Takhasar

Manufacturing process

The Basket Horns hide must first be stripped of meat, fat, and fur through the use of the flaying knife, although any knife will do in a pinch. Careful removal of all such excess material is required before the hide can be processed, or else it will be stiff and almost unusable for this purpose. The skin must also be soaked in a very liquefied Ice Flats Substance solution in order to help remove the hair for later use in something such as Insulating Mesh. The hide is then wrung out and stretched across a large frame for drying, and is tanned with the use of the brain of the animal.

Every animal has enough brains to preserve its own hide, except giraffe and teenager.

The brains, mixed in with a liquid such as Ale, are rubbed across the surface area of the hide. The skin is then worked repeatedly over a hard, slightly rounded surface. Traditionally, the ribcage of the Basket Horns is used for this purpose, but other items, such as some stools and crystal plinths, have been found to work just as well. Once softened, the hide is stretched over a fire to be smoked.
The hard part is now over. The hide, commonly stretched to at least twice its original size, can now be cut into strips the width of a hand. The strips are bound together with a leather cord (processed similarly but allowed to be stiffer) and affixed to a thick waist band. The cord gives enough flexibility in circumference to provide a nearly one-size-fits-all fit to all takhasar. Each leather strip is also decorated with knuckle bones, vertebrae, and other small bones sewn into the center with a thread derived from sinew.
The garment is now complete.

Significance

The takhasar is a highly formal garment which sees two major uses in Stenza society:

1. As the base garment of all performers dancing An'o
2. As part of the Leader's War Gear

It is also worn by Religious Experts dancing on Mountain Peaks for purposes of communing with gods and spirits. This may be the oldest use of the garment, from which its use in An'o more broadly flowed. It was not used in war gear until centuries later.

Item type

Religious / Ritualistic

Manufacturer

The Nine Systems

Owning Organization

The Nine Systems

Raw materials & Components

The takhasar is made of a series of thick strips of the hide of Basket Horns, fastened with a leather cord and each strip decorated with all sorts of bones. (It should be noted that in the far future, T'zim-Sha wears a variant decorated with chains.)

Related Materials

• Leather