Atemu Ezirandi
The Atemu are an Ezirandi ethnic group located in the southeast portion of the Ezir Peninsula. Unlike the other ethnic groups and tribes that form the xenophobic Magocracy of Ezir, the Atemu are a more open-minded, worldly people.
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Mehi
Eboni
Dsjot-khons
Mukantagara
Sen-nu
Nebt het
Amunnebkettoti
Nofreaten-taserat
Ife
Teti
Eboni
Dsjot-khons
Mukantagara
Sen-nu
Nebt het
Amunnebkettoti
Nofreaten-taserat
Ife
Teti
Masculine names
Tachus
Reshef
Pse-nirina
Minkah
Ra-en-user
Sebek-nekht
Merhet-nets
Ermenihotep
Teremun
Kambatet
Reshef
Pse-nirina
Minkah
Ra-en-user
Sebek-nekht
Merhet-nets
Ermenihotep
Teremun
Kambatet
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Culture and cultural heritage
Music and dance are popular entertainments for those who can afford them. Early instruments include flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes are more recently developed and have become popular. Atemu played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes and lyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-like musical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.
The Atemu enjoy a variety of leisure activities, including games and music. Senet, a board game where pieces moved according to random chance, was particularly popular from the earliest times; another similar game was mehen, which has a circular gaming board. “Hounds and Jackals” also known as 58 holes is another example of board games played in the Atemu region. Juggling and ball games are popular with children, as is wrestling. The wealthy members of Atemu society enjoyed hunting and boating as well.
Shared customary codes and values
Most Atemu are farmers tied to the land. Their dwellings are restricted to immediate family members and are constructed of mud-brick designed to remain cool in the heat of the day. Each home has a kitchen with an open roof, which contained a grindstone for milling grain and a small oven for baking the bread. Walls are painted white and could be covered with dyed linen wall hangings. Floors are covered with reed mats, while wooden stools, beds raised from the floor, and individual tables comprise the furniture.
The Atemu place great value on hygiene and appearance. Most bathe in the river close to their settlement and use a pasty soap made from animal fat and chalk. Men shave their entire bodies for cleanliness; perfumes and aromatic ointments cover bad odors and soothed skin.
Average technological level
The Magocracy represses the Atemu, restricting their access to arcane magic and technology that would improve their culture. Thus, the Atemu are an early agrarian culture. The Atemu have adapted to riverside life and the associated seasonal flooding to produce an abundance of food, allowing the culture more time and resources to cultural and artistic pursuits.
The Atemu cultivate barley and other grains, flax (harvested before flowering for the stems, which are split and woven into thread for linen), vegetables and fruits, papyrus for paper, and similar crops. Vegetables include leeks, garlic, melons, squashes, pulses, lettuce, and other crops, in addition to grapes that are made into wine. Animals, both domesticated and wild, are a critical source of companionship, and sustenance to the Atemu. Cattle are the most important livestock; the administration collects taxes on livestock in regular censuses, and the size of a herd reflects the prestige and importance of the estate or temple that owns them. In addition to cattle, the Atemu keep sheep, goats, and pigs. Poultry, such as ducks, geese, and pigeons, are captured in nets and bred on farms, where they are force-fed with dough to fatten them. The rivers provide a plentiful source of fish. Bees are also domesticated and provide both honey and wax. The Atemu use donkeys and oxen as beasts of burden, and they are responsible for plowing the fields and trampling seed into the soil. Horses were introduced after the expedition into Dunmaerik. Elephants were briefly utilized but largely abandoned due to a lack of grazing land. Dogs, cats, and monkeys are common family pets, while more exotic pets imported from other regions are reserved for royalty and administration within the Magocracy.
Common Dress code
Clothing is made from simple linen sheets that are bleached white, and both men and women of the upper classes wore wigs, jewelry, and cosmetics. Both genders tend to wear kohl around the eyes, both to reduce the strain on the eyes from the sunlight and to reduce the chance of eye infection. Higher status Atemu that spend more time indoors tend to wear less clothing, giving rise to the Ezirandi expression "Dressed like an Atemu Princess" that is used as a pejorative reflecting a woman of loose morals.
