Atenrosera
The Atenrosera is confederation of five elven groups who came together for mutual peace and protection. They control a vast swath of territory east of the southern shores of lakes Kanahnònke and Kaniataroio, and smaller, less powerful, groups in the area often have relationships of protection with the confederacy’s member nations. Although the confederation’s traditional enemies are the Ahouenda and their allies, in more recent decades they have come into conflict with colonial powers seeking to expand their control further into the interior of the continent. This has put the greatest pressure on the confederacy’s easternmost representatives, the Sategat, though all of the tribes have faced incursions, especially in their southern territories. The confederacy remains strong, as its people are as experienced in the arts of diplomacy as in war, and their greater familiarity with both the local geography and political landscape, as well as their style of warfare, has allowed them to stand their ground for now.
The confederacy is concerned with matters of peace, war, diplomacy, and trade – business traditionally in the male domain for the united tribes – and governed through consensus by a Great Council. The Great Council consists of 50 chiefs (married men of good standing, appointed to the council by the clan mothers) who debate the issues brought forward. The Sategat and the Tsonnontouan take the dominant political leadership role together, being the most powerful members, with the other tribes supplying fewer chiefs to the grand council as follows:
Tsonnontouan: 12 Guyeh: 8 Kayeskisnakweniu: 10 Wetasson: 7 Sategat: 13
Some of the tribes have specific responsibilities within the confederacy. The Kayeskisnakweniu are the lore keepers, and their homelands are the heart of the confederacy, where the business of the confederacy is conducted, and the Guyeh have the job of facilitating the meetings of the council.
The symbol of the confederacy is a white pine tree topped by an eagle.
General cultural commonalities
In addition to their political alliances, the Atenrosera and other northern tribes (including the Ahouenda) share a number of common cultural traditions that unite them. They live in semi-permanent villages that range from a few hundred to close to a thousand people, supported by a combination of agriculture, hunting, and gathering. The villages are surrounded by protective maze-like palisades, which make it difficult for potential raiders to sneak inside and attack. Each tribe is divided into clans which trace their membership based on the maternal line – Clan business, such as marriage, names, and land ownership and management, is women’s business. Traditionally, the clan mothers select the men they believe are best qualified to lead in matters of war, trade, diplomacy, and other matters external to the clan. This has increased friction with encroaching colonial powers who are often reluctant to acknowledge male authority in any form.
Within the villages, people live in large clan longhouses which are subdivided internally for individual family units. People marry outside of their clans, never within, and men will leave their homes to live with their wives’ clans. Although marriages are arranged, they can be dissolved easily and generally with no stigma if they don’t work out. Children belong to the mother’s clan, and stay with her in these cases. Men may have close relationships with their sons, but it is more common for children to have close relationships with their mothers and aunts. Clans represented within different tribes are considered the same – a Guyeh and a Sategat from the Bear clan would consider themselves to be kin. There are nine different major clans, though not all are represented in each tribe: deer, hawk, heron, snipe, turtle, beaver, wolf, owlbear, bear.
Religion
The Atenrosera, as with many of the Elven peoples, believe that all living things have spirits that must be properly respected, and believe that wasting resources is an indication of that disrespect – especially so given the long span of their lives compared to most animals, and the potential impact of even one Even life on their environment over time. Leaders are taught to make decisions with the thought of the generations to come, not only of those who live now. They all believe in a Creator spirit that made the world and other spirits, and in a set of divine twins, responsible for good and evil, though they have different names within the different tribes. Tribes, and even clans, have unique origin stories and other beliefs. They have special relationships with certain animals, often linked to the clans. Young warrior will often go on a personal quest in the hopes of encountering, and developing a special relationship with, one of the spirit animals. Spiritual practices revolve around the relationships of the tribes and their members with these different spirits. Spiritual practices are strongly gendered, with different aspects of ceremonies being assigned to male or female roles and knowledge. This specialized knowledge is often passed through families, and is held sacred along with the related ritual implements such as masks. Ceremonies are held throughout the year, with the most important being the Midwinter Ceremony and the Harvest Festival.
While most Atenrosera still hold traditional beliefs, Duathean missionaries have made some inroads. They are hampered by traditional attitudes towards gender roles, which conflict with Atenrosera culture, and most converts, especially to Pangainaism, tend to leave their villages to live with other Atenrosera who share their beliefs. This has caused some political disruption, especially with some converted villages insisting on being able to send female representatives to the great council, or dismissing the great council’s decrees. Unitist missionaries have had somewhat better success in converting the Atenrosera, and Unitist converts have remained on the whole more integrated into their societies. On the whole, the new religions tend to have a greater appeal to women.
Sport
Another important cultural institution is gahlas, a group sport played with a ball and netted sticks. As with many aspects of Atenrosera life, there is not a strict division of recreational and the spiritual, and gahlas is played as much for spiritual as for physical enjoyment, training, and conditioning.
