Tao-ZhengCulture Name: the Tao-Zheng culture
Mythos
According to the tales of the Tao-Zheng, in the beginning there was a family of gods, headed by the greatest god of them all, Chonshen, who was the god of Life and Death. He had two sons, Chon and Shen, quite obviously named after their father in his honor. Supposedly the binding of their names was supposed to bring them close together, but rather than that they ended up fighting non stop over whom of them was the better God. As the father knew that neither of them would ever be able to die as long as he was there, he let them settle their quarrel by themselves. Over time, the conflict grew as both of them gathered more and more of their children under them. The conflict grew more and more in strength, and the weather of the earth started reacting to the clashes and emotions mixed in this ancient conflict. Each time the spears clashed, thunder appeared. Whenever they were mourning for their fallen sons, it started raining heavily and the rivers flooded. And when the sun shone, the harvest was good and the people were happy, Chonshen had decided to revive the fallen sons of the gods.
After time, the sons of the gods grew weaker and weaker with every new born son or daughter, as the birth would never be able to pass along the purity of the parent. So over time, they waned in power more and more, losing physical strengths such as strength and agility, but also mental strengths such as intelligence and spirituality. They became more and more like mortals, even losing the lifespan of a god.
Chonshen had seen his mistake in not stopping the conflict when it started, as the world kept getting devastated and revived over and over, giving no time for progress. He delivered an ultimatum to Chon and Shen, telling them that they had to either stop fighting or take their fights elsewhere. But by now, the conflict and fighting had become inherent to their persons, and they gladly took the offer to take the fights elsewhere. Many of their sons, grandsons and further grandsons took their offer too, following them into battle every new day, fighting for their side of the family without even knowing the conflict. But some men and women stayed behind on earth, living after the ideals of Chonshen, and attempted to progress.
But some of the pieces of both Chon and Shen had still settled in these people and strife continued on earth as well and strong as it had with the gods themselves. Fighting and war, death and glory remained a part of the people that settled the earth, and while it wasn't as common as before it was certainly common enough. Every time the thunder from the battle of Chon and Shen cracked, men and women took up arms and fought rivalling tribes and villages. And as their powers were mostly lost during the birthing of the next generations, they found that Chonshen had stopped revitalizing and reviving the fallen soldiers. Battle had gained one more goal besides glory and that was survival.
The Tao-Zheng see themselves as direct descendants from Chonshen, the head god. They also seem to agree that they have lost the power of the gods due to breeding, but some claim that they can regain the power of the gods. The people that claim this seem to be mainly key-figures in society such as leaders and important roles in the tribes.
Due to them seeing themselves as relatives of the gods, they maintain the rituals and uses of both Chon and Shen. When the thunder cracks the sky, it is believed either Chon or Shen has struck the other with their weapons, and in response they take up arms to do battle themselves as well in the honor of the gods. It's not required to do battle, but at the very least it's important to go outside and cheer for the god you support. The god you support is mainly decided by your familyline, but since the two sides of the gods family always battle eachother, every tribe or village seems to support the same god. This results in village on village warfare.
At the same time, when it rains heavily and the rivers flood, they believe it's the time to mourn the losses they suffered in combat. They are typically mourned by sacrificing things to Chon or Shen. These things can be anything ranging from clothes and weapons to food and drink. Sometimes, if the food harvest was exceptionally good, a live animal may be sacrificed as well. When the sun shines exceptionally bright for a longer period of time, or the harvest has been exceptionally well, typically a great feast is hosted because it's believed that Chon and Shen have temporarily made peace. Usually this great feast is held at the biggest village or tribal encampment in the area, and the surrounding members are invited. It's custom to bring items to sacrifice to both Chon and Shen, and as a show of wealth, bringing a live animal along to sacrifice is considered to be an exceptionally good sacrifice.
In everyday life, the religion seems to manifest mainly in what the culture values most. Things that are valued seem to be physical strength, prowess in battle, your ability to provide food and for a woman, how many children you produce. Things that are said to be bad are backhandedness, in battle or in general, going back on your word or being treacherous, or being a leech on society. None of these are punishable, but they will land you at the bottom of society.
