Ta Puna Tonalusia ~~ "The Young People"
On the isles on the southwest borders of Kanda's territory exist a people of incredibly long life, robust health and lasting youth that the Kandia have long fostered not only good relations with but have regarded as one of the most valuable and exotic peoples within their nation despite only being part of the Empire of Kanda for barely a century.
Due to their friendly, cooperative and diminutive nature the Kandia have come to call them The Puna Tonalusia or "Young People." While at first an easy-going subtropical people with a childlike disposition, The Young People occasionally ran afoul with slavers from the mainlands to the northwest and, thinking the world of the mainland to be an endless desert of death and scarcity, believed these much taller and raggedly dressed people to be demons from the mainland who came to spread the desert to their islands and bring death to all of their ways of life. Their otherwise placid local deities were unable to provide them sufficient support, protection and guidance for the ever more numerous raids that passed over nearly two decades before the arrival of a Kandia naval expedition to map the sea where The Young People lived; a fleet carrying thousands of Leconia who knew nothing of the troubles that their rivals in the Theocracy Of Eldin had stirred up.
Upon their arrival, The Kandia Leconia did great battle with a raiding party and drove the Eldinia back into the Sea! Delighted by the protective appearance of the Kandia Leconia, The Young People took the Kandia in quickly and accepted their methods and even beliefs; their own gods adopted into the Kandia Pantheon/Religion after so gracefully welcoming the Kandia onto the islands!
In Return, Understanding that The Young People would have expanded and traded with outsiders if they had but the power of civilization, the Kandia treated them well, accepting their islands as a Integral to the Empire and quickly building up the islands with trade and military infrastructure. The average Puna Tonalus male stands at nearly four and a half feet tall with the average female often standing as short as Four Feet. Some men of particular stature can stand up to five feet tall but a woman reaching that height is nearly unheard of.
Despite being very small, The Young People are particularly active, attentive and athletic folk, used to a subtropical island environment where swimming, paddling, climbing, hunting, running, jumping and swinging were all part of their day to day. While not large or strong enough to do heavy work, The Young People are often more than capable of fearlessly scrambling quickly across difficult terrain, scaling rough cliffs, meandering under waterfalls and diving very deep in their native islands and otherwise insert themselves into all manner of danger; all to maintain an extremely diverse diet that would make most Kandia jealous. Often possessing a very attractive skin tone roughly resembling rich dark red clay, their skin has been known to both lighten and dull out considerably when their diets get less diverse, though it is unknown whether or not this is because they end up lacking something from their home islands or if it is just more difficult to properly maintain the balance that gives their people that superior skin luster.
The Hair of the Puna Tonalusia is often brown but sometimes black. Their eyes are generally emerald green and have a certain glow about them that can be made out in the dark by those perceptive enough to be looking. It is thought that they can see better in the dark thanks to many thousands of years on a jungle island under the stars.
This might even be true considering that many of their kind prefer to hunt and trap at night. While adults functionally look identical to other humans with the exception that they are much shorter, the prospect of aging is a completely different one to Ta Puna Tonalusia.
When they are born they age normally until they are about 13, when their aging begins to slow to almost half the rate of a normal human. 6 Years after that they generally seem to stop aging altogether for a time or perhaps merely age at tiny fractions of the normal speed. It is yet unknown exactly what their maximum lifespans are but their averages seem to run up to 125 years for the women and 100 for the men and at least a few dozen figures of their kind have lived into their third centuries before dying looking no older than an active 45.
Some of their oldest still remember fighting alongside the first Kandia visitors to stave off the raids.
Due to their friendly, cooperative and diminutive nature the Kandia have come to call them The Puna Tonalusia or "Young People." While at first an easy-going subtropical people with a childlike disposition, The Young People occasionally ran afoul with slavers from the mainlands to the northwest and, thinking the world of the mainland to be an endless desert of death and scarcity, believed these much taller and raggedly dressed people to be demons from the mainland who came to spread the desert to their islands and bring death to all of their ways of life. Their otherwise placid local deities were unable to provide them sufficient support, protection and guidance for the ever more numerous raids that passed over nearly two decades before the arrival of a Kandia naval expedition to map the sea where The Young People lived; a fleet carrying thousands of Leconia who knew nothing of the troubles that their rivals in the Theocracy Of Eldin had stirred up.
