Poswob Ethnographical Questionnaire

Poswob Ethnographical Questionnaire

Dr. Zahar’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.

The Poswob Empire (no native name yet, sorry :) is very large for its time period, about the size of the continental USA. However, Poswobs live mostly along rivers and lakes, with vast interior areas remaining essentially wilderness. Furthermore, the expansion to its present size was quite recent; previously the empire was mostly just the south coast of Rilola.

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

The Poswob Empire stretches from subtropical climates at about 25N (where the population density is highest) all the way to the glaciers of the Arctic. Also, there are settlements in high mountain ranges. Some of the islands along the south coast have maritime climates with little seasonal variation in rainfall or temperature, and thus would be considered "tropical" by most, though technically the correct classification even here is subtropical.

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

Not much. As said before, the empire is quite large, so it has experience with volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, floods, and droughts, .... but for the most part the humans have not settled in the areas that are most prone to these types of disasters. Even the hurricanes are not really much of a problem because the subtropical south coast is sheltered from the open ocean by other coastal areas that extend further south (granted, this didnt save Louisiana from Katrina), and the ocean water is not warm enough to allow the formation of a serious hurricane.

What foods are considered exotic or expensive?

Meat, of any land animal, is expensive. In the capital city of Blop, it is common to see the same vendor selling cooked fish meat for 1/10 the price per pound of meats such as beef and chicken. This is due to the cultural taboo/prohibition against killing animals, so that all meat has to come from animals that died of natural causes (though there are some quasi-domesticated "farms" the animals there are not raised in enormous groups the way they are in modern Earth societies). On the rare occasions when Poswobs do eat meat, it's always the muscles of an animal, never organs, eggs, dairy, or anything else. The same applies to the fish.

That said, the price of food in general is quite low; all adult humans are given a guaranteed minimum income of 135 bullaedža per day, which will buy a month's worth of even a relatively expensive meat such as pork, so purchasing food is not a problem for even the poorest humans. (In fact, I have to wonder if I've made a mistake somewhere, since it seems it would be impossible for meat to be produced and cooked and sold so cheaply. More later.)

Is there usually enough food and water for the population?

Yes, despite the very low level of technology, there has never been a famine in Blop or any other northern settlement, and famines in the more heavily populated southern states really just mean that people can't get the foods they want, not that they can't get food at all.

How do people travel from one place to another?

Mostly by boat, sometimes horses or camels can be used to travel over land.

Are the borders secure? In what way?

The Poswob Empire is pretty much undefended, because the population believes in a strongly pacifistic religion and political philosophy, but they don't have many enemies either. Most foreigners would rather enslave Poswobs than conquer them and disrupt their government. The Poswobs live to the east of another empire called Kuroras. They have signed a treaty which allows the Kuroras people to more or less slap them around and enslave them, because 4000 years ago the Kuroras warriors saved them in a war that would have brought them to extinction. This means the Kuroras people are a legally established permanent ruling class in the Poswob Empire, but on the other hand, the Kuroras people are responsible for protecting the Poswobs from other empires who would also want to enslave them. There are also limits on the powers of the Kuroras; for example, they cannot order an entire village of Poswobs to commit mass suicide or to leave their homes and give them to the Kuroras. Even slavery, in this context, has rules.

How many people live here?

The city of Blop has about 50,000 people; the whole empire is close to 1 million. Similar (I think?) to medieval Europe.

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

One could argue that all animals are domesticated, or that none are, because as said above the animals in this world have a level of sentience that is confined on Earth to just a few animals (humans, elephants, dolphins, arguably cats, dogs, etc)

Questions of Time

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

At least 8000 years, which isn't to say that they actually have access to any of the original historical documents, since they were living thousands of miles to the east at the time, and much of the land has flooded over.

How far back do its people believe it goes?

They have a calendar, so they know the exact dates of various historical events, but as I said, only if they've remembered them. Still, they know it is the year 8200 (roughly) and that the year 0 is when a great flood hit the islands of Laba.

What is the worst disaster they believe they've faced?

The day that they went to war against their own gods is the worst disaster they've faced, since hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed, and when they won, they still didn't defeat the gods and they had made a lot of enemies among other humans.

Who in the past is the greatest hero? The worst villain?

Probably Mappamensam, a woman who came from what was at the time a different empire to help them realize their religion was destroying their lives. They decided she must be a god. The worst villain would be Pespweb (Kuroras: Tū), the name of a Satan-like bird character who was a reborn human.

Questions of Sex and Family

How many spouses may a man or woman have?

Infinity, though in practice most men are monogamous because the woman is the head of the household and it doesn't usually work out to have two of them in the same house. Women are not prohibited from having multiple husbands, but this is even rarer than the opposite.

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

A religious court known as ????? decides this. There is a general distrust of single parent families, so younger children will usually be given to an existing childless couple, but older children are more likely to be able to stay with the mother. If the husband is given any custody it isn't considered a divorce.

