Gyeil People

The Gyeil [g-YAY-l] are the indigenous inhabitants of Gildot in central Anásthiasplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigAnásthias

Anásthias [a-NAS-thee-ass / ænæsθiːæs], or [an-ass-THEE-as] is an equatorial island continent, heart of the Civilised World. The north straddles the equator and is hot and humid, while most of the equatorial centre is an upland plateau with fertile river valleys, and stretches of arid plains and desert in the shadow of the mountains. The south is temperate but more wild, separated from the civilisations of the north by the almost impassable Harthera, with modern populations throughout southwestern Anásthias and Munatan. The Gyeil have a unique culture and languageplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigLanguages

List of human languages and dialects, contemporary and extinct.

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This is in a series of articles about Languages and Communication.

topics sidebar cult1, unrelated to the Thalsic peoples who colonised much of the region from the Jade Epoch onwards. Consequently they have been subjected to centuries of oppression and conflict, and have derogatively been called the “Night People” or “Jungle Cats”.

The Gyeil are known to have inhabited their homeland in the jungle valleys of Vildon since more than 10,000 BME, living in isolation from other cultures throughout most of the Jade Epoch. They are remarkable in being one of the few peoples to have managed to survive in a mainly virid environment, with a unique language, culture and physiology. Their isolation and evolutionary pressure has led to adaptations to the hostile environment.

Gyeil have a light grey-red skin, usually darker around their eyes, mouth, genitals and in patches all over their body. This is the result of a genetic condition which causes permanent bruise-like pigmentation in delicate skin areas, and in any body part which has suffer injury or contusion. Traditional tribes practiced a form of ritual scarification, creating distinctive pigment patterns on their face and bodies.

Children grow fine straight black hair, but adults of both sexes tend to recede from the forehead from their twenties onward, so that by middle age they are often entirely bald. Mixing with other races, or perhaps improvements in diet, has reduced this trait in modern populations. Like Thalsic peoples they are largely hairless on their bodies. Many tie their hair into braids, topknots or queues, or tied around the brow as a circlet.

Gyeil have a number of physical differences which distinguishes them from other races. Their eyes are large with double epicanthic folds which can reduce their eyes to a narrow slit in strong daylight, they have unusually keen night vision. This is suggested to be an adaptation to living under a forest canopy under threat from virid predators.

A more unusual feature is their skin-shedding. Gyeil shed their skin in strips on a monthly basis akin to sunburn. Some traditional societies had monthly gender-separated grooming rituals which are a part of group bonding, exfoliating the skin with sand or bark. A few tribes consume their own “month-skin”.

Gyeil gestation tends to be slightly shorter than others, lasting roughly 300 days instead of the standard 320. Women also start puberty at a age 8-12, compared with 18-22 in Thalsic women. Most unusually, Gyeil females suffer bleeding from the genitals on a monthly basis, a feature unknown to Thalsic people.

Due to immigration into their native domains Gyeil are no longer the majority in southwestern Ororr, and there has been a great deal of racial intermixing. Gyeil are generally more fertile with their own kind, but have a low rate of fertility with Thalsic people, meaning that many “pure” Gyeil still remain. This lack of fertility also led to another unfortunate effect, their abuse as concubines and “comfort women” during the darker eras of the Ennseperan Empire.

This combination of unusual factors, pigmentation, skin-shedding, precocious puberty, genital bleeding and infertility with non-Gyeil contributes to the prejudice levelled against Gyeil people and the perception that they are unclean creatures, not quite human.

Gyeil are divided into many trans-national ethnic groups who retain their traditional languages, arts and culture. Chief amongst these are the Essep peoples who once dominated the valley of the river Many tribes groups remained fiercely isolationist right up until their annexation by Ororr.

The first people of Gildot developed a nomadic lifestyle which lasted many thousands of years. They developed the technique of slash-and-burn, settling an area for a number of years before moving on. A new site was first scouted, preferably a flat area with easy access to running water. In periods of inter-tribal war, defensible sites were also important. Trees were first felled for new shelters and other uses, then once the undergrowth dried, the area was burned. Burning was important not to clear the area, but to sterilise it of infestations of virid grubs and toxic weeds. The soil was then dug over and planted with polycultural gardens, with seeds surviving from the home settlement. The entire tribe would relocate to the new site once the area had been secured and cleared. There was usually some kind of closing ceremony in which the old site was dismantled and the huts burned, allowing the virid forest to return.

The tribe would inhabit the site for several years, as gradually the soil would become exhausted, the wooden huts would deteriorate, and virid weeds and pests would slowly return. The tribal elders would eventually send out scouts to find a new suitable location, and once selected, they would move again.

The ancient Gyeil ate a fairly poor restricted, consisting of a few staple green crops subsidised with virid foods like cham, other roots and fruits, and the eggs and larvae of various virid creatures. As a consequence they suffered a variety of malnutrition diseases. One of the few sources of vital green proteins was human flesh, which they ate in a highly ritualised meal in which the body was butchered and cooked in stages.

Tribe members who were weak or old voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the good of the tribe, usually by a ritual bloodletting in which they bled to death.

As the Gyeil grew in number, they came into disputes over tribal territory, particularly due to over-exploitation of the fragile forest environment. Warfare was common, and the killing of enemies was thence a source of food to strengthen the tribe.