Upon their arrival, The Kandia Leconia did great battle with a raiding party and drove the Eldinia back into the Sea! Delighted by the protective appearance of the Kandia Leconia, The Young People took the Kandia in quickly and accepted their methods and even beliefs; their own gods adopted into the Kandia Pantheon/Religion after so gracefully welcoming the Kandia onto the islands!
In Return, Understanding that The Young People would have expanded and traded with outsiders if they had but the power of civilization, the Kandia treated them well, accepting their islands as a Integral to the Empire and quickly building up the islands with trade and military infrastructure. The average Puna Tonalus male stands at nearly four and a half feet tall with the average female often standing as short as Four Feet. Some men of particular stature can stand up to five feet tall but a woman reaching that height is nearly unheard of.
Despite being very small, The Young People are particularly active, attentive and athletic folk, used to a subtropical island environment where swimming, paddling, climbing, hunting, running, jumping and swinging were all part of their day to day. While not large or strong enough to do heavy work, The Young People are often more than capable of fearlessly scrambling quickly across difficult terrain, scaling rough cliffs, meandering under waterfalls and diving very deep in their native islands and otherwise insert themselves into all manner of danger; all to maintain an extremely diverse diet that would make most Kandia jealous. Often possessing a very attractive skin tone roughly resembling rich dark red clay, their skin has been known to both lighten and dull out considerably when their diets get less diverse, though it is unknown whether or not this is because they end up lacking something from their home islands or if it is just more difficult to properly maintain the balance that gives their people that superior skin luster.
The Hair of the Puna Tonalusia is often brown but sometimes black. Their eyes are generally emerald green and have a certain glow about them that can be made out in the dark by those perceptive enough to be looking. It is thought that they can see better in the dark thanks to many thousands of years on a jungle island under the stars.
This might even be true considering that many of their kind prefer to hunt and trap at night. While adults functionally look identical to other humans with the exception that they are much shorter, the prospect of aging is a completely different one to Ta Puna Tonalusia.
When they are born they age normally until they are about 13, when their aging begins to slow to almost half the rate of a normal human. 6 Years after that they generally seem to stop aging altogether for a time or perhaps merely age at tiny fractions of the normal speed. It is yet unknown exactly what their maximum lifespans are but their averages seem to run up to 125 years for the women and 100 for the men and at least a few dozen figures of their kind have lived into their third centuries before dying looking no older than an active 45.
Some of their oldest still remember fighting alongside the first Kandia visitors to stave off the raids.
Naming Traditions
Family names
One of the few naming conventions that has stayed in their culture since annexation has been the institution of family names as defined by previous clans that existed upon the arrival of Kanda.
In the time before they were civilized The Young People would identify clans and members of those clans based on what they were best known for; often manifesting in a term that creates a single word out of a verb followed by an adverb or sometimes an adjective. While clans would often trade back and forth individuals who would be adopted in, the arrival of Kandia Culture cemented that into place as a family naming structure.
Common Family Names from The Isles Of Youth include:
Bellowforth
Runaloft
Divealight
Leadaway
Swingover
Bellowforth
Runaloft
Divealight
Leadaway
Swingover
Other names
While most given names have been replaced by Kandia names and those names that have long been adopted by other cultures in Kanda's advance toward the future, The Young People have preserved a culture of nicknaming wherein one will be known by a name given to them by their community at large somewhere around their leaving for war at 18. Almost universally this name is a simple adjective but is supposed to specifically pair well with their clan name.
Examples Include:
Sharp
Windy
Gray
Quick
Sly
Kind
Hungry So this leads to common names that The Young People adopt in their day to day such as Sharp Runaloft, Windy Swingover and Kind Bellowforth. While these are not usually names that The Young People use in paperwork and matters of legal affairs, it's nearly impossible to find a continental Puna Tonalus that is not known in this fashion by all of their friends and business partners.
In matters of court importance, however, usually they will go by the standard three part naming system of "Given Name, Father's Name+ad, Family Name."
