Moonshine Ethnographical Questionnaire

Dr. Zahir’s Ethnographical Questionnaire was compiled by David Zahir to help in the description of concultures, and can be found in the files section of the Conculture group at Yahoo.

Questions of Place

Describe the geography of where your society calls home.

Moonshine is a very large empire, comparable in size to modern Russia or Canada plus Greenland. Most of the territory is very cold, with only a few areas having average temperatures above 50F. Surprisingly, most Moonshines live in the colder areas, and survive by eating fish.

Describe the climate your society deals with. How severe are their seasons?

Average temperatures range from about —9F in central Xema to 51F in the vineyards of the extreme southwest. As a general rule, winters are not fantastically cold, it's just that summers are short and barely get above freezing in much of Moonshine's territory so there is no growing season and even pine trees have difficulty growing up.

What kinds of natural disasters has this society gotten used to?

There are very few. They have no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no floods, no mudslides, and heavy snowstorms are rare.

What are the most commonly-grown foods?

Most vegetables are imported from the Poswob empire to the south. Natively there is only meat and fish. Seaweed grows in the oceans in many areas, but is not commonly eaten. Likewise, there are some fruits that can grow well even in places like Safiz where summer is only about 55F, but these are generally left for other animals to consume.

What are the most commonly-eaten meats?

Fish. A lot of dead animals are gathered up, especially penguins, but this is due to scavenging rather than hunting.

What foods are considered exotic or expensive?

Anything from far away. Surprisingly, pineapples and coconuts are able to survive the journey from the tropics, because they are among the hardiest of fruits, and therefore they are more common in Moonshine than temperate things such as apples and oranges. Also, the central part of the Moonshine Empire is physically closer to the Poswob and Pabap heartlands, where many tropical foods can be found, than to areas with more temperate climates because those are much further west and east. (The intermediate strip of territory between the Pabap tropics and Moonshine is not ideal farmland.)

What forms of alcohol are common? Rare?

Alcohol is also almost entirely imported from Pusapom. Although there are some areas in the southwest that are warm enough to grow wine grapes, it is more difficult logistically to get the wine out of those areas and over the mountains into the rest of the empire than it is to simply ship it down the river from the highlands of Pusapom. So native Moonshine wine is generally consumed near its site of origin. Other forms of alcohol are not generally consumed at all, atlhough apple cider is common in apple growing regions during the harvest season.

Is there usually enough food and water for the population?

Yes. It would be difficult to conceive of an event that could change this. Some humans do starve, but it generally is because their entire family has become disabled in one way or another and they can no longer fend for themselves.

What resource is it most lacking?

Fruits and vegetables. Even before Pusapom arose to help them out, though, Moonshines were already living in arctic climates and eating whales and dolphins while consuming no vegetables whatsoever.

How do people travel from one place to another?

Mostly by boat, sometimes by riding animals.

Are the borders secure? In what way?

Most Moonshine states are either islands or defined by other water boundaries. THis includes the external boundaries. Most of the land boundaries are with Pusapom states which would have no reason to invade nor would they be able to do any damage, as Pusapom is primarily a victim rather than an aggressor. The only potential hostile border states are in the far west, in Goga, and even here, the people are more afraid of Moonshines than vice versa, as they have much more to lose in a fight of any kind (wealth, property, food) than the Moonshines who generally come with no possessions.

Moonshines are aggressively intolerant of all non-Moonshines, even in some areas outside their empire. Several hundred years ago, Moonshines claimed a large area called the Crown in central Pusapom, and have ruled out all Poswobs even from that Poswob territory. Also, the state of Wawiabi in the Poswob Empire is divided into two districts, one purely for Moonshines and one for everyone else, including a few ethnic Moonshines who do not mind living with foreigners. Even though Moonshine depends on trade with the Poswob Empire for much of its food and wealth, the Poswob Empire allows Moonshines to kill any Poswobs who venture into Moonshine-occupied territory unaccompanied by Moonshine guards. Foreigners other than Poswobs are generally treated much more harshly even than this, even if they are from territories officially allied with the Moonshine Empire. Because Poswobs are ethnically diverse, however, sometimes even Poswobs can come into suspicion since there is no way to identify them for sure just by sight. (Though there are some body types that only Poswobs have, there are many body types that Poswobs share with non-Poswobs due to fairly recent cultural assimilation.) The most hated race is the Ogili, from whom they have conquered much land. But the Ogili still control the vastly richer territories along the west coast of Goga, climatically similar to Oregon and California where Moonshine territory is climatically similar to northern Canada and Greenland.

