Thanda Indawo (nation)

Thanda Indawo is a religious tribe who build community projects to honor The Goddess of Life, Umama. The people of Thanda Indawo believe that Umama created all intelligent life in the world and that the village, Ekhaya, is the first village to exist.

## Geography

Thanda Indawo is located about 2000 blocks south of spawn. The crown jewel of the nation's land claim is the Great Volcano Uke which the locals believe connects their Deity to the Overworld. The volcano and the savanna surrounding it are sacred and have been left untouched intentionally. The rest of the nation is mostly desert except for the small patch of forest that the farm town Bursara sits on.

## Government

Thanda Indawo is a socialist theocracy. The High Priest of the Church of Ubuntu is also the Chief of the nation. The Chief uses his power of divine inspiration to plan community projects and to determine new resident's talents in order to assign them to a task. The laws are made based on the words written in the Book of Ubuntu and the entirety of The Isib'alo. See the Church of Ubuntu for more details. The principles of Ubuntu instruct villagers to share all resources, collaborate on projects that are for the entire community, and love one another. Hoarding, slothfulness, and not contributing to community projects are all sins that are punishable by banishment or sacrifice. Community projects are often created by the Chief but any resident who has an idea for a public facility to benefit the community can present it to the Chief for approval.

## Laws and Policies

This is a summary of the Laws of Thanda Indawo. The full legal text can be seen here

### The Preamble

A decree to the People of Thanda Indawo,

The Holy Mother wants us to build up our towns to strengthen our communities. We honor the Goddess when we collaborate to build beautiful communal structures which bring our community together. She has appointed me to lead her children and guide us to build up our towns collaboratively. I have created here a list of laws for the nation of Thanda Indawo to abide by, inspired by Umama’s words and the divine inspiration given to me.

Signed The High Priest of the Church of Ubuntu, The Chief of the People of Thanda Indawo, Chief Potus

### Summary of Legal Code

1. Tribe members have the rights of food, armor and tools, shelter, personal property, and protection. These rights can only be free if all tribe members do their share of work to provide them for each other. Personal property is limited to certain items, see Appendix A in the legal code. Tribe members also have a right to call a #tribe-meeting to discuss any issues concerning the nation, including but not limited to suggestions for new projects and make changes to law.
2. All resources are owned by all of the citizens. No one owns the resources they collect for themselves except for items designated as personal property in Appendix A of the legal code. The Chief may designate items for specific uses, see the full legal text for details, and a list of what materials are limited to specific uses can be found in Appendix A.
3. All members are expected to spend the majority of their time working on community works. See legal text for more details.
4. When a law is broken, a determination of guilt must be made by the tribe and the Chief who serves as Judge in all cases except those where he stands accused. First offences generally receive only restorative justice, or a punishment that seeks to restore things to how they were before a crime was committed and does not actively seek to severely punish guilty parties. However, second offenses may be punished as severely as banishment.

### Appendix A

Appendix A is a living document that is updated frequently. It is a list of item designations. Since Items are centrally stored and free to use by all members of the tribe, those that are rare are restricted to only being used for certain things. An example of this might be if sugar cane was in short supply there might be an order to only use it to create enchanted books and not to use it for creating maps. Citizens will receive updates about changes on discord.

## The Army of Umama

The Army of Umama is a military force made of all the members of the tribe. Thanda Indawo is a peaceful nation and its military is defensive. The main missions of The Army of Umama is to conduct trade missions, scout the overworld and the nether, construct roads and nether highways connecting Thanda Indawo to other nations, and more. The main mission of the Army of Umama is to protect the sacred volcano Uke. All members of the tribe are part of the army reserves and active duty members focus on defensive builds.

## Flags and Symbols

The flag is a purple background with an orange stripe that runs horizontally through the middle of the flag and a black triangle whose corners are at the middle of the flag, the top left corner, and the bottom left corner. This flag is meant to represent the Volcano Uke and a nether portal meant to honor Umama and her gift of life and reincarnation. When flown vertically, the triangle should go at the bottom of the flag to make it appear like a volcano.

They symbol of the Army of Umama is a more detailed version of the flag. It depicts a detailed image of a nether portal in the background and in the foreground is an image of Uke erupting as it did in the Book of Jobs.

## Towns

At present, Thanda Indawo has three towns.

Ekhaya is a desert village at the base of Uke. Although there may not be much food produced in this city, they are an industrious people. Ekhaya is filled with plenty of toolsmiths and armorers to do business with. Ekhaya is believed by the members of the Church of Ubuntu to be the origin of villager life and many will make pilgrimages here to visit the Great Volcano Uke and pray to The Goddess.

Busara is named after Saint Busara who settled the land. She taught the second generation of villagers how to farm and they grew their land and fed the people of the desert such that it could grow to a large size.

Peponi is settled in the oasis in the desert south of Uke. It is a truly beautiful sight. This town grows much of the nation's strategic resources.

## Joining

Joining Thanda Indawo is different than joining other nations. Members of this nation do not build for themselves big castles or mansions for themselves to live in. We focus on community projects. To join, you must vow to follow the teachings of the Church of Ubuntu which are very simple. Share all of the resources you get and collaborate in building community projects. When you join, you will most likely be assigned to an already existing project, but don't worry soon you may have a chance to start a project you come up with yourself, but all projects need to benefit the town or nation. Examples of this are villager houses, occupational buildings, builds for player entertainment like redstone minigames or map art or anything entertaining in that realm. When you have an idea for a community build you may either approach Chief Potus directly or call a tribe meeting. Calling a tribe meeting to share your idea is a great way to recruit enthusiastic tribe members to help with your project. Chief Potus will approve most community projects but may prioritize them lower than projects currently in the works or have been in the queue longer.

Residents have all of their needs taken care of by the community. When you first arrive you will be fed, given a basic iron armor set, tools, and a place to sleep. Every resident is assessed for special skills and interests that will help determine what kind of projects that resident would be best suited for. If you're a builder you'll get plenty of building projects and some of your own if you want. If you like redstone there's plenty of great uses for it and residents will be encouraged to help with resource mining efforts in order to complete projects together. If you take interest in PVP or enchantments you can become an active member of the Army of Umama and help defend the land our Holy Mother has given us to take stewardship over and will be given the enchantments and armor to do it. Whatever your talent is we seek to give everyone fulfillment in their assignments!

You ask, "But if I spend my whole time building community projects will I ever get to have anything for myself?" Yes of course! Just because we share all of our resources does not mean we don't still have some personal property. Residents can claim a chunk of land in a town to build a personal home in, but it is encouraged to keep it small. Afterall, with public libraries, central item storage, full crop and animal farms there isn't a lot that you would need to have in your own home. There is a limit of no more than 3 single chests per resident claim. This is because hoarding is a Great Sin and anyone who breaks this law may be banished. The residential chests should be plenty for personal items such as food and non strategic items such as CDs and map art. Residential chests are also allowed for building resources but only for projects you are actively working on and It is discouraged especially if your project involves a team. Pets like cats, dogs, parrots are all considered personal property. At the moment, horses are considered a limited strategic resource and are not allowed to be personal property at the moment but plans are in place to give every resident a horse in the near future. Thanda Indawo is not about building big stuff for yourself. It is about building stunning and creative things that are meant to be shared by the community. Umama blesses you with great pride in collaborating with others to build something that no single person could build alone. It is such a wonderful and holy feeling. Yet, if this sounds like something that will bore you, there are no hard feelings but this may not be the nation for you.

If you would like to join, the process begins by joining our discord, reading the laws, and filling out our citizenship application. The process should take less than 24 hours.