Tuesday 1 March 2011

Some scetches and notes on the Difani, or 'Tall Tribes', of the Galmearans

"Portrait of Shinka of the Difani"
"Shinka of the Difani on New Defences"

 Fragment #1

"Shinka of the Difani on New Defences
From what the Humans call "The Tall Tribes"

- Short hair from cutting to weave into fabrics - energetic signature of artist - cut every 9 years. Peoples age sets are defined by this.

"Quilted panel -  dyed fine woven rabbit wool."
Quilted panel

(Dyed fine woven rabbit wool)

[anti-clockwise from top left]

* Black Berry (belly-button)

* Red Berry

* Pink-white shell

* Representing Deer

* Galmearan
(Dark-green nettle cord knots)

* Black/brown

* Dark brown

* Light green

* Light brown

* Light brown-green

* Light green

* Light green / dark yellow

*Dark yellow"


"A Difani Blade" - an Eashay

 Fragment # 2

"A Difani warrior always keeps a hand on their weapon - partly this allows rapid drawing, partly it serves as a reminder of their role, and partly it is because being unsheathed they would otherwise stab your legs when you ran or sat down...

The Difani do not use scabbards as such, instead resorting to platted string. Great skill is needed to draw the blade smoothly. This ensures both that no-one carries a blade without good training and also it makes it almost imposable to draw someone elses blade.

Ever economical and resourceful, the people of Defani have developed their weaponry from their tools.

This blade, called an Eashay, is very close in design to the tool they use to prune and coppice the hazel and a small but well thorned tree, local to the area, called naois. Naois buds are gathered, dried and powdered to be snorted like snuff. This aids concentration when weaving.

The original tool has a lighter handle and no blade other than the saw.

The steel used is Dwarvish, and thus of the highest quality. The people of Diffani trade woven cloth and embroideries for their imports.

Imports include the aforementioned Dwarvish steel, as well as some Dwarvish rock powders used to colour and fix their bright cloths.  They also trade with other Galmearan tribes for forest colours and for some of the raw wools they then spin and weave. Noticeable among these are rabbit wool and deer fawn under-wool, as well as certain dried lichens.  They also use bog-cotton and other grass-stem fibers that are gathered originally by the bog-hoppers of Llanwern as well as those Galmearans in the "Frayan" marshes to the north.  Their must be an extensive inter-tribe network across the Freelands that bring the goods to the mountains.  Of course no coin would be used, being Galmearans, so all trade would be barter based. 

One day I will follow the bog-cotton from Teash trading camp just over the Llanwern border, and see where I end up, and if I survive the wild tribes and the death tribes the Human spies seem to fear so much..."

"Naois"


Fragment # 3

"Naois.

"Naois Flower - drawn with experimenal
pallet - not a success."
Naois grows naturally as a single maiden, up to 6 legs (24 hands) tall - this is roughly 18 feet using the common measurment. However, as the flowers (and their harvestably mind-focusing buds) grow only in carnivorous lesions on the third-year wood the Galmearans of Difani first coppice the tree every five years for four consecutive seasons, until an ideal of 30-40 stems are shooting from the base. These are then pollarded at roughly three hands. Each year the stupor inducing thorns are meticulously pruned off with great care."
 

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