Iulutiun

The Iulutiuns (EE-oo-LOO-shee-uns ) were a human people living in the Alpuk region of the Great Glacier. They were one of the ethnicities collectively known as the Ulutiuns and the most numerous of all human tribes living on the Glacier.

Description
Iulutiuns were short and stocky and had round and flat facial features. They rarely were taller than five feet (150 cm). Males usually weighed between 130 and 260 pounds (60–120 kg), and females were about 35 pounds (16 kg) lighter. They had short and thick legs with stubby fingers and toes. Their ears and nose were tiny, and they had especially wide teeth.

They had light yellow or brown skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair.

Iulutiuns had more fat under their skin than other humans and extra blood vessels in their extremities. Males could not grow facial hair. These adaptations gave them a special resistance to living in the frigid cold weather of their native lands.

Iulutiuns tended to have greater strength and fortitude than other human races but, with their stubby fingers and shorter legs, lacked the speed and dexterity of other humans.

Both men and women parted their hair in the middle. Women often grew their hair long and braided it or tied it in knots behind their heads.

Iutlutiuns dressed in many thick layers of caribou or seal skin, including boots, mittens, and thick, round-hooded parkas. The same type of clothing was worn throughout the year, and men and women dressed very similarly. They preferred simple clothing styles and only occasionally would decorate their outfits with a strip of deer or wolf skin.

Both men and women commonly wore nose and ear jewelry. Women tended to have larger hoops for their ears than men did and were far more likely to pierce their noses.

Personality
As a rule, like all Ulutiuns, Iulutiuns were a tough and adaptable people, living contentedly close to nature. Among the Ulutiuns, the Iulutiuns stood out as especially peace-loving, joyful, and friendly to outsiders.

Iulutiuns were clever negotiators. They would walk away from a deal rather than pay more than something was worth.

Society
The majority of Iulutiuns lived in Alpuk, concentrated around the Lugalpgotak and Nakalpgotak Seas. Most lived in permanent, small settlements of a few hundred villagers, but a few settlements, such as Jukum and Lilinuk, had over a thousand residents. Other Iulutiuns lived in temporal hunting and fishing camps and lived a more nomadic life.

Iulutiuns lived in snowhouses shaped into domes with tunnels. Some such houses had several domes all connected together.

Of the three Ulutiun tribes, the Iulutiuns had the most complex and sophisticated culture.

The Iulutiuns kept several unique traditions that helped maintain centuries of peace among each of the villages. The oldest such tradition was called koatulit, in which a village would send a messenger to a different village each year and invite a handful of that village's citizens to live with them for one tenday. The tenday would be filled with feasting and gaming in honor of the guests.

Another tradition was the annual sukkiruchit trade fair, which was held at one of the largest villages.

Marriage & Family
A third tradition was that of tupa, in which young Iulutiuns were strongly encouraged to marry only outside their own village. If such marriages were voluntary, this was called kotupa. If a young Iulutiun had trouble finding a spouse on his or her own, a marriage might be arranged for them without their consent, a situation known as ekotupa. The majority of marriages in Iulutiun culture were of the former variety.

Both men and women were culturally expected to be married before reaching their early twenties. Those reaching their late twenties who had not married were generally forced into an arranged marriage of ekotupa.

The traits most desirable in an Iulutiun man were honesty and a good sense of humor. Women were valued for good character and fertility&mdash;which was guessed based on that of her sisters, if she had any. Physical attractiveness was considered a foolish quality to desire in a mate.

Courtships in Iulutiun societies were brief. An individual would show interest in a potential spouse by offering a small gift. If the other reciprocated, it was a sign that they were both seriously interested in the prospects of marriage. Both men and women needed permission from the other's family. If permission was given, the couple was considered married. There were no weddings in Iulutiun culture; the married couple simply moved into the home of one family or the other.

After the birth of a first child, a couple might move into their own home, but this was not required or expected. A couple that could not conceive were allowed to divorce without consequence.

All Iulutiuns had two-syllable names and no surnames. Names were chosen after birth. The first syllable, called the kiirik, was always a part of the name of a dead relative of which the parents were reminded by their child. The second syllable, the anarkiirik, was derived from the name of a close family friend, who from that time on took a special role in the raising of the baby.

This friend was called an ariak. The ariak was the first one to dress the new baby&mdash;a ritual called anariak. In addition, an ariak changed the celebration of his or her own birthday to coincide with that of the new child. As the child grew up, several other traditions were shared between them. The child would always present her or his first kill to the ariak, and firstborn children were ceremoniously offered to an ariak as well.

Mothers carried infants within their parkas for warmth until the child grew past the age of two years. In early childhood, children were left on their own to play. Children were never disciplined with physical punishment.

