Zuq-Artlash, and other sedentary Fokari towns.

"Grain-slaves, yes, kha'en, yes, weak people of soft stuff, all of it. But what does that make you for dining with us? I thought so. Now come and pour some fermented milk with me so that we can discuss terms."
- Neshan Mez-parh, pashdehm rug merchant and elected go-between for negotiating trade with nearby tribes.


By and large, the enigmatic Fokari are believed to be a nomadic people. They inhabit the narrow bands of hospitable grazing territory in between the easternmost frontiers, and the wastelands proper. Out there, carefully migrating in cycles to prevent land overuse and tribe overlap, they herd fine-faced and strange-footed goats called yuum. They dwell in tents of felted wool, produce clay and bronze vessels of unexpected but exquisite quality, and they live their lives according to a rich and dualistic belief system.

Not all of them live like this, however. As fearful as they are of He Who Reaps & Sows, some Fokari flirt with the idea of extracting more than just wood, clay, or water from the land around them. Some Fokari live far past the edges of the wastelands, so far deep that none from the outside world are believed to have made contact with them in centuries. Out there, past the point where the ground turns to sand and bizarre rock formations dot the stretches in between mountains and gorges, there are rare few dots of life. Sometime in the forgotten past, Fokari pioneers or exiles stumbled upon the first deep-desert oases. Here, with more water in one place than most would ever see in their lives, they did what feels like anathema to many traditional Fokari: they settled down.

They still reared goats, of course, but they were no longer the vast, communal herds of entire tribes. They were smaller, family-owned flocks which could be watched by one or two people at a time, not far from the homes of mud brick and reed which they erected for themselves. Fewer meat animals were needed--and indeed wanted--when the available grass and foliage was to be focused on and cultivated.

The trees under the care of the oasis Fokari grow taller than any others in or around the wastes. Of course they would still appear quite stunted compared to their western cousins, and all of the above would be equally dwarfed by the giants of Reossos, but they are still impressive specimens for their situation. Some species are selected and grown to possess thick, wide canopies able to offer shade on the oasis outskirts, but the bulk of them are less lateral, and have been bred with harvesting in mind. Dozens of varieties of stone fruit and edible seed-bearing trees crowd the green belts in groves populated by small animals and the odd songbird, grown to supply each oasis town with food. Surplus is either stored in deep pit-houses, or traded and exchanged with the Fokari of nearby oases alongside other goods.

The largest of these oasis towns is known as Zuq-Artlash. While the exact meaning of the name is lost on us because of a very limited understanding of the Fokari languages, the root elements of it suggest wind and heights. This is entirely appropriate, because one face of the oasis is hedged in by a cliff which acts as a windbreaker for the town and groves below. It is also the site of the other curious innovation of the sedentary Fokari.

Overlooking Zuq-Artlash are rows upon rows of twisting wooden things, held in place by squat clay walls and wood which has nearly petrified with age. Harnessing the wind which blows out over the oasis, a veritable farm of vertically oriented windmills spins day and night to power grindstones for the residents down below. Rumor among the traditional nomad tribes who dare trade with the oases holds that the wind is even used to pump water up from the earth, though this is even less substantiated than the rest of the knowledge concerning the towns. The nomads are distrustful and mildly pitying of the town-dwellers however, so tales telling of impressive wonders rather than dolefulness may have a grain of truth.

The adoption of sedentary lifestyles has done a few peculiar things to Fokari social order. Though it is still a far cry from the old caste systems of the ancient Pach-Pah kingdoms or Ersuunian warlords, society in the oases is more stratified than on the wastes. The khiltah and mish'khiltah bodies--council and lesser council respectively--seem to have been merged into one entity which handles large and small matters in a very public manner. Families are no longer so self-regulating, and something as embarrassing and intimate as a dispute between lovers may become known to all of one's neighbors if a case is disruptive enough to merit the attention of the elders. This has a discouraging influence on trouble-making, or at least that is the intent, keeping civic life orderly. The chief or headman holds far more authority than in the pastoralist tribes as well, resembling something of a town mayor merged with elements of a quartermaster.

The positions of Speaker and Seer still exist in this context, supporting the Fokari worldview of dualism and of past and future. But they often occupy or tend to buildings or grounds specifically dedicated to their duties. These shrines or holy houses for lack of a better term are often the site of much larger and more ornate braziers than are to be found in the transient tribes. Depending on local tradition, some might even be tended to so that their sacrificial flame is never allowed to die.

