Moonshine Ethnographical Questionnaire

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.

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 the tropics. 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.

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 import it from Pusapom. So this wine is generally consumed near its site of origin.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 almost 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.

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.

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. The amount of clothing is generally light for the climate; Moonshines are very cold-tolerant and not very heat-tolerant. Even 55F can be considered "hot". As in Pusapom, women almost always have long hair. Men have short hair, but often in hairstyles that would elsewhere be considered feminine.

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.

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" for everyone.

Questions of Manners

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.