too) and the entrails can also be eaten on their own instead of being prepared into a potato sauce. Casi are often made into strips of freeze dried jerky meat called ojojta lashorr.
Most kodra and even many erra will only eat little meat but that of the cas except in times of famine. Hunting rights are extremely controlled and bush meat must be exchanged for other forms of food so that it can be preserved and put in the dudanaja, where it will eventually find its way onto dardi tables as reaches the point where it cannot be kept from spoiling for much longer. Even farm-raised animals are often more valuable for the crops which they can bring in exchange than for the meat which they could provide immediately.
Arward Lartvon has access to large bodies of water and another common part of the diet is seaweed, which can be eaten either fresh or dried, and despite its commonality is not stored in the dudanaja in great amounts. It can also serve as a desert by being boiled in sugar, which is imported from foreign lands. Water also brings in much meat and communities living near such places are the exception to the usual rule on what kinds of meat one might eat. Limpets, skates, rays, sharks, mullets, seabirds, mussels, sea lions, dolphins, mussels, and abalones are all harvested regularly.
Frogs, caterpillars, beetles, and ants are also eaten and mayfly larva can be eaten raw or toasted and ground in order to make easily-stored loaves. On those days that the mayflies enter their adult stage they will be lured through special perfumes and caught and eaten en masse.
Chili peppers are common enough, eaten on their own or ground into a powder or sauce, and spicy-if-not-as-much chili pepper leaves are eaten even more often (being more valuable, it's often a better choice when you're a lowly kodr farmer to sell the actual peppers). Occasionally chili peppers are even made into a sort of jelly or used in drinks and many stuff the peppers with other foods.
Social and Military Organization
Arward Lartvoni society is heavily centered around the group, not the individual, and even in the arovtokrata the whole is greater than the sum of its separate parts. Without this mentality, in fact, it might have been harder to convince the other altlaorea to agree to the current system which governs succession. In other classes and situations, the dominant group is called the cowen, the doldu, or the arwad.
A cowen is a social unit among the kodra and comes from the word used to refer to a village's population, colenoswo. The men and women of a cowen keep most property in common and distribution of the cowen's production is determined by a council formed of darda and jasharra, the latter being a position granted to any member of the cowen over the age of fifty. Roughly meaning "old one," it appears to have links to the word arrar, perhaps hinting at a previous connection between kingship and old age. Cowena are usually organized along lines of villages or, in larger populations, neighborhoods.
A few items, collectively referred to as lrodatea, are allowed for private possession. These are almost never worth very much but are instead valuable only to the possessor. Most lrodatea are small carvings or other minor works of craftsmanship, usually given as gifts to a loved one, and whatever value a lrodate has is usually due to its craftsmanship (few problems come from someone having a supremely-valuable lrodate, though, since it's rare for someone to just sell the small sculpture which one's wife spent weeks, even months, working on).
Made up of erra rather than kodra, doldua are quite the same and also possess a certain amount of collectivism. Here, though, private property, even private property of great value, is more tolerated. An err must hand over four-fifths of his income over to the jasharra of the doldu, which uses this to provide basic necessities for the doldu's members, buy and maintain equipment which is necessary for the doldu's members to do their job and set up a reserve of funds in case of hardship. The dudanaja are in place for widespread shortages and while an smaller-scale deprivation might be given supplies, this will only occur after the cowen or doldu exhausts its own reserves, and only if those reserves are judged to have been sufficient proof that the continued shortages are not the result of poor forethought and planning. While in places with a smaller population of erra the doldu will be based on location, the doldua larger towns and cities will instead be based strictly on the exact trade of its members.
An arwad (not to be confusing with arward-with-an-r) is a group of twenty-three soldiers. While it can be broken up further into eleven-soldier jejana and five-soldier shawara, the arwad is considered to be the basic building block of the military and is where most social connections and emotional ties are formed (or have been formed already, since much effort is made to raise arwada from people who already are familiar with each other). Most soldiers are voldade and within this station are many different ranks and degrees of honor. A voldade can be more highly-lauded than the arwadaki shandoko because success and honors do not necessarily translate into promotion through the ranks. Success at one level, after all, does not necessarily imply the ability to succeed at the next level, and this is especially true in the lower ranks where a man might be able to conduct himself well or even command a few others, but could fall apart and fail if needed to command hundreds. Four voldadea are led by a larentjaol, who answers to an ajlo-lodar, and the two ajlo-lodar answer to the ovoa-lodar, who in turn will accept orders from the next link in the chain of command (the kalotaon, incidentally). When the arwad must split up, the three lodara attach themselves to jejana or shawara as necessary.
