Grasslands Peoples

The peoples of the grasslands include the nomadic buffalo hunters, eastern farming settlements, northern marsh peoples, and fishing settlements along the south and east seas. They all worship the High Spirits and are protected by the Makkah spirit binders. They share one common language (with variations among the different tribes and settlements) and many similar traditions.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

All groups share one main language but one nomadic tribe will have its own variation from the south sea fishers, and so on. The hand-signs and bead/thread pattern is also well-known throughout all peoples.

Shared customary codes and values

Though values vary among tribes, one common code taught throughout the grasslands is of connection and continuation. Every creature and spirit and land has a heartbeat, individual to the being, but connected to every other heartbeat. Life is about connection, about forming bonds and coming to know and understand and to respect. To show disrespect to other heartbeats is wrong, is disrespect to yourself and every other being. Continuation is about the circle, the cycle of life dying and death living again. The hawk eats the snake, the land eats the hawk, the grass eats the land, the mouse eats the grass, the snake eats the mouse, and so on. The dead are born again, heartbeats continue on, everything is connected and nothing can be broken or lost, not for forever. Old passes into new, the young grow old, the flower buds and wilts and releases its heartbeat into another body, and no one is ever truly gone. Life is about change, and honoring that change, and respecting the beings who one day will hold your beat in their own heart.

Average technological level

Stone, bone, and shell are used as the sharp bits for tools and weapons. Spirit binding was developed in the grasslands, and spread to the mountains.

Common Dress code

Nomadic bands primarily use bison and deer hides for clothing, and trade to other bands and villages. Farmers in the east and marsh dwellers in the north often weave and tie local plant materials into clothing as well.

Art & Architecture

Paints are made from minerals in the land and dyes in berries and leaves. Clothing, shelters, tools, skin - most everything is decorated in paints and quill and beadwork, as both beauty and sometimes to tell stories.

Diverged ethnicities