Tailspins & Tiki Gods:Smoots Guide Kamekame

The Kamekame

[OOC: Originally, we were going to call them the Kamakama ("Smart" in Maori), but usage kinda... slipped.Also, this wiki entry is from the PoV of non-Kamekame, and contains "errors"- the Kamekame are very insular, and have been so for over a century. A lot will be revealed during the campaign, and added here as we go.]

The Kamekame are the indigenous people of Ile Trouve, in the New Hibernia archipelago.

The Kamekame have gone to great lengths to keep outsiders from their land. Early on, they somehow managed to (correctly) surmise that it was necessary to gain land-concessions from the French for the lands they currently occupied. Tribal representatives, unexpectedly shrewdly to European eyes, played the colonial powers off eachother ('Perhaps the British or Germans would grant us this thing?'), and finally granted “recognition” of France’s general dominion without ceding a centimeter of land. (Every settlement since has been a negotiated concession.) Ergo, most of Ile Trouve is private, collective property of the Kamekame within the larger French territory in Polynesia.

Demographics

Population: Uncertain. (No census figures.)

The Kamekame, so far as any outsider can tell, can be broadly said to be in three groups:

-Coastal Kamekame: The majority of the fisher-folk, lighters, divers and so on seen in Port Cochere come from coastal villages. ( http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/view-of-unspoiled-polynesian-fishing-village-in-a-scene-news-photo/507440037 ) They augment traditional Polynesian seagoing methods (celestial navigation, outriggers, shell-charts, etc) with modern compasses and so on. They have also adopted the coracle for lagoon-fishing.

These Kamekame seem highly curious about others' seacraft. Some speculate that if it weren't for the problem of leaving Ile Trouve for too long, the worlds' merchant marines might be packed with Kamekame.

Others posit that they want to know how people get here, so they might pass knowledge of those methods on to other Kamekame who don't want those people here. The coastal Kamekame apparently are exempt from the daily "Singing out" ritual, though they also do not linger after the sun dips low in the sky.

-Lowland Kamekame: These Kamekame come from lowland farming villages closer to town (trading farmed-goods and other goods handed down from the island’s highlands.) Many also act as porters, stevedores and so on, in town.

(Perhaps, something like: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/etexts/HenFiji/HenFijiP011a.jpg).

-Highland Kamekame: Very little is known of the Kamekame who live in Ile Trouve's deep interior. And this is, apparently, how they wish it.

Cultural Details

Virtually everything non-islanders know for sure about the Kamekame is through observation. The reason follows:

Whatever the Kamekame’s attitude toward falsehood may be, it apparently does not extend to academics offering to buy information. Five attempts at anthropological surveys have been written, and all five are mutually contradictory. The interviewees seemed to be most adept at letting people draw their own conclusions without stopping them: One account has them as fierce, anarchic cannibals. Others describe the same exact peoples as ‘noble savages’ with a Scots-like clann structure, and so on.

'Architecture': The only Kamekame buildings seen by non-Kamekame are the coastal villages visible from shore. They seem to be typical of similar structures seen in French Polynesia.

Arts: Kamekame tikis and masks are sold in the marketplaces. The other arts practiced by the Kamekame are mainly clothing or personal adornment (such as tattooing). Taboos on sharing beliefs with outsiders curtails exchanges of folktales, for example, so what sort of oral literature they may practice is unknown. The Kamekame do sing, quite often, in their language and others. There are records of Kamekame saying there are "Kamekame dances", but they have not been performed for outsiders.

Clothing:' The Kamekame seen in Port Cochere adhere to local custom- specifically, they imitate the fashion of other islanders visiting Ile Trouve. Women favor sarong-like dresses, Men tend to wear sandals and lava-lavas. What they do outside of town has not been documented by outsiders.

Floral arrangements (or single flowers) are a common adornment- there seems to be a kind of "flower language", almost like the Victorians practiced. (How one wears one's flower(s), and what kind of flower one is wearing carry meaning, much as it is practiced on Tahiti or the Sandwich Islands. The 'rules' seem different, however.)

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Education: How the Kamekame pass on their own traditions and folkways is poorly-documented (by outsiders.) The Kamekame have sent their children to schools near the coastal villages, but teachers are not encouraged to enter Kamekame territory.

Government: The Kamekame do seem to have a system of rulership beyond the village level, but its workings are a mystery to outsiders. There have, historically, been representatives of the Kamekame to the Colonial Government, but not anything so fixed as a seated ambassador or 'on call' emissary. (So far as can be told, the representatives were a sort of senior village headman who conveyed the will of his people. If the Kamekame have a king, they do not speak of him.)

Laws: The Kamekame seem to have an elaborate legal system based on taboos, but this apparently does not extend to outsiders. One of the taboos seems to be extended discussion of the legal system with outsiders.

However, what is known is that the Kamekame seem to have a razor-sharp sense of Legalism. Residents of the Chinese Fishing Village have discussed how the Kamekame gave concessions for where and when they might fish in Ile Trouve's waters, for example- so excruciatingly precise that some of the Fishing Village opt to go fish near other islands' waters entirely. And, as noted, they grasped the French colonial system well enough to play on the Colonial Government's level, on several historic occasions.

Religion: Largely unknown. The Kamekame clearly have a well-defined system of taboos- but one of them seems to be discussing their beliefs with outsiders.

