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 (known as Pusapom in the Poswa language) is very large for its time period, about the size of the continental USA. There are 26 states and over 100 "districts" of very uneven sizes (also much like the 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.

It should be noted that this is a multispecies planet, but the term Poswob refers only to humans. The different animals have overlapping empires of their own, some of which follow the humans' borders and some of which do not. Among the sapient species which Poswobs will encounter on a regular basis are: monkeys, firebirds, dolphins, hippos, elephants, hedgehogs, lions, tigers, and bears. Some of these names are only approximations of what the Teppalan animal looks like; for example, the Teppalan hedgehog is actually far larger than the Earthan one. In fact, in general, most of the sentient animals the humans meet up with are larger than humans. For their own protection, humans generally live with other humans (even if there are other animals living right nearby), and for the most part their life is not much different than it would be in an all-human empire.

Because humans are so small, they have been able to reach much higher populations than that of any other animal. For example, there are only 12000 elephants on the planet, and that is not due to hunting, but due to the fact that it takes a lot of land to feed one family of elephants, even without human agriculture crowding them out. This is one of the reasons for the success of humans, and also of the firebirds before them, firebirds being one of the few sapient animals with a smaller body size than humans.

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

The orbit of planet Teppala is considerably more eccentric than Earth's, which means that pronounced temperature differentials in seasons exist even at the Equator. To some extent, the precipitation also slows down during "winter". Also, the atmosphere has a five cell engine rather than the three cell model of Earth, which means that deserts tend to be thinner and in general less severe than those on Earth, enabling people to live almost anywhere. Nevertheless, there are some deserts, the largest and most inhospitable of which that is known to the Poswobs being found at the place where their continent (Rilola) is at its thickest, and is surrounded by mountain ranges on three sides, blocking out any moisture that would otherwise manage to survive the winds from the oceans.

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. Sarapom, a major city, has an average annual temperature of 64F (about the same as Savannah, Georgia). Yet, it is located near a high mountain range, so winter temperatures can drop very low, as low as -13F, even though the normal climate even in winter is quite warm. Further east, the average temperature does not change much, but the distance from the cold mountains increases, so cold waves tend to be much less potent. This southeastern plains region is where most of the "tropical" fruits such as pineapples and coconuts are grown.

The national capital, Blop, is located in a "temperate rainforest" at about 35N and near sea level, yet the average annual temperature is only about 55F and snowfall is frequent during the winter. Surprisingly cool temperatures, often 10F or more below those at similar latitudes along the west count, dominate much of the Poswob Empire, due in large part to the presence of a perpetually cold ocean to the north, in which icebergs can often be found at the height of summer at the same latitudes that further west experience temperatures of 100F or above. Meanwhile, during winter, it becomes the only ocean in the world that is colder than the land to the west of it. The reason for the persistence of cold in this ocean is that it is connected to arctic waters at both ends and there is no other outlet; it is similar to the Hudson Bay in Canada, which is similarly responsible for creating tundra along the coasts of Ontario and Quebec at the same latitudes which produce choice farmland only a few hundred miles to the west.

Some of the coldest permanent settlements are along trade routes in the northeast. Average annual temperatures here are right around 32F, with winter temperatures dropping to -50F or below. However, summers are surprisingly warm, with temperatures that even southerners would call hot being a common occurrence. The coldest city in the Poswob Empire is Bwemmis, located right at the toe of a glacier at 43°N (its name means "under the glacier"). It is only slightly warmer than the north coast of Alaska. Glaciers extend as far south as 37N in the highest mountains. Teppala, in general, has a sharper temperature differential than Earth because the summers are weak and that is what controls the melting rate of sea ice.

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 in the immediately adjacent sea of Laba. Thus, any hurricane to hit the south coast would have to form much further east and then zoom directly westward for over 1000 milse before making landfall. In the far northeast, every day is a natural disaster, since it hardly ever goes above freezing and the wind is constantly gale force, but the only reason anyone even lives there is because it's the easiest route to the east coast of Rilola.

