Post by Tabula Rasa on May 7, 2008 5:25:05 GMT -8
The Caminar are a large group of holdless traders that predominantly travel through Telgar's territories, the upper portion of Igen's and the edges of High Reaches' and Fort's. All the caravans seem to be very loosely related, and similar physical traits among Caminar suggest that they all share some bloodlines.
How they came to be holdless depends on who you ask. The holders of Telgar and Igen say the Caminar were exiled turns upon turns ago, at the start of the First Interval, for a crime so heinous that it's been stricken from all records. The Caminar, most holders will tell you, cannot be trusted. But, they can be traded with and their goods are unique enough and of such high quality that, despite what mutterings may go on behind their backs, to their face, holdbound are at least passingly civil.
The Caminar say that they're holdless by choice. At the start of the First Interval, a family from Fort Hold gathered up aunts, uncles and cousins and decided to take up the wanderer's life. The 'whys' of that decision vary in the tale's telling, but there's a general consensus that the urge for travel was always in their blood, and when the First Interval presented clear skies and safe travel, they could do no less. They view the holdbound (or plantado as the Caminar call them) as those who have chosen a lesser life. People who, while they must be treated with respect for their numbers and their patronage, are regarded within the Caminar circles with various shades of pity and disdain.
Culture
Known for their vibrantly colored clothes, tanned skin and dark features, Caminar are, above all else, aware of how tenuous life can be. They have no immediate access to healers most of the time, and nearly every Caminar has at least one ancient tale of an ancestor's struggle to find safe shelter before thread falls. But the purpose of life is the journey, and what trip would be interesting without a few bumps and thumps along the way?
Caminar travel in groups ranging from two to about twenty. It's very uncommon to see a single Caminar traveling alone, and it's equally rare to spot a caravan of more than twenty-five. The size of each group is based on the number of their immediate relatives. A young couple just starting out may travel on their own or choose to journey with the husband's family. A couple with children will sometimes branch out to begin their own group, though as they age, older Caminar may rejoin their children and grandchildren's caravans. A single group is almost always united by blood or marriage.
Skilled in craftsmanship, many Caminar are gifted jewelers, carvers or cloth-makers. Others are excellent storytellers and performers, trading with holdfolk or plantado using stories, songs, dance and plays rather than wares as their barter. Caminar children don't apprentice in crafthalls; skills are passed down along the family lines. Men are taught the trades of their fathers and women the skills of their mothers. All women are also instructed in the rudimentary basics of healing and herbs, though some caravans also have a sabedoria or a woman that's been taught the healer arts in more depth. Girls from other caravans will occasionally study beneath such women for several turns before joining up with their own family again.
Boys learn the basics of hunting and tracking, and the food they barter from holders is supplemented by that which they hunt for themselves. While girls may occasionally study beneath a sabedoria or another woman that excels at a particular skill, boys are expected to take up their father's or one of their uncles' craft. When a son breaks from his family to study something else, it's considered a great dishonor and a mark against the family. No other caravan will accept or train such a son, and of the very few Caminar that travel on their own, such young men make up the majority.
The Caminar consider all other Canimar to be relatives, and hospitality between caravans is a matter of pride. Courtesy is always extended and two caravans passing one another will always stop, exchange news and trade goods and gossip. It's also an opportunity for the younger generations to meet and flirt, and occasionally such chance meeting will result in the arrangement of a marriage.
Every turn, around midsummer, all of the Caminar come together in a huge gathering. Held in the open area centered between Greenfields and Telgar Hold, it involves several days of feasting, dancing, drinking and general revelry. It's also a chance for all the caravans to meet with one another, for important information to make it to everyone's ears and for family members to move between caravans. Girls that will apprentice with a sabedoria will move into her caravan at the turnly gather and women completing their studies will return home. Couples wishing to begin on their own will branch off at this time, too. Marriages are often held and divorces, though rare, are performed. The general level of sound and celebration that results each turn has led more than one cotholder who's overheard it to believe terrible and frightful things are happening in the dark of bonfire-lit nights. It doesn't help these suspicions that more than one young Caminar man, heady with celebration and liquor, has gone traipsing through fields to make merry with a cotholder's daughter or to try and pinch a bit of their crop.