The Moonshine intolerance of outsiders has actually gotten stronger over time as their empire has gathered power, but in some areas the people interpret it to mean merely that Moonshines must live in their own villages rather than clearing out the entire nation of all foreigners. So in the state of Sàfiz, they were able to peaceably become a majority simply due to their high birthrate and the fact that Sàfiz at the time was in an empire which had many better places to live. Thus they slowly drove out the previous Ogili majority. A few politcal refugee groups have come in which arent historuically Moonshine, but are not expected to stay.

How many people live here?

Probably about 250,000. Almost half of them live in Safiz, which is the warmest state. However, with varying definitions of "Moonshine", the population can also vary. Note that there are about 4 million Poswobs, so Poswobs outnumber Moonshines 16 to 1.

What are the most common domesticated animals here? And what are they domesticated for?

As elsewhere, there are no true domesticated animals. Moonshine speakers consider themselves to be the equals of animals such as penguins, snowwolves, and dolphins, rather than the masters of them.

Which animals are likely to be pets? Which ones won't be?

There are no true pets, just as is the case with the rest of Teppala, because animals are sentient.

Questions of Time

How far back does this society's written history go?

Moonshine is a very literate society, and has preserved written records going back to their foundation around 3700 AD (present day is 8700s). They have records even older than that, but they do not consider themselves to be a survival of any of the older cultures they split from.

How far back do its people believe it goes?

Same.

What in their past makes them proud?

The fact that they managed to survive as a nation that rejected the traditional male power structure and developed into a nation where women are in control of all affairs and men are so phyiscally weak that they cant even protest their inmferior positioin. And that they not only survived, but propsered. Although they are confined to the coldest climates of the world, they tell them selves that this is a good thing because cold weather is where humans belong.

What are they afraid of happening again?

Although the Moonshine people are proud of their ability to tolerate extremely cold weather, to the point that it makes little difference whether it is -40F or -140F, they know that their climate today is much warmer than it was thousands of years ago, and do not want it to revert to the ice ages as this would likely kill their food sources, even the ice fishing industry.

What do they assume the future will hold?

Despite being pacifists, many Moonshines want to control the whole world. They are making long range plans for things to happen several thousand years from now which no presently living person will ever experience. Some want to overcome the world peaceably, others plan to allow at least some violence. Note that Moonshines are aggressively intolerant of any foreigners of any kind in their territories, which is unusual on this planet even in the most warlike nations, and so the primary objection to those Moonshines seeking more land is the assumption that it would lead to the killings of tens of thousands of previous inhabitants. In the past, territorial expansion has been mostly peaceful, with violence occurring only when the other nation first attacked the Moonshines. And this in turn has been mostly on land in which the Moonshines had had a prior claim to settlement, even if they were not politically united at that time.

And again, many Moonshine people believe that the human race is long overdue for a cataclysmic war of all "tall-female" tribes versus all the "tall-male" ones, and that Moosnhine will have tro abandon their own allies sucha s the Poswobs to fgight this war. They say some Poswobs will survive, and will prosper because they will be able to take over the tropics, but they themselvbes do not want Pswobs in their army.

How has this society changed? Do its current members realize this?

In the early days of Moonshine, the people were a traditional human society in which men were taller than women and had most positions of power. Today women are much taller than men and have most of the powerful positions in society, though it is not as lopsided towards females as it was in the opposite direction 5000 years ago. They speak lovingly of "the Great Conspiracy" (where "conspiracy" represents a word difficult to translate), which was the event that caused the early proto-Moonshines to switch from being run entirely by men to being run entirely by women in a relatively short time.

