(Note: most of the material herein applies to the !Nekwethir as a whole people, of whom the Shigyeveth are only one band. Any exceptions will be noted.) THE SHIGYEVETH
Created by: Margaret Dean
Race: Human
Arrival at New Hope: Contact is made not long after the settlement of New Hope, since Cuendee, who lives with the Shigyeveth, knew of the settlement plans. To date the entire band has not descended on New Hope, only small groups who come to escort Cuendee to and fro, and to trade with the New Hope residents.
About the Group: The Shigyeveth are nomadic herders and traders, descendants of the same people who invaded the Redrock Valley over a thousand years ago. (They have calmed down a good bit since then.) The Shigyeveth are actually only one band of the far-flung tribe of the !Nekwethir. They ride horses and herd a species of animal similar to the Terran guanaco, which they call kha'amir. The other notable fact about the Shigyeveth is that they are matrilineal and largely matriarchal.
Appearance: Uniformly short and stocky people with a light red-brown skin tone, straight black hair, and black or brown eyes. Faces are usually broad, with flat, wide cheekbones. Facial hair is sparse even in men. Definitely an exotic type -- think Asian or Amerind as opposed to the more "Caucasian" features and build of the native tribes. Most native humans
do not find them attractive, and vice versa. They also have different body language than the native tribes (example: Shigyeveth don't smile. To express amusement they narrow their eyes and flare their nostrils. A Shigyeveth who bares teeth at you is angry) -- not to mention their spoken language, which is entirely foreign to the subcontinental human tongue (of which the languages of the Mraal, the Stinkers, and the Tribe without Name are all dialects). These people are very different from most other humans in the area.Number in Group: Two to three hundred. As noted, only small groups come to New Hope. The !Nekwethir as a whole number several thousand at least.
Leadership: The chief priest/esses of the major cults -- those of the five major Shigyeveth deities -- lead the band. These are always three women and two men; in addition, the female deities involved (and thus their priestesses) outrank the male in the Shigyeveth's view.
Clothing: Well-tanned leather, coarsely woven kha'amr wool or wool felt tunic and trousers, the latter tucked into low boots. They wear poncho-type garments in foul weather, and often add gloves for riding. Stubby conical felt hats are characteristic, as are long backstrap-woven
sashes (often wound several times about the body). The Shigyeveth like to stitch beads, decorative bits of bone, feathers, etc. directly onto their clothing, rather than wearing jewelry. They also braid thongs strung with beads and feathers into their hair. Small facial tattoos are common and usually have a religious meaning.Housing: Leather or felt tents (spacious yurt-type structures, not tepees)
Weapons Used: Short, powerful recurved bows with a really wicked range; many Shigyeveth are superb horse archers. Also knives and spears. They do not do any metalwork themselves other than working pure copper or gold, but obtain some metal weapons through trade.
Religious Beliefs: The Shigyeveth worship a small pantheon of gods (they may believe in other gods or spirits but do not have organized priesthoods for them): Earth Woman (mother of all that lives), Star Woman (Earth Woman's firstborn daughter by the Sun, foremother of human beings), Sky Mare (Earth Woman's secondborn daughter by the Lord of Winds, foremother
of horses), the Lord of Winds (forefather of horses) and the Lord of Wolves. There was once a cult of the Sun, but they and their High Priest were the ones who started the whole invasion business, and were afterwards repudiated by the tribe.Earth Woman governs fertility, and the health and well-being of all her children. Her priestesses are the keepers of the tribe's herbal and medicinal lore, preside over female fertility rituals, childbirth, etc. Earth Woman is the protectress of the kha'amr herds, the tribe's wealth.
Star Woman governs specifically human activities such as crafts, oral history (Cuendee's first Shigyeveth friend was the band's then-current High Priestess of Star Woman), and trading -- anything that requires mental rather than physical skill. Her priestesses also foretell the future by reading the stars, casting bones, and other oracular rituals.
Sky Mare is the protectress of horses and a special patroness of the tribe because of their relationship with horses (see below). She governs the maturity ritual for young people, which involves training one's first horse.