It is unknown where in relation to the other oases Zuq-Artlash is located. Nor is it known where or how many similar towns exist across the deeper wastes. What is known is transmitted through the Rare nomadic Fokar who deals with outsiders, so there is obviously some contact between the two parties, no matter how stiff or pragmatic. But what is not known is if the denizens of the desert waters know who or what exists east of east, beyond the edges of the wastelands.

Courtship in the Fokari Tribes.

((Happy Inverted Silphium Seedpod Day, Burrowers! I hope that each of you and your significant other (or others) have had a tolerable middle of the week together. And if you haven't, or you don't have an other, well, screw it! The holiday's a soulless commercial juggernaut anyway, and indulgence chocolate will be half-off tomorrow.

Seriously though, be good to yourselves out there.

As for myself, I've decided to stop with the crippling fear of exposure and launch a donations page! A few of your fellow Burrowers have already contributed, and I am humbled by the quick responses and willingness to support me.

This doesn't mean I'm retiring my plans for a Patreon, however. Things are progressing in that respect, albeit slowly. I just gotta make sure the banner art and video voice-over are good...

For now, I thought I'd write something appropriate for the occasion, as well as revisit our perpetually present yet narratively separated wasteland friends to the east.))





"Here are all of the things you will need to furnish your tent, Aymajah."
"Incense, perfumes, a brazier for the fire, a new dress with a cut that would make father's heart seize up from horror... a dagger, mother?"
"Even the finest pashdehm cloth should be hiding steel, child."
- Bisnaj, educating her daughter on the finer points of keeping a suitor tent.

"I heard that Ghaanbold offered up three carved wooden staves to that girl from the Zirkh family."
"Hah! Poor, love-struck fool. Doesn't he know how she looks at the Speaker's nephew?"
"By the end of the month, he'll find his staves propping up the flap of some stranger's marriage tent!"
- Banter filtering out of the Sheyhan tribal elders' tent.



Marriage and procreation is a public matter of some consequence in many Fokari tribes, often involving the input of family members and several key authorities within the camp. But that does not mean that the Fokari abstain from love or romance otherwise. Quite the opposite, in fact.

After a Fokar has graduated into adulthood through various deeds or consensus, but before they branch off from their family unit with a spouse, they are considered to be bachelors and bachelorettes. Though they are limited to the family tent and are expected to contribute to family affairs as full-fledged adults, single young Fokari are expected and sometimes encouraged to spend less time at home. The friendships they cultivated in earlier years are expected to develop into practical connections which will support them throughout life. Additionally, a certain degree of field-playing is considered to be the makings for an ideal partner. Inexperience breeds weakness and leads to death out on the wastes, and it could be said that this outlook has to some degree influenced Fokari perceptions of intimacy.

Of course it would be indecent, or at least awkward, for young Fokari to progress their flirting and courtship rituals within or around a family's tent. The solution to this is, somewhat surprisingly, simply to make an entirely new one.

These tents are made by the family of a young woman, and situated several meters away from the primary family dwelling. Normally, they are made of plain felt and are left completely unadorned. They do not incorporate any of the imagery of motifs of the family's patchwork ceiling program into their roofs, and when they are eventually deconstructed for the last time, nothing from them is added back to the family tent either. Instead the finer, more usable material from the tent is recycled into articles, garments, rugs, rags, or anything of the sort, which the woman would bring with her into her new married life. Thus her time spent in this tent is almost akin to living within one's own hope chest.

But the more important use of the tent is unrelated to recycling. It serves as a place to which a young Fokar woman may bring any prospective suitors of her choice. In the case of particularly sought-after women, it becomes a gathering place for suitors either vying for her attentions, or supporting one of their friends in the endeavor. Likewise, a woman's female friends might congregate just within her threshold, competing or cooperating in their own way with regards to the preferable men outside. Physical beauty is unsurprisingly of great significance for both sexes, but other qualities are taken into consideration as well. A man's looks or material gifts will only get him so far, if he cannot also sing or speak poetry, while a woman excelling as hostess but lacking in brusque charm or a biting wit may come across as dull.