Asteroid strikes are relatively common on Teppala, and indeed the national calendar is based on an asteroid strike which smacked into the equator and killed thousands of humans and millions of animals, and caused an extinction wave which both forced humans out of their old homeland and made the continent of Rilola less dangerous for them (previously, the number of large man-eating predators on the mainland was even higher). But even so, there has not been an impact of considerable damage in over 8000 years.

It should be noted that the continent of Rilola is much wider (east-west) than it is tall (north-south), which turns out to be a particularly mean curse for the firebirds, which are migratory. Thus the firebirds have to fly for thousands of miles along a twisty coastline just to get a few degrees closer to the equator each winter. (They cannot fly directly over the land without risking death from lack of food). Some firebirds choose to stay in the same place all year even if it gets very cold or very hot. These places are where few humans live, since firebirds eat humans.

What are the most commonly-grown foods?

Although Blop has decidedly a temperate climate, subtropical climates are only a few days' journey away, and many tropical fruits are carted in every day from the south coast to supplement the native crops such as carrots and apples. There are no domesticated grains, however, so a huge part of the diet of modern Earth is missing here. Nevertheless the "paleo" diet of modern Earth is not much different from what Poswobs expect to eat every day.

The south coast is just warm enough to grow the Poswobs' favorite foods, the pineapple (supfwob) and coconut (blumbia). Transportation to the national capital is easy although it does make the cost of the fruits significantly higher than where they are native. A pineapple sells for about 50 bullaedža in Blop, which can be converted (using a simplified cost-of-living index that just assumes 1 bullaedža = 10 cents) to $5 in modern US dollars. However the average adult in Blop only makes about 300 bullaedža a day, so generally these fruits are only seen at parties.

What are the most commonly-eaten meats?

Fish. The Poswobs (in every part of the empire) live near bodies of water which are heavily populated with large fish that never seem to die off. Anyone can go and grab a 200 pound trout and feed the whole village. Land animals, generally speaking, are both taboo and more difficult to kill.

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. e.g. a single banana costs as much as 3 lbs of lamb meat, and something like 50 pounds of fish. More later.) NOTE: More realistic figures I've been cooking up (LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!)lately show that the price of a pound of pork would be around 1400 bullaedža, almost 100 times higher than I had calculated previously, and thus unaffordable for nearly everyone. Note that these pigs, like most animals, are wild, so the animal must be tracked down, killed, rushed into the city at the maximum possible speed before the meat spoils, and then whaterver is unsold thrown out safely. Whereas before I was essentially just looking at transportation cost. So this is much more realistic.

Meanwhile, even with the new calculations, heavy fruits such as pineapples and coconuts still cost about 40 apiece, so they are expensive enough that people in Blop would eat them only rarely, but not unaffordable.

What forms of alcohol are common? Rare?

At least one wine (pietie) is known, but the alcohol content is very low. (The Poswobs are the sort of people that would invent fifty different varieties of the same item, so there should be all sorts of names of different wines, etc, but I haven't looked into this yet.)

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.

The available biomass of fish in the Rum Ocean to the north of Blop is approximately 300 times the food requirements of the human population there, even factoring in all the other animals that also need fish to survive; so if a "famine" were ever to occur, all they'd have to do is sail a mile or so further out to sea each week to get the fish they need.

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.

Where in this place to they congregate?

Pusapom contains many different cultures, each with different lifestyles. Pabaps are almost entirely urban, so in their territory there are large tracts of land with nearly no human population, or at least no Pabap population. They are entirely vegetarian, though, so they need to get their food from gardens. Thus the population density of the cities is surprisingly low. "Aboriginal" tribes such as the Manibians (actually two completely different tribes) are entirely rural, and even nomadic in most cases. Poswobs will live anywhere as long as there is water nearby.

What part of this place do they avoid? Why?

Weapons are illegal in most parts of the empire, so it is dangerous to go out into the wilderness since there are plenty of animals that prey on humans. After all, humans are the perfect replacement for the animals that died in the asteroid strike. But in the extreme north and east, it would be impossible to survive without hunting land animals, and so the people are allowed to have weapons. These territories were not part of the empire when the United Pacifist Treaty was signed anyway.