Sharp
Windy
Gray
Quick
Sly
Kind
Hungry So this leads to common names that The Young People adopt in their day to day such as Sharp Runaloft, Windy Swingover and Kind Bellowforth. While these are not usually names that The Young People use in paperwork and matters of legal affairs, it's nearly impossible to find a continental Puna Tonalus that is not known in this fashion by all of their friends and business partners.
In matters of court importance, however, usually they will go by the standard three part naming system of "Given Name, Father's Name+ad, Family Name."
Culture
Average technological level
While the Puna Tonalusia were found at an incredibly low level of technology; a high stone age clan based society with obvious advantages in art and organization the Isles Of Youth show a different story of a society that was clearly near to that of Kandia some 800 years ago before some catastrophic event or the passage of time brought what civilization was there to its knees. Their forests are full of old, ramshackle ruins that The Young People no longer have ways of repairing and which are home to metals that the Young People say their ancestors used to use but they no longer know how to make.
Since their discovery, the Kandia have mostly moved into these ruins; repairing and refurbishing them to become livable and reclaiming huge portions of these islands to house not only themselves but the people whose ancestors made them! Ongoing research by Kandia and Puna Tonalusia scholars continues to this day as to what sort of civilization must have come to be before The Young People's civilization collapsed and left them as stone age tribals.
Art & Architecture
The Young People were not terribly apt at Architecture when the Kandia discovered them and since their quick joining into the Empire most of the works of architecture on the islands have been obviously Kandia in design and even built strictly by the hands of Kandia soldiers. What few remnants of what could be called architecture that do remain are shrines and idols to old gods and buildings constructed by the natives with the assistance of the Kandia just before The Young People were fully annexed. The Greatest functional architecture remaining consists of stone carvings, great stone houses of worship and old civil buildings mostly made of the firmest of woods from the islands... longhouses by any other name.
Art, however, was something that The Young People found great amounts of time to dedicate to.
Mostly consisting of extremely anatomically accurate paintings of animals and humans on cloth made from wood fiber, The Young People have hundreds of different hues of paint that they make from natural ingredients on their islands and almost exclusively paint with their fingers, hands, feet and even faces. Almost all of their art endeavors to catch reality; whether it be in motion, still or just in existence. They are not known to have any heavily embellished artistry or recorded imagery of any animals that cannot be actively found on the islands; not even obviously fake animals that might be dreamed up by the mind of a child. Because of this, The Kandia were very quick to consider them as being "Civilized But Captive" and stories are told of how some civilized people from long before Kanda must have once come to these isles, lost their way to get back to the mainland and forgotten their histories whilst still retaining what they could of their crafts until finally they had little other to show their proper dignity as a civilized people other than art and story.
Mostly consisting of extremely anatomically accurate paintings of animals and humans on cloth made from wood fiber, The Young People have hundreds of different hues of paint that they make from natural ingredients on their islands and almost exclusively paint with their fingers, hands, feet and even faces. Almost all of their art endeavors to catch reality; whether it be in motion, still or just in existence. They are not known to have any heavily embellished artistry or recorded imagery of any animals that cannot be actively found on the islands; not even obviously fake animals that might be dreamed up by the mind of a child. Because of this, The Kandia were very quick to consider them as being "Civilized But Captive" and stories are told of how some civilized people from long before Kanda must have once come to these isles, lost their way to get back to the mainland and forgotten their histories whilst still retaining what they could of their crafts until finally they had little other to show their proper dignity as a civilized people other than art and story.
Coming of Age Rites
Where most coming of age ceremonies that originated on the isles have long since been subsumed by Kandia ones, especially in reference to the two year preparation for military service, one islander rite remains that the Kandia have not only allowed but have encouraged.
The day before a boy becomes a man his father brings him aside and prepares him with special potions, tinctures, balms and a fine meal to strengthen him.
The very next day that boy becomes a man in a ritual that involves the entire male community! If the boy is to survive as a man he must be able to turn away all challenges and hold his community respect at all times, meaning that he is willing to accept any amount of physical attack that comes to him!
For his 16th Birthday the young man must carry a spear and shield with him (blunted, of course) and must fight off anyone who attacks him regardless of the reason. All of his community will be out to strike him at least once, generally on the back or chest, and will not stop doing this until the sun sets. The young man is to have no peace for the day and shall learn that adulthood is not easy; it is constantly needing to defend oneself. It is also believed that this teaches the importance of working with the community, for a single man cannot ever truly defeat an entire village.
