Saukanians

Saukanians

Saukani
Total population
27,000,000 (2020)
Languages
Saukanian
Religion
Predominantly Saukanian polytheism Christian and Muslim minorities

The Saukanians are an ethnic group native to Saukania, a civilization centred on the oases of the fertile Laxad river valley.

Their history is ancient, and the Saukanian language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. They have historically and into the present day politically organised into city-states, with a strong culture of honour and social networks emphasising the importance of the patriarchal family unit. Regional identity is strong among the Saukanians, as city-states can be separated by large distances of grassland and desert. Clusters of city-states with similar dialects, customs, and religious rites have often consciously identified with one another, and are known as tribes. A small minority of Saukanians live a nomadic lifestyle.

Modern Saukanians continue to hold the identity established by their ancestors, with their religious and cultural beliefs surviving in various forms over the many centuries since their oral traditions were first codified into epic poetry and other stories. A strong consciousness and reverence for the past has proven beneficial to the study of Saukanian history and the history of its culture and religion.

Until recent times, 'Saukanian' was not a particularly relevant or coherent identity. The city-states could identify one another as being of similar stock, owing to a shared language and customs in religion, political organisation, and daily life. They overwhelmingly however have always expressed local identities, each city-state in essence constituting its own ethnic population. This strong feeling for independence at every level kept the Saukanians divided, though commonalities with immediate neighbours provided the basis for various higher-level organisations. These were typically confederations in which the independence of each member city was guaranteed. The city-states, engaging frequently in internecine wars for dominance and prestige, would unite together against outside threats perceived as a threat-in-common. The greater interconnectedness of the modern world, and the revelation of more of its existence to Saukanian civilization, has led to a surge of a type of Saukanian proto-nationalism, and greater experimentation with more unified forms of federalist political organisation.

Saukanian history is important to the region of northern Thrismari, as their control of the arid grasslands and desert facilitated east-west trade and the spread of culture, religion, art, and philosophy across vast distances. These foreign products and exports have influenced Saukanian civilization over time, and it has also delivered its own influences to its neighbours and far-off trading partners.

They are a largely agrarian society, practicing agriculture and pastoralism in customary ways, while the urban centres are the core of industry, political power, and higher culture. Around half of the total population is urbanized, with this number slowly growing. A high though declining fertility rate has resulted in the Saukanians having a relatively young population.

History

Origins and early history

The Saukanians are believed to descend from semi-nomadic pastoralists living in the grasslands of what is now northern and north-east Saukania. Evidence from various archaeological sites in what is now the desert of northern Saukania reveal burial mounds of a kind common to nomadic cultures, as well as various locations used as temporary camps and rest-sites, rather than permanent habitation. These nomads, speakers of the Proto-Saukanian languages, are thought through a combination of archaeological evidence and later Saukanian mythic tradition to have practised ancestor worship, polygyny, animal and potentially human sacrifice, followed a kind of fire cult, and upheld an honour-based warrior tradition among the social elite in which wealth and glory were rewards for military enterprise. Grave goods from Proto-Saukanian burial sites contain products considered to be of domestic manufacture and foreign imports, likely from trade conducted with peoples living along the Laxad river further to the southwest. The archaeological cultures of the Proto-Saukanians are divided into the Kelan, Marash, and Abranash cultures, lasting 3200-2800 BC, 2800-2500 BC, and 2500-1900 BC respectively.

Commencing in the late 3rd millennium BC, severe climate change saw the expansion of the northern Thrismari desert into the Proto-Saukanian grasslands, near the end of the Abranash culture. Increasing food scarcity caused by the gradual disappearance of grazing land forced the Proto-Saukanians into a southward migration. The inhabitants of the Laxad river valley at this time were also coming under stress, as aridification reduced the amount of arable land to smaller and more distantly spread oases situated in suitable microclimates along the river's course. The Lower Laxad River culture began developing stronger fortifications in its significant settlements from the beginning of this environmental stress phase, which alongside an increased number of weapon finds and an increase of male skeletons with healed and unhealed trauma, strongly suggests an increase in inter-communal violence.

Proto-Saukanian invaders arriving at this time engaged in conflict with various communities of the LLR culture for access to grazing land, and these conflicts may have entered Saukanian oral tradition as mythologised wars and events. Burials of men and women bearing intrusive haplogroups also indicate that a number of the Proto-Saukanian arrivals may have settled with LLR communities, perhaps taken captive after losing a fight, or exchanging military and economic services for uniting their communities. Successive waves of migration and invasion eventually saw the merging of the LLR and Abranash cultures, as the Proto-Saukanians took control of the lower Laxad river region by 1900 BC. Male Abranash haplogroups become much more dominant in burial finds in the prior century, with native LLR male haplogroups largely disappearing over time. Whether by force, peaceful integration, or a combination of both, the pastoralists appear to have emerged dominant in the new social scene, and subsequently monopolised access to females. The already highly stratified society of the Abranash culture compared to the relatively more egalitarian LLR communities may have factored into this successful bid for power. The later Saukanian institution of patronage and clienthood may have primitive roots in the Abranash culture as well.