Physical Appearance
Caminar skin tends to be medium toned, whether from heritage or from long hours in the sun or both, and most Caminar have brown eyes and wavy brown to black hair. Facial features are often prominent but rarely sharp. Pale features (skin color, hair color, blue or green eyes) do occur among the Caminar thanks to historical intermixing with the rest of the Pernese people, but it's often wondered if such children are rafeiro, especially if the presumed parents are dark-complected.
In general the Caminar have classic Spanish or southern European features, though exceptions are not uncommon. Thanks to the wide range of coloring and characteristics among the Pernese population in general, an isolated Caminar in 'typical Pernese' clothing living a typical Pernese life might not have his or her heritage guessed at first glance by passerby.
Upholding Tradition
The Caminar are proud of their way of life, and while they see the plantado as necessary, they still feel that their life of travel and exploration is the superior one. But, to be Caminar you must be born Caminar, and theirs is not a culture that welcomes outsiders.
One of the few groups of Pernese that retain their own language, the Caminar speak what we Earthly folks would recognize as a bastardization of Portuguese with remnants of many other languages, including that which eventually became Pernese. The language, called Noestacan, is taught to Caminar children early on and never to plantado of any age. Caminar also speak the common Pernese language, and they use this, rather than Noestacan, when talking to non-Caminar. It's not considered appropriate to use Noestacan with plantado. Like the rest of their culture, their language is to be used only between their own. As Caminar children are taught Noestacan before common Pernese, all Caminar have a distinct accent to their speech.
(As an OOC note: please, please, please, if you make a Caminar, don't actually type their speech to reflect how they'd sound. No slurring or mooshing words. Everyone's going to have a slightly different take on the accent, and to avoid anyone feeling restricted in their internal imaginings to someone else's interpretation, and to promote general readability of the Caminar when they talk, we ask that you type their dialogue using the normal rules of spelling and grammar.)
A child is expected to grow up following the traditions of his or her caravan, then to wed another Caminar and carry those traditions on to the next generation. Marrying into the Caminar is a difficult process; the family of one who has married an outsider is burdened with a considerable amount of shame. Plantado women, though always held at arm's length, are more readily accepted into the traveling culture than are plantado men.
Worse, yet, is if a Caminar son or daughter marries out and abandons the Caminar life for a sedentary one. Such aterrado are shunned by the Caminar, and their families mourn for the lost member as if he or she had died. The family ends all contact and alters their travel route so as to never stop at the hold or hall that their spurned child now inhabits.
Caminar and Search
Dragonriders are respected for their courage and protection, and when Caminar caravans make their stops at Telgar Weyr, they always offer up some of their finest crafts for gifts to high ranking riders and the Weyrleaders. But, despite their dragons' capacity for travel, the weyrbound are still plantado.
To be searched and to impress is to leave the Caminar way of life and to remove yourself from the gene pool. In a population so small, such losses can't often be afforded, and Caminar are careful to avoid the Weyr when eggs are on the sand. They beat a quick retreat from Holds when searchriders come calling. This does little to disprove the general Pernese opinion that Caminar are a shiftless and untrustworthy lot.
If a Caminar is searched, they, like any other Pernese, must accept. Those that don't impress return to their families who view the entire experience as a near miss, and the failed candidate is expected to view the experience the same way, with a sense of relief. There does, however, seem to be a high percentage of searched and unimpressed Caminar that ultimately leave the life and become Weyr plantado.
Those that do impress are viewed by the Caminar somewhat like a family member drawn off into a war. Though they would all rather that person were home, he or she is not shunned like other plantado. They may visit with caravans as welcome guests and even continue to attend the turnly celebrations. In exchange for this inclusion, Caminar riders are expected to look after their own. They must make sure that caravans that come to the Weyr are treated well and given necessary supplies before they depart. If pressing news reaches the Weyr, the Caminar expect one of 'their' riders to locate a caravan and spread the information to his people.