Love and Marriage
Marriages are arranged at birth and are made official and consummated at the age of fifteen (marriages are usually arranged between children in the same year, but if there's a difference, this occurs when the eldest becomes fifteen). As with other cultures with arranged marriages, love is not seen to be what leads to marriage. But it is not seen as being the product of marriage, either. Not even sexual desire is.
The cause for this is due to the collective rearing of children in cowena and doldua, which also includes the habit of having children sleep in the same building, called a shasoar, and other activities which intentionally or unintentionally tighten the early bonds between children. Either it arose because most people will have a child or two before setting out for military service (which they can hardly bring a child along on) or the timing of military service was not seen as terrible because of it, but regardless children in these classes- and most of the dard class, too, since it draws its members from other classes- are raised together from a young age. Unfortunately, everyone gets metaphorically shot by Edvard Westermark; without ever consciously realizing what's happening the children slip their peers into the "don't get physically attracted to these people" group. While the altlaorea marry outside of the close-knit groups they're raised in and so manage to avoid Westermark's bullets, they are subject to the same arranged marriages as everyone else.
Love is instead associated with short-lived flings. Travelers through the area (most often soldiers) and other strangers are very, very popular. Probably this is the cause behind the high tolerance which the Arward Lartvona have for infidelity so long as appearances are maintained and in higher-population areas where one could conceivably meet someone who was reared with a different group of children, most married people have a specific waotal, or extramarital lover. In the altlaorea and darena this is often the sibling of one's spouse (while sexual desire isn't as hampered among the nobility, the tradition of having a waotal is still present among them). People in smaller towns have to make do with attracting the attentions of travelers, unfortunately.
There are a few other traits common among classes besides the altlaorea and darena. Most of these lower-classed citizens have more difficulty forming deep friendships or to develop strong romantic relationships. Arward Lartvona display commitment easily with those around them (and indeed have very active social lives and a large number of casual friendships) and display passions with their waotala, but intimacy is far harder to develop.
Taxation
The jasharra of a cowen are in charge of collecting taxes, to pass them sideways to the local darda (who are often themselves jasharra or at least residents born into the cowen) who pass them upwards to the next-higher administrator. Erra are taxed in a different manner and must instead provide a certain value of goods to the government upon request. A blacksmith might be called upon to make a number of swords for example. After handing over these goods the erra will be given an amount of gold coins (or jarga) with the current year and the sign of the governor or another administrator. Should the err be requested to provide further service, but has already met his quota, then he can prove this by the number of jarga he has, and he will not be required to provide further services without compensation. At the end of the year, the err can return each jarg for a token payment (which is usually enough of an incentive that nobody needs to get imprisoned for hoarding jarga).
Altlaorea are the ones who receive taxes and are required to put half of everything which they receive into the dudanaja, which goes to feed the darda and the armies in times of plenty and absolutely everyone at all other times. The remainder is distributed between the members of the arovtokrat, including the king if he is part of that family. Darda and darena do not pay taxes and are fed, clothed, and housed at the expense of the government but receive minimal wages as a result. Those who are actively serving in the army do not pay taxes either.
Funerary Practices
The soul, or arow, isn't seen as being something which you house in yourself. It isn't even something which you have with you when you're first born. Instead, the arow begins to develop as you develop ties to physical things, particularly things which you yourself own. One of the most important things, then, after a death is, even before the cremation of the body, to take the deceased's possessions and throw them away in the hopes that the spirit will follow. Sometimes, however, the spirit develops an attachment to other objects, or even to people, which can cause long-term hauntings if not dealt with. On occasion an entire house has been burnt down in order to send the spirit away.
In addition to their duties to dispose of the arrar's corpse, the darena are in charge of casting away his possessions.
Next Month: Sometimes you don't need an entirely new culture. Sometimes there's something else you need dropped in, just a part of a culture, and next month you'll get treated to a new religion.