("We did this to put /us/ in control", etc)

Do people think the present better or worse than the past?

Mostly better because the situation has been gradually improving over the past 5000 years. However, on shorter time scales, they are losing out because neighboring countries are becoming rich and Moonshine isn't. THey believe they should stick to their own frigid homeland and consider people who leave the nation to settle in tropical or even temperate climates to be traitors.

Questions of Sex and Family

How many spouses may a man or woman have?

Moonshine is a female dominated society with women in control in all spheres of public and private life. But while polygamy is allowed (in both directions), most marriages are monogamous. When polygamy does happen, it is usually 2 wives and 1 husband, and both wives must be familiar with each other from before the marriage.

Who usually takes custody of children if a marriage ends for some reason?

This is decided on a case-by-case basis. Usually the woman is given full custody, sometimes shared custody.

How are boy and girl children treated differently?

Girls are prepared for leadership roles and boys are prepared for subservient roles and/or physical labor. The education system is weak, but this too tends to favor girls as they are required to have broader knowledge than boys by the time they are teens. Boys, however, generally learn just one subject and learn it deeply.

Unlike societies such as Pusapom where women are also much more powerful than men, in Moonshine it would be difficult to argue that men still have the better life despite it all. Although most women have jobs on their own in the public work force, their husbands are required to pay for them if they choose not to. (This is in contrast to Pusapom where women are not paid at all because they are considered part of a team with their husband, and therefore can only work in the same job their husband has.) However, unmarried women do not have any such benefits, which is partly why most women marry in their teens and have many children.

During pregnancy and early child-raising years, women are not expected to work. This means that families generally get poorer when they are pregnant.

It could be said that there are two types of men: strong and weak. Strong men have a personality similar to men in the Ogili Empire, meaning they see physical strength as good and achieve thus by embracing the personality traits of wild animals. Yet they consider themselves at all times inferior in social status to women, and loyal to the woman to whom they are married. They are proud of their bodies and many women prefer "strong" men despite the social power strucutre being extremely skewed in favor of women. "Strong" men (perhaps called harč) are typically superior in physical strength to the average woman.

The "weak" type is small, delicate, and easily dominated by other people. This is considered sexually attractive in Moonshine culture. They are stereotypically prone to believing that they are so weak that even going outside is dangerous, and therefore are not actually seen in city centers very often. In recent years, the submissive male stereotype has had added to it the stereotype of being a good student, because of the much greater time spent inside and their lack of interest in physical exercise. This was not true in the past because for most of Moonshine history, the only education was religious, and that was delivered almost exclusively to females. "Weak" men (perhaps called pàp) are typically inferior in strength to the average adult woman.

Note that the terms harč and pàp both mean "penis", but are ultimately euphemisms, as even the famously impudent Moonshines would not go around calling the entire male populatuon of their nation "penis".

Although women in Moonshine have a large range of personalities just like women anywhere else, it is considered inappropriate for them to be needy and helpless unless there is a medical problem making them such. They are supposed to be self-reliant.

Are premarital relations allowed?

Yes, and to the point that a marriage between two virgins is very rare. When an unmarried woman is pregnant, she will go on leave from her job, and her boyfriend will pay for her needs and is expected to marry her. If he is already married to another woman this is not an unforgivable taboo, but can cause severe problems with both relationships if the two women are not willing to live together.

How does your society define incest? Rape? How do people react to these?

Male-on-female rape is rare because of difficulties of anatomy, and when it does happen it is punished less severely than anywhere else. Male-on-male rape is the most common form. When prosecuted, it is often referred to euphemistically, as if the man being raped had only been beaten up or wounded, as the penalty for this is quite severe on its own. Female-on-male rape is generally not acknowledged either, instead defined as a generic domestic abuse situation, since it mostly happens with married couples.

What secret vice is believed to be widely practiced?