Occasionally, if a caravan with a barren couple comes to the Weyr, a male Caminar rider will be asked to try to 'improve' that situation. Being both Caminar and completely removed from the marriage mart, riders are in the unique position to offer such assistance when needed.
Taboos
Obviously, Caminar live in a way that most of Pern does not, and things the Pernese consider to be terrible (like living without the protection of a Hold) are simply part of the Caminar way of life. On the other hand, just like any culture, the Caminar believe that some things should not be done. Some of their taboos line up with rest of Pern's beliefs while others are distinct to the Caminar.
Extra-marital sex with other Caminar: The Caminar are quite protective of their bloodlines, and it's a fine tightrope they walk between interbreeding too heavily and losing the lineage they've worked to preserve. All Caminar have a detailed family tree, and marriages are arranged, in large part, based on how often and where each 'tree' has already crossed. Wedding a distant cousin is often done, but wedding a first cousin or closer is not. Sex outside of marriage (and the potential children produced) tends to confuse an already complicated issue. While it does happen, if not done discreetly, the offenders will find themselves in considerable amount of trouble with their respective families. Children born out of wedlock are seen as lesser because of it, and the stigma attached to such bastards and their mothers is usually enough to make women take precautions if they plan to misbehave.
Sex with Plantado: While overtly condemned, it's an unspoken and accepted fact that many Caminar men sow their wild oats with plantado women. It's seen as a safer and less troublesome alternative than taking up with a Caminar girl before marrying her, and while holder girls aren't viewed as viable wives, they are seen as good options when a young Caminar man has an itch to scratch. Older men, wed or no, are expected to be beyond such nonsense. Women of any age aren't to take up with plantado men in any manner. There is no 'looking the other way', and a Caminar girl whose plantado affair is known may be be cast out of her caravan or treated as an effective aterrado. Women who find themselves carrying mixed (called rafeiro) children abort if at all possible. If they do not, they can expect to be shunned by their family. Most become aterrado, simply because they have no other options. Occasionally, a caravan consisting of a Caminar woman, a male lover or relative, and a rafeiro child occur. They are true outcasts, neither accepted by the plantado nor by other Caminar.
Homosexuality: It's hard enough to keep the Caminar population strong without their men 'opting' to remove themselves from the breeding population. Homosexuality is not seen as an acceptable option among Caminar men. They marry. They do their duty to bring forth the next generation. If, on top of that, they must also discreetly sneak off with another man now and again, society as a whole will look the other way. Homosexuality is not to be flaunted or discussed. Wives are expected to ignore any small signs that it's going on. Husbands are expected to put their wives before any male lovers. Those that break these rules may expect to get the tar beat out of them. Gay women have it both easier and harder: The woman's fidelity to her spouse is seen as more vital than a husband's fidelity to his wife, so any lovers of either gender are not permissible, no matter how quietly managed. On the other hand, unwed girls who wish to experiment with one another are not seen as miscreant or bad. It's simply seen as a phase, part of coming of age, that they will ultimately outgrow.
The Current State of Affairs
When children began disappearing from holds and halls, the Caminar were easy to blame. Nobody trusts them to start with and they're the only known people that could have been in all of the places and times where children vanished. Since the holdfolk reached this conclusion, the Caminar have found the roads to be a far more dangerous place.
Unwelcome at halls and holds, they've been unable to earn or trade for food and other necessities. What's more, there's no thread to keep angry holders from forming bands and traveling the roads to find and assault Caminar caravans. Atrocities have been committed in the name of locating the lost children or, sometimes, just in the name of revenge.
So the Caminar have turned to the only place that hasn't tried to harm them. The traveler's life has been temporarily set aside for a safer one within Telgar Weyr's walls, and once the word got out that some caravans had found safety, others began arriving in droves.
If the Weyr is not outright attacking the Caminar, it cannot be said that the riders and residents are all that pleased to have them. Caminar are anxious that so many of their children are at Telgar Weyr when a clutch is on the sands. Residents resent sharing their space and tithe with these wanderers and suspected child thieves. Still, the Weyrleaders are permitting it and, so far, their word continues to be obeyed.
