Qulani (culture)

Cultural Overview

The Qulani live primarily in sub-subterranean caves and tunnel complexes. The resource scarcity of such an environment has shaped their culture into a close-knit community, where mutualism and community property is the norm..

Origins

The Qulani were once surface dwelling Treahni, but have shifted away from their earlier roots to adapt to their chosen environment over the millennia spent underground.

Geography

The Majority population of Qulani live in the Darlom Mountains. A smaller population migrated to the Sildar Mountains after a historical split between to major clans many centuries ago. A single clan of Qulani dwell inside the slopes of the volcano Shar Bol on Ra Hiem in Iskander. Small insular communities can be found in Treahni towns near their respective mountain territories.

Language

Qulani

Family

Structure / Size

Qulani families live communally in multi-generational aggregates. Due to low-birthrates there are usually only a few children born to each pair.

Roles of Family Members

Families participate in communal decision making, with deference to older and more experienced family members.

Older children assist with the rearing and care for their younger siblings and cousins.

Parents are the primary providers for their children until they reach the age of maturity.

Importance

Qulani familial bonds are as strong as many other cultures. Additionally given the communalist lifestyles and the low birth rates, the attachment to family members extends beyond the immediate family and includes extended family out to third cousins or more distant relations. Smaller communities may see themselves as a singular family, with an all for one, one for all attitude.

Influence

Familial connections will often dictate one's career options, political alliances, and opportunities for growth and prosperity.

Orphans

Given the extensive family connections of the Qulani, those who are orphaned will be fostered by their aunts and uncles, as though they were their own children. Such fosterlings are treated equally to those born of the union and have the same rights and obligations.

Religion

The Qulani have no unified religion. However, they might adopt the faith of other Treahni where cultures mix.

As far as having spiritual beliefs, the Qulani revere the mountains themselves for providing them a home since the times before they became a subterranean species.

Primary Beliefs

Living a life underground requires a certain level of fortitude and understanding of the dangers such an environment may contain.

While the Qulani do not hold to the belief that the planet, or the mountains themselves, are entities in their own right, they hold some animistic beliefs regarding elemental spirits which inhabit their world.

Religious Figures

Stonespeakers

Some Qulani find themselves capable of sensing and communicating with the spirits of the world around them. Those with such affinity find themselves in the roles of intermediaries between their fellow Qulani and the invisible spirits.

List of Religious Observances

Departing

A blessing for safe travels and success on the journey for any group of Qulani, or other visitors upon their departure from the community for however long they may be absent.

Homeblessing

When creating new habitation space, Qulani will beseech the local spirits in the area to keep the new home safe and stable. Clean water, structurally sound rock, comfortable temperatures, and dynamic fresh airflow are common requests.

Welcoming

A small ceremony given when strangers arrive at, or family that has been absent for a time returns to the community. The point of this is to let the community know that these individuals mean no harm and are to be considered safe.

Structure

There is not structure or institution to this system of beliefs. Those who can speak with the spirits simply hold an extra role in the community, and may be treated with some additional respect in the community, but hold no secular authority, or power beyond that role.

Those with more experience will guide and train younger and less experienced stonespeakers.

Ceremonial

Like other cultures, the Qulani mark milestones of one's life journey with customs and celebrations.

Birth

Qulani welcome the additional of new community members with small gifts for the parents, and newborn child. There is a fair amount of well wishing and congratulations for both mother and child.

Naming

A newborn Qulani is given two names within a few days of their birth. The first name is deeply personal and used by their parents exclusively. The second name is one for the community. It is less distinctly personal and it is acceptable to change this name to reflect different circumstances throughout the individual's lifetime.

Age

Qulani mark the passage of years as do many cultures. noting one's age as the number of solstices the individual has lived for. A small celebration occurs on one's birthday twice per year, reflecting the passage of time, and the personal growth of the individual.

Adulthood

A Qulani is generally considered an adult, and takes on the roles and responsibilities that such entails at sixteen sols. Their sixteenth sol day is a cause for a ceremonial bestowing of the new expectations and privileges.

Marriage

Qulani marriages are often arranged by their parents prior to the pairs sixteenth sol days. While marriage for love is the romantic ideal, the consideration of the clan's and both families' futures is an important consideration when making these arrangements.

Divorce

Qulani do not practice divorce. However, an ill-matched couple may each take on additional spouses by choice and mutual agreement. Their parental obligations to any existing children will continue and expected to be upheld by the community at large and the extended families in particular.

Death

Qulani that pass are remembered in ceremony, and the family and greater clan are invited to say their goodbyes and trade stories and songs about the departed. The remains of a the deceased will be buried in the mushroom gardens to provide for the community even after death.

Diet

Food

Qulani diets include both animal and plant based foods.

Cultural Dishes

Mushrooms and meat are commonly paired in many dishes.

Spice / Flavours

Qulani food tends to favour a salty and sweet notes.

Drink

Non-Alcoholic

Fruit juices, nectar, and milk are common, as are various teas.

