Although few of the Salaajo still live permanently on their traditional homelands on the plains of Rens III, the name given to them by their neighbors - Salaajo, the grassburners - is still how they are listed in the official records of the clans.
To themselves, they have always been simply 'the people'.
Numbering only a few thousand, most Salaajo live in the teeming slums of Urbrald, the nearest city to their homelands. Matrilineal and matrilocal, almost all live within a few kilometers of each other, in households holding several generations of the same family. The Salaajo clan is not rich, and living conditions are usually crowded.
The head of each household is the oldest woman in the family. If her uncles are still alive, they probably live in her house. Her brothers and younger sisters live in her house as well, and her children and grandchildren as well as those of her sisters.
While men may leave their mother's house to live with a woman they have formed a sexual relationship with, they always remain part of their family of birth, and their mother's house is their home, while they reside elsewhere only as long as their partner and her family allow, nor do they have any say in household matters except in their family home, although frequently they are consulted and considered in decisions by their partners.
Life-long pairbonding is the exception among the Salaajo rather than the rule. Men have a close relationship with, and take responsibility for, the children of their sisters, rather than those of their partners, and the Salaajo words for 'niece' and 'nephew' carry the same emotional weight as the words for 'daughter' and 'son' in some other cultures.
The clan households are divided into four 'skin groups', and for each group, there is another whose members are strictly forbidden as sexual partners. These change every generation or so, ensuring that genetic relationships do not become too close.
The urban lifestyle has led to some friction between younger Salaajo who want the freedom to copy the personal relationships and living arrangements they see in popular culture, and the older generation who want to preserve the clan's identity.
For a few weeks every summer, and from time to time throughout the year, the whole clan leaves Urbrald and returns to the grasslands for necessary rituals. These rituals are led by the 'Stone Dancers', women who chew a local narcotic plant to induce a state of altered consciousness, coat themselves with mud until their skin takes on the appearance of rock or earth, and sing and dance the traditional ceremonies, wielding knives made of stone for those ceremonies that require ritual wounding.
Due to modern medical care, very few people die during the Stone Dances.
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Topic: Salaajo: The Grassburners (Read 1141 times)