How they came to be holdless depends on who you ask. The holders of Telgar and Igen say the Caminar were exiled turns upon turns ago, at the start of the First Interval, for a crime so heinous that it's been stricken from all records. The Caminar, most holders will tell you, cannot be trusted. But, they can be traded with and their goods are unique enough and of such high quality that, despite what mutterings may go on behind their backs, to their face, holdbound are at least passingly civil.
The Caminar say that they're holdless by choice. At the start of the First Interval, a family from Fort Hold gathered up aunts, uncles and cousins and decided to take up the wanderer's life. The 'whys' of that decision vary in the tale's telling, but there's a general consensus that the urge for travel was always in their blood, and when the First Interval presented clear skies and safe travel, they could do no less. They view the holdbound (or plantado as the Caminar call them) as those who have chosen a lesser life. People who, while they must be treated with respect for their numbers and their patronage, are regarded within the Caminar circles with various shades of pity and disdain.
Culture
Known for their vibrantly colored clothes, tanned skin and dark features, Caminar are, above all else, aware of how tenuous life can be. They have no immediate access to healers most of the time, and nearly every Caminar has at least one ancient tale of an ancestor's struggle to find safe shelter before thread falls. But the purpose of life is the journey, and what trip would be interesting without a few bumps and thumps along the way?
Caminar travel in groups ranging from two to about twenty. It's very uncommon to see a single Caminar traveling alone, and it's equally rare to spot a caravan of more than twenty-five. The size of each group is based on the number of their immediate relatives. A young couple just starting out may travel on their own or choose to journey with the husband's family. A couple with children will sometimes branch out to begin their own group, though as they age, older Caminar may rejoin their children and grandchildren's caravans. A single group is almost always united by blood or marriage.
Skilled in craftsmanship, many Caminar are gifted jewelers, carvers or cloth-makers. Others are excellent storytellers and performers, trading with holdfolk or plantado using stories, songs, dance and plays rather than wares as their barter. Caminar children don't apprentice in crafthalls; skills are passed down along the family lines. Men are taught the trades of their fathers and women the skills of their mothers. All women are also instructed in the rudimentary basics of healing and herbs, though some caravans also have a sabedoria or a woman that's been taught the healer arts in more depth. Girls from other caravans will occasionally study beneath such women for several turns before joining up with their own family again.
Boys learn the basics of hunting and tracking, and the food they barter from holders is supplemented by that which they hunt for themselves. While girls may occasionally study beneath a sabedoria or another woman that excels at a particular skill, boys are expected to take up their father's or one of their uncles' craft. When a son breaks from his family to study something else, it's considered a great dishonor and a mark against the family. No other caravan will accept or train such a son, and of the very few Caminar that travel on their own, such young men make up the majority.
The Caminar consider all other Canimar to be relatives, and hospitality between caravans is a matter of pride. Courtesy is always extended and two caravans passing one another will always stop, exchange news and trade goods and gossip. It's also an opportunity for the younger generations to meet and flirt, and occasionally such chance meeting will result in the arrangement of a marriage.
Every turn, around midsummer, all of the Caminar come together in a huge gathering. Held in the open area centered between Greenfields and Telgar Hold, it involves several days of feasting, dancing, drinking and general revelry. It's also a chance for all the caravans to meet with one another, for important information to make it to everyone's ears and for family members to move between caravans. Girls that will apprentice with a sabedoria will move into her caravan at the turnly gather and women completing their studies will return home. Couples wishing to begin on their own will branch off at this time, too. Marriages are often held and divorces, though rare, are performed. The general level of sound and celebration that results each turn has led more than one cotholder who's overheard it to believe terrible and frightful things are happening in the dark of bonfire-lit nights. It doesn't help these suspicions that more than one young Caminar man, heady with celebration and liquor, has gone traipsing through fields to make merry with a cotholder's daughter or to try and pinch a bit of their crop.