This Rite Of Passage Shows the young man that he best treat his community and fellows with respect, otherwise this is a small taste of what a community turning on one might look like
The very next day that boy becomes a man in a ritual that involves the entire male community! If the boy is to survive as a man he must be able to turn away all challenges and hold his community respect at all times, meaning that he is willing to accept any amount of physical attack that comes to him!
For his 16th Birthday the young man must carry a spear and shield with him (blunted, of course) and must fight off anyone who attacks him regardless of the reason. All of his community will be out to strike him at least once, generally on the back or chest, and will not stop doing this until the sun sets. The young man is to have no peace for the day and shall learn that adulthood is not easy; it is constantly needing to defend oneself. It is also believed that this teaches the importance of working with the community, for a single man cannot ever truly defeat an entire village.
This Rite Of Passage Shows the young man that he best treat his community and fellows with respect, otherwise this is a small taste of what a community turning on one might look like
Common Myths and Legends
Their greatest myth is of a figure known as Mighty Endrightly, the greatest Puna Tonalus to ever wield the spear and shield. Almost all of The Young People's hero myths center around him; the cooking of food, the planting of the forests, the steadying of the tides, the capturing of fire and the invention of the boat just being some of the many things he is said to have done. Any primes familiar with Polynesian mythology would readily spot the Maui parallels.
Historical figures
King "Bright Talkwell," who united the islands and entered The Isles Of Youth into the Annexation by The Empire Of Kanda, is considered a great figure and was entrenched into public history in 1623 after dying in his sleep at the age of 169; looking no older than he had when he had made the deal with the Kandar personally just under a century ago. Throughout the first ten years of interacting with the Kandia he was able to convince every major leader of every major tribe over every known island to side not only with him but with The Kandia in response to the near constant threat of the advancing Theocracy Of Eldin. The Only island group that refused to join him was put to the torch by the Eldinia just a year before Kandia Annexed the Isles Of Youth. It has remained completely uninhabited ever since, harboring no life after the Theocracy Of Eldin burned the forests to the ground in response to finding so many native deities residing there.
Over his lifetime King Talkwell would go on to not only lead the advancement of his people but to personally sit as Master Of Exotic Peoples for 25 Years, touring the Empire and ensuring that all ethnic and culture groups were properly represented and served by the Kandia system. Indeed there was not a single race riot or cultural rebellion during his entire tenure as Master Of Exotic Peoples, proving not only his duty to the role but his competence at being a fair and balanced politician.
Under his guidance and leadership Ta Puna Tonalusia have become one of the most respected minorities in the Empire and are considered every bit as civilized as ethnic Kandia, with modern scholars commonly learning their language and traveling to their islands to research the many ancient ruins and artifacts that their islands hide.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Despite generally being very small and aging incredibly slowly... or possibly because of it, Ta Puna Tonalusia seem to consider an obviously mature body to be one of the highest forms of beauty across the sexes. Men are regarded as particularly beautiful in having strong jaws, broad chests and shoulders, prominent facial hair and muscular features. Women are generally regarded as considerably more attractive when they are particularly curvy, leggy and well endowed.
Because of the generally perpetual existence of plentiful resources on the island for as long as they have been populated, no societal preference of overweight individuals ever formed and instead a generally athletic body is regarded as the most attractive to Ta Puna Tonalusia
Gender Ideals
While the original cultural gender roles were much less pronounced before the arrival of the Kandia, the Young People have changed in the last century to want to embody more "traditional" gender roles in recognition of the empire that annexed them.
Men consider themselves to be the responsible parties for the sake of protection and the providing for their family; especially spurred on by just under a century of Kandia military culture dictating that every male serve the nation no later than 18, though the need to necessarily fight directly has largely been abandoned by The Young People, as they do not fit the rank and file correctly. Instead Men tend to serve as administrators, inspectors and engineers in the Military, able to work with equipment more easily, notice small details in harder to reach places and understand the efficient travel and allotment of resources more conveniently than larger folk.
Related Organizations
Languages spoken
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