The Moonshines are angry that other tribes such as the Ogili are allowed to exist. They have sexualized the anger in the sense that a woman who has sex with an Ogili man is considered a criminal, because it could lead to the Ogili genetics getting into the Moonshine gene pool. This is enforced eve noutside of Moonshine territory. Not surprisingly, women who do this are kicked out of Moonshine society but generally welcomed in Ogili society, which has had the effect of making the edges of Ogili terriroy more like Moonshine,m which softens the gradation between teh two in favor of Moonshine. Moonshine would be expected to lose territory by bleeding it out into otehr nations, but this doesnt happen ebcause of the jigh Moonshine birthraster.,

Some people belive that if a Moonshine spends too much time in the sun, they will turn into a foreigner. i.e. that Ogilis etc are just Moonshuinbes that have had too much sun exposure. This means that those peple, if moved to the cold north, would turn into Moonshines. However this never happens because the Moonshine majority would not tolerate even just somneone living in Moonshine if they are a foreigner.

Since many Moonshine women do prefer tall men, those who live outsider the Empire and are exposed to foreigners often marry foreign men. Moonshine men are small both comapred to their own wmen and to foreign women, so there isnt much difference in playu there. As said above, though, since almost all mixed amrriages take place outside the Moonshine territory, Moonshins itself is not hurt by the outamrriages.

What secret vice actually is practiced?

Moonshine people pride themselves on the fact that due to their anatomy, women experience little pain during childbirth and do not have to worry about rape and sexual assault from men that live among them. However the result of this is that Moonshine men are disproportionately likely to rape other men or children instead. Male homosexuality is legal and widely practiced, but men still rape men at the highest rate in the world.

What sexual habits are widely believed common among foreigners?

Stories have circulated in the tropics about an icebound land where women are strong and violent and men are their helpless slaves, and any foreigners visiting Moonshine are likely to be familiar with this legend. So to the Moonshines, any society where men are not confined to subservient roles is foreign. However, due to their geogrtaphical isolatiuon and the lack of unique natural resources, very fdew foreigners ever visit Moonshine. Those that do are mostly northern Poswobs, who are anatomically similar to the Moonshines and thus have no unique sexual habits.

If anything, Moonshines would likely believe that foreigners' sexual practices are too bland rather than too diverse, and that Moonshines are the ones who get the most enjoyment from sexual activbity. THis is due to the Moonshines' awareness that dpesite the extreme homogenity of their empire, they are rare in the world for having their women much taller than their men, and thus seem "exotic" to everyone else.

How do people react to homosexuality?

Male homosexuality is more widely practiced here than in most other places, and is not generally associated with increased prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases because there are very few such diseases in the first place. Gay marriage is legal and is rarely even questioned. The only disadvantage for a gay man is that by not marrying a woman he and his husband will have inferior legal status — not because they are gay, but because they don't have a female in their household. Very few homosexual men will marry a woman simply for this legal advantage, however. The percentage of men who marry other men is roughly 13%, though many of these have either married a woman or had an extramarital relationship with one. M-M-F marriages are unusual and almost always consist of one man married to both of those others (MMF), not the woman married to the two men (MFM), although both are legal. "Triangle" marriages are illegal.

Male-male relationships are commonly made up of one harč and one pàp, respectively "top" and "bottom" in English. The harč is usually much taller than the pàp. This is so common that exceptions to the rule are stigmatized even among other homosexuals. Note that both types of men are often attracted to women, though as above, it is abnormal for them to both be married to the same woman while also being married to each other. The harč and pàp roles are used in heterosexual relationships, too (see above); which leads to the perception among some outsiders that 70% of Moonshine males are gay.

Female homosexuality is common as well, including marriages with no male in the household. If they want children they are legally allowed to have sex with a man from anotehr family and not marry that man. However that man will not be responsible for financial assistance raising the child either. The percentage of owmen who marry other women is about 7%, though this does not include "threesomes" where a man marries two women, and those two women consider themselves married to each other. If they were married, it would be a triangle marriage, which is the only form of marriage which is illegal. However, it is legal for a woman to marry both a man and another woman (MFF), as long as that man and woman are not already married to each other.

