Tavari people

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Tavari people
draci Tavari
A Tavari male appearing in an advertisement for tanning oil. Tavaris' tropical environment has had a significant impact on Tavari culture. His tattoos are emblematic of traditionalist Tavari designs.
Total population
~63,000,000 (2022, est.)
Regions with significant populations
Northwest Gondwana
Southern Novaris
Central Arcturia
Religion
Akronism
Tavari traditionalism

The Tavari people (Tavari: draci Tavari) are an ethnic group originating in northwest Gondwana, where they are primarily concentrated, with other significant populations in southern Novaris and central Arcturia. Tavaris, the Tavari homeland, remains the country with the most Tavari residents on Urth. The Tavari Union, an international organization including every majority Tavari country on Urth, had a combined population estimated in 2022 at approximately 67 million people. Of that number, about 63 million are ethnic Tavari (with the remainder being primarily ethnic Alkari residents of Elatana, settled jointly by Tavaris and Alksearia beginning in 1700, and Native Rodokan humans, indigenous to the southern Novaran island of Rodoka annexed by Tavaris in 1634.)

History

In Tavari studies, the history of the Tavari people is customarily divided into three eras: pre-Tavari, proto-Tavari, and [Modern] Tavari. The pre-Tavari era covers the period of the migration to Avnatra and is traditionally considered to have ended when the pre-Tavari reached the islands now called the Tears of the Moon, an event that is not conclusively dated. Customarily, the boundary is considered to be the year 200 CE. The proto-Tavari era spans from the third through the ninth centuries CE. The modern Tavari era, sometimes called simply the Tavari era, began in 900 CE and is still ongoing. Within the modern era are smaller divisions of time known as the Classical, Feudal, and Contemporary Tavari periods, the latter of which being considered to have begun with the ratification of the Instruments of Governance and the beginning of democratic, constitutional government in 1793.

Early History

While the exact location of where the Tavari first emerged was long considered a mystery, a recent explosive revelation shocked the Tavari archaeological world when the Danvreas—a highly isolated country that has avoided contact with foreigners for eight hundred years—announced that, according to records in the possession of the Violet Court of Empress Zingten IX, the Tavari people had originated as a caste of untouchables who were ordered to leave the country in an Order of Banishment issued by Emperor Ngawang VI in 504 BCE.

The evidence presented was enough for the Council of the Tavari Language, the body charged with maintaining the Tavari language's grammar and vocabulary, to announce a definition and etymology for the word “Tavari,” which had long been considered an irregular word whose etymology was unknown. Sourcing both the Order of Banishment itself as well as copies of ancient Danvrean bureaucratic reports and modern context provided by Danvrean historians, the Council determined that the name “Tavari” came from the plural form of a noun “tavar,” meaning “exile,” borrowed from the Old Danvrean adjective tapar, describing “someone who was cast out of society for reasons of ritual impurity.” While the conjugation of the word “Tavari” had always implied the existence of the word “tavar,” no such word had ever been recorded since written Tavari records began in the 10th century CE.

The 504 BCE Order of Banishment used the term “tapar” to describe the ancestors of the Tavari, who were a multi-ethnic, multilingual collection of various societal outcasts who were largely forced to travel the country and either live off the land or beg outside city gates for work handling the bodies of the dead. Other records show that this word was used as an identifier among some tapar people, but that it was typically transliterated into their own native languages. “Tavar” was one of these transliterations.

The Tavar caste had arisen from the War of Conquest that united the Danvreas under Emperor Ngawang I in 774 BCE, when the sheer number of dead bodies after the incredibly violent war (and the several plagues that followed it) made it effectively impossible for observant followers of the state religion, Chen Pa, to observe their cleanliness rituals regarding dead bodies. People who resorted to begging for money in exchange for handling the dead were considered to have committed an act so unclean that it rendered them and all their descendants impure for all time, meaning they could no longer be allowed within city walls. While these tapar people had been tolerated for nearly three hundred years, they were blamed for a resurgence of plagues across the country and exiled. The Danvreas has provided no records on what may have happened over the course of the presumably forced exile from the country.

Evidence of the migration of the first Tavari to the island of Avnatra begins as early as the fifth century BCE—lining up with the timeline presented by the Danvreas. However, it is not until the second century BCE that evidence of large cities becomes widespread across the island of Avnatra and some of the surrounding nearby islands, such as King’s Island. Should the Danvrean evidence hold up against academic scrutiny, it would prove untrue the common Tavari folk story that says the Tavari began their exodus by following the light of the meteor that struck on January 1st in the year 1 CE, which had once been considered possible but has been in doubt among academics for some twenty years.

Proto-Tavari

Modern Tavari

Classical Period

Feudal Period

Contemporary Period

Populations

Northwest Gondwana

Diaspora

Culture

Religion

Main article: see Native Avnatran religions

Akronism

Tavari Traditionalism

Arts

Tavari carpentry

Cuisine

Chocolate

Coffee

Seafood

Sugar and Rum

Economy

Language

Names

Symbols