Huyfárah
From Almeopedia
Huyfárah is the dominant nation in this part of the world of Kečǽnə.
Contents |
Settlement of the North Coast
In ancient times, the Oltu river valley and the nearby seacoast were divided between two related peoples, the barbaric Faraghin and Feråjin. The civilized world was to the south, along the great Eigə (NT Aiwa). The first civilized people were the Ŋouru (NT Ngauro), who arose in the river delta— Kazəgad (NT Kasadgad)— about 4000 years ago. The peoples and wars of the valley were many, but for our purposes the chief fact was the conquest of Kazəgad by the Edák (NT Ndak), a people who lived upriver, in Lašumu (Latsomo, modern Axôltseubeu).
The Edák were themselves conquered more than once, but their edge in population allowed them, each time, to expel or absorb their conquerors. They emerged from the last of these episodes with a new imperial vigor, and set themselves the task of conquering the known world. They reached their greatest extent 2000 years ago under the emperor Siənčæn (NT Tsinakan): the entire Eigə valley, the southwestern mountains once held by their rivals the Gezoro, a wide stretch of the eastern seacoast, and the lands of the Feraghin and Feråjin.
This latter region they called Hagíbəl (NT Sau Ibli), the North Coast; they colonized the seacoast and river valleys, leaving the Faraghin (and to a lesser extent the Feråjin) to the mountains, forests, and pasturelands. For some centuries the Edák remained as overlords; then they lost the hinterlands; then the empire collapsed, leaving the local Edák ruling the colonized areas. The local balance of power reversed: the Faraghin hill tribes, accustomed to horses and frequent internecine war, raided the Edák and pillaged or even razed their main settlements.
The Faraghin conquest
About 1500 years ago, the Faraghin put aside their usual disunity and conquered the Oltu valley and its capital, Ussor (NT Uksaur), and then the Edák littoral, which they renamed Huyfárah, the Faraghin Coast. This time, the horsemen were here to stay. Edák society— highly stratified and urbanized— was transformed. As nomads, the Faraghin believe not in real estate and civil protection but in moveable property and honor. For the settled Edák, the archetypical villainy was murder; for the Faraghin it was theft. (Murder could be paid for.)
If this seems ‘barbaric’, we should recognize as well that the Faraghin were much more individualistic and enterprising than the Edák, whose devotion to stability led less to peace than to stagnation. It was possible to move up in Faraghin society, and trade and markets developed here, while the Eigə valley was still dominated by archaic command economies.
The great vice of the Faraghin warrior class was a disinclination, on the death of a respected king, to support their unproven young heirs. The unity of the Oltu lasted only a century; the region then became a squabbling patchwork of baronies; if some ambitious ruler unified them his kingdom would collapse in a few generations. Once the littoral was even temporarily reconquered by a resurgent Kazəgad.
Nonetheless, trade continued to flourish, and the people of Huyfárah developed a great skill in navigation, and explored the littoral a great distance to the east and south.
The modern empire
The turning point was the discovery of the nation of Histuənə (Siixtaguna), to the east, and its religion Etúgə. Its great sage Hutaba preached nubázi ‘the realization’— the realization being that all knowledge is false; only action (etúgə) and belief (mušitugə) are real. Nubázi frees the spirit to live in ifisænə, the spiritual world. (This is an early form of the religion Rory invented for Team One.)
The explorers brought back Etúgeist monks. These were at first mocked, even persecuted and tortured; but their calm conviction and eloquence won respect. Finally the entire country was won over, and the new doctrine not only consolidated Fáralo identity, but brought a new respect for unity and loyalty. The Balanin dynasty, able generals and devout Etúgeists, unified the country, and soon turned to empire-building.
In the last centuries Huyfárah has turned to empire-building. First the Dagæm islands were occupied— a useful acquisition for a maritime empire; then the lands fo the Feråjin just to the east, then Kazəgad— which was by now, however, only a poor shadow of its former glory.
The people of Huyfárah call themselves the Fáralo— essentially a form of ‘Faraghin’— and think of themselves as descendents of this warrior nation. Nonetheless their language descends from that of the Edák (that is, Ndak Ta), though with heavy Faraghin influence.
See also
| Author: Zompist |
