Bakari

Bakari
Capital	None
Ruler	Many
Government	No formal government; matriarchs and elders
Demonym	Bakari
Adjective	Bakari
Languages	Hikunza; Sea-Speak
Religions	The Cascade; animism

The Bakari (pronounced bah-KAH-ree) are locathah of the Wounds who dwell in well-defended lagoon-villages within isolated atolls in remote parts of the Na-Gaesa Ocean. Once considered an Itothani people, the Bakari are the descendants of locathah whose reef was destroyed by demons soon after their invasion of the Old Twins began in Y9266^*. Over time they have grown isolationist and hostile to outsiders lest their homes be threatened once again.

Geography

Bakari lagoon-villages are located far away from other permanent settlements and any landmasses, save for their own atolls. Most can be found many hundreds of miles east and west of the Corpse, the reef of their ancestors, though generally at around the same latitude. The most remote major settlement of the Bakari, Utzua, is over 1100 miles to the east of their old home. They have a preference for lagoons in near-completely enclosed atolls that can be easily fortified and are exceedingly choosy in where they found new communities.

History

Eight hundred years ago the predecessors of the Bakari were the locathah of the Wonder of the Seas, a reef to the southeast of the Old Twins. Their vibrant and sprawling cities traded with merchants from the nearby Rasharekan heartland, both parties thriving from these mutual arrangements. Content in their success and status, the locathah gradually disbanded their war-shoals, seeing no need for such activities with their strong local ally and protector. When demons first began to emerge in the Old Twins, however, Rashareka's image of force was revealed as ultimately a mirage, as the archipelago, and the empire as a whole, collapsed almost immediately. As the demons continued their rampage into the surrounding seas, the locathah watched in horror, and fought back as well as they could, as their beloved reef was destroyed and consumed. Rescuing as many polyps as they could carry, they fled across the Na-Gaesa as the fate of the reef became clear, traveling far in search of new homes. Some integrated into other Itothani communities, while others found remote atolls and chose to settle there, far away from the demons and any others who could threaten them. There they began to tend their corals as best they could, hoping to one day bring about something half as beautiful as the Wonder of the Seas once was.

Demographics

The Bakari are entirely locathah. It is extremely uncommon to find an individual of another ancestry living in their communities.

Culture

Religion

Nearly all Bakari are followers of the Cascade. The destruction of the Wonder of the Seas and its transformation into the Corpse has had a profound spiritual impact on them, as their ancestors watched as their living reef-god was consumed before their eyes. Even in the modern day their religious life has been shaped by lacking the intricate ecosystems of the Wonder to live within and among, their traditional symbiosis denied to them. Bakari locathah tend to be view their relationships with the surviving coral of the Corpse, all that has grown from what their ancestors were able to save, to be that of protectors who must nurture what little remains. In fusing these corals into the existing corals of their atolls they hope to revive the Corpse and bring back the Wonder, so as to reawaken their reef-god.

Other faiths are much less common amongst the Bakari. Some are adherents of the Beating Heart but this is become much less widespread since their flight from the Wonder of the Seas.

Society

As with the Itothani, the Bakari have little if any in the way of formal leadership or governance. When they need guidance they seek the input of their family's elders or matriarchs, or those of their village if separated from their family. Laws, informal as they may be, are enforced through social shunning or even exile in extreme cases. With the high degree of social cohesion and interdependence of Bakari settlements this can make one's life significantly harder if not outright impossible, as there will be none willing to share food, work together, provide healing, and so on. That wronging one Bakari will lead to their entire family and community shunning the perpetrator only exacerbates this. Bakari communities are generally very high trust, willing to help any and all, but betraying the trust is a sure way to find oneself cast out permanently. This is even more dangerous to the Bakari than to the Itothani, for while neither have a propensity for long-distance travel to find a new home, the Bakari by and large have a poor understanding of what lies far across the seas or how to reach such places.

Bakari war-shoals, their village guards, remain constantly vigilant for any potential threats. When encountering those who they do not know they typically assume the worst of intentions, and turn to force to drive away any interlopers into their territory. Even passing Angareza traders who they know and have learned to trust are treated with suspicion until the Bakari can be certain of their identities. The Bakari will give anything they have, including their own lives, to protect their nascent reef-gods, so dedicated are they to ensuring the corals survive and the locathah are not left alone once again.

Languages

The Bakari speak Hikunza, the language of the locathah of the Wounds. Centuries of isolation in atolls across the Na-Gaesa Ocean has led to a vast proliferation of dialects, some very different from each other and their parent tongue.

Art

Unlike the Itothani, the Bakari do not use coral as a medium for artistic expression, as to them their corals are too valuable to separate from their nascent reefs. Instead they frequently construct temporary sand sculptures on their atolls. Grandiose as these may be, they are nevertheless destroyed by each passing storm or particularly high tides, only to be rebuilt once the conditions above the surface have calmed. They see these activities as an exercise in proving their devotion to continuing in the pursuit of beauty, no matter what may temporarily set them back.

As with many other cultures of the Wounds, the Bakari do not commonly write, but neither do they pass knowledge through oral stories. Instead they encode their histories, legends, moral lessons, entertainment, and more in the form of dances, which are elaborately choreographed and practiced. Demonstrations of these dances often involve many individuals at once, all moving in careful synchrony.

Architecture and urbanization

Without reefs large or old enough to shape into their dwellings, the Bakari have adopted other materials instead. Some use stone, while others weave together shelters out of seaweed or repurpose the shells of deceased giant turtles.

Each lagoon-village is located very close to their nascent reefs, yet usually set just slightly apart from it, so as to allow it to grow uninterrupted with no risk of damage. These settlements are always entirely enclosed by their atolls, with possible entrances both from the sea and the surface closely guarded. Bakari lagoon-villages are typically quite small - they are rarely home to more than four hundred people each.

Food and agriculture

Bakari cuisine is entirely based around seafood. Seaweed, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, crabs, and shrimp are core parts of their diet, but fish accounts for most of it. They take the Itothani tradition of sacred and protected fish much further, however, and often refuse to eat any that are found in or immediately around their local atolls, instead traveling several miles or more out to hunt in the ocean.

The Bakari value freshness in their food, preferring to eat it as it is gathered or harvested, or at least very soon after, without allowing it to sit any longer than is necessary. Almost all dishes are eaten with raw ingredients, though often combined and prepared in inventive ways.

Travel and trade

Bakari locathah rarely venture far from their lagoon-villages. They widely view the open ocean and all that can be found there to be too dangerous to risk venturing significant distances from home, though they do regularly hunt and patrol in their closer surrounding seas in order to stay aware of any potential threats.

One of the few peoples with whom the Bakari will interact peacefully and within much distrust is the Angareza, their nomadic kin. They rely heavily on Angareza wanderers not only to trade in goods they cannot acquire locally but also for news of the outside world and to pass messages between their lagoon-villages. Even then they can be suspicious to Angareza they do not know well, and frequently only trade with groups who they have built up a rapport with over many years.