Thus Moonshine is the most tolerant major society in the world regarding homosexuality of both sexes, to the point that homosexuals are arguably better off than heterosexuals. Yet they still believe, all in all, that heterosexual couples are the ideal, and blame some of the societies around them for having even greater incidences of homosexuality. The paradox is explained by the fact that Moonshines do not blame the homosexuals themselves for being such.

How do the genders dress?

Men and women tend to dress similarly. As in Pusapom, women almost always have long hair. Men have short hair, but often in hairstyles that would elsewhere be considered feminine. Dyeing of hair is appropriate for both sexes but the necessary requipment is difficult to afford.

Like the Poswobs to their south, Moonshines are very cold-tolerant and not very heat-tolerant. Even 55F can be considered "hot". Moonshine people tend to wear lighter clothes than might be expected for their climate, and to seemingly ignore severe weather altogether to the point of doing business outside during a major snow or rain storm, wearing no boots and carrying no umbrellas. But bright sunshine is tolerated; people make no effort to protect themselves from sunburn.

During above-freezing weather both sexes wear "pants" that essentially resemble underwear, similar to e.g. the Depend diaper ads showing adult women wearing normal shirts but only a diaper underneath. And os it could be said that Moonshines dress for cold rain the way everyone else dresses for 100F with hot sunshine.

Women are more likely to talk openly about embarrassing bodies, e.g. "hold on I need to go to the bathroom" than men are. In Poswob culture, both genders are like this. Despite women appearing to be in most ways the stronger sex, they do not feel shame in admitting thatthey are controlled by hormones.

Is prostitution legal? How are prostitutes viewed? Is this accurate?

Most women are married by the time they are 18 years old, and some are married by 13, so most prostitutes are married as well. In this case, it is the husband (or wife) of the woman who is expected to complain in court, not an outside police force. Prostitution is otherwise legal, though not very common. It could be said that Moonshine is a sort of sexual utopia where even peopple who are unattractive or mentally ill are usually married because the society exerts strong pressure on both men and women to be married early and reproduce often. There are few men who "can't find a woman" or women who can't find a man. Those few that do exist are given little sympathy even if it is obvious that the source of the problem is a chronic disease which no one would want to take financial responsibility for.

What professions or activities are considered masculine?

Physical labor and anything dangerous such as hunting fish far out to sea. Although most of the Moonshine territory is icebound year-round, due to the nature of water currents, as is the case on Earth, open water exists even in -55F weather in the coldest parts of the empire. (See wikipedia:polynya.) Thus fishing is still fishing, it does not require penetrating huge blocks of ice or anything like that. Men prefer to hunt cooperatively, each helping take down one single big fish, rather than splitting up and individually taking home a bunch of little fish.

What professions or activities are viewed as feminine?

Leadership roles and education, and anything involving care of children.

What inanimate or sexless things are considered male or female?

Moonshine evolved from a language with a gender system, but has lost that system apart from a few relic words which are not seen as gendered any longer. Due to the extreme compactness of the grammar, speakers often omit even non-grammaticalized gender information, using words like h "human" and žṿ "dolphin" for everyone.

The parent language, Khulls, already had lots of short words that were homophones. The other daughter languages abandoned these or confined them to compounds, but Moonshine perversely made all the other words short and polysemic as well. Although it is, of course, possible to disambiguate meanings by using synonyms or compounds, Moonshine remains the only language in the world where a sequence like hà can mean both "Why did you leave?" and "Because of the kids!"

Questions of Manners

How do younger adults address their elders?

There are no different forms of speech in Moonshine; like Poswa, it is hard to even tell from the written word alone whether a toddler or a lifelong scholar is speaking.

If two women get into a fight, how should that be resolved?

Note that in this society, from one end to the other, women are much taller than men. Men have more muscle despite being smaller, so the two sexes are about equal in terms of physical strength and endurance. But it is commonly assumed that women will win a fight with a man even so. Thus a man attacking a woman is seen as no more unfair or criminal than the opposite.