Often these gatherings will end with everyone dispersing come sunset, but periodically a match will indeed be made, at least in the short term. The other players depart, the flap to the suitor tent is shut, and private, nightly business is attended to. Several such nights may pass without any explicit conduct between the two, according to the preferences of the pair and the intricate, often reversing games of cat and mouse played through conversations, music, and a surprisingly convoluted ritual of sharing and drinking butter-tea. (A tea which often has contraceptive additives, harvested from the hardy and exotic plants of the wastes or the unspeakable glands and organs of badlands creatures.)

A woman may invite several suitors into her tent over the span of several months or years, and a man may visit several different tents before an agreement it made between a pair (and their families). A Fokar man must be careful not to force a matter, carnal or marital, with a woman however. No matter how ephemeral the tent is, its mistress is considered to be sovereign within it, and there are more than a few stories in Fokari mythology and living memory of presumptive boys being slashed across the face by his date's ranqanj (lit. "thigh-dagger"). Facial scars are considered to be especially unbecoming among the Fokari, due to their close association with the punishments meted out to gravely offending criminals.

Thankfully however, these incidents are quite rare, and the game goes on as normal.

Gender & Family in the Fokari Tribes.

"What should we name her, when the day comes? She needs a beautiful name to grow into."
"How about Alyah?"
"After your aunt? She had a nose like a falcon's beak! Better to choose Golnaj, in honor of my mother..."
"You mean the one whose face is like a salt flat?"
- Fokari parents bantering over the cradle of their newborn.


Generally speaking, there are two genders among the Fokari. These are male and female, and again generally speaking, each of these genders encompasses a broad range of roles, customs, and expectations for those included within it. The most visible example of the sexual division of roles in a Fokari tribe is the existence of the Speaker and Seer. The former, a tribal archivist and overseer of youths within various age groups, is always male, while the latter, the preeminent or sole shaman of the community, is always female. This lines up somewhat appropriately with the general Fokari worldview of dualism and differing halves. But there are more divisions of labor less ritualized than either Speaker or Seer, and there are many more scenarios where these spheres may overlap in daily life.

Women are the commodity powerhouses of sorts in each family, weaving, felting, doing needle-work, and more rarely woodworking or clay-making, when available plant matter and water permits. Men will scrimshaw, tan hides or process meat, or work metal in exceedingly rare cases, but they more often attend to hunting and the maintenance of the tools relevant to it. War is ideally a male affair, but then again war is ideally avoided whenever possible, and pragmatism often calls on all to defend kith, kin, and yuum herds. Both men and women may tend to the tribe's herds, often in larger numbers of shepherds per animal head than in cultures where the use of domesticated horses is common. These house industries are overseen by the elder married couple of each family, with active parents generally exempt from the most rigorous and time-consuming projects unless a grandparent can manage their children for them.

Fertility and the bearing of children is not a private matter for families in a Fokari tribe. Because of the fluctuating access to resources common on the wasteland fringes, the family heads and other elders try to maintain a certain population range from generation to generation, encouraging marriage and reproduction here or discouraging it there. The range has initially soft limits at either end, but the sudden and severe under-or-overpopulation of a tribe's territory can lead to either voluntary assimilation into another band, or the cleaving-off of groups into new tribes. Allegations of adultery arising from unexpected children are dealt with in the same discreet manner as other disputes, with a mish'khiltah rarely ever being needed. Couples who plan for a single child and receive twins or triplets are celebrated as being gifted by the spirits despite the extra burden, but couples who do not limit themselves after multiple instances of childbearing face social stigma of varying severity, mother and father alike. The exposure of newborns is rare due to an association with blood-guilt, but it is not an unheard-of practice. Children who are both needed and desired must still survive the challenging first two years of life before having a celebrated and official name-day.

Being one of the few hereditary roles in Fokari life, chieftainship is passed down from parent to selected heir. As a general rule, the chieftain selects their youngest adult child of the opposite sex who is unmarried, in the belief that this will ensure the new chief's full dedication to their duties, as well as prevent a dynasty of personality from forming through successive generations of fathers and sons or mothers and daughters. Of course succession does not always come to pass in this way, either because of fate, or by personal choice of the chieftain.

Marriage may still occur when children are unneeded, and there is nothing to stop a married couple from constructing their own tent and living together within it. But a low fertility does not mean that infertile or discouraged couples are forever without children. Attrition and challenges to life expectancy are found at all age ranges, and in the event that a youth is orphaned of both parents, or a nuclear family unit is overwhelmed with needs, a foster pair may take them in. These foster parents are typically of the same extended family through one side or the other, so it is not uncommon for these children to be raised by aunts, uncles, or cousins. Often, these foster parents are couples which include one nyaak partner.