As not everyone can be a warrior in a society where survival is quite hard, due to the fact that life was pretty much about getting enough food for the day, the farmers are subject to different values. For one, the ability to raise good cows, pigs, sheep or chickens for sacrifice to Chon or Shen is considered a particularily good value. The second value is a good harvest, as a farmer with a good harvest will be prized by their village and earn a spot high in the hierarchy. These type of ''variants'' go for many roles in the village, for example fishermen will be prized on their ability to catch big fish, or many fish, while a forager will find himself being prized whenever they find a particularily large amount of forageables.
Women have a pretty interesting role due to the religion - since birth plays a big role in the religion they are expected to bear many many childs, and any woman that is unable to birth at all will generally not find many men willing to marry her. However they are not just expected to do just the birthing of a child, raising it and then having another child as soon as she can again. She is also expected to play her part in the village, and while this part isn't as big as that of the man, it's not uncommon for a woman to help fishing, farming or foraging. It's also not uncommon for female warriors to enter the battlefield, as it is believed that Chon and Shen have a preference for female warriors and will impregnate them with their own seed if they manage to survive. Therefore, any child that is born from a warrior woman is expected to be particularily strong.
Basic History:
Due to the religion they have, the Tao-Zheng people's history is one that is particularily bloody. The battles that happen are numerous and are often more like small skirmishes between two war parties than full blown wars as the Tao-Zheng people are quite tribal at this point in time, and have a very prehistoric setup, not even being unified yet into one nation. This results in a large, very large amount of battles each month, but these battles occur in in much smaller numbers than if some of the villages unified. Therefore it can be reasonable to say that there would be skirmish parties of about 40 men and women going out from a village, which would be high in population because of the focus on birthing for women, and if this were to happen for every village it'd be reasonable that there'd be about 125 clashes of these parties every time it thunders.
Recently, the amount of skirmishes seems to have dwindled which can be accounted to the fact that one side of this ''internal war'' is winning, as the followers of Chon seem to have gained in number over the years more than the followers of Shen. That aside, the Chon have been sending out larger war parties than before, claiming that they have failed to appease the gods enough and that the men and women of the Tao-Zheng have been growing weaker and weaker when they don't fight. To give a rough estimate of their gains, here's a view of their village counts, villager counts and warband counts over the years.
For Chon supporting villages, 40 years ago they had aproximately 30 villages, which held roughtly 500 people not counting children. The warband count was around 5 people during these times.
20 years ago, the amount of villages had grown only very slightly, due to existing villages focussing on gaining people and letting people leave to form their own village or tribal settlement wasn't a part of this policy. Therefore they had only 35 villages. These villages however had grown extremely well in size, holding roughly 1200 people. That comes down to a gain of 600 people over the course of 20 years. The warbands were typically around 15 people, but some villages sent out as little as 5 people who were to join a larger nearby village that supported the same god. Others would've sent out more than 25-30 people.
Now, the village count is slightly bigger ranging into the 50's. Villager growth has somewhat slown down, as it's getting hard for them to sustain that many people with the little area that they hold. Villager count is into the 1600's, and it's starting to get noticeable which are the big villages and which are the small ones. Typically these villages form alliances with eachother as they support the same god, but it's not entirely impossible for them to go to argue and skirmish. The warbands would've been averaged at about 20-25 people.
For the villages that support Shen, 40 years ago the village count was very similar to Chon, at a rough estimate of 25 villages. The villages were slightly larger, holding about 550 to 600 people. For some reason, however, some villages held back their warriors completely, giving an average of 2 or 3 people per warband. Since they had not yet started forming alliances at this time on both sides, these parties typically got slaughtered.
20 years later, due to losing most of the fights during the times before, the village count had only risen slightly. They now had about 27-28 villages, but the villager count remained at a steady 600 villagers. As you can see, this is way less than Chon supporting villages. However the reasoning is much different. Due to the losses they took after every time they got slaughtered, and the frequency of battle during a rainy and stormy period, with a lot of thunder, the amount of villagers was only still at 600. The amount of people fighting went up, due to the fact that they had to defend their villages, but since most villages had only 20 people, and some people weren't fighting, it still wasn't enough to gain an advantage over the other villages. The amount of losses was pushed back, but the damage was already done.
