The Tagka

The Tagka are a cluster of tribal human societies native to the far southern coast and polar islands south of the Panos. The word Tagka is a endonym that means Tag-Ka, lit. *"The people of Tag"*, where Tag is the mythical homeland of the Tagka peoples. In reality, the Tagka are anything but unified, with different clans speaking different dialects, following different lifestyles and adhering to different tribal identities.

## Identity:

The Tagka are divided into major tribal confederations of which most of them can be gathered under, with 7 major clans dominating the core Tagka territory:

* The Bear Clan
* The White Rock Clan
* The Whale Clan
* The Red Hooves Clan
* The Knife Clan
* The Eagle Clan
* The Wide-Hooves Clan

Each clan is subdivided into dozens of individual travelling groups that comprise the real population base of the Tagka. These groups organize themselves underneath hereditary leaders that speak for the entire clan and resolve larger disputes on behalf of its members. Inter-tribal and inter-group warfare is common but on the case larger fights occur these leaders must negotiate a peace or face regional warfare.

 A map of the largest Tagka confederacies as well as other neighboring groups:

   Beyond the major clans smaller groups exist on the fringes of Tagka territory, hunting and gathering among the dozens of glacial islands dotting the southern seas, or living in towns dotted in the more hospitable mainland. These peoples are divided by the Tagka into two groups, *gāsu-ka* and *hlíd-ka* lit. the White, and Blue peoples, based on the Tagka’s distinctive skin color. The Blue People include all the tribes in the southern oceans and some of the coastal tribes while the White People are the majority of the Uric speakers and anyone farther north.

## Biology:

The Tagka were long ago interbred with a semi-human aboriginal population in the southern oceans known as the Ice-Men to the Tagka. These were a sister population to true humans that had adapted to arctic and subarctic conditions over millennia. Tagka folk legends and artwork portrays them as tall red-headed people with glowing eyes and deep blue skin. They subsisted on hunting and gathered, wearing remarkably little clothing due to highy adapted metabolic systems. When the Uro-Tagka tribes migrated into the islands they extensively mingled with this native peoples. In-between sometimes brutal tribal warfare these aboriginal genes passed into the tribes that lived often in the same settlements as these people, and the Tagka gained several unique biological distinctions:

* The blue coloration of the Ice-Men was due to a congenital enzyme deficiency called Methemoglobinemia, which had been concentrated in their genepool as a dominant gene[rather than the recessive gene in the real-world disorder]. Soon the humans living on the islands acquired a ocean-blue skin color, although not as deep as the pigment of the Ice-Men themselves.
* A naturally high body metabolism, which allows the Tagka to withstand the colder temperatures but requires a higher calorie intake to fuel it. This means the Tagka are overwhelmingly quite thin but still must eat large quantities of food.
* More common redheadedness, although it is still a recessive trait as in other human population.

The Tagka are relatively tall, but gaunt, averaging 5.5-5.9 for women and 5.7-6.3 for men. They have blue skin with paler skin covering the palms and the hands of the feet. Hair and eye color is most commonly black and matted, although some are born with bright-red hair. Most have pronounced brow-ridges and fleshy wide noses with pale lips. Facial hair is common and grown out around the face. They also possess wide jaws with some men having strongly protruding cheek bones.

## Demographics:

The actual Tagka population is very small due to the nature of the highly fragmented harsh climate they live in. While each clan is comprised of many sub-groups, the majority of those groups are on the scale of a dozen to a few dozen people at a time, managing an equal amount of adult sheep-cows with a smaller number of calves in tow. If the Tagka were to rely solely on their own herds for food with supplemental hunting they would quickly deplete them beyond recovery, and so they also rely on large communal food stockpiles replenished yearly from both slaughtered sheep-cows and other foods. This allows a larger population than a purely nomadic lifestyle solely relying on the herds. Still, there is likely only in the scale of several thousand true Tagka living in the core islands. The far southern tribes and the western island tribes including the peoples called the Sea-Tagka are hunter-gatherers and in total only number in the high hundreds. The coastal mainland tribes are settled pastoralists and have both the densest and largest populations in the Tagka region, comprising a slight majority of the total regional population.

As far as trends go, populations are increasing in every region due to improved technology, better food storage and more refined grazing techniques, but the Tagka population is already straining the local environment, preluding a possible population collapse in the future.

