Eastern Coast Culture

This article focuses on the culture of the Coral Coast in the Third Age before the arrival of the westerners in the Fourth Age.

Society and Government
The people of the Eastern Coast used to live in a directly democratic structure, wherein all members of a tribe would vote together on any laws or the like. However, due to pressures from their neighbours in the Eastern Mountains and the north, this system eventually collapsed into a matriarchal monarchy in the early Third Age.

However, the population of the tribes at the time was unhappy with the idea of giving up their say in their tribe's matters, so a tradition arose of challenging the tribe's queen. This quickly became a system wherein eligible candidates for chieftain would partake in duels, and the victor would become the new chieftain.

At first, this system was exactly as volatile as it sounds. However, soon after its conception, a small group of individuals - headed by a woman who would later become the inspiration for the The Marten - devised a set of rules for duels. These rules, the Principles of Dueling, were swiftly adopted by most tribes in the region.

Gender and Marriage
The easterners maintained the Proto-Sannan idea of patrilocality and placed large emphasis on it, choosing to promote it over the idea of matrilineality.

Women, as the ones who left their families upon marriage and joined their husbands' households, were not considered responsible for their birth family's well-being from there on out. As such, it was a family's sons who would hold the responsibility to take care of their aging parents and their family home in general. Men, therefore, became caretakers.

Children and Family
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Religion
East Coast religion in the Third Age is centered largely around the worship of various animal deities, similarly to the Eastern Mountains' religions around the same time period and afterwards.

Architecture
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Cuisine
The invention of agriculture was adopted by the people of the Coral Coast in the late Second Age, after trade with Zephyrian peoples on the southern coast brought stories of the practice from the west. It quickly spread among easterners, and by the Third Age, the Coral Coast had a majority of tribes who made their livelihood through farming rather than the pastoralist and hunter-gatherer lifestyles of other local groups. This added cereal grains to the menu, as it were, of the Coral Coast.

Clothing
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Music and Dance
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Crafting and Visual Art
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