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Language-The Tribes-Rules of Law-
Alliances-Conflict Resolution
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Language
The Elven tongue is a spoken language only; it has never been known to have been written down. While most elves speak the Common tongue fluently as a second language, the only reason outsiders learn to speak elven is for trade. Many elves speak additional languages, mainly for trading purposes. The elven language is melodic and easy on the ears – described as something between a song and a spell. Language is a major facet of elven identity. The language embodies an entire culture; gender, geography, nomadic lifestyle and trading all become important factors.
The Tribes
The rift between different elven tribes is rooted in a struggle for political and economic power. Their inability to articulate a common goal that would unify and guide them as a group lends the overall difficulty in impressing their demands or draw support from the ruling classes.
At least five-sixths of all elves belong to one of over a hundred tribes. Social relationships in elven culture require individuals to merge identity and personality within the framework of the communal group, or tribe. Instead of asserting their separateness and privacy as individuals, elves tend to interact as members of a group – family, clan, or tribe.
Elves display a high need for social approval and group norms. Shunning is the primary instrument with which elven society enforces conformity. The tribe often determines a person’s identity, status, and prospects for success in life. Conformity is related to and reinforced by a reverence for tradition.
Within elven culture, the group takes precedence over the individual. Loyalty to the group is highly valued, and responsibility is generally considered to fall upon the group in its entirety rather than on any particular individual. Kinship ties are fabricated, denied, and manipulated. Because of the primacy of the group, obligations of group members to one another are wide, varied, and powerfully compelling. The extended family is the fundamental unit of political and social action. Related kin groups may be allies or enemies, depending upon the existing economic and political conditions.
Elven tribes are characterized by solidarity, manipulation, and independence. Tribal values include loyalty, courage, resourcefulness, manliness, and mastery of both arms and deception. In general, the degree of hierarchy and centralization in a tribe correlates with the amount of resources in an area. Tribal membership does not impose a rigid structure of behavior. The tribe provides its members with an identity, a sense of security, and conflict resolution, but everyday behavior is pragmatic and adaptive to specific situations.
Rules of Law
Elves value freedom above all other things. This independent spirit helps to explain the elven resistance to imperial and monarchical attempts to rule them. An attack on an individual group member is considered an attack on the collective honor of the entire tribe, and thus involves the entire group. Even though blood feuds do not occur frequently, their potential is a powerful influence on behavior.
The elvish concept of sereem, loosely translated as shame, powerfully shapes elven behavior. Under usual circumstances, it prevents overt, face-to-face challenges to hierarchy and authority. Elvish culture, to some extent, valorizes wily or deceitful behavior, while at the same time, elves that display integrity and highly admired.
Alliances
Tribal alliances are notoriously volatile, and allegiances differ even among groups within a particular tribe. The history of elven tribes has been marked by shifts in allegiances, betrayals, and conditional alliances. Often tribes look out for their own interests, regardless of who controls the territory. Confederations war with one another.
Conflict Resolution
The emphasis on community helps explain the dominance of informal over contractual commitments and the use of mediation to solve conflicts. Many disputes are resolved informally. Rituals, however, play an important role in tribal conflict resolution. The suth, or settlement, ritual recognizes that injuries between individuals and groups will fester and grow if not acknowledged and repaired. Given the severity of life in the desert, competing tribes realize that suth is a better alternative to endless cycles of vengeance.
Following a conflict, a tribe will take stock of losses in elven and material items. The tribe with the fewest losses compensates the tribe that suffered most. Stringent conditions are set to settle the conflict definitively. The parties then pledge to forget everything that happened and initiate a new relation.
In theory the practice works and makes sense, but in practice, it is often very difficult, if not impossible, to get two disagreeing elven groups together for any reason other than to fight.
A suth works as follows: After a crime or murder, the family of the victim, in an attempt to prevent blood revenge, calls on a delegation of mediators consisting of tribal elders. As soon as mediators are called in, a hodna, truce, is declared. The mediators initiate counsel to determine the truth of the incident; to note, however, it is not the mediators role to decide punishment of he offending party, but to preserve the honor of both families involved. A blood price, or diya, is then paid to the family of the victim. This diya, or exchange of goods, substitutes for the exchange of blood. The process ends with a public ceremony of reconciliation, musalaha, performed at the tribal center. The families of both parties exchange greetings and accept apologies. The family of the offending party visits the family of the victim and the ritual concludes with a meal hosted by the family of the offender. It is important that throughout the entire ritual, focus is placed on family, clan or tribe, not the individual. It is also important to remember that none of these courtesies are extended to outsiders (non-elves).