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)

What are the most common wild animals?

Wolves, bears, badgers, firebirds, hippos, hedgehogs, crabs, horses, cats, rats, rabbits, cows, lungfish, tetrapods, and dolphins. This excludes trivial answers like nematode worms, which of course outnumber cats by 923504576762395 to 1, and even middle size insects like ants that humans don't interact much with.

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. The year 0 is the date of an asteroid impact that crushed the tropical rainforest and destroyed food chains even far away. Since the Poswobs' ancestors were living in colder areas even then, they didnt know exactly when the crash occurred, but their calendar is of foreign origin.

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 gigantic asteroid smacked into 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 kill the gods and they had made a lot of enemies among other humans, since other tribes worshipped the same gods.

The asteroid impact has been mostly forgotten by now.

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. If a woman did have two husbands, and they had children, she would have to choose one to be the "father" and she would live with him, whereas the other man would have to just live somewhere else.

Who decides on a marriage?

The parents of the bride can object but have no formal legal authority to prevent a marriage, particularly since the bride is likely not to see them much after she moves out. The parents of the groom may not even be in regular contact with him since he has been living in a cabin since he turned 10.

Can a marriage end in divorce? How?

A woman can divorce her husband at any time for any reason and keep all of the property. The husband has no say in the matter, nor can he divorce her willingly. But again, because women cannot earn money, a divorce almost always hurts the wife more than the husband, at least financially, since most people have few possessions and the woman will never be able to buy anything unless she remarries.

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

baslum perpup: A name given at birth, similar to a first name. Some teenagers will change their name if they dislike their birth name. This is called a pappi perpup.

pelop perpup: A name copied from the baslum perpup of the father of the child. Essentially a patronymic. (Note that the Poswobs, despite being ultra-feminists, are still patrilineal if not patriarchal.) Uses "child" case (not really a case, just an ending that behabes like one.)

lifa perpup: A previously existing name that marked out genities of the people, and everyone had to marry outside their genity. Exceptions for the ruling class and the ultra-poor existed; the Poswobs are descended from the ultra-poor. The names were traditionally based on colors, and everyone had to wear only that color (though, to make it more practical, the colors were mostly confined to underwear, since it was cheaper to make small garments. This meant that people could not tell on sight what genity another person belonged to unless they made it obvious.) Often uses instrumental case, but not always (pusa is just the -us- infix of pwa). Almost all Poswobs have the name "Pusa" unless they are immigrants. Immigrants from other lifa-based societies generally do not translate their names when they move in, though, so there is a different set of lifa names for every lanuggae.

bampa perpup: Birth month. Simialr to the zodiac signs on the West. Uses essive case.

pwampom perpup: Place of birth. Can be as simple as "in the woods" rather than a specific town.

pamma perpup: Occupation (a mobile name).

So for example, a girl might be named Natuepa Plasum Pusa Bombžaembi Pworšum Api, which translated means "Money Means Nothing To Me", daughter of Plasa, who wears green underwear, was born in the month of Bombžaemba in the town of Pworše, and works as a hairdresser. In practice though most people just go bu their first name, or their dfirst and last name.

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. However it should be noted that women are often not paid for their work; husbands must pay for them. Generally, a woman in a house will work as an assistant to her husband, and may work only a few hours per week, on an as-needed basis. Thus a man with two wives will have an easier time getting work done. However since they are not paid he must pay for their food, cltothing, etc.

Are premarital relations allowed?

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

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

Rape is rape. Incest is sex between close family members. The Poswobs are widely believed to be the descendants of a clan of incestuous poor, rural people. The definition of incest here is that they married within their own genity line, but this is a very wide definition of incest and the ruling class of Paba would be guilty as well.

What sexual habits are widely believed common among foriegners?

