Vesisape Yalisi
Yalisi on the mainland
Yalisi culture can be traced back to the city of Yalisi itself, situated on the island Mozu. As the desire to spread the power of wormstone has spread among the Vopa religion, increased population on the islands themselves, and skyrocketing tourism, some Yalisi people have elected to spread onto the mainland. They call themselves Vesisape, or "native mainland," Yalisi.Naming Traditions
Unisex names
Because of the complex gender system with close to seven genders, names have become more unisex over time.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Like the Yalisi people, Vesisape people speak languages in the Ipabi language family. It has three cases and a base six numbering system; however, old Ipabi languages are relatively stable as they've been separated from outside influence for a long time, but on the mainland Vesisape people interact with the Iwatian people quite frequently. They speak languages in the Yìlmuhi family, so there has been some mixing over time.
Common slang for place names has become similar to a locative case in some areas, bringing the language up to four cases. Locative is not a very common case in either language family.
Vesisape people have their roots in missionary work by vubopaa, or Vopa priests, and their religious language Zafu is also common. It is still a religious language used by priests to communicate with each other, but it has been adopted by some laypeople due to the ease of communicating across long distance or with humming or whistling.
Common Etiquette rules
Eye contact is more common amongst Vesisape people than in Yalisi, as fewer people have eyes in unusual places. Two-body conversations can take place with two people facing each other as well, not standing side by side.
Iwatian people believe in the body family (dhos), where multiple entities (called shar, plural zhùshar) exist within a single vessel. Amongst them, it is common to ask who is "fronting," or available to participate in the world around them, and Vesisape people have shortened the common phrase "por hosh?" as a greeting even among those who consider themselves singlets (shadhik, plural sishadhik), or whole people whose body family consists of a single entity.
Common Dress code
Vubopaa tend to wear very little clothing, mostly white cloth, and as sheer as possible. Iwati people also tend to wear little clothing and prefer beads and ornamentation. The Vesisape people tend to wear simple clothing with oval shapes and many beads. Priests still wear as few clothes as possible, but laypeople will wear layers in colder months.
Art & Architecture
Wood is used as a building material more than a decorative material in Vesisape spaces.
Foods & Cuisine
The lush fruits and vegetables available to the Yalisi people are still available in the southern parts of the continent Fuma, so mome is still enjoyed as a common snack. Fish are also plentiful, although methods of cooking them vary by the region, even if the clay ovens are considered worse than the ones found on Mozu and the other islands.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
The Yalisi people are all Teronura, and their reproductive cycles are the same. The Iwati people are a mix of Ildoar, Rarite, and occasionally Sela people. Ildoar give birth to live young, so the traditional reading of podevi dopeni, or "egg-books," that are read to the child in the egg so that they will retain their knowledge, are instead read by the gestating parent.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
Gender is messy for the Vesisape. The Yalisi people recognize four different genders, but these genders are fluid and are not expected to be permanent by default. The Iwati people do have genders that tend to persist, but they also only have three of them, and the way that gender is presented varies because, while the gender of an individual shar may be stable, the intensity may not be and the variability of which shar is fronting can change the gender presentation of the vessel.
As the majority of the Teronura people in the Vesisape culture derive from priests, the two religious genders, zakako and leju, are the most common, but another gender, pabu, has no religious connotations, and many Vesisape understand the three genders of the Iwatian people to be related most to that gender, but they understand them as different.
Vesisape people are very respectful of gender. Different pronouns have been created in the Ipabi-based languages to accommodate the genders of the Iwatian people rather than try to slot everyone into the same gender or rigidly fit into the Yalisi ones.
Parent ethnicities
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