Story background checklist: Customs
WIP, for Winter's Stone 'verse
Are people married? How?
Yes. The celebration lasts three days and three nights, in which all the couple's parents' family and friends are invited. Some people go nearly bankrupt when they marry off their son.
If the couple was married abroad, the parents usually still insist on holding a one-day celebration when the couple returned home.
If actors marry, they usually do so in secret. Not that Karl has any aspirations in that direction. Parents generally don't want their children to marry actors. In the few cases that are public, the actors quit working.
Singers sometimes marry their patron.
Any special customs or ceremonies when a baby is born?
The parents hold a naming ceremony when a baby is 30 days old. Sweetbread shaped like fishes are distributed to the guests. Guests come bearing weaved blankets, clothes, jewelry/trinkets. But not shoes.
Richer people commission music boxes with a special song composed for their babies. Poorer people buy off-the-shelf music boxes.
Karl has a run-off-the-mill music box. Salj has a beautiful music box, which Karl suspects is from Salj's birth father.
How is death handled?
The richer people have a singer send off the deceased at the funeral.
The poorer people have their family member(s) sing the send-off song instead. Karl sang the send-off song at his mother's funeral. He didn't want Salj's first public performance to be at their mother's funeral.
Any special "coming of age" rites? How does someone become an adult?
Different people are considered "adults" at different times. Singers and actors both start working as children, but they can only sign contracts with patrons after they turn eighteen.
People can marry as early as seventeen. They have to be at least twenty to work for the government, and at least twenty-five to be a political leader.
How do people interact with social equals? Inferiors? Superiors?
Inferiors are invisible beyond the service that they render. Superiors are always addressed formally. Until proper introductions have been made, social equals also should be addressed formally.
Does the country or people have any special holidays?
- New Year's Eve & Day. Note: 12-month calendar. Come up with new names for months? Or just numerical First Moon, Second Moon, etc.
- The fullest full moon of the year. Have to research it.
- People stay at home during lunar eclipses. Pregnant women who are caught outside during a lunar eclipse cause their babies to live "under a shadow."
Do they have any fairy tales, myths or legends?
Creation myth: Maker created the substance of the world from earth, blood and water. Weaver helped weave the sky, land and ocean together.
Fairy tale: solely the realm of whimsical tales for children. Occasionally acted out in low-brow plays.
Immigrants have their own folktales that they carry over.
To be answered later:
What kind of customs/rites do your characters practice?
Are people married? How?
Yes. The celebration lasts three days and three nights, in which all the couple's parents' family and friends are invited. Some people go nearly bankrupt when they marry off their son.
If the couple was married abroad, the parents usually still insist on holding a one-day celebration when the couple returned home.
If actors marry, they usually do so in secret. Not that Karl has any aspirations in that direction. Parents generally don't want their children to marry actors. In the few cases that are public, the actors quit working.
Singers sometimes marry their patron.
Any special customs or ceremonies when a baby is born?
The parents hold a naming ceremony when a baby is 30 days old. Sweetbread shaped like fishes are distributed to the guests. Guests come bearing weaved blankets, clothes, jewelry/trinkets. But not shoes.
Richer people commission music boxes with a special song composed for their babies. Poorer people buy off-the-shelf music boxes.
Karl has a run-off-the-mill music box. Salj has a beautiful music box, which Karl suspects is from Salj's birth father.
How is death handled?
The richer people have a singer send off the deceased at the funeral.
The poorer people have their family member(s) sing the send-off song instead. Karl sang the send-off song at his mother's funeral. He didn't want Salj's first public performance to be at their mother's funeral.
Any special "coming of age" rites? How does someone become an adult?
Different people are considered "adults" at different times. Singers and actors both start working as children, but they can only sign contracts with patrons after they turn eighteen.
People can marry as early as seventeen. They have to be at least twenty to work for the government, and at least twenty-five to be a political leader.
How do people interact with social equals? Inferiors? Superiors?
Inferiors are invisible beyond the service that they render. Superiors are always addressed formally. Until proper introductions have been made, social equals also should be addressed formally.
Does the country or people have any special holidays?
- New Year's Eve & Day. Note: 12-month calendar. Come up with new names for months? Or just numerical First Moon, Second Moon, etc.
- The fullest full moon of the year. Have to research it.
- People stay at home during lunar eclipses. Pregnant women who are caught outside during a lunar eclipse cause their babies to live "under a shadow."
Do they have any fairy tales, myths or legends?
Creation myth: Maker created the substance of the world from earth, blood and water. Weaver helped weave the sky, land and ocean together.
Fairy tale: solely the realm of whimsical tales for children. Occasionally acted out in low-brow plays.
Immigrants have their own folktales that they carry over.
To be answered later:
What kind of customs/rites do your characters practice?