A debt jubilee is an event where a large number of debts are cleared at once.
Around the Three Great Seas
Many regions around the Chaska Sea have economies that are heavily based around debt. This is largely at the personal level - it is not atypical for anyone from an artisan to a peasant farmer to take on debt when hard times strike and they require aid. At times this debt can become immense, to the degree that the majority of the population of a city-state is indebted to a much smaller number of figures, typically those within local governance, temples, or wealthier merchants. In places like Dalbanu, the Eastern Chaskan city-states, Tamkaranu, and elsewhere, this is expected and is a core part of how their economy functions. It can, however, lead to social disorder if it reaches a tipping point where there is nothing remaining to be offered as collateral. When the end state of debt around the Chaska Sea is a condition of debt bondage or tenant farming, effectively enslaving a large population is sure to lead to strife. Many rulers have realized this and instituted debt jubilees as a result.
A typical debt jubilee is scheduled so as to coincide with some special occasion, often a religious festival or the ascension to leadership by a new shufet, ensi, or other figure. Regularly scheduled jubilees - every ten years, for example - are not unusual either. Upon the issuing of a jubilee, all extant debts are cleared, those in debt bondage are freed, and those displaced from their land returned to it. Notably, this is almost always extended only to personal debts - those accrued by merchants as part of their business are not affected.