The Lord of Winds governs the weather, male fertility, and various other "men things." He is also the Keeper of the Dead and the current patron of warriors (once the responsibility of the Sun Priests).
The Lord of Wolves is associated with predator animals and thus must be propitiated so that his creatures will not decimate the herds. He also gave dogs to the !Nekwethir and is the patron of hunters. Those hunting predators must first ask his permission, and those hunting wild animals for food ask for his blessing. He's rather an equivocal deity, more or less the Loki of the pantheon, associated with darkness and chaos but with the understanding that these are a necessary part of life.
Relationship with Horses: The Shigyeveth do not "own" their horses in the same way that they own the kha'amir. Horses belong to themselves because horses have souls (in !Nekweth belief). Their relationship to humans is somewhere between children and servants. A horse is under the authority of its rider: e.g. you arrange your horses' breeding as you would arrange the marriages of your children (which the Shigyeveth also do). You might even "foster out" a horse to someone else if you thought the horse would have a good life there. But this is not done for material gain. One does not buy a Shigyeveth horse; the process is much more akin
to adoption.Horses are important to Shigyeveth life-after-death beliefs. The Shigyeveth always send a person's favorite horse with her/him on her/his Last Ride. Only horse and rider together can attain the Field of Stars, the Shigyeveth paradise. Souls of persons who die before going
through the maturity ritual of obtaining a horse are believed to wander the winds (under the watchful eye of the Lord of Winds) until it is time for them to be reborn and try again for a horse. This is not considered too serious for children, since they have not had time to accumulate the "ill report" that would delay their rebirth. (Since the winds bring news to their Lord, he's always quite aware of everything you've done...) Something similar applies to horses who die riderless. It's more, "Oh, darn! Better luck next time," than "Oh, woe!"An adult who dies "unhorsed" is in more serious trouble. For mature Shigyeveth this is rare, but not unheard of. Such people are usually supplied with a mount chosen by ritual from the free herd. Sometimes, though, the deceased is rejected by the whole herd and this is considered a sign of great wickedness. (And if you think the priest/esses have ways of fixing these things, you're right.) The bodies of such people are disposed of with special rituals to protect the tribe from their evil ghosts, which will presumably have to wander the winds for a very long time before being granted rebirth.
Hence the ultimate Shigyeveth insult, "No horse would bear him/her," and the corresponding curse, "May no horse bear you" (implied: "to the Field of Stars"). The religious overtones are seldom realized by outsiders.
Daughters of the Mare: The priestesses of the Sky Mare, the largest religious cult (though not necessarily the most influential). Unmarried women chosen by aptitude at the time of maturity to care for the band's unbonded horses. This is a religious duty and a great honor, though the
priestesses hold no wealth as the Shigyeveth reckon it (they are not allowed to marry and thus do not get kha'amir; see below). They are supported by the tribe in a fairly lavish manner -- it would be both shameful and unwise to stint the Daughters of the Mare. They are not expected to be celibate, but if they bear children, they must adopt them out after weaning (boys) or at maturity (girls, unless these are also selected as Daughters of the Mare). Commonly a Daughter's child will be adopted by a married sister or other female relative, especially one who has no children of her own. Adopting such a child and treating it well confers a blessing from the goddess.
Other Cultural Notes: Men are important to give a woman children, to protect her and her herds, hunt, scout, raid, and do other "men things" (including certain religious duties). Women own the most important property, the kha'amir herds. Either sex may own personal possessions (clothes, ornaments, weapons, etc.) but these are not counted as wealth. As noted before, horses are not considered property either, and dogs are considered to be more or less on loan from the Lord of Wolves.
Either sex may also obtain and dispose of "plunder." When the tribe was more warlike, this included spoils of war such as food, trinkets, and even slaves. Nowadays it more often refers to spoils of the hunt, trade goods, or products of craft. Plunder can obtain more possessions for you and make your life more comfortable, but does not count as wealth for status purposes.