Upon reaching puberty, females received a tattoo of small, thin, parallel lines between their chin and lower lip, and males received a similar one on their wrist. At this age, they were also permitted to begin wearing ear and nose jewelry.

A boy or girl could pass into adulthood upon completing a series of first kills, that of any small animal, a seal, and a polar bear. Each first kill was followed by a special ceremony, the jukikewquka, the awakewquka, and the nukiewquak, respectively. Girls had the option of skipping this process and were simply considered adults when they appeared ready to give birth and care for children.

In Iulutiun families, men were usually the hunters and providers, and women usually maintained the home and raised the children, but these norms were not enforced or required, and there were exceptions to the rule.

A family unit was not considered solely parents and their children; a family was anyone living under the same roof. This could include grandparents, in-laws, other blood relatives, or adopted family members and friends. An Iulutiun felt far stronger ties and responsibilities toward those living with him or her than with those living in other villages but technically related by blood.

Older children held special status and responsibility within families. The oldest son was called the gazanga ("little father"), and likewise, the eldest daughter was the kazanga ("little mother").

Certain familial relationships were expected to be stronger than others, and these even had names. A father was closest to his eldest son&mdash;even closer than he was to his own wife&mdash;and this relationship was called giik. Of next importance was a mother's relationship to her eldest daughter, called erngiik. Following this was a parent's relationship with any of the other children, tigugiik. Only after these parent–child relationships came aigiik, the relationship between spouses.

In some villages, particularly poor or weak Iulutiuns could voluntarily enter slavery and become ukeu for another family, serving them rather than starving to death. The relationship between an ukeu and her or his family was called sangiik.

Each family was expected to provide for its own. If a family would not or could not provide for its children, the children were taken away and became the responsibility of a friend or relative instead. Iulutiuns believed that children must always have two parents. If a spouse were to die, the widow or widower would give up her or his children to the parents of the deceased partner. Aging parents were the responsibility of their oldest married children. An ariak had the responsibility to provide for his or her bonded child.

Language
Iulutiuns spoke their own dialect of the Ulutiun language, but they had no trouble communicating with the other Ulutiun tribes. Most Iulutiuns could also communicate with the human groups living outside the Glacier as well.

Religion
Iulutiuns did not practice any sort of religion. They did not believe in the gods, they did not believe in life after death, and they believed that the world was not created&mdash;it simply always was.

A very small number of Iulutiuns were exceptions to this rule. Among this tiny population of adherents were followers of Pahluruk, Ayuruk, and Saukuruk. Such Iulutiuns were considered strange by the rest of their society.

However, Iulutiuns did follow a sort of world view or philosophy called qukoko, which held that all living creatures shared the same essence of life called eaas. Several rituals were followed, which revolved around the concepts of qukoko and eaas, but these customs were not thought to be supernatural in any way.

Magic
Like priests, magic-users of any kind were very rare. Both teachers of magic and spell components were scarce on the Great Glacier. Even if a larger village contained a wizard or two, they would only attain the most basic levels of arcane power.

Despite this, one special and odd type of wizard did exist among the Iulutiuns, although still very rare and limited in power. These were the anagakok, wizards who had survived in the wilderness and whose bodies were magically adapted to the cold, causing them to forever grow their own fur.

Government
Iulutiuns did not have a formal system of government. Every individual settlement was self-ruled.

Larger settlements were advised by a group of elders (kiam) who collectively formed a body called an iquemelum. The iquemelum did not directly rule, but it provided guidance and strove to maintain peace and order.

The kiam were chosen by the adult members of the village and were 1) adults, 2) known for exceptional talents in hunting, healing, speaking, intuition, humor, shrewdness, or strength, and 3) related in some way to other members of the iquemelum. Because Iulutiuns believed that women tended to have more wisdom than men, most (but not all) kiam were women who were past the age of child-bearing. All kiam wore special earrings made of tiny fish skulls, which were called uwa. If a kiam was ever forced to resign, she or he would toss the uwa into the sea.

Iulutiuns had no written law, but they nevertheless had a very rigid set of customs and mores that must be followed and taboos that must not be done. Order was maintained by each family, and rarely did the iquemelum or other residents need get involved.

The Iulutiuns had a strange custom involving lost weapons. If a weapon was found, it must be returned to its original owner; however, if the weapon was found embedded in an animal, it then belonged to the finder.

Among hunters, there were special rules about who received the bounty from a given kill:
 * Birds and fish belonged to the catcher.
 * Seals belonged equally to anyone participating, except that the striker of the first below received the skin.
 * Bears and caribou belonged to the spotter, no matter who made the kill, but it was expected that the spotter would share the meat in some way.