They steadfastly do not permit missionaries to enter their lands to preach or convert. Reasons given go from “we have our own ways” to “If this is true, it will be true when I tell it. You don’t need to come in.” and “If I was not going to your peoples’ Hell until you told me it existed, why did you tell me so?” (and a flat refusal to pass the information further.)

However, there apparently are Christian Kamekame- at least natives who attend mass and otherwise go to the Mission on the north of the island, from several villages near the mission. Even the clurgy there are uncertain of this, but it seems like at least some moved specifically to those villages in order to do so. According mission records, Matthew 8:8 is the most-popular Bible verse among the Kamekame.

Sports and Games: The Kamekame have been seen joining in games in Port (wrestling, foot-racing, betting on animal fights or occasionally gambling), but only as a 'break'. As the Kamekame return to their villages at the end of a workday, this is not a regular occurrence. It isn't known what they play among themselves.

Trade: The Kamekame traders who come into Port Cochere tend to work in barter, rather than trade via currency. Some posit a system of ritual, non-commercial trade exists, but this is unconfirmed. The Kamekame tend to sell sea-goods (sea-cucumbers, pearls, etc). If paid in currency, they tend to use it to buy something of maximum value with the money before returning home with it. No record exists of a Kamekame agreeing to a personal, non-verbal contract (as opposed to the treaties and other brokered agreements between the Kamekame as a whole and the French.)

Transportation and Travel: The Kamekame use advanced boats in the Polynesian mode. Land travel seems to be confined to foot travel, with occasional travois-style carriers. There are no roads into the lowlands or highlands suitable for motor transport, and while wild horses live on Ile Trouve, the Kamekame have not been seen to practice horsemanship.

Warfare: Aside from skirmishes at the very beginning of Ile Trouve's colonization and resistance to attempts at impressment, there have been no major armed conflicts between the French at Port Cochere and the Kamekame. By the accounts of other islanders, the Kamekame have waged war in the past, but have not done so since European contact. (The "War Boats" spoken of seem to have gone- no evidence of them in coastal villages.)

Internal conflicts, should they exist, are back-burnered when outsiders are present.

Arms sales, a historically-booming trade with peoples such as the Maori and Sandwich Islanders, was generally not approved of by French colonial authorities. And even when bootleg sales have been found to have happened, the Kamekame claimed to "not have" the firearms soon afterwards. Occasionally, a rusted or broken gun has been found, confirming this theory. The going theory is that, having no tradition of metal weaponry, the Kamekame view all weapons as inherently disposable.

Writing: The Kamekame seem to embrace literacy (sending their children to school and attending mission services), but have not displayed a native writing system.

Customs & Etiquette

Burial Customs: No outsider has yet seen what the Kamekame do with their dead. No visitor has, to date, seen a cemetery or graveyard.

Facial Expressions/Body language: French colonial authorities tend toward a low estimation of the intelligence of the Kamekame in town due to their near-constant smiling (a judgement the French, to be fair, also reserve for les Americains.) Other, visiting islanders in Port Cochere claim to find the Kamekame cordial, if a bit standoffish.

An odd note: Some Kamekame have been seen to "count to 25" on their hands like some Malaysian peoples do, rather than to ten (per standard).

Masks and Tikis:The Kamekame seem to have an advanced ‘mask culture’ as several Polynesian peoples do, but while they have sold the masks, outsiders have not seen them in use, nor are they (generally) invited to come watch.

"Singing In" and "Singing Out": Generally speaking, “We will come to you” seems to be the motto of the villages closest to town. As sunrise begins, there is usually a procession of villagers into town for trade or work, and a similar group-egress just before nightfall. They rarely conduct trade with outsiders in their home villages.

The Kamekame apparently put a great deal of stock in 'permission'. They do not enter homes, businesses or other occupied buildings without announcing their presence in some fashion (either taking tacit or explicit approval and entering, or simply not going in). This extends to the entire town of Port Cochere. A spectacular, daily ritual is the process of 'singing in' and 'singing out', where the Kamekame arrive en masse around daybreak, singing so that their approach would not be taken as as trespassing, and 'singing out' at nightfall, to give notice of their approach at home. The practical purpose of this seems to partly be to startle off any wild animals in their path, but also to announce their arrival (in a non-aggressive way).

Simply ‘barging in’ (say, to a Kamekame village) would be considered an act of aggression. (Given their terrain advantage and likely numbers involved, even the most aggressive Legion garrison officers have not considered this advisable. Given that France itself claims to only want Ile Trouve so that some other power didn’t have it, the manpower to do such a thing goes unspared.)

Speech: While the Kamekame speak what seems to be a complex language of their own, those who enter town favor French (or, for some, English) over speaking their own language to outsiders- there seems to be a taboo on the matter. They seem to regard loud speaking as itself aggressive. They have a rather short 'cutoff' before sitting to have longer discussions (that is, they do not 'stand in the street talking' as long as other cultures might.)

Taboo: The Kamekame keep a great many things as ‘tabu’, private, or secret from outsiders. Most questions about their lands, history, beliefs, traditions and customs are responded to with an a whole vocabulary of non- answers: “I don’t know” , ‘I’m not sure’, ‘not understand the question’, or just a non-committal grin. Questions about warfare traditions are greeted with “….are we fighting?”, questions about courtship with “…are we courting?”, and so on.