Rape, violent homosexuality, kidnapping, prostitution, and pretty much anything objectionable is always blamed on immigrants and aboriginals, to the point that Poswa doesn't even have words for some of these things, preferring to use loans even though the Poswa language as a whole is only 2% loanwords. It is also widely believed that foreigners of all nationalities tend to have more dominant, aggressive men than Poswobs, but this is not always seen as a negative stereotype, and it is common for Poswob men to envy the tall, masculine Kuroras people that they themselves can only imitate. The "dominant male" stereotype however extends to other peoples, such as the Thaoa and Andanese, who are physically small even compared to Poswobs. It should also be noted that the Kuroras people have been gradually getting smaller due to their mingling with other peoples which are all fairly short on average.

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 even if it's 110°F with an 80° dew point. But it is common to see people in public wearing only "underwear", that is, a form-fitting loincloth garment that doesn't cover much more than the genitals. The shape of the garment is much like that in the modern West on Earth; that is, for men, a bowl shape, and for women more of a saddle shape. The amount of the hips and buttocks that are covered depends on the style. However, some people prefer to do without underwear and instead wear just a single robe-like garment covering the torso and much of the legs but held in place only at the arms and sometimes by a tie around the waist. This is for both sexes.

Clothing material is very delicate and people will buy new clothes every six months if they can afford to do so. The clothes they throw away will go to the poor who will wear them until they fall apart and then they will be eaten by small animals. This keeps the textile industry very busy and in fact the people who make clothes for others are some of the best off in the nation. 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. "Lesbians' associations" (sammamas bembum or sammembum for short), consisting of women who refuse to live with men, exist in every city and nearly every small town. They are capitalist, and thus are allowed to go against the rule that women are not paid for their work (that is why they need to exist; since they aren't married, there is no other way for them to get money). It should be noted that not all of the women in a Sammamas Bembum are actually lesbians; it's just that the Poswob term for lesbians includes women who are unmarried for other reasons.

Although these organizations are legal, much of what they do is not; but the government has been reluctant to crack down on them even after hundreds of years of their existence in part because they are embarrassed to admit that an organization consisting entirely of women is capable of causing such a problem and in part because the general citizenry is sympathetic to them and not convinced that they represent a real problem in society.

Sammembums often set up land at the edge of town, with every house right next to the others (or even sometimes there is only one house for all of them). THis is because they prefer to not be surrounded by all the other people.

What inanimate or sexless things are considered male or female?

Poswa has no grammatical gender, but the influence of Kuroras languages has caused most Poswobs to understand basic phonetic associations in the same way a modern English speaker would likely perceive a name like Alpa to be more feminine than Alpo. Most objects would fall into a "baby" or "neuter" gender if classified according to the Kuroras system, with a moderately large amount of feminine nouns and very few masculine.

What is the biggest sexual taboo?

Pedophilia and incest, I'm sure. The many sentient animals around give humans ample opprtunities for bestiality, but very few humans are interested, nor are other animals generally interested in humans. They are familiar with the concept, though, and it features in their religion (a bird named Pespweb lusted after a women named Mappamensam and wished he had human anatomy so he could have sex with her.)

Does this society connect the ideas of marriage with love?

Getting married is important for both sexes, and the people are poor, so being married to someone you don't get along with is usually better than being single simply because a single man or woman is likely to be living on the edge of starvation at all times. most people marry very young by Western standards, usually around the age of 15 for the groom and 12 or 13 for the bride, and anyone not married by the age of 20 is likely to never marry at all, which means that there is a surplus of females looking for men and few men that can't find a woman. (It also means, paradoxically, that there are more unmarried men than unmarried women.) COMMENT: THis doesnt make sense and is probably wrong mathematically

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. Male homosexuals and virgins are liable to be enslaved or exiled from society, whereas lesbians and female virgins generally join the aforementioned Lesbians' Society and are allowed to live in the city, albeit in a low-paid marginal existence in which they are dependent on being hired by the others for work (whereas married adults get a guaranteed minimum income from the government, at least in large cities). However, if the reason a person is a virgin is due to an obvious physical disability they are not considered sinners and will not be exiled. This happens rarely enough, though, that there is no standard solution for dealing with it.

Questions of Manners

How do younger adults address their elders?

