Calmaxtec
The Calmaxtec is the collective name of the native peoples of Kalmasa. They are a dark-bronze complected people whose men average 5.5 to 6 feet in height and women a few inches shorter. They have black hair and brown, hazel or green eyes. Their origins are shrouded in prehistory, but many versions of traditional histories say that the Calmaxtec come from the great eastern seas, from a land they called Teocuitlan, the Golden Lands, but believe that because of the wickedness and greediness of their ancestors, this land was slowly consumed by the Great Waters and their ancestors had to leave in their great canoes, eventually coming to Calmaxtlan, land of the Calmaxtec, the Repentant People. Kalmasa is the Eshti rendering of Calmaxtlan. This exodus story bears a striking resemblance to the Eshtem histories.
The Calmaxtec have recognized this similarity and many believe that the Eshtem are even more wicked than their ancestors and made the gods even more furious, judging by how quickly their lands were destroyed and their behavior since arrival in Kalmasa. Many believe that the Eshtem have not learned anything as their own ancestors did and call them the Umoxtec, the Arrogant People. Calmaxtec traditions are rich and they have held on to much of their original culture, despite the invasion of the Eshtem, especially in the Calmaxtec ruled country of Neztlalpan in northern Kalmasa. They are fierce warriors and hard workers with a strong fund of cultural wisdom. They used tools of copper and bronze before the coming of the Eshtem, but they had established a number of sophisticated city-states and empires throughout Kalmasa.
The traditional religion of the northern ethnicities involve the reverence of the great telluric spirit Ehuatlaltipac and lesser telluric spirits, while the southern tribes are more pantheist in their worship. The exception are the Inokal people of the Chilacaualco Desert desert who revere the ancestors and the telluric spirits of the desert.
In the century before the coming of the Eshtem, many Calmaxtec, especially city dwellers, led by their nobility, had turned to the worship of the war teotl Ucuriaztl, during a time when city states were warring heavily with each other in the north and south, seeking conquest. The coming of the Eshtem and the destruction of the Calmaxtec nobility almost entirely destroyed this worship, but in its place the Eshtem pushed their own devas. Recently, as Calmaxtec scholars have begun to make their way into the intelligentsia of the Kalmasan Samraj, movements for a resurgence of worship for the traditional teteotin have begun, although much of the actual tradition has actually never changed, especially in rural areas.
The Calmaxtec are composed of six main ethnic groups, the Apoxtec in the north and northeast, the Maxcaltec in the northwest, the Inokal of the interior Chilacaualco Desert, the Chol'ul of the south and southwest and the Tzetzal of the southeast.
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