Art & Architecture
Architecture
Building projects are organized and funded by the state for religious and commemorative purposes, but also to reinforce the wide-ranging power of the pharaoh. The ancient Atamu are skilled builders; using only simple but effective tools and sighting instruments, architects can build large stone structures with great accuracy and precision. The domestic dwellings of elite and ordinary Atamu alike are constructed from perishable materials such as mud bricks and wood. Peasants lived in simple homes, while the palaces of the elite are more elaborate structures. A few surviving palaces, such as those in Sharsairis and Acnosa, show richly decorated walls and floors with scenes of people, birds, water pools, deities, and geometric designs. Important structures such as temples and tombs that are intended to last forever are constructed of stone instead of mud bricks. The architectural elements used in one of humanity’s first large-scale stone building, the Vault of the Honored Dead, include post and lintel supports in the papyrus and lotus motif. The earliest Atamu temples, such as those at Djanri, consist of single, enclosed halls with roof slabs supported by columns. In more recent designs, architects added the pylon, the open courtyard, and the enclosed hypostyle hall to the front of the temple's sanctuary, a style that was standard until the Caliphate period of Ezir. The earliest and most popular tomb architecture on the continent was the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular structure of mudbrick or stone built over an underground burial chamber. The step ziggurat of Djanri is a series of stone mastabas stacked on top of each other.Art
The Atemu produce art to serve functional purposes. Artists adhere to artistic forms and iconography that were developed during the Old Kingdom, following a strict set of principles that resist foreign influence and internal change. These artistic standards—simple lines, shapes, and flat areas of color combined with the characteristic flat projection of figures with no indication of spatial depth—create a sense of order and balance within a composition. Images and text are intimately interwoven on tomb and temple walls, coffins, stelae, and even statues. Because of the rigid rules that govern its highly stylized and symbolic appearance, Atemu art serves its political and religious purposes with precision and clarity. Atemu artisans use stone as a medium for carving statues and fine reliefs but use wood as a cheap and easily carved substitute. Paints are obtained from minerals such as iron ores (red and yellow ochres), copper ores (blue and green), soot or charcoal (black), and limestone (white). Paints are mixed with gum arabic as a binder and pressed into cakes, which can be moistened with water when needed. Artists use reliefs to record victories in battle, royal decrees, and religious scenes. Common citizens have access to pieces of funerary art, such as figurine statues and books of the dead, which they believe would protect them in the afterlife. Wooden or clay models depicting scenes from everyday life have become popular additions to the tomb. In an attempt to duplicate the activities of the living in the afterlife, these models show laborers, houses, boats, and even military formations that are scale representations of the ideal Atemu afterlife.Common Customs, traditions and rituals
Music and dance are popular entertainments for those who can afford them. Early instruments include flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes are more recently developed and have become popular. Atemu played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes and lyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-like musical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.
Coming of Age Rites
Children go without clothing until maturity, at about age twelve, at which point males are circumcised and have their heads shaved.
Funerary and Memorial customs
The Atemu maintain an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death. These customs involve preserving the body by mummification, performing burial ceremonies, and interring with the body goods the deceased will use in the afterlife. Before the appearance of the Suncaller, bodies buried in desert pits were naturally preserved by desiccation. The arid, desert conditions were a boon throughout the history of Ezir for burials of the poor, who could not afford the elaborate burial preparations available to the elite. Wealthier Atemu began to bury their dead in stone tombs and use artificial mummification, which involved removing the internal organs, wrapping the body in linen, and burying it in a rectangular stone sarcophagus or wooden coffin. Beginning shortly before the rise of the Caliphate, some parts were preserved separately in canopic jars.
The Atemu have perfected the art of mummification; the best technique takes 70 days and involve removing the internal organs, removing the brain through the nose, and desiccating the body in a mixture of salts called natron. The body is then wrapped in linen with protective amulets inserted between layers and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin. Mummies are also placed in painted cartonnage mummy cases. Actual preservation practices have started to decline under the Caliphate and Magocracy’s monotheistic rule.
Wealthy Atemu are buried with larger quantities of luxury items, but all burials, regardless of social status, include goods for the deceased. Funerary texts are often included in the grave, as are figurine statues that are believed to perform manual labor for them in the afterlife. Rituals in which the deceased re magically re-animated accompany burials. After the burial, living relatives are expected to occasionally bring food to the tomb and recite prayers on behalf of the deceased.
Common Myths and Legends
Beliefs in the divine and in the afterlife were ingrained in Atemu civilization from its inception, and continue to resist the monotheistic theocratic rule of the Magocracy of Ezir. The Atemu pantheon is populated by gods who have supernatural powers and are called on for help or protection. However, the gods are not always viewed as benevolent, and Atemu believe they had to be appeased with offerings and prayers. The structure of this pantheon changes continually as new deities are promoted in the hierarchy, but priests make no effort to organize the diverse and sometimes conflicting myths and stories into a coherent system. These various conceptions of divinity are not considered contradictory but rather layers in the multiple facets of reality.
Gods are worshiped in cult temples administered by priests acting on the deity’s behalf. At the center of the temple is the cult statue in a shrine. Temples are not places of public worship or congregation, and only on select feast days and celebrations is a shrine carrying the statue of the god brought out for public worship. Normally, the god's domain is sealed off from the outside world and is only accessible to temple officials. Common citizens can worship private statues in their homes, and amulets offer protection against the forces of chaos. After the rise of the Caliphate of Ezir, worship of the Atemu Pantheon has become much more of a hidden, private affair. Old temples appear to be deserted and are rumored to be cursed, with the hidden shrines within maintained by temple officials utilizing secret tunnels and entrances.
The Atemu believed that every being is composed of physical and spiritual parts, or aspects. In addition to the body, each person has a shadow, a personality or soul, a life-force, and a name. The heart, rather than the brain, is considered the seat of thoughts and emotions. After death, the spiritual aspects are released from the body and can move at will, but they require the physical remains (or a substitute, such as a statue) as a permanent home. The ultimate goal of the deceased was to rejoin his soul and life-force and become one of the "blessed dead." For this to happen, the deceased has to be judged worthy in a trial, in which the heart was weighed against a "feather of truth." If deemed worthy, the deceased can continue their existence on earth in spiritual form.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
While men and women are considered equals in society, mothers are responsible for taking care of the children while the father provides the family's income. The role of the mother, as a life-giver, is considered an elevated status and affords them a great deal of respect in Atemu society.
Courtship Ideals
Men and women are free to court within their station; high-station members of society are able to court below their station, though they are strongly discouraged. Statistically, men tend to be the ones to initiate courting. No taboos or societal norms prevent a woman from seeking out a partner.
Parent ethnicities
Diverged ethnicities
Related Organizations
Related Items
Related Myths
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