## Society:

Tagka society can be roughly described as a general pool of tribesmen headed by a hereditary chief, with the shamans occupying a entirely distinct part of society separate from mundane authority. All physically fit men are by default both herders, hunters and warriors while women occupy equivalent roles for all of these occupations. While Tagka society is broadly a patriarchy women are very important and equal members of the tribe. Below the chiefship, the strongest social divisions outside of gender is based on pure fitness. The weak are valued less than the strong. The root of Tagka society is fundamentally food. The large tribal confederacies exist as a way for many bands of herders to cooperate to maintain food stockpiles,  settlements, respect mutual grazing rights and aid each-other in times of crisis. The strength of a chief is in their ability to provide for their charges and their herds.

### Rulership:

The duty of being a tribal chief is passed to a chosen successor, usually the eldest male son-but women can be, and very often are chiefs. The chiefship is maintained within dynasties that form the core of tribal political affiliation. Chiefs ostensibly own all the herds of their clan and can intervene and make decisions regarding their tribal members property. They guide the tribe through ceremonies, warfare and migrations. They act as absolute rulers but must take care to respect the opinions of the tribal elders or face being disobeyed and ignored. In individual groups where the total size can easily be only a dozen or a few dozen people, mutual cooperation is required for survival.

A chief who attempts to strong-arm a respected member of the tribe or who flouts social convention can easily find themselves denied even aid in hunting for food or erecting their tent. Abandoned and alone they will be exiled and another from their family elevated to take their place. The Tagka do not consider it strange at all to even kill their chief if that chief violates tribal law, which is the domain of the spirits and not of any man. Only shamans can commune directly with the spirits, and a wise chief will do well to shower the tribal shaman in gifts from time to time, in case would-be dissenters need to be dissuaded.

#### Primary gender roles include:

 Hunting, Herding, Warfare, Burying the dead, Shamanism, Safeguarding Sacred Sites, Teaching

### Shamanism:

Shamans occupy a unique niche in Tagka society. They do not obey any earthly authority but are instead tied to a specific tribal group as a whole. There is never more than one full fledged shaman per individual grouping, with possibly a single apprentice. Only men can become shamans, and must be selected as children by the elder shaman. As apprentices, the children are removed from their mothers are given entirely to the care of the shaman who instructs them and supervises them. Shamans often don’t travel with their chosen tribe but live separately, operating on their own secret calendars as to when to migrate and conduct ceremonies. Tribesmen do know where to meet them if they need healing or to have the shaman speak to the spirits on their behalf, bringing alms for the shaman as payment. Shamans will enter the main camp on occasion when required, but never stay past when their services are needed.

Shamans not only act as spiritual conduits, they also mediate disputes according to tribal law. These are customs passed down orally from teacher to apprentice and determine spiritual offenses and the required punishments for them.

### Rites of Passage:

The Tagka have very strongly defined concepts about adulthood. Each gender has separate rituals that mark the entry into adulthood. Boys are ritually scarred and forced to undergo ordeals starting at the age of 20 while girls undergo a similar trial at 16.

These rituals are always conducted in the winter. Boys and girls of the right age are separated and sent to live outside the settlement in small huts constructed specifically for that purpose. From these huts elders visit routinely to ensure they survive, but also to begin instructing them on tribal law and custom. Periodically they must also undergo trials, which differ by tribe. They universally involve deliberate violence inflicted on the adherents, to toughen them up for adulthood. Some tribes force the boys to run naked through the snow while the girls are whipped with grass brooms, or strap them to the ground face-down for hours at a time. Great care is taken to not let any of the children die during the rituals (which extend for weeks). The death of a child during the ceremonies is considered the darkest of omens. At the end, the new fully fledged adults of the tribe are painted and then scarred with the traditional symbols of the tribe, and are welcomed openly into adult life.

## Religion:

The Tagka are animists and revere human, animal, and natural spirits. They also have a ancestor cult, that reveres both known heroes and mythological tribal founders. Natural landmarks are seen as having named personified spirits that are entreated to for good weather, harvests and events. The Tagka interact with their spiritual world both through their own acts of faith, and shamans. Individual lay people give offerings to shrines at auspicious landmarks while shamans are seen as being able to directly speak to the mystical world. Shamans are both folk healers and spiritual messengers, who through visions, dance, and ceremony entreat the Gods directly on behalf of their community.