Now, they have around 30 villages and tribal settlements, and the amount of villagers has risen slightly to only 1000, and warbands typically number around 20-25 which is about equal to Chon supporting villages. However, the difference in villagers means that the Shen supporters are sending out valuable people that are supposed to tend to other tasks, such as farming to supply food, or hunting.
It's important to note that at the same time, Chon supporters have started trying to 'convert' Shen supporters, and have been seemingly effective in their approach. It seems that power is consolidating on the Chon side of this internal battle, and that centralized powers are starting to rise around their parts of the lands. It has been seen in the past that there were some powerful figures, such as Chon-tin, whose name comes partly from their god, who have tried to centralize power under their rule. Chon-tin was particularily effective because he stated he was the embodiment of Chon on earth, and thus used religion to gain an advantage. Many other village leaders and tribal heads flocked to his side, which consolidated the power of this man. His realm fell apart however, when he unluckily fell in battle.
Another particularily effective person that attempted to effectively centralize their power was a woman named Lao Tze, who used her prowess in battle to convince others to join her new tribal encampment, which quickly formed into a village. Soon enough she was the largest village in the area and started raiding, plundering and stealing from the villages in the area, even when they were supporters of the same god. This was the closest that anyone ever got to establishing an alliance where religion only played a minor role.
Material Culture:
In terms of architecture there is little to say. Their tribal ways have, for now, kept them mostly in huts that are made out of furs. However there's also the villages, which have more elaborate architecture. Here there are houses with a basis of stone, a foundation so to say. It's possible for the first floor to have stone walls, too, but this is reserved mostly for the richer people. For the poorer people, it's mostly walls made out of the planks that are cut from trees in the nearby areas, which give a light colored plank. For the most part, the cornerposts and whatever amount of wooden supports are made out of the log itself, maintaining a darker color than the planks, giving a contrast that is nice to the eye. It's not uncommon to smear plaster over the walls to give them a white color, however this is not necessary and is only done whenever the person living there has some extra trade goods to trade for this service.
The second floor is always made out of wood, even in richer homes. This is due to the labor intensivity of the rock building, which is at it's early stages, so there's no way to make real blocks of stone. The second floor is usually slightly smaller in size, with a door leading to a balcony readily accessible. The balcony will go all around the 2nd floor, giving it a tower-like appearance. There's generally no third floor for the commoners, only for the leaders of a village.
For the leaders there's usually a third 'tower' added to the second one. Alongside that, they have wall surrounding their house, which also acts as a sort of town hall. This wall can be anything from an earthen rampart, to a palisade, to a rock wall.
In the way of dress, it's custom to wear tunics of linen, with a strange habit having settled into this culture. The buttons holding the tunic closed are generally made out of the bones of your deceased parents, or otherwise of that of any deceased family if your parents are still alive. This is testament to the bonecarving that is prominent amongst these people. Sadly for them, however, there's been no real export as they haven't really met any neighbours yet. For women, it's generally considered 'rude' to wear anything but a fine dress in front of men, but there's been exceptions made for women who proved that they weren't 'fine' women, but instead remained true to the warrior side of the religion.
The color of your clothes is usually an indication to the layer of society that you are in, or sometimes can even point out your profession to others. Aside from the obvious, such as a butcherer having an apron of sorts, or a blacksmith having a set of tools on him, something as simple as a blue tunic can imply that you are a farmer. However this isn't true to every village, and is mostly reliant on customs of the area you live in.
As for art, their main source of art is bonecarving. Aside from that, they have some small bussiness making pottery, but most clay is being reserved for the making of bricks in order to make blacksmiths forges and other metal-working related buildings, since they have recently started exploring metalsmithing. Back to the bonecarving, the main creations are simple items like encarving the tusks of a dead elephant, creating pictures of anything that you can imagine on them. Some of the people in the Tao-Zheng culture also let bonecarvers engrave the bones of their deceased parents in order to honor their memory, and asides that they can create meaningful and useful items from these bones such as buttons for pants or tunics and other such items.
