Civilization Building Essays

Eparkhos

Well-known member
Hello, all. Over the last year or so I've had a number of ideas for a timeline based on the emergence of an agricultural civilization somewhere within the desert west of the United States, most of which have quickly fizzled out but still bugged me in the back of my mind. I've written some essays summarizing ideas from the most recent go-around and will post them here to see if there's any interest in me expanding them to an actual timeline. Questions actively sought, but I should note that I've been working on this for so long there're some terms that only make sense to me. I should also note that 'Tsanwikan' correponds roughly to the Snake River Plain, and the 'Kawutsuk' to the Snake River itself.
 
Religion

Eparkhos

Well-known member
Religion


Nahanik religion and cosmology is extremely complex and intricate, but is a keystone of society and vital to the survival of its society and social order. Their cosmology is less important than its practical side, and so will be covered briefly.


The earth and the sun have always existed and always will. The sun is an immense lode of spiritual power (reflected as light in the material world) that became semi-sentient as Natanik, the sun goddess. The ideas within Natanik’s mind had so much spirit power that they became beings in and of themselves, the avatars of Natanik (kashunatanik). One of the avatars, Hakhinikt, created mankind and for this was destroyed by the other avatars, who envied him. Hakhinikt’s soul was split in half but survived as Tsakukts, the avatar of growth/harvest and Wukhut, the avatar of water and life, who together are the patrons of humanity. True humanity, that is, as the Nahanik are the only ‘real’ people, with all other nations created as half-finished imitations by the other avatars. Tsakukts and Wukhut are opposed by Tsatsikhuk, the Lord of Dryness, who wishes to destroy true humanity through invasion, drought and famine. Tsatsikhuk is much stronger than Tsakukts and Wukhut, and humanity’s survival can only be guaranteed by cooperation under the tsanwik (the reincarnation of Ktikamtuk, a demigod sired by Tsakukts and founder of Tsanwikan), sacrifices and living ‘pure’ lives to strengthen them and hold off drought and death.


The dominant forms of worship are practiced through folk beliefs and their evolution into the state religion. The aforementioned spiritual warfare between Tsatsikhuk, Tsakukts and Wukhut dominates the world, but on a more personal level the most common source of help are ancestral spirits. The Nahanik believe that the human soul is divided into two parts, one of which would ascend to the spiritual plane upon death and another which would remain trapped in the body, necessitating careful burial rights and death taboos to placate. The ‘ascended’ soul would fight the lesser ‘evil spirits’ created by Tsatsikhuk and the other evil avatars to protect their relatives and villages, and were strengthened through dancing and singing rituals and the ritual burning of pinyon. Also of extreme importance is ‘righteous’ living, which basically means being extremely scrupulous and wasting nothing, helping relatives and clan members and obeying the orders/duties of local and imperial rulers. Also of note is the caste system, which functions on more of a social than a spiritual level but still has a great deal of overlap, in which people bring benefit by following the duties of their caste and endanger themselves and their entire community by not doing so, expanding social pressure to conform.


On the village or city level, spiritual life is dominated by priestesses. The Nahanik priestly caste are exclusively female (or, on occasion, eunuchs) and continue themselves only through adoption. Many groups also believe that priestesses are reincarnated over multiple generations and in multiple families, hence the adoption. The precise roles of the priestesses vary greatly from region to region, rising from differing folk traditions and substrates, but generally consists of leading rituals (animal sacrifice, ritual burnings of pinyon and effigies) to ward off evil spirits and strengthen local ancestral spirits to bring benefit. On a social level, they are usually co-leaders of villagers with local headmen and mediate between clans and villages to maintain a peace and prevent intrusions of evil chaos. As priestesses are believed to be responsible for the survival and prosperity of their villages or towns, they are given a great deal of respect, but if they fail in their duties of ensuing good harvests and catches they are often lynched and replaced with adjuncts or ‘reincarnations’. The process of state creation coincided with priestly ‘stacking’, with smaller villages’ priestesses being hauled away to ruling cities to serve as spiritual ‘boosters’, for lack of a better term, for the spirit powers of the dominant cities, thus expanding their alleged power in the spiritual realm and increasing their power on the material plain by allowing cities to kill shamans whose lands rebel and thus leave them open to attack by demons of drought and famine, a very real possibility to the Nahanik.