Kinship and Marriage: The Shigyeveth are matrilineal; kinship is reckoned in the female line. A woman's primary heir is her eldest married daughter. Other daughters receive portions of the mother's herd when they marry. The bridegroom's mother is also expected to give the bride at least a token kha'amr as a sign of her approval of the arrangement --more if she's wealthy. It is considered bad form, however, to give your son's bride more kha'amir than her mother did; this would imply that the bride was too poor to support your son in the style to which he was accustomed, and would be an insult. The discreet way to accomplish such a
thing would be to give the bride's mother or some other female relative the kha'amir on some pretext and let her gift the bride.A woman who dies without daughters, her own or adopted, passes her property to her eldest married niece in the female line.
Shigyeveth very seldom marry out of their tribe. The most likely instance would be a Shigyeveth male marrying into a foreign tribe; a Shigyeveth woman would be losing too much, and an outsider woman marrying in would have no kha'amir and be destitute (and thus unable to support a husband), unless she was adopted by a Shigyeveth woman. The Shigyeveth also have little or no concept of romantic love. Sexual attractiveness and personal compatibility are of course desirable in a mate, but they don't "marry for love."
Culturally, erotic love is less important to the Shigyeveth than friendship (usually with same sex, though cross-sex friendships are also possible). A woman's friends are usually outside her own bloodline, since her blood sisters and cousins are rivals (as a man's brothers often are in patrilineal cultures), though a woman's brother is often a special friend and confidant. Brothers by blood are also often close. Priesthoods give special opportunities for close bonding, especially the Daughters of the Mare. When Cuendee formed a friendship with the head priestess of Star Woman, her place in the tribe was assured. The Shigyeveth word for
"friend" can be inflected so as to approach the elvish "soulmate" in intensity. Betraying your friend is a lot more culturally reprehensible than cheating on your wife or husband (which is not great either, but not something that would cause no horse to bear you).Slaves: The !Nekwethir used to take slaves, but the priestesses abolished the practice after the war, claiming it had weakened the tribe's bloodlines and so forth. Some other !Nekweth bands trade in slaves, but the Shigyeveth do not.
Group History: The !Nekwethir originated in the prairies and steppelands of the Southern Continent. A thousand-plus years ago, a combination of population pressure, drought, and the ambitions of a certain Sun Priest united many of the scattered bands (more used to fighting among themselves) into a large army that came ravening out of the south, plundering and decimating native tribes as they went. Since the !Nekwethir had horses and most of the other tribes they encountered did not, no one could really stand up to them until they hit the Redrock Valley in TWR 10. The Mraal had the advantages of a sizable tribe, a defensible location, and the aid of the Tower elves and their hawks. The war devastated both groups, but the !Nekwethir were eventually defeated. In the aftermath of the war the women and their priestesses (along with most of the surviving men), thoroughly disgusted, repudiated the Sun
Priests and shifted the balance of power firmly to the female side. (It helped that the chief Sun Priest who started all this had been killed in the war.) The tribe split up into its component bands and returned to the nomadic existence they had led in their homeland. Eventually they
discovered the benefits of trading with, rather than (or in addition to) raiding neighboring human tribes.About a thousand years later (TWR 1087), a pair of Shigyeveth hunters (young men) were hunting near the Redrock Valley. They took refuge from a sudden rainstorm in a cave they knew of and found it already occupied by a wounded elf -- Cuendee, who had been hidden there by Tanyel after Twillor's Escape. Curious, they took her back to camp and introduced her to the head priestess of the Star Woman, who could speak the subcontinental human tongue. Cuendee, initially terrified (she remembered these people and their nasal fricatives), soon became interested in talking to the priestess and learning her language. By the time Tanyel caught up with her, she and the priestess were already friends. Eventually she was adopted into the tribe and attached to the cult of Star Woman. She is known to the Shigyeveth as Vauryimre'em, which translates more or less as "Memory Woman."
As previously noted, the Shigyeveth make contact with New Hope through Cuendee a few years after its founding and set up trade relations. Their trade goods include kha'amr wool (which is very soft and fine) and dairy products, and a drink made from fermented kha'amr milk -- powerful stuff if you have the stomach for it!
Final Note: I will allow people to create Shigyeveth characters, but they must consult with me on names. I am working on a language for the Shigyeveth (if I can find my notes, that is) and any names must follow the language's phonological rules.