Olzaw of the Syrkakar

Clans of the Syrkakang

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

Ten clans (Olzaw) divide the Syrkakar, each ruled by a Kakar, and the clans are tied into two groups of five, each group having its center in a metropolitan area. One group's focus is Syclax, the other Brya Sug. There is also a'High King' of the Syrkakar known as the Syrkakang.

See Jyka Brust, the tenth Syrkakang ("Overlord Of The Blue Forest') for more information.

Foods & Cuisine

The Syrkakar are a violent people who hunt and fish for much of their food. Agriculture is limited to the potatoes and barley grown inAdea Hu's two arable valleys: the Valg Kwayand the Yalg Syclax . Nuts of the Ukur variety are the only other cultivated crop. Someherd animals are kept, but for the most part the diet of the Syrkakar is met by his hunting and foraging, be it in the highland forests or among the towns and fields of the neighboring lowlands. Masters of the woodland trails, the Syrkakar track the elusive Nemmi ("Mottled Grey Deer') through the vast taiga forest. The one and a half ton Nemmi will feed many a hungering mouth during the long northern winter and is used to make stew, steak, and broths. Its horn is prized as a tool of storage and sound, while its gut and sinew (tendon) are used to make thread and facings on the Syrka's short composite hunting bows.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

The Ten Clans ("Olzaw") Syrkakar society is based on the Olzaw (clan), and each clan resides in a separate unit of villages. These units lie in the central area of the clan's territory and, aside from the interclanish city holds of Brya Sug and Syclax, no clan settles nearer than 5 miles to its closest neighbor.
All of the clans are tied to the land and maintain their spiritual centers in the relative wilds. Those folk that move to the two cities are more worldly than their rural brothers, but they still return to the countryside during the few days of spiritual celebration and unity. Political and religious power remains the province of the conservative villagers. Neither Brya Sug or Syclax serves as a clan center, although the Ukasur of the latter town have begun to assert control of the rural elements of their clan.

There are ten self-sufficient clans and each Olzaw has as a symbolic focus a specific type of tree, some claim that it is the world tree. All of the Olzaw's representative forms stem from this tree-colors, patterns, rites of passage, etc.

Within each Olzaware two distinct divisions (moieties) which are traditionally divided between the "dark "(Y) and the "light"(U).
Regardless of clan, the dark group is concerned with domestic affairs : the raising of crops, caretaking of the village, childbearing, etc.
The light group deals with external affairs such as trade, diplomacy, hunting and war. Both embrace like social patterns, and none of the Syrkakar are permitted to marry within their moiety.