As it's still 4000 BC, they have had little chance to experience metalcrafting/smithing, but they are beginning to make some small progress but haven't got much further than attempting to discover how to smelt ores. That aside, the pottery bussiness is going well even with the lessened amount of clay available to them, creating many earthenware products that are both good looking and useful. Many of these pots are used in the kitchens to store stuff like grains and water in them. But also products like plates, bowls and sometimes even some earthenware vases, which can reach the size of a man or even higher in height. Often these vases are engraved by a professional engraver, who often works in close tandem with the potterer himself. They're treated more as the art itself, rather than the items in it. Therefore it's unlikely that they have flowers or any such things in them. The vases are generally the centerpiece of a house, or in case of a richer person, can be used as a big piece of decoration that shows wealth.
The less physical arts such as music, dance and even the 'martial arts' play a large role for the Tao-Zheng, being used for numerous things. For one, they are used to appease the citizens. Music is played using flutes made of bone, drums made out of wood, using darker planks rather than the light planks used in the housing, to make the base of the drum. After that a hide is stretched over the drum very tightly. The drums can be quite gigantic in size, or smaller. Sometimes a mandolin-resembling instrument is played as well. Generally there are 3 people playing the mandolin, 3 on the drums, and one on the flute. The drums play a part in war too, where they are used to motivate the fighters even more.
Usually the music is
calm, with moments of speed and adrenaline which represent the culture quite well. Sometimes, when the time is right, the music is joined by singing of at the very least a lady, and sometimes more than one lady. It's possible that in some cases a man joins the singers as well, but this generally only happens when there's 5 or more women singing, in order to bring in a different tone of singing to the table as women generally sing quite high pitched. The lyrics of this music are often about battle, famous historical figures or grand feasts that are remembered for their epicness.
The dances that are danced with this music are performed by women, in beautiful clothes which are bought for them by who ever hired them for the occasion. It's entirely possible that they dance naked, however, as being naked is not a problem for the Tao-Zheng culturally and might benefit the story telling that encompasses the dance, too. The dances are slow, matching the speed of the music. When the music speeds up, so do the women. There's always a story involved in the dance, so it's always about something - whether it be war, battle, political fights, or religious/historical happenings of importance. In that way, the dance is both a mix of theatre and dance.
The martial arts are considered a true art, and one of the highest form at that. It's said that the martial arts that the Tao-Zheng practice are derived from the gods themselves, and thus are the best way to both defend yourself, show others how strong you are and also show the most perfect beauty. Leaving the effectiveness of the martial arts behind us, you'll find many influences of the dance in the martial arts, as these too are often done to music, and match the speed of the music.
The symbolism for the Tao-Zheng is based mainly around people and battle. While the culture lacks any real big battles that are certain to enter the history books in a more modern world, the symbolism is actually based around these battles. While not focussing on an entire battle, often any symbol involving these battles focusses on one person and, mostly the positive feats they achieved in this battle, unless the symbolism were mocking the person in which case the person would likely be shown stumbling around, falling onto their own spears, or even running from battle. While it might not be true that this happened, this shows the usage of symbolism for the Tao-Zheng. It serves mainly as a propaganda tool to the rich, to show how good and perfect they are. And the enemy is usually portrayed as a coward, but there've been cases where they were portrayed as equally heroic, in case the person ordering it be made was less focussed on propaganda, and more on honoring the gods. However this is mostly not the case. The fact that they use this to spread positive feelings about the leadership throughout the villages, even if the info is false, shows that these people already have some form of knowledge about propaganda.
Society:
The way that the classes are structured is based on usefulness to the people - it may vary for every region but it's quite easy to set a general standard that may be varied for the regions.
1. The leader - this person is called the Chonshen-sho in most cases, the 'Earthly advisor of Chonshen' - a replacement of god on earth. He and his family are the highest rank of the classes, and generally have many fingers in many pots. However they are in no way centralized, and only manage their own village first and foremost. Centralization is not yet common place in this culture.
2. The diplomats, tradesmen and warriors - these people are considered most important to a village. The first two because they are what defines the influence of a village. A village that has many diplomats and tradesmen available is obviously both wealthy and influencial, so these men are considered to be equally important to the Chonshen-sho, only below him because of the hierarchy. As for the warriors, it's rather obvious - they are the ones who fight and thus directly show the influence of a village, while the first two only show the indirect influence of a village. For the Tao-Zheng, power lies in bloodshed. For that reason, it's not the diplomats or the tradesmen who are sent to convert villages to the other side of the godly war, but the soldiers. Because who can say no to a god, when his soldiers have shown that their god truly supports them.