Many of the Proto-Saukanians, by now diversifying in their own ways, combined their pastoralist lifestyle with the agricultural activities of the LLR culture. 1900-1200 BC is known as the Karthite civilization, named for a ruined ancient urban complex in southern Saukania. The Karthites developed over centuries from scattered tribes and villages in the Laxad oases into fortified and centralised urban states. Many other Proto-Saukanian tribes and clans however continued to practise the traditional pastoralist nomadic lifestyle, and likely came into conflict with their settled kin. Towards the end of the Karthite period, Saukanian goods, architectural styles, and other cultural hallmarks appear further up along the Laxad river, likely as a result of Karthite colonisation and expansion. Fragmented written records appear for the first time from this early Saukanian civilization, including personal names, the names of deities, and titles. Most deciphered fragments concern themselves with commerce and the economy of the urban centres. A severe drought at the end of this period c. 1250 BC is believed to have caused the decline of the Karthite period, resulting in what is called the Post-Karthite period. A number of formerly significant sites become abandoned, and are not resettled again for several centuries or in several cases ever. Destruction layers found at some, but not all, Karthite sites is taken by some Saukanologists as evidence of conflict between the declining sedentary states of the Laxad and the pastoralist nomadic Saukanians. It is postulated that the drought triggered a second major wave of Saukanian nomadic migration, leading to conquest and ethnic replacement of many of the settled Saukanian cities by their more warlike kin, as well as a continuation of migration along the Laxad to its sources in the Ghuran Mountains.

Classical period

In the 9th century BC, the Saukanians began their classical history, known as the Proto-Epic period. Wielding iron weapons and tools, the 'black metal' as it was locally known, powerful city-kingdoms were forged by the Saukanians along both banks of the Laxad, the Rhona, the rivers of the southwest, and the northern shore of the Argan Sea. A handful of these, possessing larger populations and more warriors, quickly became dominant over their neighbours, and set themselves up as the capitals of 'nations' ruling indirectly over neighbouring cities. Many Saukanians continued to remain nomadic, though their influence was checked by the increasingly sophisticated and warlike iron kingdoms, whose chariot-borne warrior aristocracy proved itself more than a match for the desert hordes in direct combat. The nomads quickly adapted, and different groups offered their services as mercenaries or caravan guards, or enriched themselves through hit-and-run attacks on villages and outlying towns.

Literacy from the Proto-Epic period is limited, but rises in the Epic period itself. This later phase of the Saukanian classical era, beginning 550 BC, is named for the written recording of oral epics and legends, which are the dominant forms of literature until 400 BC, when administrative, economic, and military sources become more abundant. From 150 BC, the kingdom of Turshor rose to prominence in southern Saukania, from its heartland on the coast of the Argan Sea. Having overcome its primary rival Kula in a series of wars, it was able to force many rival cities along the lower Laxad and near the Ghuran Mountains into vassalage. Indirect hegemony over all of Saukania was established in 85 BC, when Ithor plar Nushte, the king of Turshor, defeated Khodanean king Tarxi plar Beder at the Battle of Gola. The Turshor Hegemony lasted until 102 AD, when an alliance of Acha, Khodan, and Mardasar defeated Turshor in the field at Ladath, resulting in a number of its vassals rising up in rebellion.

No new hegemony was established by the kingdoms, however, as a new wave of drying conditions saw drought, famine, and disease reduce the populations of all major Saukanian states, enabling the rise of a coalition of nomadic powers.

Middle Ages

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Early modern period

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Modern period

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Contemporary period

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Definition and identity

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Culture

Language

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Religion

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Arts

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Symbols

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Naming conventions

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Riverfaring

The Laxad and Rhona rivers of Saukania have long been the lifeblood of Saukanian civilization. Those cities and communities that dwell on its banks or watered plains are known as Laxadites and Rhonaites respectively. Navigable rivers for much of their course, these riparian Saukanians have developed a curious niche as riverfarers in a desert, and have for millennia used the waterways of the desert as a highway of trade, communication, and war. The Laxad empties into the Argan Sea, an inland body of water that is the receptacle of much of the Saukanian drainage area. Piracy was common in the Laxad and Rhona all throughout recorded history, though it has been largely eliminated in the last century.