Poswobs are anti-politeness to an extent that is rare even on their planet. They will blurt out "I have to go the bathroom" at the height of an intimate conversation and think nothing of it, or start an argument with their spouse when all the children and other friends are watching. Children are given the same vocabularies as adults, there's no "safe for children" word replacements like "poop" etc., although there is a double standard to some extent in which males are given a back seat to females at all ages, a "ladies first" privilege that applies in all areas of life. But this does not mean that they have to use special polite vocabularies.

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. This is not seen as a contradiction to their commitment to pacifism because people fight without weapons and generally without weapons cannot cause lasting harm to another person.

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

This is rare, but the same solutions given above apply here. It should be noted that if a man attacks a woman and wins, he is a criminal. If a man attacks a woman and loses, he's still a criminal and also will be embarrassed for the rest of his life.

When is it rude to laugh at something funny?

If someone is in a medical emergency such as being unable to digest food or bleeding to death, it's inappropriate to make fun of them. Anything less than that is fair game, including things that would in the modern West be considered suable offences. Making fun of a person's appearance, speech impediment, or anything else that they can't get rid of is considered everyday conversation in Pusapom and if you can't take it it'll only make you twice as much a target for jokes as before.

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. The Poswobs believe that, after death, the human soul escapes its body and is not even human anymore. As mentioned above, although most humans live amongst other humans, this is a multispecies planet, and there are some humans who deal with sentient animals on a daily basis. To the west of the Poswob Empire is an even larger empire dominated by firebirds, which is a predatory bird that in the past made a living from raising and eating humans. Nowadays their society is too weak to do that, but they still will pay to eat humans the way they'd pay to eat any other animal, and the going price of a human body can be as much as 500,000 bullaedža, enough to feed the relatives of that person for many years. It is illegal for humans in the Poswob Empire to sell their dead relatives as food (to say nothing of killing them on purpose or even worse, killing others), but many Poswobs feel no guilt in doing this when it is safe to do so. Note this law was created to stop eager humans from selling their relatives as food, not to stop those other animals from hunting them down.

What kinds of jewelry do people wear? And when?

None, the Poswobs are very plain when it comes to dress, and so are msot of the peoples on the planet. The only nation where bodily decoration other than clothing is considered normal is Bé, a breakaway tribe of the Sakhi that developed a culture seemingly as opposite as possible from their ancestors.

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 are the most popular games? How important are they?

Both sexes are socialized to favor physical sports rather than things such as board games and card games. For men, the most popular sports are those with heavy physical combat, such as pupab, where men fight each other amidst a forest full of thorn bushes to see who can get to the top of a pole first. There are also human vs animal wrestling matches, usually with both sides consisting of many "wrestlers" rather than just 1 vs 1. Women are more likely to favor "beauty" sports such as dancing and gymnastics.

What parts of the body are routinely covered?

Nudity is allowed but generally confined to private gatherings at which most others are also nude, or at places like the beach where clothes getting wet would be uncomfortable (they do not have modern swimwear; their lightest garments are essentially just underwear). On hot days, it is common to see adults wearing only 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. A general rule is that one should dress the same way as others dress. So at a beach, everyone will be naked, in public they'll be in "underwear" , in a school or place of work they will be wearing moderate clothes, and at a formal ceremony people will be all dressed up even if it's 112 degrees Fahrenheit.

Female breasts are considered a sexual organ, and will usually be covered even in hot weather outside of private areas such as the beach.

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). Some public "bathrooms" are just areas of woodlands where each person gets visual privacy (no one can see them) but not auditory privacy, because the technology to make bathroom stalls with thick walls, etc., is not feasible.

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. No household can have more than one adult male, so young boys are expected to move out when they graduate school (even if they're only 10). Girls stay until they marry, but in this society, they are likely to be not much older than 13 when they get married.

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.)

Are there any particular places considered special or holy? What are they like?

In the early days of the Tarwataf religion, temples were built on islands in lakes so that there would be a lot of wind. Wind was seen as a sign of God, and the walls of the temple were built in such a way that the wind was able to reach every room inside. Many temples are still built this way, but as the empire has expanded into ever colder climates, people have come to realize that artifically heated indoor temples can be just as holy.

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 Tarwatobs, 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?