How is adultery defined? What (if any) is the punishment? Who decides?

The woman in the relationship gets to set the rules for the man, and a religious court will handle the woman. There is no native word in Poswa that translates "adultery"; they had to loan it from Kuroras.

How are families named?(g) What happens to orphans?

Officially Poswobs have five names, but one of the five has fallen out of use since almost the whole nation was named Pusi. (That's where the name Poswob comes from; it was originally just a group of families who crowded out the others.)

How are boy and girl children treated differently?

Poswobs are feminists, so they prefer girls and generally girls have more rights than boys. Arguably, this is a result of the pacifist philosophy which makes military occupations essentially redundant and causes males to be seen as "less than" females since women can do anything men can do plus they can bear children.

Are premarital relations allowed?

Yes, subject to the same rules as "adultry".

How do people react to homosexuality?

Male homosexuality is forbidden, since it makes women redundant. Homosexuals who rfuse to get married will usually be enslaved or exiled from the cities.

How do the genders dress?

Poswob men very often have hairstyles that would in the modern West be considered girlish (Justin Bieber, etc.). However, they would never have hair that extends beyond the shoulders. Likewise, women would never have short hair unless they have a disease that is keeping them from growing long hair.

Nudism is legal everywhere but is seen as analogous to being "underdressed" in Western culture, so generally you won't see many naked people in public. In the northern states, there is a prejudice against fancy clothing, but there are a lot of hypocrites as well. Since the technology level is similar to medieval Europe, clothes are often the only way someone can show their wealth.

What professions or activities are considered masculine?

War and anything involving extreme physical exertion. But as said before, the Poswobs are such pacifists that they don't even allow hunting, and animals take care of most of the extreme physical jobs, so most men are working right alongside women. The economy of the city of Blop is almost entirely centered around animal breeding, which means that most humans are employed in feeding, sheltering, and cleaning up after various animals. But this doesn't apply to the other 90% of the empire.

What professions or activities are viewed as feminine?

Only a few things are exclusively female, mostly things to do with cooking or cleaning.

What is the biggest sexual taboo?

Pedophilia and incest, I'm sure.

What does this society mean by the word "virgin" and how important it it?

Virgins and homosexuals are considered almost the same thing, since homosexual sex to the Poswobs isn't really sex. They are both considered sins since a man's role in life is to marry a woman, and vice versa, although if someone is disabled they are not obliged to raise a family.

Questions of Manners

If two men get into a fight, how is this supposed to be resolved?

There are too many different situations to give this a clear answer. However, fighting is not illegal, even if it causes permanent injury, and if the loser of the fight tries to get a court case going against the winner he'll just be laughed at. Men are supposed to be at all times "ready to fight" unless they are physically disabled.

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

This is rare, but the same solutions given above apply here.

How do people demonstrate grief?

When a close family member dies, it is up to the head of the household to respond. Some people will handle it privately, visibly doing nothing at all, and this is not considered to be insensitive. Others will call for a funeral ceremony similar to those of the modern West, usually held in the local temple. Generally these are very upbeat and the speakers will talk about how the person is in Heaven even if they were known to be a very evil person.

What does this society do with their corpses?

Most are buried in graveyards, but it is not considered a taboo to cremate them or even in some cases to feed them to animals. The lack of taboo of feeding dead humans to animals is in large part tied to the religious belief that, after death, the human soul escapes its body and is not even human anymore.

What kinds of jewelry do people wear? And when?

None, the Poswobs are very plain when it comes to dress.

What happens to those suffering from extreme mental illness?

There are too many possibilities here to consider, though it's true that the Poswobs are more likely than modern Westerners to believe that demons (of which they have several distinct classes) are responsible for both physical and mental illness.

What parts of the body are routinely covered?

Nudity is allowed but generally confined to private gatherings at which most others are also nude. During the hot summer days (in the warm parts of the empire), it is common to see adults wearing just underwear, that is to say, the same clothes that in wintertime they put other clothes on top of. Since the Poswob empire extends to the Arctic, winter wear is very well developed, and can be very warm.

How private are bodily functions like bathing or defecating?

In the cities there are public bathrooms all over the place, but nearly everyone prefers the privacy of their own home (though the technology is not well developed; e.g. they don't have flush toilets or hot water or anything).

When and how does someone go from child to adult?

Generally when someone is married they're considered an adult, but many of the responsibilities which on Earth are associated with adulthood are in Poswob society given at the beginning of puberty, even if the child is only 11 or 12 years old. Most children do not attend school beyond the age of 10.

Questions of Faith

Is there a formal clergy? How are they organized?

Yes, religion is very important to the Poswobs, and their religion (Tarwataf) is the most organized in the world. (And probably more so than anything on Earth too.) That said, because the population is small and primarily rural, the size of the organized religion is small too, and though one might expect it, there is no one Pope-like figure in charge of it all.

What do people believe happens to them after death? How, if at all, can they influence this?

