Ĥeiran Coscivians

Ĥeldican Coscivians are a cohort of Coscivian ethnic groups originating from the islands and coastal fringes of Northwestern Éorsa. Today they comprise approximately a quarter of the Kiravian population and are present in most other Coscivian countries.

History
Following the closely related Vèuscem, the Ĥeldicans were the earliest Cosco-Adratic speaking people to venture westard into Éorsa from the Coscivian urheimat of Adraïa and reach the shores of the Aquaric Ocean. Variously displacing or assimilating the autocthonous P'ter peoples, the Ĥeldicans came to occupy most of modern-day Kóursedan and Ispadan, as well as isolated pockets of territory further east. In the late 15th millennium (Iatic calendar), a subgroup of the Ĥeldicans settled the Northwestern Isles of Vryta and Æredan.

For the majority of their history, the Ĥeldican peoples lived in small chiefdoms, tending to crops and livestock, and practised a religion combining ancestor worship with aspects of pandeïsm with henotheïsm and transcendental idealism. The Ĥeldicans living on the Éorsan mainland gradually came under the rule of the expanding Coscivian Empire, and assimilated into its Iatic-speaking culture except in the most peripheral and isolated areas. While the Empire eventually took possession of southern Vryta, the remaining Insular Ĥeldican territories did not come under Imperial rule until well into the Second Empire.

During the 8th Century anno Domini, Hiberno-Scottish Christian missionaries reached Éorsa by sea and attempted to evangelise the inhabitants. While the Antaric and Iatic peoples of the Imperial mainland were generally unreceptive to their message, the missionaries found it easy to relate to and communicate with the Insular Ĥeldicans, whose culture and lifestyle was similar to their own. The Insular Ĥeldicans were wholly converted in under a century, and intermarried with successive waves of Celtic clerics, traders, and emigrants.

Culture
Ĥeldican Coscivians have a rich literary culture [Picture of the Ĥeldican variant of the Iatic script], with Æran-Kaltan being the longest continuously written Coscivian language after Helskan and Iatic. The Ĥeldican regions were the intellectual powerhouse of the Coscivian world from the Interimperial Period well into the Silver Age, and Ĥeldican scholars were sought after across the Coscivian Empire as teachers, jurists, political advisors, and theologians. Ĥeldicans are regarded (and regard themselves) as having an inborn talent for rhetoric and wordplay, and have made major contributions to Coscivian poetry and literature out of proportion to their population. Scalta, a spoken word art form based on the rapid, rhythmic delivery of wordplay and quick turns of phrase, developed in Ĥeldican ethnic neighbourhoods of Kiravian cities during the 21080s and has been incorporated into Kiravian popular music on a large scale.

While kinship, especially patrilineal ancestry, is important to Ĥeldicans, Ĥeldican culture is nonetheless highly individualistic. The Ĥeldicans have little history of communal agriculture, and rural Ĥeldican society was historically (and in some areas continues to be) structured along the lines of individual family farms organised for common purposes such as defence, grazing, and governance by clan councils and the local church. The Kaltem and Ærem are segmentary ethnic groups with well-defined clan systems further subdivided into patrilineal septs.

Freedom and privacy are highly prized, and it is taboo to criticise or correct another in a matter that is considered "his business". The Ĥeldican peoples are noted for their high degree of gender parity. Ĥeldican women have always been held as equal to men under customary law, and predominantly Ĥeldican localities have very high rates of female participation in politics.

Originating in the cold, rainy, and windswept fringes of Éorsa where cereals were the staple crop, Ĥeldican Coscivians maintain venerable brewing and distilling traditions and a well-developed alcohol culture. Pubs and taverns are the central locus of community life among Ĥeldicans.

Religion
Ĥeldican Coscivians are almost exclusively Christians, and nearly all are affiliated with the Insular Apostolic Church, a communion of seven autocephalous churches practicing the Celtic Rite of Christianity. Ĥeldicans were the first Coscivians to convert to Christianity and led the efforts to evangelise the rest of Western Éorsa.