Dress
Women usually wear their hair long – a single braid indicates a married woman, and two braids an unmarried girl, though they may also wear it loose and decorated with feathers. Men may wear it long, shaved save for a scalplock, or in a stiffened roach. Women traditionally wear loose robes of soft deer hide embellished with embroidery of animal hair and quills. Men traditionally wear a leather breechcloth with optional leggings seamed up the front, accented with embroidered garters above and below the knee. Leather and fur capes provided additional warmth in the winter. Men and women were fond of jewellery, especially necklaces, earspool, and armbands. Tattoos are common, but more elaborate for men who often have more elaborate pieces related to their experiences in raids. Ear marks, noting confirmed kills, are a sign of prestige. Recently, adopting elements of dress from the colonial groups has become more common, such as breeches and pants, cloth dresses, and shirts, and glass beads, and some craftsmen are learning to make metal, particularly silver, jewellery.
Warfare
Prior to the arrival of colonial powers and their advanced military technology, the Atenrosera and other related groups were involved in frequent feuding, attacking and raiding each other. These raids were primarily retaliatory, though sometimes there ere larger issues over territorial control and other diplomatic issues. The purpose of the raids was to kill enemy warriors, and take captives (mostly young men and girls) to take the places of lost family members. Warriors gained prestige among their peers if they could confirm that they were responsible for permanent deaths, as the availability of healing magics made such occasions rare. They also gained prestige for feats of particular bravery and daring.
The arrival of colonial powers has had a significant impact on these practices, however, due primarily to the nature of trade relationships – Colonial demand for natural resources (furs and certain types of rare spell components), exchanged for guns and other luxury goods, has led the Atenrosera and other Elven groups into greater competition for control of territory. Additionally, political alliances have drawn the elves into the business of their colonial neighbors, and vice versa, creating an even greater increase in the demand of guns. The Atenrosera are not yet comfortable with the notion of adopting non-elves into their communities, looking instead to other elven communities as a source of new captives to be indoctrinated as well as new territory.
The Tribes (east to west):
Sategat
People of the River. The Sategat are the easternmost tribe of the confederacy, and the heart of their territory is the Sategat river system. They have been in the greatest contact, and conflict, with colonial groups, and fought a prolonged war with Mariannas for several years. As a result of all this fighting, Sategat men have a reputation as being especially formidable warriors, even compared with other Atenrosera. Indeed, already a dominating voice within the Atenrosera, these experiences have given them even greater political sway within the confederacy. Their greater contact has also meant that colonial missionaries have made more inroads with some Sategat groups.
Wetasson
People of the Lakes. The smallest tribe of the confederacy, the Wetasson have enjoyed some benefits having the Sategat as a buffer, having less direct conflict but a still-increased access to new trade goods. This has aided the flourishing of new forms of craftsmanship among the Wetasson, to a greater degree than among some of the other Atenrosera groups, as they experiment with newly accessible materials. Wetasson crafts are in high demand, which has led to a reputation (deserved or not) for producing a higher quality of all kinds of finished good, from silver jewellery and elaborate beadwork, to furs.
Kayeskisnakweniu
Keepers of the Great Fire. The central group, and the heart of the confederacy, hosts of the great council, and keepers of the lore and the Fire of Peace. Because they take this role seriously, they are perceived as being more traditional and conservative than other groups, though they maintain that they are simply working to keep in perspective the changes of the recent past while looking to the future of the confederacy and their people. The Kayeskisnakweniu and other more western Atenroseran groups have had less continuous conflict with colonial groups than the Sategat, but have experienced raiding, and have become involved in conflicts to support other allied (or tributary) groups to the south and east.
Guyeh
People of the Forest. As with the Wetasson, the Guyeh have primarily experience only light raiding form colonial groups. However, they are closer to the conflicts stirred up by western expansionism, and have been very explicit about maintaining relationships with both the remaining elven groups buffering their territory from the colonies, and other elven groups who have been impacted by colonial advancement, advocating within the council for negotiation of treaties with groups such as the He’tahkuskere and the Nekutyohacan and advancing the possibility of inviting other tribes into the confederacy through diplomacy rather than conquest. Being one of the smaller clans, they are looking to sway the opinions of some of the other tribes to their perspective.
Tsonnontouan
People of the Western Hills. The Tsonnontouan are the westernmost group of the Atenrosera, and they are considered to be the guardians of the confederacy’s western borders. While they have experienced less direct impact form contact and conflict with colonial groups, access to trade good, especially guns, afforded them through the eastern members of the Confederacy have had a huge impact on their relationships with neighboring elven groups. While the heart of their lands remains the hill country abutting the territory of the Guyeh, demand for territory and hunting rights to procure goods for trade with the east has led them, and the Atenrosera with the, towards expansionist policies. While the Sategat are renown for their wars with Mariannas, the Tsonnontouan are more feared by neighboring elven groups, several of who have been assimilated into the tribe or turned into tributary groups in the past hundred years, and more direct conflict with colonial powers seems inevitable in the future.
