Oral tradition

For storytelling as an artform/entertainment, see the Arts

As History, Warnings, and Knowledge

For millennia, the people of Arra have kept history, knowledge, and identity alive through oral tradition. Follies of clans past, tellings of perseverance and hard work, the workings of the land, sea, and sky--all, for the most part, passed along orally.
Imagine yourself as a lissa pup among many, huddled among other soft, warm bodies as a cold wind slithers through your fur. After much begging, (for need of something to keep your minds off of the weather blowing in from the sea), an elder is about to tell you about the fall of Stone-eye cave, and why one does not settle where Arra's hide is brittle and weak. It's a story you won't forget, as it's the first time you were ever old enough to hear one where so many people die, crushed beneath the land they considered shelter. That night, you don't sleep very well, but you carry with you a very important lesson about erosion and where to settle down.

Or perhaps you are a kipsang kit, clung to mother's fur, though you're a little too old for it these days. She chides you and pulls you from her side. A lesson for you, since you insist on staying by her side anyway. She tells you of the great yearly Gathering. Lissa and kipsang from all across the land: leaders, elders, even the clanless--they all meet at the Confluence and discuss important matters. How these meetings shape the world you know of, how leaders sometimes talk for days at length and still don't make up their minds. How small conflicts aggregated become big, how big issues divided become small. That a long time ago she had snuck near to the politicking adults when she was a small kit like you, and listened to them thundering about food and territory and all kinds of things. How she had never seen so many different sorts of people in one place.
Someday, you'll see the Gathering for yourself.

Return to Culture and Technology