3. Craftsmen, farmers, fishermen, supporting warriors and artists - as for the craftsmen, farmers and fishermen, it's obvious that they are what keeps the village going. A village can sustain itself even without a Chonshen-sho, without diplomats, trade or warriors, but a village needs craftsmen, farmers and fishermen to survive. For that reason they are important to the village and have a medium position in the village, even though their influence isn't that big. Supporting warriors meaning the people that support a warband whenever they march to fight, such as wardrummers, the people that carry equipment and food for the warriors, and others such supporting people are quite important too, seen as the people that keep a warband going and alive. The artists also have a favorable position, even though their tasks in society are considered to be.. less than crucial. It takes many years to become proficient at any of the arts, and you generally live in poverty until you truly master the art you wish to partake in. For that reason, they have a favorable position too.
4. Anyone that isn't listed before - hunters, foragers, anything else is generally considered trash of the society and probably doesn't live in favorable conditions at all. The only way for these people to become socially mobile is to learn a profession (which is quite unlikely) or to simply join a warband every now and then, and so become a warrior.
As for subcultures, it's probably easy to see what they are. There's the Chon supporters and the Shen supporters, who are quite the same. The only reason they would be listed as subcultures is because they like to kill eachother. Besides these obvious ones, there are some other subcultures in the Tao-Zheng region.
First, the most prominent one, is a rather tricky one as it's probably not a subculture. Rather it can be seen as the primary culture, who lives in exile. Many of the people have stopped caring for the Chon - Shen war, and only support their god because that's how it's been for ages. It can be said that about 98% of the people living in the villages feel this way, and the remaining 2% who are often the top ranking people in a village, such as the Chonshen-sho and the warriors, who maintain this system in place as it's where most of their power comes from. This subculture can be referred to as the Tao-Zhengists, people who believe that they should not focus on the godly families but rather the earthly families that have formed over the years, believing that everyone in the Tao-Zhengian culture is part of one family. People of this subculture have seen some minor outspokenness, but were met by a swift end as the warriors and leaders saw anyone that was against the religious fights as a heretic of sorts - they met a quick death. It's very likely to assume however that a power struggle will happen, and the 98% of Tao-Zheng population will come out on top, maintaining their likeness for war, bloodshed and martial prowess, however they will be much more centralized, forming several nations within their culture and coming much closer to an actual group of states as we'd know it rather than loose tribal alliances.
On the other hand, there is some other subculture who have a medium amount of followers. They are the Tongists, following the teachings of a man long dead named Tong-zha. They are a people who believe in a more monotheistic religion, and they believe that there is one, giant all-being creature who oversees everything. He controls numerous spirits that inhabit the world, but who cannot be seen. These spirits are supposed to collect information on all human beings to judge whether they are worthy of joining the all-being or whether they should be purged. Purging would mean your soul is crushed into nothingness, which is said to be extremely painful. The follower basis for this group is around 20% of the total population, and they are a large part of the Tao-Zhengists, too, forming the more radical outspoken group of these people. Besides argueing for the end of the useless bloodshed of their own people, they also argue for a Tongist religion instead of the Chonshen religion. It could be said that, if they follow through with the Tao-Zhengist plans to take over and centralize under a cultural banner and form nations, it's likely that the Tong-religion will take over as these radical members will probably be the first to take control.
Geography:
The area of this culture is focussed mainly on the bordering Shinchua river, which has created a natural border for the culture up until now. The areas to the North of the river are referred to as the Taotao lands, named after the man that had tried to move there with his tribe, and failed miserably. South of the river is the rich, bountiful flatlands called the Shonshin Kwan, which is divided into numerous regions. In the south eastern bit of Shonshin Kwan, there's the Tororo, where most of the Shen followers live. The territory of the Tororo has been shrinking as villages are being converted to the Chon side of the conflict. The remaining part of Shonshin Kwan is the Laoten Shoshi region, the region where the Chon villages have the most influence, and which is most bountiful in terms of land.
Local Influences: None yet, as they have no neighburs as of now.[/quote]