Alcohol

Culturally, the Qulani tend to avoid alcohol. Although where they mix with other cultures, wines, cider, mead, or brandies are favoured over beers, or hard spirits.

Fashion

Qulani wear little clothing in their home environments. What little they do wear is typically form fitting garments crafted of a utilitarian nature, providing protection.

Textiles

Leather, typically crafted from tanned hides and skins.

Some woven fabrics, typically wool or luaj, are employed for clothing worn when outside of their subterranean homes.

Dyes

The Qulani do not use dyes for their clothing as a aesthetic choice, they simply do not see the need for colours beyond the natural colours of the materials themselves.

Embellishments

Any embellishment of clothing highlights textural qualities over visual. Beads, knots, braiding, and embossing are favoured over other options.

Outfits

What clothes a Qulani wears will reflect their needs based on activity they are engaged in.

Daily by Class

Given the apparent lack of social strata beyond the generational, most clothing is a direct reflection of one profession.

Ceremonial

The Qulani do not dress for ceremonial purposes.

Regalia

The Qulani do not wear any particular regalia.

Jewellery

Qulani jewellery is typically low profile trans-dermal, or sub-dermal body piercings which highlight textural elements over the visual.

Materials used include semi-precious stones, precious metals, bones, glass, and stone.

Scarification

Given the tactile component of most Qulani art and communication, Instead of adorning themselves with make-up or tattoos, they practice textural scarification. Small bumps, and ridges of raised scar tissue serves as a decorative and personal expression of the individual. Such decoration is often on the face and head, although more intimate markings may adorn the neck, arms, legs, chest and back.

Leisure Activities

Sports

The Qulani may engage in contests of a physical nature. Races of speed and endurance, tests of skill in climbing, or spelunking through narrow and challenging caves are typical.

Games

The Qulani engage in many social games of chance, strategy, and cleverness. Riddling, logic puzzles, and word games are a common pastttime

Gambling

Games of chance, and wagering on various events and outcomes is not typical of the Qulani, given their socialist ways, however those Qulani who mingle with other cultures find the practice intriguing and have a reputation of being exceptional at bluffing due to lack of tells common with other Treahni.

Social Gatherings

The Qulani like to gather to tells stories and sing songs with others.

Arts

Qulani arts have a notable lack of external influence.

Storytelling

The Qulani do not keep written records so most of their history is shared and passed along through the practice of oral storytelling. While fictional stories are part of their collective, these are told is a manner which clearly informs the audience that it is a work of fiction, and not part of their historical records.

Writing

The Qulani do not keep written accounts of many things. They do however make some interpretive marks upon their bodies through scarification and occasionally in carved stone.

Poetry

The Qulani have a unique style of poetry involving the use of echoic space in creating self-harmonising refrains.

Fiction

Fictional stories of the Qulani are frequently told or used for purely entertainment reasons. Parables,or other moral message, and teaching stories are typically drawn from non-fiction historical sources.

Theatre

The Qulani do not practice any form of theatre.

Dance / Gymnastics

The Qulani do not practice any form of dance in the same manner of other cultures. Given the nature of their living environments, however, Qulani may exhibit displays of extreme flexibility and body contorting for purely artistic reasons.

Music

Qulani music is uniquely adapted to the confines and soundscape of their homes. The very chambers in which music is produced become part of the performance.

Singing

Qulani singing, like their speech is very soft, and whisper-like. They have adopted a musical style using clicks to provide beats to otherwise fluid vocals.

Percussion

Qulani use drums, clapping, and rhythm sticks to produce music that contrasts their vocal music.

Strings

The Qulani in general do not make or play any stringed instruments.

Wind

Flutes or whistles are sometimes used by the Qulani for musical purposes.

Painting

The Qulani do not paint in the manner of other cultures. Instead they use textural elements to produce tactile works similar to mosaics, yet intended to be experienced through touch rather than eyesight.

Sculpture

Sculpture is a common form of artistic expression amongst the Qulani. Chiselled statuary, carved reliefs, and objects made from shaped and fired clay are usual mediums.

Time

Given their primarily subterranean existence, the Qulani have a different sense of time than surface dwelling cultures.

Timekeeping

The passage of the seasons is noted by those who venture above ground to hunt and gather resources.

Days are marked by natural sleep cycle rhythms.

Small shafts to the surface which allow air and light into the depths are used to indicate day/night cycles and in some colonies subdivisions of the day time can measure the passage of the hours.

Daily Routine

Qulani tend to manage work and leisure in a semi-random, as needed basis. There are no specific times for either, just work when work is needed, eat when hungry, rest and relax when needed.

Timeline

The Qulani do not have written records of their history, however a few notable events have approximate dates relative to other cultures history.

• Sildar Diaspora - In approximately 2000 BG, a schism between two great clans of Qulani led to one group departing over land and sea to the Isk Archipelago and further to the Sildar Mountains in the East.

Persons

List of Qulani Persons

Stories

Contemporary

Fortress (fifty word fantasy)

Mountain (fifty word fantasy)

See Also

Qulani (language)

Qulani (people)