Literally meaning "mirrored", a nyaak Fokar is one who identifies and behaves as the gender opposite of the one they were born into. In mythic traditions held by many tribes, they are the result of a spirit being incorrectly clothed in flesh during the movement from the spirit realm to the physical world. A Fokar cannot identify as nyaak until they are of the age to be able to complete the adulthood rituals typical for all members of the tribe. But after that point and upon completion of these events, they are treated in accordance with their truer, unfleshed self. A male is for all intents and purposes a woman, and vice versa. From a certain sociological perspective, couples including one nyaak serve to limit population growth somewhat, and so they are valued as naturally-occurring moderators despite their rarity in the tribes overall. In this way a dualistic binary is maintained, but a mode of transportation between the two points is made available.

Fokari Burial Practices.

"What was given is now returned. The dead wing their way to the ancestors beneath the Eagle's shade."
- Rohat Barza-parh, Speaker of the Hishar Tribe.



Death is inevitable, as well as quite common to the daily life of the Fokari, given the difficult nature of existence on the wastes' edges. It is also considered to be as natural as life. It is not an aberrant state, and so it is nothing to be feared- at least, ideally. When death claims the member of a tribe, the ceremonies which follow are cause for the entire community to come together. All but the most vital tasks are set aside for a few hours in which the dead Fokar is eulogized and offerings are burned in the tribal brazier to placate the right spirits for the event and attract the attention of the highest beings which transcend the status of spirit and become full-fledged gods. Chief among them are creatures often represented as birds, and among them the Eagle sits above all else as a sort of cosmic arbiter and judge of the dead.

Because the Eagle performs this function, there is no need for Ergil-Who-Is-Death, and thus he is not a being normally treated with by the Fokari despite his existence within their vast pantheon. This suggests that at some point in the past there was some form of contact between their tribes and the outside world extensive enough that a deity was shared in the exchange. But the fact remains that despite a small cycle of stories relating to him, the Moldering Shepherd has no role in the movement of the souls or equivalent spiritual stuffs of the deceased down into their appropriate niche in the underworld.

The dead are not buried, after all. Burning is not an option either, for though fire has a high position in their worldview, the Fokari simply would not have access to enough wood or other plant matter to use as fuel for every single funeral pyre. A fire fueled by collected and dried yuum dung would be more practical, but not exactly respectful of the dead.*

Once mourning has been completed and every family in the tribe--even and especially enemies--has come together, the body is carried away from the main village by a small procession of the closest family members of the dead, as well as the Speaker and Seer. The officiator says a few last words on the subject, and then the shaman ritually strips the corpse of all clothing and adornments. Then a dance is performed and maintained in order to call to the scene the spirits of nature which will bring to its rightful destination body and soul each. The rest of the group members use knives to cut the body into pieces, and then the butchered and dressed carcass is left to nature.

The first carrion bird observed to land upon the body and peck at it is believed to be the psychopomp who accompanies the spirit of the dead Fokar through astral projection. Specialized prayers of thanks are said to the bird according to its exact species, for the scavengers of the Wastes are many and varied. As the circling birds grow large in number overhead, the party retreats and returns to the rest of the village to resume daily activities while the body is picked clean and given back to nature. The tribe is expected to move on from this, for their part in that person's story has now ended. The deceased are said to have a long journey ahead of them yet, however. And though the journey of the dead is a treacherous one, they will live on forever in the patchwork ceilings of their descendants.

There are of course exceptions to this rule of ritual, though little in the way of explanation can be found. There are along the edges as well as the interior of the wastelands many cairn-grounds which dot the harsh landscape. They are known to the Fokari, and in fact are well-known enough among the tribes to be used as widely-recognizable landmarks to aid in navigation during migration. But all of these sites are given a wide berth by the Fokari, who do not actively speak of or even look at them. Most often, euphemism and vague gesture accomplish this.

Within the cairn sites are, of course, cairns. But they are of a curious design which are either deliberately open-aired or partially unfinished, each lacking a top so that something may peek out from it. These withered little glimpses are the heads of Fokari corpses crumpled up within, mummified by the ages of exposure to the elements, yet quite untouched by animal life.

