User:Poswob

Neripi 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.

From their home city of Neripi, the Kurora people claim 97% of the territory on planet Teppala, but only have settled about 10% . Even of this, control is very weak outside the coastal strip from around 35N to 46N and 5W to 14E. This page is intended to deal with the people who live in the five coastal nations, but because they have spread themselvse throughout the empire as explroers, some info deals with the other parts of the empire as well. I will call this Goga for now (Kuroras for "core") but will almost certainly change the name later on. This was a name that was actually used by the natives at some point, but was primarily intended to distinguish them politically from the much poorer areas of the empire rather than being a cultural designation.

Like Pusapom, Goga (and hte Kuroras empire in general) is an interspecies society in which humans are just one of many civilizations sharing the territory. However, unlike Pusapom, interspecies contact is limited, so humans mostly live with humans and don't even see the firebirds, hedgehogs, wolves, and bears with whom they share their power on a daily basis. Part of the reason for this is because whereas Pusapom (or at least its capital, Blop) is in the nexus of the natural habitats of many different animals, Goga has a distinct series of biomes where the natural habitats of the animals dont overlap much. Apart from humans, who are adaptable to nearly everything, much of the territory of the Goga empire is uninhabitable for the other sapient species. E.g. firebirds can't deal with temperatures above 70F, yet there are areas of Goga where it is over 100F almost every day.

There are also dolphins, but they (obviously) do not come on land very often.

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

The climate of the Coastal Strip is much milder than the Poswob cities to the east. Average winter temperatures range from about 38F at the northern extremity to 55F at the southwestern border with Tšabas, and summer temperatures range from about 51F to 65F respectively. However, like the US Pacific, the cool summers are for the immediate coast only and it is much warmer and drier inland. Even just a few miles from the beaches, temperatures of 100F (in the north) and 110F (in the south) are not uncommon.

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

There is not much to fear in nature here. There are no volcanoes, no major earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no blizzards, no sandstorms, no hailstorms, no floods, and no mudslides. Even thunderstorms only happen once a year or so. The biggest threat that comes from weather is really the lack of storms (i.e. drought) that they otherwise depend on to grow vegetables. But even then, they're right on the coast and it's not hard to find fish in the ocean even when the weather is terrible. Nor would the people suffer from malnutrition if they were forced to live on fish for a year or two.

What are the most commonly-grown foods?

Despite the abundance of fish available to them, the Goga diet consists primarily of fruits and vegetables. Most of these are grown inland, where the climate is warmer and sunnier, and then imported into the cities which are just a day's journey away. The farmers who grow these foods generally are not as wealthy as the urban Gogas despite government subsidies. But they are wealthier than the people who live by themselves without the subsidies.

What are the most commonly-eaten meats?

Gogans will eat pretty much anything except humans. They will even eat the meat of animals such as dolphins which on this world are sapient and have civilizations all their own without any human presence. The other animals do not like this, and sometimes attack Gogans and other Kuroras settlements, but the Gogans are not pacifists and are well prepared for attack.

What foods are considered exotic or expensive?

Tropical fruits which cannot be grown natively (except in greenhouses with great difficulty). The Goga people prefer to buy from the Poswobs rather than the southern limits of their own empire. This is for political reasons; the other Kuroras peoples are a threat to the Gogas; the Poswobs are not. Some people own greenhouses in which tropical fruits can be grown, but this is both expensive and delicate, since the glass can easily be smashed, ruining the entire year's crop in one minute.

Is there usually enough food and water for the population?

The Goga people generally rely on food imported from places nearby, though as above, they could live on fish if they were desperate (indeed the poorer segments of society already do). This is because they are primarily urban and have reached a population density far higher than the land is capable of supporting.

What is its most valuable resource?

Metals to make weapons and other machines used by other nations.

How many people live here?

The population is about 1 million (human), divided relatively evenly between the five nations that make up the Goga Alliance. Within these states, the vast majority of the population is urban, and the inland wilderness is so thinly settled that many of the local animals dont even know that the humans are there.

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

There are no true domesticated animals in the Goga Empire, or for that matter on planet Teppala. All sapient animals are self-sufficient and will deal with humans as equals and not as "subjects".

Questions of Sex and Family

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

The Gogans use a patronymic system similar to that of Earth; sometimes both parents' names will be put into the surname if it is a large city where there might be a lot of people with the same name.

How are boy and girl children treated differently?

The Gogans overthrew a Feminist-Pacifist government long ago, and have since then seen feminism as a backward trait associated mostly with people who are just barely earning enough to survive. Thus to them feminism is "conservative" and masculism is "modern". Gogans are also highly individualistic, much unlike Poswobs who seldom talk about anything smaller than a nuclear family. Thus men are generally more powerful than women in this society, and as children boys are considered more important. Nevertheless, they are put through a much tougher childhood than girls because they are the ones responsible for defending the nation and cannot be "sissies".

Questions of Faith

What superstitions are common? What kinds of supernatural

events/beings do people fear?