The state cult is most powerful religion in Tsanwikan. The tsanwik, the sole male priest, is revered as the reincarnation of the demigod Ktikamuk, who had been given material dominion over all Nahanik by Tsakukts himself, with orders to maintain spiritual unity and order and to keep the armies of the barbarians at bay. Simultaneously, the tsanwik is the priest of priests, with every vassal city obligated to send their priestess to the imperial capital at Pahapkwik, increasing the spiritual power of the united empire and undermining any potential revolts at the same time. Through a complicated system of belief, all prayers among the Nahanik must pass through the tsanwik to reach the heavens and be heard by Tsakukts and Wukhut, so he has a reciprocal amount of power and influence, holding his subjects in mortal terror of being cut off from the benefactions of the avatars and being overrun by evil spirits and barbarians. Upon death, the spirit of Ktikamuk passes on to the next generation of tsanwik, ensuring that the providence of Tsakukts and Wukhut will forever be upon the Nahanik.


The exact beliefs of the system vary, but the overarching themes that are hammered upon by the imperial government are simple; do what the government says and you will receive good things. This, needless to say, is not a strong basis for a system of belief, and over the centuries a secondary code of conduct for righteous or ‘beneficial’ living has emerged, which is the prime spiritual influence for most of the Nahanik people and has broadly merged with the official state cult to produce something resembling a philosophical religion, called Sukishkahuk or ‘That Which Brings Benefit’, focused on doing good deeds, obeying the duties of one’s caste and making sacrifices to the ancestral spirits and avatars.


The largest spiritual tradition outside the state cult in Tsanwikan is Hashikhak, or ‘The Manner of Being’, which originated in the mid-10th century in Pentopotamia. Following general beliefs in a bifurcated soul, a priestess named Tsikntiwik began teaching that it was possible to ascend beyond the spiritual plane after death, joining directly into the spiritual oculus of Natanik and passing eternity essentially in catharsis (Not much by outside standards, but better than fighting demons for eternity). This could be done by transferring all negative emotions into the part of the soul that became trapped in the corpse, freeing the ascended soul to zoom on up to join Natanik. This in turn was accomplished through meditation, performing good deeds and brief periods of animalistic chaos, during which negative emotions were vented and positive emotions freed. This practice became briefly popular before being cracked down on by the tsanwik, who feared that the idea of souls ascending would weaken belief in ancestral spirits and thus their power. Tsiknitiwik was dragged to Pahapkwik and then sent over the falls with a number of her followers, but despite this Hashikhak survived in secret communities scattered across Tsanwikan and in many smaller communities beyond the edges of the empire.
 
Agriculture

Eparkhos

Well-known member
Agriculture / Foodways


Agriculture is heavily divided and varies greatly by region, but can be divided into four rough categories: husbandry, aquaculture, aquatic farming and terrestrial farming.


Husbandry is the least productive but most widespread, with much of the great sagebrush desert and vast tracts of land too dry, rocky or generally difficult to be farmed being grazed by vast herds of larger domesticates, while scraps and other detritus from farming are fed to kept populations of smaller domesticates. The main large domesticates are the Indian goat (from c.300 BC) and the domestic peccary (from c.800 AD), whose feeding patterns are greatly destructive and capable of stripping life from large amounts of land and are thus forced into near-constant migration, which in turn drives the lifestyles of many marginal and nomadic peoples in Tsanwikan. Their chief products are wool, milk and meat, the former being an important textile and the latter two an important source of nutrients, especially for infants and young children. The smaller domesticates are common but relatively few in species--the chief being Nahanik rabbit, domestic prairie dogs and Indian geese--and share the traits of being easily bred, raised and culled, being able to survive on scraps and marginal resources, and being an abundant source of protein through meat and eggs.


Aquaculture is common throughout Tsanwikan, clustering wherever water is available in significant quantities. The two most commonly farmed aquatic animals are the dwarf or domestic salmon and the brine shrimp, both of whom have extraordinary growth rates and a high ratio of food produced to fodder entered. Broad, shallow pits are dug along river-banks or in canyons and populated with roe or shrimp eggs, which hatch and are then fed with common pests or smaller fish until they are large enough to be harvested and eaten, their eggs plowed back in to the same endeavour. Aquaculture is the dominant source of protein in Tsanwikan, as the fast growth cycles of fish and the regular salmon runs make fish meat much more abundant than animal or bird meat, and the abnormal height and strength of the Nahanik can largely be attributed to this (relatively) high protein diet. Of special note is the annual salmon run, occurring for two weeks each August during which hundreds of thousands of salmon swim upstream as far as Pahapkwik (Shoshone Falls), during which time they are easy prey for fishers and trappers and thus provide a bonanza of food that often lasts beyond the winter.