How or why these bodies came to be here is a vexing mystery even among the tribes. The rare whisper suggests that the mummies may once have been great shamans or terrible magicians, but this raises more questions than answers.



* This is not to say that the Fokari hold the body of the deceased in reverence entirely or in perpetuity. Once the soul has left the vessel, it is nothing more than decaying matter to be discarded in the fashion most respectful of the land.

More on Fokari Law.

"Khayyam Arshad-parh. Using the dire authority vested in me by your Seer, elders, and tribe, I strip you of your past and your future beneath the patchwork tent. You are Kha'en. You will slit your cheeks at dawn. May the Eagle judge you more mercifully."
- Tosht Shad-parh, Speaker of the Sheyhan Tribe.

The legal system of the Fokari is surprisingly consistent across tribes and even dialectical groups. In theory each family is self-regulating, seeking settlement and appeasement of disputes through nonjudicial means as a first and most preferred option. While there is no shame attached to being brought before tribunal--for defendants or for plaintiffs--the entire affair is often considered to be disruptive enough to daily life that it is prudent to avoid the process when possible. But like any people, the Fokari periodically find that matters must been taken up with a recognized higher authority.

For this, the mish'khiltah is brought together. Literally meaning "lesser council" to set it apart from the khiltah council of elders which guides the decision-making process of an entire tribe, the lesser council is not elected publicly. Instead, it consists of one representative drawn from each major family which makes up the tribe. Generally the family head has final word on the delegation of the family's council membership slot, but appeals to dispute this within a family do rarely occur. The membership dispute is instead brought before the khiltah, the members of which are exempt from mish'khiltah membership for the duration of their office with the exception of hereditary chieftain- lacking a vote in the mish'khilah, they maintain order and flow of testimony not unlike a judge.

When the conditions for a lesser council are met, typically by virtue of the grievance having the potential to otherwise instigate familial strife significant or longstanding enough to disrupt tribal well-being, a date is set according to the calendrical and astrological predictions of the Seer. The Speaker officiates the trial, opening and closing it, but neither take a direct role in the matters of court. Each family representative swears an oath to their impartiality and uses a small knife to shave a patch of hairs from their right forearms. The hair is then gathered up and cast into a brazier by the chieftain (while standing upwind of it, of course). This brazier, commonly emblazoned with the image of an eagle, linked ram's horns, or a wheel, is often one of the precious few pieces made entirely of wrought metal in a tribe's possession.

Excepting outliers (such as a near-mythic case in which a Fokar with the cunning of a fox granted to him by a totemic compact was able to win a dispute with his grandfather and then become the representative of his family in his own trial for the accusation of goat rustling), this system works for most Fokari affairs. Only two crimes require the direct intervention of a tribe's higher council- murder, and the deliberate defacement of a tent or hut's interior ceiling. Murder's severity is relatively straightforward to understand, for it causes suffering and anguish as well as damages the pool of skill and mutual support integral to Fokari life.

Defacement of a ceiling is somewhat more symbolic. Each family keeps a lovingly-crafted, highly religiously-themed piece of artwork upon their ceilings. With the passing of seasons or the occurrence of great events, new images and designs are integrated into it until it tells the family unit's entire history. And at the center, either just beside the smoke hole or carefully stretched around it, is a piece which was originally taken from the tent of that family's grandparents. When the children who grew up looking up into this mosaic of unfolding history day and night for their entire lives mature and finally marry, they take a piece alongside a dowry in order to begin their own family tent.

The proven guilt of murder earns one a deep, preferably self-inflicted gash across the left cheek, starting about an inch below the eye and traveling diagonally across to the jawline. Defacement earns one the same, but mirrored over the right cheek. These cuts, in addition to being terribly painful and quite likely to become infected, scar over in such a way as to brand the individual with their crime forever after. The resulting loss of face (literally and figuratively) is the true punishment. Though they are not required to, the families of murderers or defacers will often take some of the guilty party's shame on as their own burden by integrating a stylized gash somewhere into their own tent ceiling- a brand new one, in some cases, if the defacement in question was of one's own history. But this is as rare as it is an awful and unthinkable deed for most Fokari.