They are generally the same people, at least if they truly are leaders and not merely advisors.

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 Government

Who decides whether someone has broken a law? How?

The police force is the only person a criminal deals with in most cases. Courts exist, but they are only for matters of "social strife" rather than obvious crimes like theft, rape, assault, etc. It is common, though not mandatory, that the police force consists entirely of Kuroras overseers with no representation of ethnic Poswobs or other groups such as Tans, Sakhis, Andanese, etc since those peoples are not generally allowed to have weapons or even to be violent without weapons. But if there are not enough Kuroras people or if a given city is outside their jurisdiction then the Poswobs will generally be the ones in control. Minorities are very rarely trusted with authority of any kind.

What kinds of punishments are meted out? By whom? Why?

The rich can buy their way out of any punishment, even murder, although it should be noted that if someone is exiled from a city, they lose all their possessions anyway.

How are new laws created or old ones changed?

The governor of a city can change the laws at any time (there is no "checks and balances", the governors are everything). This does not happen very often, however.

What titles do various officials have?

Small towns only have a single mimmita (governor/mayor), and for larger towns this is the highest level of authority. There are some old nations which have been integrated into the empire and still have kings, even though those kings govern very small kingdoms which are analogous to counties.

How are the rules different for officials as opposed to the common person?

Governors make the laws, and can freely exempt themselves and their families if they desire.

How do government officials dress?

It depends. If a city or town is poor enough that even the governors are just barely getting by, they will skimp on clothing and wear the cheapest things they can buy. However, sometimes people are proud of what they wear and will buy expensive clothing even if it means other things in their life fall apart. But there is no uniforms.

Is the law written down? Who interprets it?

Yes. The common people are generally literate and have access to all the laws that the governors write.

Is torture allowed? What kinds?

Generally not. A criminal who poses an immediate danger will be killed, if not, they can't even be hurt, much less tortured. "Social disputes" can only result in exile and taking away possessions, there is no chance for even a jail sentence. However, there is a sort of extralegal public punishment, which could be thought of as a sissy version of stoning, where criminals are tied to a tree and other people throw acorns at them. In the past, real stones were used, but the pacifists forced the older version of the practice into obsolescence. This is usually decided outside of a court system, though.

How are people executed?

This doesnt really happen, although being banished from a city can be a death sentence for someone who is handicapped or otherwise unable to survive on their own, and even if not they are likely to be caught and enslaved by outlaws.

Who cannot rise to positions of leadership?

Pretty much everyone can. In some cities, government is controlled by the Kuroras families, with the Poswobs having no real power, but even here there is a parallel system in which they can at least govern "Poswob affairs" that do not cut into the authority of the Kuroras. It should be noted, however, that there is no democracy anywhere, and new leaders are simply appointed by the existing leaders. Some settlements use a 100% hereditary system, in which the rulers have titles like king and queen, whereas others promote new leaders from the citizenry on the basis of merit. Still others use a mixed system. In cities where there is a sizable minority of Kuroras families, the real power generally stays with the Kuroras, but figurehead leaders may be appointed from the Poswob population. Where the Kuroras minority is tiny, it is common to see power monpolized by just one family, though the whole Kuroras population may define itself as one extended family. This is because they are fearful of the Poswobs gaining power and displacing them. If the Kuroras minority is already too small to govern the population, they're the ones who are figureheads, since they depend on Poswobs to enforce any laws.

Is bribery allowed? Under what circumstances?

Generally no. In the western Kuroras empire, bribery is essentially legal, and a criminal can buy his way out of jail, even for murder, if he has enough money. The Poswobs are appalled at this practice and are constantly on the watch to make sure it is not creeping its way into their empire as well.

What makes someone a bad ruler in this society? What can be done about it?

Because the royal families have absolute power, the citizenry often blames them for everything that happens, including natural disasters. This makes life very difficult for the royals and they sometimes have temper tantrums that can cost many lives. Occasionally a royal house will be overthrown, but in general, they are impressively stable. Kingdoms in the state of Nama have been untouched for 6000 years, and are actually older than the empire itself. Despite being part of a state, the kings in Nama have absolute power; the state government merely controls trade from the rest of the empire and some aspects of military defense.