In times of scarce food, these rules were waived, and food would be shared with the entire village and not just one's own family.

Land ownership was nonexistent in Iulutiun society. One could challenge another for a desirable site for building a home.

Iulutiuns did own personal items as their own property; however, upon their deaths, their possessions belonged to the village as a whole. Exceptions existed for personal weapons and hunting gear, boats, sleds, dogs, and cooking utensils, which were allowed to be left as an inheritance to one's eldest offspring, but only if the heir were still living with his or her parents at the time of death.

If the citizens of a given village collectively thought that one of their members had severely broken a taboo, the violator was executed, usually by stoning, drowning, or beheading. Criminals were sometimes buried alive or stripped naked and allowed to freeze to death. However, crime was very low in Iulutiun villages, and such punishments were extremely rare.

When such executions had occurred, this had often triggered a blood feud among families. Knowledge of this also helped maintain order, as Iulutiuns knew that blood feuds were hard to end.

In addition to communal executions like these, two other forms of killing were culturally acceptable in extreme cases. An "honor murder", or wijikak, was permitted if one Iulutiun was dishonored by another. Of course, this could trigger retaliation and a blood feud, so such events were likewise rare. In other cases of one Iulutiun wronging another, the wronged party could request permission from the iquemelum to murder the offender, a case of yijikak. Usually, the iquemelum would take months to debate the issue, giving the offender time to voluntarily exile himself or herself from the village before being killed.

For non-serious violations or conflicts, public ridicule, wrestling contests, or "singdowns" were employed. A singdown, or huuk, was a sort of insulting contest where each party would sing an insult at the other. These insults almost always involved jabs about bad food or one's bad temper.

Economy
Iulutiuns did not use currency and only traded for new items or bartered for services.

Combat
If they wore armor at all, Iulutiuns wore hide armor. A few Iulutiuns might experiment with armor from remorhaz shells or tirichik hides, but most wore no armor at all. It was simply too bulky.

For weapons, they used such things as battlaxes, garnoks, handaxes, various harpoons, (such as unungaks, artengaks, or naulagaks,) iuaks, light picks, nets, ritiiks, shortbows, throwing axes, and tridents (called luqus). Weapons were primarily used as tools for hunting, however, and not for war.

Recreation
Iulutiuns enjoyed visiting neighbors and socializing, the playing of games, and feasting.

Transportation
Over the land, Iulutiuns used dog or other sleds. On the water they most often used kayaks or umiaks.

Diet
A typical Iulutiun diet consisted of almost entirely meat, which they required to keep their bodies warm. This included seal, caribou, muskox, polar bear, fish, deer, penguin, tern, gull, puffin, white dragon, and tirichik. Rare mosses, grasses, or lichens were sometimes used to flavor stews. Food was boiled or eaten raw.

History
Like all Ulutiuns, the Iulutiuns were descended from migrants from Kara-Tur who came west over the polar ice caps. Their ancestors first settled in Faerûn in Sossal. From there, they explored further west. In &minus;1648 DR, a group of them became severely lost after having narrowly escaped death from an attack by a tirichik, one of the monsters native to the Great Glacier. These lost hunters eventually came to the shores of the Lugalpgotak Sea and settled there.

By &minus;1362 DR, these early Ulutiuns had abandoned their gods and multiplied. The people spread out over the the Alpuk region and eventually discovered the Glacier of Ulutiu and its sacred writings. Some of the Ulutiuns dedicated themselves to the worship of this new god Ulutiu and moved further north into the Nakvaligach region and became the Nakulutiuns. Those who did not accept Ulutiu and remained in Alpuk became the Iulutiuns.

By &minus;1186 DR, another faction split off from the Iulutiuns and moved east to Angalpuk, becoming the Angulutiuns.

A fifty-year conflict, known as the Keryjek Wars, lasted from &minus;963 DR until &minus;913 DR between the Iulutiuns and the Angulutiuns. At the end of the war, the two groups made a peace treaty and established the custom of koatulit, which helped them to maintain peace for the millennia since.

In &minus;901 DR, the Iulutiuns first made contact with the Innugaakalikurit, the arctic dwarves living in Novularond.

Notable Iulutiuns
The following Iulutiun personalities had developed a name for themselves on the Great Glacier:
 * Dygah, a rare and powerful anagakok,
 * Inum, the most famous Iulutiun philosopher,
 * Kallak, an Iulutiun woman who acquired fame in 1359 DR for escaping from an arranged marriage,
 * Luftuk, a man known as the best businessman in Alpuk,
 * Mafwik, an anagakok known for inventing a magic for animating ice sculptures, and
 * Najass, a master hunter who had been disfigured by fire in her youth,