Atruozan Summer Festival

The Atruozan Summer Festival is effectively a New Year's Celebration, lasting 10 days starting on the southern summer solstice (the start of the new year). It thus cancels the working week, ensuring a 15-day, and thus week-long, period of celebration, and then rest. Only some essential services workers do not get the entire period off work. The festival is primarily rooted in Atruozan Spiritualism, as the beginning of summer marks the end of the harsh winter spent under the pressures of the Great Snowy Owl Spirit and the Great Southern Wind Spirit, and marks the beginning of the reign of the gentle, yet fickle Great Northern Wind Spirit. However, this latter's gentleness means that she cannot hold off the two former for very long, so the period of her maintaining control is but a fleeting 89 days, two months as per the Atruozan Calendar. This short, fleeting summer warmth is thus celebrated, as in most of the Atruosphere, temperatures reliably above freezing last only three to six months (two to four in the Atruozan Calendar). Thus, the festival has a large spiritual aspect to it, including many days dedicated largely to introspection, meditation, and spiritual ventures, primarily with family. For the purposes of this article, the traditional festival as still seen in most villages and small towns in Translira and Nolcik will primarily be discussed, with some local variability included.

(what actually happens)

    On the summer solstice, the first day of the Atruozan Calendar, the ceremony customarily begins at dawn.  In those regions experiencing near-full day light to midnight sun conditions, tribes vary between sleeping little to none the previous "night", and simply beginning once most everyone has awoken.  Traditional garments are worn starting on this day, varying somewhat by tribe and region, but generally consisting of some form of small skirt, underwear, or loincloth made from pelt or tanned animal leather (most commonly shabirs, sea lion, or muskox). 

- starts at dawn on solstice - people wear el garb traditionel - in the middle of the settlement, thus usually in front of the shaman's hut, a large ceremonial dance is participated in by all able to (would vary by tribe) - music gets going, large communal fire is lit and fed for remainder of ceremony, with a small personal effect, morcel of food, or dedicated craft sacrificed to the spirits, usually either as thanks to the spirits of summer, or as an offering to the Great Snowy Owl Spirit (sometimes to their ancestors) - afterwards, most go down to nearest river, lake, or sea, and fish until evening, usually bringing in their best catch each (in some inland communities, this instead involves hunting for birds) - mostly semreittu and some menaippo use this time to prepare for a large communal meal and forage for local available fruit and herbs/vegetables/nuts > in northern communities can be a matter of harvesting from early "garden crop", or harvesting/milking livestock (the former also involving longqeuwo) - one of the fish (or birds, or etc etc) per ten people is set aside as a show of goodwill to the Northern Wind Spirit, and are then placed under a pile of rocks with salt and allowed to ferment for anywhere between 3mo and a year, some tribes adding uric acid initially > the fermented fish is then eaten by shamans as a way to connect with the spirits (on this day, after the communal meal, certain elders (mostly qwuumal) are also allowed on this one day to also consume it for spiritual reasons) - it is not unusual for people to spend the rest of the day in a sweat lodge or sauna

- following three days involve a lot of dancing and communal festivities varying by tribe and region, including a lot of games (including mock war games) - communal supper each night - among adults, also involves a large amount of sex within atgolc after hours

- morning of day four, the village's hunters (or best hunters) are carried around in their ceremonial cloths crowd-surf style as they are brought to the edge of the village and then set off with a firm slap to their behinds from the elders and shaman(s), before leaving with minimal gear for the following six days along with most adult longqeuwo, with the aim of catching either one Shabirs per 20-40 people, a beluga-sized whale per roughly 20 people, a decent seal or sea lion per 10, or any combination of these (even a wild muskox per 40-80 or deukogrex per 10 is aimed for in some regions) - right before setting off, they perform a small ritual with ceremonial cannabis pipes to pray to the spirits of whichever animal(s) they are targetting for a good hunt - those remaining take the day to once again fish or hunt small game as on the first, and dedicate it to whatever the hunters have set off for, as well as to those of their surrounding landscape and the Northern Wind for their travels to be safe and warm - dancing goes very late on this day

- days five through eight are a period of calm, where people act mostly within their family units, working on arts and crafts, song, dance, and relaxing in the summer warmth - young adults also begin preparing to court prospective interests during this time - those between 16 and 40 years of age compete in a traditional event wherein they see who can remain awake and active the longest on minimal food and drink, all the while rotating between hot saunas and/or sweat lodges and frigid waters or remaining snowbanks.

- day nine sees the winner of the challenge, usually called something to the effect of "chief of hot blood", celebrated during a communal morning meal. the winner is then granted the (in some cases unique) right to walk around fully in the nude for the remainder of the ceremony, albeit with dark-painted genitalia (some tribes instead have a special needle or leaf-based garment created by the shaman annually for the winner to wear) - this winner then undergoes a ceremony with the shaman involving psychedelic mushrooms to become (for festival) the physical link between the cold of the winter and the soothing warmth of the newly arrived summer for the spirits who have come to pass, will come to pass, and who are to come for new life - this night involves a very meagre communal meal - after meal, parents hoping for strong-bodied children pray to the spirits of the cold to have mercy on their future progeny and to the spirits of the summer warmth to protect the children's growth and the day of their birth. This is usually involves splashing some water on, or praying by way of the Chief of Hot Blood's genitals. In some small minority of tribes, mostly towards the Transliran inland north and the NW Nolcik coast, strongly grabbing/carressing, tapping, or blowing on the genitals may also be seen. - also marks the beginning of a traditional courting period, the core of which lasts until the end of the weekend

- on the tenth day, the hunters return, hopefully with a good hunt, and the remainder of the day is spent in preparation for a massive feast which bleeds into a lot of dancing and music which goes late into the night - the hunters are thrown high on blankets immediately upon return - the children are sent home, and then the remaining adults perform a usually tribe-specific ceremonial dance to close off the festival, often involving a burning of the traditional garment for that year as a final offering, alongside one last large offering of meat, before the menaippo elders and shaman(s) put out the hearth with water hauled by longqeuwo and emmeirsup. this dance is usually performed after a ritual passing of the shaman's summer cannabis pipe, generally smoking shattered resin in this particular instance. - after the hearth is extinguished, the atgolc return home, while the other young adults usually remain to attempt to court for another hour or so in the darkness before going to sleep themselves, thus concluding the festival.

- the following five days of weekend are taken fully as rest, with families focusing on personal and home projects, aside from the young adults who mostly spend their time courting. After the week is over, the courting period, while not the "main/core" period, is considered to extend for the remainder of the 45-day month.