What are the most common or dangerous forms of criminal?

Murderers, of course, and renegade wild animals that are smart enough to know how to kill humans and get away with it. Cities are dangerous places, but they're dangerous for potential criminals as well. At least some types of criminals prefer to lurk outside the cities and wait for a defenseless woman or child (or even a man) to wander outside where he can be captured and/or killed, rather than try it in the city where everyone would be after him within minutes. But this refers only to violent crimes such as murder and kidnapping. Robbery is of course best executed in a city where there are lots of rich people to pick on, and it is easy to blend in in a crowd.

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. Although Poswobs tend to be of moderate stature (9 vwub is the average height for a man, which is about 5'6" in Imperial), the Kuroras are giants averaging almost twice the body weight of the Poswobs, and see the idea of Poswobs fighting in a war as absurd and cruel, as Poswob men are much smaller even than the women of the Kuroras tribes (though in areas where the two have lived together for long periods of time, or where the Kuroras people have culturally absorbed aboriginals, the size difference is much less).

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" (which actually extend deep inside Pusapom). 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.

It should also be noted that not all of these Kuroras troublemakers are immigrants or invaders; much of the Poswob Empire was originally 100% Kuroras territory, but the Poswobs moved in (peacefully) and tended to have more babies than the Kuroras people, so over time they slowly became the majority. This was helped to some extent buy the fact that the children of mixed marriages almost always chose to live as Poswobs, despite their lower legal status, because these mixed marriages were usually with the Poswob as the mother, and both societies were matrilocal, so if the children were to be raised as Kuroras they would have to move the whole family. (Bad explanation, I know, I'll work on it later.) Generally, the areas where Kuroras tribes have been overwhelmingly smothered by the Poswobs (ie. 100 to 1) are the most agitated, whereas in areas with gentler ratios the Kuroras people enjoy their privileged status and wouldnt even thinking of attacking the Poswobs. Also, there are a few Kuroras nations which have essentially said "no thanks" to the Poswobs, and chose to declare independence and not enslave Poswobs or anyone else. In these nations, Poswobs are given equal status, but generally discouraged from living there by the fact that the natives refuse to learn their language. The biggest example of this is the nation of Moonshine (bad name), which declared independence even though it was surrounded on 3 sides by Poswob states, and offered the Poswobs living there the choice of either assimilating or moving out. Most chose to assimilate. They did not, generally, offer the same choice to other less admired peoples such as the Sakhis (whom nobody seems to like), which is a bit ironic because the Sakhis have been claiming for thousands of years that the Moonshines are just a daughter tribe of the Sakhi, yet the Moonshines wouldn't let them assimilate, even though they did let the Poswobs, who were completely different physically and culturally.

Questions of Education

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

Poswa developed from an archaic form of the Pabappa language, and uses the Pabappa alphabet, but with different letters adapted to the Poswa language. There used to be many other languages, but the Poswobs smothered them all in an effort to assimilate all non-Pabap people into becoming Poswobs.

How common is literacy? How is literacy viewed?

The literacy rate is very good, considering the low level of education given to people, because some forms of communication are done only in written form.

Who teaches others? How do they teach?

School resembles that of the modern Earth except that most children don't go beyond age 10 and after that they go into the workforce alongside adults. Those few who do go beyond age 10 are considered to still be children until they graduate, so they can't get married, no matter how long that takes, and if they are in "school" forever (like a researcher) then they are a "scholar".

Who decides who learns to read or write?(f) Who teaches professions, like carpenter or scribe?

Carpenters teach carpentry directly when they hire someone as an apprentice (which is why they start hiring at age 10), instead of having a school do it. When they hire a kid they expect him to be there all his life, even though people can legally change occupations at any time. Anyone who does change occupations may find himself ordered by a court to pay money to his old employer (if he wasn't self employed), and would have to be self taught unless the new employer had a very quick training process.