Aquatic farming is also common and functions symbiotically with aquaculture and terrestrial farming. Fallow fishing pools and irrigation canals are sown with aquatic crops such as wapato, arrowroot and water amaranth that will sprout in their muddy bottoms before growing to the surface where they can be harvested in a period of months to years. This provides a food source that is insulated from frosts, droughts and other disasters that affect terrestrial crops, while also invigorating the surrounding water and allowing it to accommodate larger populations of farmed fish and shrimp. Generally, ponds cycle between periods of true aquaculture and aquatic farming to maiximize productivity and correspond with rainfall and water availability depending on the season. Due to their aquatic nature, many of these plants have limited yields, but their specialized niche and the ability to make double use of limited space makes them an important part of local agricultural traditions nonetheless. One of the most common textile crops, thule, is also semi-aquatic.


Terrestrial farming is the most common and most productive, but simultaneously most complex, sector of Nahanik agriculture. Due to the region’s geography of canyons, volcanic soil and marshes, arable land is relatively scarce and must be clawed into use through heavy use of intensive irrigation systems. These systems are complex--famously, hydraulic ‘ladders’ were built that could push water hundreds of feet up sheer cliffs, and mirrors were used to boil steam that rose from the bottom of the canyon to the surface before condensing--and required constant maintenance, which became the chief concern of every government in the region’s history. Once water was secured, vast networks of canals were dug to spread it and increase the amount of arable land, giving rise to the aforementioned aquatic farming. Terrestrial farming involved a diverse mix of crops suited for differing levels of irrigation that maximized every available area of land for food production. Sandrice, an important grain, and winterfat, a major textile crop, were both capable of growing on the sage tablelands completely unirrigated and thus spread around the edges of irrigation systems like the weed it was, providing both grain and fodder for grazers, while more water-intensive crops such as domestic amaranth and sedge nut were grown in carefully tended fields surrounded by canals and reliant upon man for survival. The most common, and indeed ubiquitous crop, was domestic camas or hapcamas, a biannual tuber that could grow in varied terrains, had a very high yield for the period and required almost no maintenance. Best of all, hapcamas harvests could be staggered throughout the year--it grew well in temperatures ranging from 10 degrees to more than 100--to provide a constant source of food. All of these crops had relatively high yields, as there was no room for fallowness, and even when soil exhaustion forced an end to planting, land would be turned over to grazing to allow it to recover. Everything that could be used was; even narrow rock ledges in the canyonlands were used for herb gardens.


Lastly, the products of the above-mentioned agricultural methods produced a great deal of food that in turn supported a population that was much greater than the region had any seeming right to support. Food storage was a constant difficulty for farmers and states in Tsanwikan, with many crops being inclined to mold or rot easily, subject to predation and robbery by wild animals or pests, or in hapcamas’s case had a tendency to turn poisonous with little to no indication if left alone too long. Two structures came to dominate food storage. In the plains, both high and low, tall platforms of mudbrick supported wooden granaries stocked with grain and tubers from all harvested plants, while smoke-pits were built to cure and store the meat of mammals and salmon alike. In the canyons, where land was at a premium, these structures were hacked into solid rock and kept fastidiously clean to prevent the intrusion of ‘rotting spirits’ tracked in by people or animals, and likewise stored grain, tubers and cured meat and fish. Such constructions were costly, and forced a centralized storage of food and resources that reinforced village-clan loyalty and the control the state established over its subjects with the maintenance of irrigation works and the practice of Nahanik ‘spiritual slavery’, forming a cornerstone of society in Tsanwikan.


In short, diversified agricultural methods allowed the Kawutsuk Valley and its tributaries to support a very large population through regular seasons, and even provide them with a relatively high nutritional level, while at the same time centralizing society and laying the cornerstone for state and civilization in the region.
 

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