### Ancestor Cults:

The Tagka ancestor cult, also called the *Hé Gá* is a series of cults dedicated to the deification of past leaders. Ancestors are worshiped during these events in the summer. Stele are connected, but not entirely synonymous with the ancestor cult. Stele represent human spirits, but are either the collective identity of the tribe or a specific figure, like a funeral monument. To the Tagka they are distinct concepts. During the ceremonies the living ancestor is celebrated while the Stele acts as a representation of the spirit they became after death, a guardian of its clan in perpetuity.

### Mummification:

By virtue of their climate, Tagka dead are naturally mummified. They also practice intentional mummification as a way of transforming dead leaders into spirits. A chosen figure will be cleaned and ceremonially prepared, and then bound upright, whether on a stele, cliff-face or a natural rock mount. They are stripped naked and left to naturally dessicate in the cold climate. After many months of desiccation they are then buried under a cairn with offerings at a separate site. Bodies mummified in this fashion are seen as being extremely magically potent, and in times of great need body parts will be removed and used as charms by shamans.

### Burials:

Overall burials do not feature much ornamentation. A average tribesman will be buried with a few life personal possessions such as a favored knife or necklace, but even their clothing will be recycled for future generations. The dead are buried often only in their loincloth with herbs scattered around their body. The Tagka consider white to be the color of death and will leave silver nuggets and pieces of shell in graves.

## Warfare:

Like many tribal societies, warfare can be equally ritualized and utterly barbaric. Tagka conflict is always over one of three different objectives:

* Herding grounds and herds
* Food stores
* Settlement centers

No crime is more common, nor more heinous than cattle-rustling, or the Tagka equivalent. In a culture where keeping control over one's herd is literally life and death  to steal an enemy's sheep-cows is to not only deprive of them of their livelihood, but also their wealth. Warriors will track a herd until they spot a moment of weakness and swoop down, aiming to kill the herders before any can escape and warn the rest of the tribe. They fire thick straight bows, using bone and less commonly bronze arrowheads. The main weapon of the Tagka hunter or warrior is always his bow, and when that fails they resort to axes, clubs, spears and daggers. Swords are incredibly prized and belong only to the most powerful chiefs, who save them for duels with other leaders or ritual executions. The Tagka also use bronze daggers tied sideways to long poles as a halberd-like weapon. With a good swing to the head a warrior can kill a bull sheep-cow in a single hit, which leaves little to the imagination what it can do another human.

Once the herders are dead the thieves will gather up the herd and drive them out of enemy territory, keeping close watch for retaliatory raids, as they should. Once any number of sheep-cows is stolen the entire tribe will gather together and attempt to steal them back at any cost, calling their allies to aid if the task seems too daunting. These raids and counter-raids can grow to massacres, but larger regional political organizations will naturally shift to force a peace. A conflict can be resolved through single combat between champions, often the chiefs of the two affected tribes. They will outfit themselves in their richest regalia and fight until one surrenders, or dies, before the gathered tribes. The winner is assumed the one in the right, and tribes who carry a conflict past a engagement such as this face ostracism and barring from clan food stores.

### Defensive Equipment:

Body armor is rare. Most warriors wear their day to day clothing and at best a hide or wicker shield. Chiefs will have sometimes suits made of bronze plates sewn together worn over their tunics. Tagka metallurgy is unrefined, but in the event of a powerful leader commissioning it enough skills can be pooled to make bronze plates and decorations.  A chief takes great pride in his battle regalia, which is built upon as it is passed from leader to leader. Beaten bronze chest-plates will be accentuated with rows of bone inlay and studded belts. Helmets are elaborate constructions of animal and metallic elements. Oftentimes a simple bronze cup helmet will be covered by a thick fur cap or the facial hide of a predatory animal. Horns, feathers and tails are also pinned to these constructions. The aim in this case is not battlefield efficiency but psychological intimidation.

Some warriors will fashion circular shields out of hide stretched over a reed frame. These shield covers are primarily sheep-cow or camelid skins, cured and hardened in the sun. Feathers and trinkets might also be strung through the shields as decorations, rattling in the wind as the warrior charges. Additional decorations include simple paintings of the warriors clan or the larger tribal group to which he belongs.