Physical Appearance
Caminar skin tends to be medium toned, whether from heritage or from long hours in the sun or both, and most Caminar have brown eyes and wavy brown to black hair. Facial features are often prominent but rarely sharp. Pale features (skin color, hair color, blue or green eyes) do occur among the Caminar thanks to historical intermixing with the rest of the Pernese people, but it's often wondered if such children are rafeiro, especially if the presumed parents are dark-complected.
In general the Caminar have classic Spanish or southern European features, though exceptions are not uncommon. Thanks to the wide range of coloring and characteristics among the Pernese population in general, an isolated Caminar in 'typical Pernese' clothing living a typical Pernese life might not have his or her heritage guessed at first glance by passerby.
Upholding Tradition
The Caminar are proud of their way of life, and while they see the plantado as necessary, they still feel that their life of travel and exploration is the superior one. But, to be Caminar you must be born Caminar, and theirs is not a culture that welcomes outsiders.
One of the few groups of Pernese that retain their own language, the Caminar speak what we Earthly folks would recognize as a bastardization of Portuguese with remnants of many other languages, including that which eventually became Pernese. The language, called Noestacan, is taught to Caminar children early on and never to plantado of any age. Caminar also speak the common Pernese language, and they use this, rather than Noestacan, when talking to non-Caminar. It's not considered appropriate to use Noestacan with plantado. Like the rest of their culture, their language is to be used only between their own. As Caminar children are taught Noestacan before common Pernese, all Caminar have a distinct accent to their speech.
(As an OOC note: please, please, please, if you make a Caminar, don't actually type their speech to reflect how they'd sound. No slurring or mooshing words. Everyone's going to have a slightly different take on the accent, and to avoid anyone feeling restricted in their internal imaginings to someone else's interpretation, and to promote general readability of the Caminar when they talk, we ask that you type their dialogue using the normal rules of spelling and grammar.)
A child is expected to grow up following the traditions of his or her caravan, then to wed another Caminar and carry those traditions on to the next generation. Marrying into the Caminar is a difficult process; the family of one who has married an outsider is burdened with a considerable amount of shame. Plantado women, though always held at arm's length, are more readily accepted into the traveling culture than are plantado men.
Worse, yet, is if a Caminar son or daughter marries out and abandons the Caminar life for a sedentary one. Such aterrado are shunned by the Caminar, and their families mourn for the lost member as if he or she had died. The family ends all contact and alters their travel route so as to never stop at the hold or hall that their spurned child now inhabits.
Caminar and Search
Dragonriders are respected for their courage and protection, and when Caminar caravans make their stops at Telgar Weyr, they always offer up some of their finest crafts for gifts to high ranking riders and the Weyrleaders. But, despite their dragons' capacity for travel, the weyrbound are still plantado.
To be searched and to impress is to leave the Caminar way of life and to remove yourself from the gene pool. In a population so small, such losses can't often be afforded, and Caminar are careful to avoid the Weyr when eggs are on the sand. They beat a quick retreat from Holds when searchriders come calling. This does little to disprove the general Pernese opinion that Caminar are a shiftless and untrustworthy lot.
If a Caminar is searched, they, like any other Pernese, must accept. Those that don't impress return to their families who view the entire experience as a near miss, and the failed candidate is expected to view the experience the same way, with a sense of relief. There does, however, seem to be a high percentage of searched and unimpressed Caminar that ultimately leave the life and become Weyr plantado.
Those that do impress are viewed by the Caminar somewhat like a family member drawn off into a war. Though they would all rather that person were home, he or she is not shunned like other plantado. They may visit with caravans as welcome guests and even continue to attend the turnly celebrations. In exchange for this inclusion, Caminar riders are expected to look after their own. They must make sure that caravans that come to the Weyr are treated well and given necessary supplies before they depart. If pressing news reaches the Weyr, the Caminar expect one of 'their' riders to locate a caravan and spread the information to his people.