If one were to, by some hideous abomination of thought or cruel twist of fate, commit both crimes at once, they suffer these, and worse. A small, shamefully blank tent is erected for them at the far edge of the tribe's camp one evening, where they are kept under guard until the first light of dawn. Then, often but not always while under the eyes of Seer, Speaker, and at least one of the elders, both cheeks are cut. Then, one and all turn their back upon the lone Fokar and break camp to travel until they are out of sight. The bleeding loner is from that point forward an exile from home, as well as a pariah among all other tribes who recognize such branding. Beside the tent, some bare necessities for one or three days of travel may be provided as a show of pity, but the expectation is that the exile will die soon without their people. Some tribes even pronounce the Fokar legally dead and hold a funeral for them, either just past the horizon, or while the exile-to-be is still present, ignored and treated like a lingering ghost.

Fortunately, this punishment is so rare as to be nonexistent in the living memory of most tribes at any given time.

But time and space are subject to the same nonlinear, dualistic tendencies as most everything else in the Fokari worldview.

What once was cast away may eventually find its way back.

On the Soil-Slaves.

"That these people have such a strong and visceral reaction to large-scale agriculture built into their mythology is uncanny, and suggestive of a long-lost chapter of their history from which they may still derive the lessons of firsthand experience."

- Roberick Bertrum Litte, Associate Undergraduate Scholar of the Department of Natural Philosophies at the Ivory Tower University of Deneroth.



The outside world of mankind is known to the Fokari, at least vaguely, and much of it fills them with a certain existential dread. Chiefly, they fear that one day the people from the lowland green will rise up and consume them like a dust storm raging in the heart of the wastes. But the anxiety extends to certain practices of "neighboring" peoples which tend not to lend themselves in any way to invading like bogeymen.

There exists within the vast Fokari pantheon a singularly reprehensible creature which is bereft of the usual qualities of dualistic positive and negative. He is a deity, after a fashion, for whom the enslavement and debasement of all creatures is His desire. He is also the patron god of farming, making clear the nomads' equation between working the land and hopeless bondage. It is also no surprise that His name, never uttered aloud by any Fokar, shares an etymological root with the most common word used to describe any acts of sexual aggression, making Him (and His vocation) the metaphorical violation of the Mother Earth figure prevalent in much of the rest of the mythos. Rather than invoking this distressing episode, He is referred to sparingly by the equally sinister epithet of "He Who Reaps and Sows".

The slaves of the soil are those beings miserable and unfortunate enough to be ensnared in His seductive lies of full bellies and surplus. Both people and the animals yoked by them are unwitting pawns of His, set to toil away and struggle against the land to the tune of His silent, mocking laughter. Though the power they are beholden to is a terrible one, the slaves of grain and fodder are more to be pitied than reviled. Such desperation has the potential to clutch anyone. While less common, some versions of the myth even suggest that mind control and enchantments play a direct role in keeping them tied to a plot of land, often taking the form of maankhir, or agonizingly tight metal bands set around their skulls in order to crush out all thoughts of tribe or self.

Years of plenty are His means of lulling all into a false sense of security, and crop failures or freak incidents of pests and natural disaster are, at best, His way of testing His servants and reminding them of the uncaring nature of the soil which will one day consume their decomposing bodies. But more often than not it does not carry any such message of warning, and serves only to amuse Him more deeply. The gradual, imperceptible erosion of soil and the degradation of its nutrients over the generations is the grandest of all cruelties engineered by He Who Reaps and Sows, for it forces over-committed populations to uproot themselves in order to seek literal greener pastures, thereby breaking covenant with Him and inviting upon themselves further punishment, according to His warped mind.

That the borderland frontier farmers eking out an existence at the watered edges of the steppe return again and again to that damning livelihood no matter how many hardships they've faced is admittedly a testament to their dedication and hardiness, but it is an even greater testament to the might of the Grain God.

No rites are performed in His name, though very rarely if a tribe's Seer determines that they've somehow earned His ire or the attention of one of His fiendish spiritual servants, a ritual is performed in order to placate and distract Him. Several farmers in effigy are constructed from sticks and sacks and positioned around a patch of tall grass. The grass is then cut close to the base like grain being harvested, and then the farmers themselves are felled one by one, like lives being taken by starvation and disease. While this is all being acted out by one very brave volunteer, the rest of the tribe rapidly breaks camp and flees as far as it can move in a half-day's time. Upon completion, the volunteer sprints to keep up, and undergoes a cleansing ritual once he or she has reunited with their breathless fellows.