### Sieges:

The only events which can be classified as ‘battles’ are either the very rare case where entire major clans have reason to go to war with each-other, a level of regional instability that only occurs on the scale of decades-or when a clan gathers together to attempt to take another clans stockade. The actual siege will be precluded by weeks of mounting tension as the defending clan will gather together inside their camp, fortifying it and piling up food stores. Soon the enemy forces will mass together outside, trying to scout the layout and intercept any would-be counter raiders. Over even more weeks a ranged skirmish will test both sides combat potential. Archers will square off and attempt to score casualties before the actual attack. After starving the enemy out, Raiders will attack the camp from every direction, taking axes to the walls and gate. Enterprising warriors will try to climb the walls and open the gates from within. Fire is also a vital weapon as warriors toss torches over the fortifications, although care must be taken to not overly damage the settlement.

If a settlement is taken, the captured warriors are slaughtered or enslaved, and the non-combatants are integrated into the victorious tribe. Resources are distributed by the chief downwards to their closest supporters and they take captured religious icons as trophies. Enemy graves are desecrated as a further blow to the defeated tribes prestige. It is not an uncommon sight after a successful siege for local graveyards to be strewn with human bones and mummified corpses, disinterred in the ensuing sacking.

## Economy:

The Tagka practice a version of transhumance pastoralism, moving from permanent winter settlements along migratory routes of more mobile summer settlements as they move herds of sheep-cows from pasture to pasture. They also hunt wild game and fish the nearby seas, as well as trade amongst each-other and with foreign peoples to the north and south.

During the summer months Tagka tribes alternate along higher altitude campgrounds, moving in regular patterns from one to the other as pastures are exhausted. At each settlement there are different areas that are alternated year by year, and known to the herders, who ensure that native grasses are given time to grow in the interim period. Wintering settlements are at lower altitudes and insulated usually in areas such as at the backs of canyons that protect them from large storms. While during the summer the entire community is mobile in the winter only a few take the herds out while most stay in or near the settlement. The Tagka’s relatively high population requires constantly moving pastures during good weather to keep their herds as large as possible, while also managing to ensure no specific area is overgrazed. This means regular weather cycles are vital, and the Tagka have become quite good at calculating yearly climate cycles-and also take grazing rights very seriously.

Barter is the only true medium of exchange, but it can be argued that the truest measure of a Tagka clans wealth is in its herds. There is no sense of formalized exchange but only negotiated trades between individual owners who give either individual sheep-cows or groups in exchange for favors, loyalty or other material goods. Sheep-cows are considered the property of the heads of the family the herd belongs to, and only they can buy and sell them. In Tagka society, while men do the real herding, only women can negotiate their sale, but tribal chiefs are also considered the owners of all the animals of their respective tribe and as such can intervene in a sale if they wish. While a chief, if that chief is male, cannot actually buy herds themselves any herds bought by the members of the tribe they rule are considered theirs as much as the property of the actual buyer. A wealthy chief can therefore possess in the number of thousands of animals while not actually directly maintaining any beyond their own family possessions. Thusly, a catastrophic event such as a snowstorm that buries vegetation too deeply for the sheep-cows to eat might cause a massive loss of value as a herd's numbers thin, not to mention the immediate threat to the clans survival.

## Material Culture:

The Tagka possess bronze-smithing skills, but few clans can maintain a forge powerful enough to melt together copper and tin, limiting true quality bronze to only a few manufacturing sites. Most make do with cold-beaten copper or more rarely cold-beaten meteoric iron. Native copper is common in the rockier parts of the islands but tin is traded from farther inland. They also make do with higher quality tools that filter their way south from more advanced societies. In a region where all resources are scarce, a well-made bronze knife can last for generations with regular maintenance. Common metal items include:

* Spear points
* Knives
* Axe blades
* Arrowheads
* Sword blades
* Belts
* Amulets
* Cloth-pins
* Jewelry
* Icons

Clothing is primarily animal materials, with fur, hide and felt making up the far majority of clothing. Clothes can be decorated with colored felt inlays or decorative stitching. Stitching can encode clan iconography as well as individual family designs. Shoes are made of fur thats turned inwards and sometimes fur leggings for added warmth. While the Tagka have heightened resistance to cold temperatures they still are not high enough to allow them to go without much clothing for long periods of time. Despite this, they wear lighter clothes than most humans would require in the same climate. [In the real-world the Inuit wear layered thick furs at all times outside while at the same temperatures the Tagka could survive in long-sleeved hide tunics and pants]. Most wear hide caps and also slick their hair in animal fat, letting it pile over the ears and neck, thus protecting vulnerable extremities from frostbite. Long hooded fur overcoats are also common for longer hunting excursions, doubling as shelters in stormy weather.