Occasionally, if a caravan with a barren couple comes to the Weyr, a male Caminar rider will be asked to try to 'improve' that situation. Being both Caminar and completely removed from the marriage mart, riders are in the unique position to offer such assistance when needed.
Taboos
Obviously, Caminar live in a way that most of Pern does not, and things the Pernese consider to be terrible (like living without the protection of a Hold) are simply part of the Caminar way of life. On the other hand, just like any culture, the Caminar believe that some things should not be done. Some of their taboos line up with rest of Pern's beliefs while others are distinct to the Caminar.
Extra-marital sex with other Caminar: The Caminar are quite protective of their bloodlines, and it's a fine tightrope they walk between interbreeding too heavily and losing the lineage they've worked to preserve. All Caminar have a detailed family tree, and marriages are arranged, in large part, based on how often and where each 'tree' has already crossed. Wedding a distant cousin is often done, but wedding a first cousin or closer is not. Sex outside of marriage (and the potential children produced) tends to confuse an already complicated issue. While it does happen, if not done discreetly, the offenders will find themselves in considerable amount of trouble with their respective families. Children born out of wedlock are seen as lesser because of it, and the stigma attached to such bastards and their mothers is usually enough to make women take precautions if they plan to misbehave.
Sex with Plantado: While overtly condemned, it's an unspoken and accepted fact that many Caminar men sow their wild oats with plantado women. It's seen as a safer and less troublesome alternative than taking up with a Caminar girl before marrying her, and while holder girls aren't viewed as viable wives, they are seen as good options when a young Caminar man has an itch to scratch. Older men, wed or no, are expected to be beyond such nonsense. Women of any age aren't to take up with plantado men in any manner. There is no 'looking the other way', and a Caminar girl whose plantado affair is known may be be cast out of her caravan or treated as an effective aterrado. Women who find themselves carrying mixed (called rafeiro) children abort if at all possible. If they do not, they can expect to be shunned by their family. Most become aterrado, simply because they have no other options. Occasionally, a caravan consisting of a Caminar woman, a male lover or relative, and a rafeiro child occur. They are true outcasts, neither accepted by the plantado nor by other Caminar.
Homosexuality: It's hard enough to keep the Caminar population strong without their men 'opting' to remove themselves from the breeding population. Homosexuality is not seen as an acceptable option among Caminar men. They marry. They do their duty to bring forth the next generation. If, on top of that, they must also discreetly sneak off with another man now and again, society as a whole will look the other way. Homosexuality is not to be flaunted or discussed. Wives are expected to ignore any small signs that it's going on. Husbands are expected to put their wives before any male lovers. Those that break these rules may expect to get the tar beat out of them. Gay women have it both easier and harder: The woman's fidelity to her spouse is seen as more vital than a husband's fidelity to his wife, so any lovers of either gender are not permissible, no matter how quietly managed. On the other hand, unwed girls who wish to experiment with one another are not seen as miscreant or bad. It's simply seen as a phase, part of coming of age, that they will ultimately outgrow.
The Current State of Affairs
When children began disappearing from holds and halls, the Caminar were easy to blame. Nobody trusts them to start with and they're the only known people that could have been in all of the places and times where children vanished. Since the holdfolk reached this conclusion, the Caminar have found the roads to be a far more dangerous place.
Unwelcome at halls and holds, they've been unable to earn or trade for food and other necessities. What's more, there's no thread to keep angry holders from forming bands and traveling the roads to find and assault Caminar caravans. Atrocities have been committed in the name of locating the lost children or, sometimes, just in the name of revenge.
So the Caminar have turned to the only place that hasn't tried to harm them. The traveler's life has been temporarily set aside for a safer one within Telgar Weyr's walls, and once the word got out that some caravans had found safety, others began arriving in droves.
If the Weyr is not outright attacking the Caminar, it cannot be said that the riders and residents are all that pleased to have them. Caminar are anxious that so many of their children are at Telgar Weyr when a clutch is on the sands. Residents resent sharing their space and tithe with these wanderers and suspected child thieves. Still, the Weyrleaders are permitting it and, so far, their word continues to be obeyed.