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

No, the Poswobs wouldn't bring in any immigrants on purpose since they are being oppressed already as it is (even though they mostly won't admit it). However there are some groups of immigrants which have even lower status than Poswobs, such as the Thaoa/Sakhi people, who are only allowed to run restaurants and do a few other jobs, no matter what other skills they may have. Foreigners are also prohibited from receiving government stipends, and have to struggle to simply find enough food to get through the day. This makes the empire unattractive as a destination for landless immigrants.

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

Medicine is surprisingly well developed, but Poswobs will almost always want to have a religious element to their healing, involving prayer and in some cases the casting out of demons (there are four kinds of demons in the Poswob religion, each assigned to a different kind of ailment, though only two of them are seen as the cause of visible medical symptoms and one of those is very weak).

Which medical assumptions of this society are wrong?

Well this is a medieval society so pretty much everything is technically wrong on some level, but they do a pretty good job relatively speaking, since they've been careful to catalog every death that has ever occurred and try to see patterns in the deaths so they know what works and what doesn't.

Questions of Art

Do artists require official or unofficial protection?

A Communist-like system exists in some Poswob cities, borrowed from the Kuroras, where the government pays the artists directly so that they don't have to sell any of their work. But the salary they receive is very low, even relative to the general poverty the rest of the people endure, so someone who wants to become an artist certainly isn't doing it for the money.

What forms of theatre does your society have?

In some northern Kuroras societies, only children are allowed to act, so all theatre is amateur by definition and the people who go to see performances are expecting it to be "cute"^{I forget what the rationale behind this law was}. The Poswobs have theatre for all ages, but the Kuroras ideas have bled into some of their cities, especially in the west, and they have begun shutting down their theaters because they don't really appreciate the kids-only outfits as much as the Kuroras do.

What shapes are most common in your society's arts, like embroidery or architecture?

"Soft" shapes, like circles and hands and "D" shapes. They dislike sharp points and even squares, though obviously it's hard to avoid squares when designing pretty much anything.

What form does censorship take?

It would be difficult to get away with anything blasphemous in the Poswob Empire. They would not only censor it, it would be a crime. Blasphemy can be as simple as one person saying in public "Natuepa died because the gods couldn't heal her!"

What makes a man or woman especially beautiful?

People's tastes differ, but hair is an object of attention for both sexes. While some people simply wear their hair naturally, most men and women have advanced hairstyles. It is rare for men to have very short hair, or for women to have hair that doesn't extend beyond the shoulders. Headbands are worn by both sexes. Both sexes tend to shave off their body hair other than pubic hair and (for men) ocassionally the facial hair. Men with dark hair are more likely to wear beards than those with lighter colors. The technology is surprisingly advanced for such a primitive society.

Women often wear high heels to bring them up to the same height as men; some short men will do the same.

How do people react to tattoos? Piercings? Facial hair? Make-up?

Poswobs are generally against all bodily modifications other than hairstyles and wearing accessories like headbands. Lipstick, eyeliner, and rouge exist as technologies but are difficult to find for sale anywhere.

Questions of sex and marriage

Are there laws about it? What about prostitution?

Prostitution isn't actually illegal, but if someone is already married it would be taken as evidence of adultery.

How old should someone be in your culture to be having sex?

"Adolescent" (e.g. no firm age, but someone should be at least done with school and ready to live on their own).

Do relationships allow multiple partners?

yes but it's rare to see an actual polygamous marriage. If a man wants two wives, he'll have to pay for them both because women don't usually get paid for any work they do. If a woman wants two men she'll have to choose only one of them to live with and name her children after since there can't be two men in any household.

And, of course, what about homosexuality? Is it frowned on? Encouraged?

Since male homosexuals are treated badly in the Poswob religion (Tarwataf), some of them go outside the cities and start colonies. They cannot have children with each other, of course, but there are often ways for them to find women if they really want to. Nevertheless many Poswobs beleive that the male homosexuals are lined up outside the cities waiting for innocent Poswobs (often assumed to be young boys who've just recently moved out) to wander out into the woods so they can kidnap them.

For lesbians, the situation is somewhat milder, as they are permitted to live in the settlements, but their existence is marginal since they have no husbands to feed them and must constantly be trying to earn money through capitalist business.