Non-Apostolics account for only a tiny minority of Ĥeldicans. There are established communities of Kaltem Iduans and Ruricans originating in southern Kaltedan, while the Northern Kelnordem are predominantly Læstorian. Largely as a result of intermarriage, there are some Ærem and Eńlem who follow Coscivian Orthodoxy.

Politics
Owing to their large population and socioeconomic diversity, Ĥeldicans can be found in all positions on the Kiravian political map, and Ĥeldicans regularly vote and provide candidates for all of the major Stanora caucuses. However, owing to their strong cultural values of freedom, privacy, distrust of governmental authority, and long history of voluntary social relations, Ĥeldicans comprise a major portion of the Liberty Group's voter base. Many historians and political sciences hae theorised that Ĥeldican Coscivians are largely responsible for the libertarian, decentralist, and "ain't broke, don't fix it" underpinnings of Kiravian political culture, while Taństem Coscivians and Antaric Coscivians contributed its modernising, centralist, and reformist tendancies.

Because of their long history of poverty, marginalisation, and foreign domination in Éorsa, Ĥeldicans tend to take hardline positions on issues of fiscal policy and national sovereignty. A 21204 poll in Fariva found that Ærem were the group least likely to support a Levantian Union at 2%, as opposed to 15% for Venskem, 19% for Tańrisem, and 30% for Kostiatem.

Physical Characteristics
Ĥeldican Coscivians have the lowest melanin levels of all (generally pale) Éorsan Coscivians. Ærem customarily describe their complexions as either folbiĥ ("white"), plistraĥ ("freckled"), or uruapástaĥ ("ruddy"). Blue and green eyes predominate among the Insular Ĥeldicans, while the Continental Ĥeldicans have rates of grey irides more similar to the Éorsan average.

Western Éorsan ethnic groups are known for their high frequency of left-handedness, and this phenomenon is most extreme among the Insular Ĥeldicans, a supermajority of whom are left-handed (80% of Trischem, 74% of Kaltem, 61% of Ærem). Synæsthesia is also exceptionally common among Ĥeldicans, with the Cíortem and Heĥtem having perhaps the highest incidence of synæsthesia in the world (1 in 100 individuals).

Geographic Distribution
Ĥeldican Coscivians can be found throughout the Kiravian Federacy, except in a few of the most isolated colonies. Ærem are heavily concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Northeast Great Kirav and Upper Great Kirav, as well as in rural areas of Arkvera and Hiterna. Kaltem are the dominant ethnic group in much of the Aterandic Mountains region and have a large presence in the state of Trinatria.

Ĥeldicans and Kiravian Celts have long been at the forefront of Kiravian overseas expansion, and many Kiravian overseas possessions have owe large segments of their populations to Ĥeldican pioneers. The overseas colony of Enscirya is 90% Ĥeldican and is now regarded as the new global centre of Ĥeldican culture. All Ĥeldican groups are represented among its population, and all Ĥeldican languages share co-official status in the colony. Other colonies with large Ĥeldican components of their population include Irobria (68% Ærem), Prithera (50% Phryðiem, 40% Kaltem), Intærmec Islands (40% Kaltem), Lānkova (32% Kyrnem, 8% Ĥymrem), Nerþalia (30% Ĥymrem, 30% Kaltem), the Scotchpine Republic, and Cèuvara.

The bulk of Cíortem, Eligtem, and Heĥtem live in rural block settlements in Central Great Kirav and in Enscirya.

Insular Ĥeldicans

 * Kaltem
 * Ærem
 * Phryðiem
 * Ĥymrem
 * Eńlem
 * Kernem
 * Heĥtem
 * Eligtem
 * Cíortem
 * Èulugiem

Continental Ĥeldicans

 * Armakem
 * Kastrovem

Others

 * Iyrlem
 * Islém
 * Sotledem
 * Immramem
 * Selkrem - A group of 2,000 farmers in Manida
 * Mandhanem - Small community in Central Livensóla
 * Sapatsem - Mestiço ethnic group native to Southeastern Great Kirav descended from Kawatem aboriginals and Kaltem merchants.

(Ærem, Kaltem, Phrydthiem, Trischem) (Cymrem, Englem, Kernem, Hechtem), (Eligtem, Ciortem,) Armacem,