What kinds of jewelry do people wear? And when?

Like the Poswobs, Moonshines see jewelry and body piercings as wasteful. In fact most cultures throughout the entire planet are entirely without jewelry and mostly without cosmetics, the only exceptions being the Bé people living in the Sakhi empire and some of their neighbors.

What parts of the body are routinely covered?

As above, skimpy clothes are the rule. Breasts and buttocks are the only body parts routinely covered. The Neamaki people, a subgroup of the Moonshines, are always naked when the weather allows for it and sometimes even when it doesnt. However, this is a political refuge group, not a tribe belonging to mainline Moonshine culture. The Neamaki consider themselbes to be feral and non-human and reject clothes as being an adornment the way mainline Moonshines reject jewelry and cosmetics. Since they live in cold climates just like the other Moonshines, of course, they must sometimes wear clothes as well, but they keep it to a minimum.

How private are bodily functions like bathing or defecating?

They think that in the future there will be a race og humans that does not have "potty problems" at all and that people should live as if they were that, without going to stuch an extreme as to physically harm themselbes. Menstruation is im portant, e.g. they invented tampons, and have been searching for something better.

Questions of Faith

What superstitions are common? What kinds of supernatural

events/beings do people fear?

Questions of Government

What are the most common or dangerous forms of criminal?

Violence is rare, but it is still, of course, the most dangerous. Much more common is theft, primarily of food supplies, which generally are stored outside the home. The coldest areas of the Empire are in some ways the richest, because every human family, and sometimes every person, has their own underground warehouse in which to keep food supplies. The temperatures here are very cold, so the food will not spoil even if left for a long time. In warmer areas of the empire, only refrigeration is possible.

Questions of Education

Does this society have its own language? Its own writing?

Yes, Moonshines have been literate for more than 5000 years. It is a rare example of a language spread as the dominant language across a society so large that most people will never travel from one end of the empire to the other. Unlike Poswa, which is spread over an even larger territory, there are no suppressed aboriginal languages whose speakers only learn Poswa to communicate with the outside world. Moonshines themselves are the aboriginals, and they maintained a single language even as they grew to enormous size.

Partly this is due to water being the predominant means of transportation, both of people and of goods, and the fact that almost all Moonshine settlements touch the sea (and those that don't are always on rivers.)

How common is literacy? How is literacy viewed?

Moonshine's alphabet is simpler than most on this planet because it is a true alphabet rather than a syllabary. This is necessary because of the very large phonology and relatively free syllabel strucutre. e.g. 5 consonants in a row is not terribly uncommon. It is the sort of language where many words have alternate forms for no apparent reason, such that the word for "purse" can appear as pìlg, ṗʔśh, or ṗàśh with no change in meaning.

What form and value are books?

Some paper is used, but mostly things are written on more durable materials such as wood and stone tablets. Symbols that were carved into mountains thousands of years ago are still visible, and these have become the names of those mountains (the name of the picture, not the picture itself, as Moonshine does not have logograms.)

Are foreigners ever brought in to teach new skills? Who does that?

Moonshine is the purest empire, with almost no foreigners anywhere. Non-Moonshine people are not allowed to move to the Empire, and most are not even allowed to visit. Those few that do exist are essentially all Poswob who are sometimes considered Moonshines even though assimilation is also illegal.

Ironically Poswobs, who claim to be the world's softest people, inhabit Safiz in great numbers, where they serve in the state military. Here they are considered Moonshines by Ogili, which means they have legal privileges the other Ogili people do not. However, nearly the entire state of Safiz is Moonshine now, so they are simply elevated to the status of their neighbors, not above them.

How do this society's doctors try to treat wounds and sickness?

Moosnhine is definitely the medical champion of the planet, to such anb extent that cold weather is associated with being healthy. Poswobs surround Moonshine territory in most directions, and thus have borrowed their medical terminology mostly from Moonshine. To peoples even futhger south,. it is the Poswobs that seem like an entire nation of PhD doctors and pharmacists, but really, essentially all of their power is from Moonshine.