In modern times, these rivers still serve as a highway of trade, and ships with engines naturally prove more capable at pushing upstream than pre-modern vessels.

The rivers of the Ghuran mountain valleys and foothills that do not join the Laxad are only partially navigable in stretches, limiting the importance of these waterways beyond their use in irrigation. The inhabitants of the Ghuranian high and lowlands are less familiar with water navigation than the dwellers of the Laxad and Rhona.

Nomadism

Approximately 2 million people still live a nomadic lifestyle in Saukania. This includes semi-nomads, who have permanent yet not-continuously occupied dwellings, where they grow crops in alternate seasons to animal pasture. The true nomads have no fixed residence, migrating seasonally from pasture to pasture. Typically nomadic groups will travel to the same sites every year, and every group has a recognised pasture area. Times of drought or other hardship can sometimes lead to competition for available grazing, and violence between nomadic communities.

The nomads often see themselves as keeping to the Old Way, though in truth they are as varied between themselves as they are from their settled cousins. Little of the earlier history of nomadic groups is known, as they are generally illiterate and their oral histories comprise part of the wider Saukanian mythology, making it difficult to tell what is fact or folklore. Nevertheless it is well known that these groups descend essentially in an unbroken line from the original Proto-Saukanian nomadic pastoralists who arrived in or invaded Old Saukania over the 3rd millennium BC, and that they have continued that traditional lifestyle of movement ever since, though typically within the confines of Saukanian cultural influence. Nomadic groups have at times throughout history launched incursions or invasions into neighbouring, non-Saukanian lands, either to raid and plunder or seeking new pastures for their herds.

More often than not, relations between the nomads and the villages they frequent in and around the deserts are cordial. Trade is common between the two, exchanging goods the others produce for what they cannot make themselves. Manure from the nomadic herds are often sought as fertiliser by farmers, and so it is quite common for nomads to graze their herds in non-farmland nearby to the villages. Tensions however can and do flare up and may result in violence in times of economic or environmental hardship, or as the result of real or perceived insults and offences between the two groups. Northern nomads in particular are stereotyped and feared for a reputation for kidnapping women and girls, and are historically less diplomatic than nomads from central or southern Saukania.

The nomadic groups have representation in the Confederation, and are free to follow their own laws in their own communities, but are obligated to respect the law of the land in any settlement they arrive at. Simultaneously, anyone who enters the camp of a nomadic community is deemed consenting to abide by their laws and customs. In the last century it is thought that nearly half a million nomads have abandoned their way of life and settled down, either as individuals or groups.

Society

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Physical appearance and genetics

A phenotypical study from 2002 assessing hair and eye colour of the Saukanian people showed that the self-reported frequencies according to hair and eye colour categories was as follows: 217 individuals – hair colour, 34 blond, 62 dark blond/light brown, 68 dark brown, 23 brown red/auburn and 30 had black hair; eye colour, 86 with blue, 21 with green, and 110 had brown eye colour. Curly hair is quite common.

In general the Saukanians are a tall people, with an average male height of 5 feet 11 inches, and an average female height of 5 feet 3 1⁄2 inches. Heights vary however between different populations of Saukania, such as region, settled or nomadic lifestyle, and even class, making the mean average of questionable reliability in an insightful assessment. In addition to being tall, Saukanians are also typically quite lean. This is especially true for the nomads and rural settled people, whose more active lifestyle of movement, herding, and farm work burns calories. Obesity is uncommon. The height disparity between males and females is also variable, though on average quite high, due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

In skin tone Saukanians vary from light to bronzed, and generally have a warm complexion. As in most populations, Saukanian females are lighter than males, further exacerbated in many communities by men engaging in fieldwork and other outdoor activity, with women keeping more to housework and indoor activity.

Along with eye and hair colour, these differences are thought likely due to variations in genetic ancestry from the indigenous Pre-Saukanian agriculturalists and the pastoralist Proto-Saukanians. DNA studies have revealed a wide variety in autosomal DNA heritage among modern Saukanians, with some having close to 50-50 ancestry and others having majority Pre-Saukanian ancestry. Saukanian nomads have the highest overall ancient pastoralist ancestry. The overwhelming majority of modern Saukanian Y-DNA haplogroups originate from the ancient pastoral invader communities, as indigenous male lines were largely replaced. Saukanian mitochondrial DNA lineages are far more varied, indicating interbreeding between males of the pastoral invaders and females of the indigenous agriculturalists. Polygyny among the Proto-Saukanian elite may have driven bands of males to seek wives in foreign lands, either by peaceful intermarriage or violence. Many Saukanologists believe this constituted the first of the migratory waves, with the secondary and tertiary waves bringing a greater number of Saukanian females and complete family units, bringing further mixing to an already hybridized pool.