Tarwataf is similar to Abrahamic religions, in that it believes in a firm dual distinction between Heaven and Hell, and that Heaven and Hell are eternal. (see http://kneequickie.com/kq/Tarwataf)

What happens to those who disagree with the majority on questions of religion?

This is mostly done privately, since the religion is so integrated into daily life that even an atheist would still have to attend all of the religious rituals, etc, since there is no secular social gathering that could replace them. (Note that atheists in the strict sense are almost nonexistent, since many of the gods are physically present in the temples, and their existence is undeniable, but there are people who don't believe that these gods are deserving of worship, and more importantly, there are people who don't believe in the eternality of the afterlife, from which gods derive their power, or in an original creator god with the ability to defy even the rules of logic.)

What do people want from the god or gods? How do they try and get it?

Salvation and protection from earthly misfortunes such as disease. Most Poswobs believe that these things are earned through abstinence from sin, but there are many fine details which provide for the salvation of some extremely sinful people, and the damnation of some that are virtuous. Most Poswobs believe that at least some magic powers have been granted to humans by the gods, and are afraid of these magic powers because Poswob magic can harm the soul and not just the body.

How do their religious practices differ from their neighbours?

To the west of the Poswobs, there is a large Kuroras empire, which believes in various religions which are nevertheless closely related. The Kuroras people are simultaneously more materialistic and more ascetic than the Poswobs, in a way that is difficult to explain. They see the Poswobs as immoral for worshipping gods that take the forms of beautiful human women, yet they think that the Poswobs are foolish for believing that they have to abstain from all manner of sins in order to be saved whereas the Kuroras believers merely have to be loyal to their natio. On the east side of the Poswobs are the Sakhi/Thaoa people, who believe in religions that are closely related to Tarwataf but culturally different.

What is the most commonly broken religious rule?(i) What is the least-violated religious rule?

There is no firm list of sins in Tarwataf, as they believe that humans are given the power to define what is and is not sinful. Nevertheless, the Poswobs grew from a society with sincere pacifist beliefs, and now they have mostly become "lapsed pacifists" with more exceptions to the rules than one can count, in order that they be able to live in a cold climate and defend themselves from animals and humans.

What factions exist within the dominant religious institutions? How do they compete?

Different cities have different sects of Tarwataf, and this is done on purpose, but within each city they are given a monopoly. When someone moves from one city to another it is common for them to object to the new rules and try to explain why theirs is better.

Are there monastic groups? What do they do and how are they organized? How do you join one?

Most adults spend one month each year away from their families, in the temple, to receive religious instruction, but there are no people who live this way permanently.

How are those who follow different faiths treated?

There are not many examples of this; even immigrants from outside the empire are made to live essentially as Tarwatafs, and it's socially acceptable for them to explain that they don't really believe in the religion, as long as they don't try to disrupt anything.

What relationship do religious and political leaders have?

Usually the same.

What superstitions are common? What kinds of supernatural events/beings do people fear?

See the KQ article on Tarwataf; too much to explain here.

Questions of War

Who declares war?

War is rare enough that there is no established governmental organization responsibel for military affairs. In most cases when the empire is invaded the cities respond individually just as if the problem were a natural disaster or a legion of criminals. Howwever, as mentioned before, the Kuroras people who rule over the Poswobs are more alert to dangers and sometimes will send their own soldiers out to defend the Poswobs from an invasion before it happens. The Poswobs themselves are not obligated to help, but in most cases there will be at least some Poswob soldiers involved.

Has this society ever attacked another? Do they want to? What would make them do so?

Most Poswobs would tell you that their empire has existed for 4000 years without ever attacking or invading any other nation, and that they have always been the victim rather than the aggressor, and that they have survived and prospered even so. However, they have gone to war against rebellious groups within the empire, and some settlements that are presently part of the empire in fact began with Poswobs illegally immigrating to foreign nations and slowly crowding out the native population. (Though even here, none of these events were actually wars.)

Who are their enemies? Who's winning?

There is a loose organization of tribes called the Sakhi, who refuse to embrace pacifism and routinely make trouble along the Poswob-Sakhi borders. However, they don't get along even with each other, and have never been able to unite into a team and realize their goal of subduing the Poswob empire. Not to mention that they'd have to face off against the Kuroras and other allies of the Poswobs.

What do soldiers do when there's no war?

Generally, there aren't any soldiers. Even when under attack, the Poswobs will respond by just sending out whoever's free with no training and sometimes even no armor to fight off the invaders. Every now and then, an army of rogues from the Kuroras empire will ride deep into Poswob territory and locate an independent village and try to enslave everybody. Because they choose to focus on just one village, and because they are legally able to enslave the Poswobs simply because they're Kuroras, they usually get away with it and face no resistance. However, more often than not, within one generation the children of the Kuroras invaders will be too numerous to make the occupation viable, and either the village will convert to a Kuroras-majority with both Poswobs and Kuroras working in labor (even though the Poswobs usually work the least desirable jobs), or most of the Kuroras people will leave.