Adult dress can be described as:

* A cleaned hide long sleeved tunic with embroidered wrists
* A fur under-cloth wrapped around the family jewels
* Hide trousers with fur leggings for colder weather
* Fur slippers
* A stiff wide belt tied at the back, often cured leather or bronze for elites
* A hooded overcoat in colder weather

Both genders dress roughly similarly, although women being the main producers of clothing will take care to decorate their own work lavishly. Baby cradles made of furred tubs stitched to the fronts of shirts are also common. Women wear their hair long and braided, similarly streaked with grease.

Pottery is known but good clay is difficult to find in the islands, and thus most ceramics are those that have been traded south. Rather most vessels are woven and slicked with tar, or hardened leather. Mundane objects made from wood are valued family items, passed generation to generation. Driftwood clutters in high ridges along the northern shores as currents bring fallen trees from the deeply wooded mainland up coastal fjords. Native forests are rare and confined to the bare warmest parts of islands, primarily the coasts facing the mainland. The wood is extremely hard and difficult to cut with stone and even bronze tools, thus staving off the deforestation that would otherwise wipe the islands of trees. Driftwood is therefore the primary source of timber for the Tagka. Most of it is reserved for larger works, especially constructing the fences and stockades that fortify clan fortresses. Logs are carved into religious totems with bronze awls, and are driven deep into religious sites.

The Tagka make use of carts and sledges to carry their huts. They long ago adapted to using spoked wheels to reduce the amount of wood required, and in general make their carts very light in construction.

Native grasses are also a common building material. Growing plentifully in thick clumps throughout the islands they are used to thatch winter huts and to weave blankets and carpets. Wound together, they also form strong ropes, well resistant to wet weather. Reeds also grow well here, adapted to the cold climate and extremely hardy. Tagka women make torches and candles with them slicked in seal fat, as well as making reed partitions for separating interior living spaces. Reeds are also hollowed out into small flutes with bow-drilled air holes.

Stone-carving is rare beyond simple petroglyphs. Much of the geology of the southern islands is hard granite shelves, which takes well to incised artwork but is difficult to carve into more 3-d shapes, especially with stone or bronze tools. Smaller chunks of rock are sometimes fashioned into crude figural idols which are placed at auspicious landmarks in makeshift shrines.

The Tagka strongly revere the steles they lift from long sheets of granite into the tundra. Among the Tagka these stele represent the personifications of the spirits of the tribe, as opposed to the spirits of the land (personified in the landmarks they represent). In Tagka religion, they consider themselves as hybrids of earth and nature, a blend from stone and wood. Since quality wood is exceedingly rare for the demands of stele construction, they widely prefer stone monuments. Only the tribes who live on the most fertile northerly islands construct wooden stele, a characteristic that strongly distinguishes them from other tribes.

On a auspicious date the tribal shaman will instruct a team of workers to an appropriate site of quality stone, who will proceed to mark traditional designs on the stone. In the case the stele is being raised to revere a deified leader, such as a chief who recently died in battle, the chief will be portrayed in idealized fashion at the center of the piece. These designs are marked in chalk or ochre, and once the shaman has approved the concept the workers begin splitting the rock from its base. They hammer with bronze chisels and also use wooden wedges to split natural crevices by pouring water and letting it freeze and thaw regularity. Wooden planks are then inserted and levered to push the stone onto a sledge which carries it to the site of erection, along a pre-dug slicked track. Then the actual design is chiseled in. Most stele are only carved on one face but sometimes the shaman will designate additional carvings on the back and sides.

Once carving is complete, it will then be slowly worked into a foundational hole, which is lain with ritualistic offerings beforehand, such as a sacrificed animal with some herbal sprigs. Logs are slowly built up on one side of the stele a single layer at a time as men with ropes pull on the other end. Slowly it is raised vertical and slid in the hole. Stones are then piled around the base the stele, often carved themselves with symbols. Further sacrifices and ceremonies are conducted after the raising is complete to anoint the monument. The Tagka do not widely practice human sacrifice but do conduct extensive animal sacrifice. A sheep-cow slathered in blue herbal dyes will be bludgeoned to death and lain in front of the stele with offerings of food and small carved idols. They are left to sit over a period of several years and then buried nearby.