Yukkuri Clan

A Yukkuri Clan is the basic form of cooperation between several Yukkuri families, mostly related by family or by forced combination over a large (in yukkuri time) time span. Yukkuri Clans are the equivalent of Human Clans, or small villages, denoting both the clan as an aggregate of individuals bound by kinship and family, both as an organized community with its territories and structures. Originally a Wild Yukkuri structure, it has since adapted by City Yukkuris, with the needed differences.
==Wild Clans==
===The Average Clan===
To a human bystander, the clan appears as a large section of a forest, crowded and staffed by yukkuris of several generations. The clans members agree to nest close together, with each family burrowing by itself or receiving by the Dosu (the head yukkuri, see below) the right to nest in preassigned places (under the roots of a large tree, in abandoned burrows or natural caves and crevices), all facing an empty space in the center, serving as a plaza and a center of aggregation.
Some yukkuri may receive larger housing, according to their needs and their special abilities; whenever a clan manages to have a Yukkuri Eirin in its numbers, the Eirin is given a larger nest to serve as infirmary and a clinic for the other Yukkuris. Some clans, where the Yukkuris prefers to hibernate instead of holing up awake during the winter confinement, may also keep larger nesting places empty and stacked with food and warm grass and cotton for the winter period, allowing the entire clan to hibernate together.
Some other clans may employ elaborate structures, such as orphanages or "day care" centers for koyukkuris, where a Patchouli or Reimu cares for orphan kos or koyukkuris too small and frail to follow their parents during the hunt hunt and needing guidance and proper education.
While smaller clans may thrive in a sort of controlled freedom, with the few families inside having to agree by general consensus on communal activities, most organized clans enjoy the guide of a Dosu and a Clan Council.
===Dosu Yukkuri and Councils===
The Dosu, usually a Yukkuri Marisa, but also coming from other species, is the undisputed clan leader. Older and bigger, sometime human-sized or even taller, (ranging on an average of two meters) than its brethren, the Dosu may wield some mystical abilities, as Marisa Kirisame's "Master Spark" and the ability to hide from humans and "uneasy yukkuris" alike. A Dosu is usually helped by a "Clan Council", a group of the best and brightest yukkuris in the clan, mostly overseen by Patchoulis, Marisas and Sikieikis.
The Patchouli are chosen because of their above-average intelligence and ability to plan, the Marisas for their hunting skills, and thus the ability to gather and ration supplies, and the Sikieikis act as judges, ordering punishments against yukkuris guilty of betraying the Clan rules or the tenets of yukkuri society, usually by death or banishment.
Lacking a Dosu, a Council-Marisa or a Council-Patchouli may take its place. It has also to be noted that the role of Clan Leader is mostly hereditary, with the most beloved offspring of the previous leader taking the place of its parent, or one of the offspring of a Dosu becoming a Dosu itself.
However, since yukkuris are finicky by nature, entire leader families may fall in disgrace in no time, and clans may fragment themselves over petty squabbles. According to a Clan Leader Patchouli, the average Yukkuri Clan lasts only three generations: the first one will band together to recognize their kinship and familiar bonds and gain a better chance at survival in an harsh place, the second one will know a better and easier life, but despite lacking direct knowledge of the hardship their elders suffered, they follow unflinchingly their guidance, thus thriving, while the third generation, without having ever known a single hardship and without the strong guidance of the first generation, is mostly unable to do everything and lets the clan fall in disarray.
Thus, only the clan able to generate a Dosu, with a longer lifespan than the average Yukkuri, are able to survive at least an entire human lifespan, with other clans ebbing and flowing in a few years. Furthermore, the entire clan dynamics are decided by the Clan Leader or Dosu, with predictable results. A leader with shithead tendencies, for example, may send its hunter-gatherers to steal food from human settlements while a good leader would encourage the gatherers to avoid human settlements and build food reserves for the winter confinement.
===In the cities===
City Strays can also have clans, and their rules follow mostly the ones employed by wild Yukkuris, whereas their nesting places may vary, with the "luckiest" one building their clans over landfills, public parks or in abandoned and condemned buildings. The less fortunate ones are forced to thrive in gutters and back alleys.
Those clans are forced to pay great attentions to human activities, having to hide away and bear the destruction of their housing during the periodic "yukkuri exterminations" employed by humans to quell their numbers, or even attempt form of cooperation with humans, such as caring for the public parks they live in.
==Artificial Clans==
Given yukkuri's needing for social contact, it's not uncommon for pet yukkuris (if there is a sizable number) to form clans, known as "Artificial Clans" due to the clans not being in nature. These clans are much smaller then the wilder clans (an average number is ten to thirty yukkuri) and have their human owner act like a Dosu. Clans like these are a great way to observe how "rarer" yukkuri act within the confines of a community. Normally, a Artificial Clan will look to their owner to set the rules. Once set, the yukkuri will elect a council to make sure the rules are carried out.
Due to the much more plushy lifestyle pet yukkuri have, much work isn't needed for the clan to continue running. It is advised that owners, rather then allow their pets to sit around, have their yukkuri build their own houses (by allowing the use of toy blocks), hunt for their food, and also lower the temperature in the room to encourage the yukkuri to nest when they usually would.
Category:Behavior
Category:Background