Harsitem

The Harsitem or Untouchable Coscivians are a category of outcaste communities traditionally found among the Coscivian-Kiravian populations in most regions of Great Kirav. The harsitem are the most socially disadvantaged segment of Coscivian-Kiravian society, and were historically subject to the practice of untouchability, along with strict segregation, social exclusion, and relegation to hazardous and demeaning occupations, often under unfree labour conditions.

In the Medial Coscivian economy, harsitem filled occupational roles as gong farmers, street sweepers, butchers, drain cleaners, and trash collectors, which pre-germ theory Kiravians understood to be insalubrious and prone to disease, even though they misidentified the mechanismata thereof. They were also enjoined to dispose of animal carcasses and bury people who had died from disease. To contain the spread of disease, harsitem were forced to live in hamlets (called harsitka in Kiravic-speaking regions) a good distance from the villages, and to use separate water sources and generally conduct their dealings with "clean" people from a distance or through intermediaries (usually from the 'filtering' subcaste of village menials or urom). In some locales, harsitem were barred from the main village and field paths and required to use designated 'service paths' to access parts of the villages and towns they served in. Compliance with these norms was enforced by the agricultural castes, who would withhold pay (usually in the form of food and beer) or retaliate against violations with group violence. The harsitka usually included small family plots for farming or gardening, but were, as a rule, not self-sufficient in food and heavily dependent on the goodwill of the clean villages with which they were associated. They were often banned from formal markets and market towns, forcing them to rely on relatively less-despised 'filter castes' to act as intermediaries when conducting business. Although they were involved in the burial of normals, harsitem were usually buried in separate cemeteries. As the rural Kiravian economy gradually became monetised, harsitem working as day labourers gained more opportunities to earn money as day labourers, but were still subject to heavy discrimination and were usually assigned to the most dangerous, unhealthy, and unpleasant jobs.

Naturally, harsitem could only marry other harsitem. In many cases, children born with deformities might be sent out of the village to be raised in the harsitka, and 'clean'-born people with chronic diseases might be similarly sent to dwell among the harsitem, thus enlarging these populations, often beyond their meagre means.

Culture

Fully excluded from high culture and insulated by poverty and discrimination from passing cultural trends, the Harsitem have been mythologised as having preserved a more rough, original, and authentic Coscivian culture than neighbouring "clean" populations. No one overarching harsitex culture exists, but distinct harsitex subcultures do exist among most of the major regional cultures of Kiravia, which exhibit many convergent commonalities with one another. For example, most harsitem communities speak a distinct sociolect of the surrounding majority language, which often includes many archæic features lost in the mainstream dialects.

Religion

Most harsitem follow the prevailing religion of their region, though there are differences in religious life between harsitem and neighbouring clean populations. Despite the egalitarian ethos of Christianity, the sacramental nature of apostolic Christian liturgy with the sharing of bread and wine, the laying of hands, and such at its core, meant that new Coscivian Christian converts were often uncomfortable worshipping with their harsitem coreligionists, causing caste segregation to persist in the ecclesiastical sphere in many places. In former times it was not unheard of for rural priests to refuse to serve harsitem entirely. In a few cases, harsitkî associated with larger towns were served by their own harsit priests or deacons, but in most cases harsitem could expect less access to the Church than their neighbours and as such, many syncretic harsit families are more strongly connected to the old Coscivian religions than to Christianity. Nonetheless, there are a respectable number of canonised harsit saints, many of whom worked with, even miraculously cured, lepers or other diseased people to whom "clean" persons were unwilling to tend.

Harsitem, especially those in the South and those from butchering families, were likely to convert to Islam when the religion began to spread in Kiravia. The adoption of Islamic hygienic jurisprudence by Muslim converts and the practice of halal slaughter presented harsitem with an opportunity to present themselves and their lifestyle as clean, or rather, having become clean, to their fellow Muslims. Conversion also offered harsitem the opportunity to disguise their lineage by changing their names and giving their children opportunities to marry non-harsitem. Around one tenth of Southern Muslims and one-fifth to one-third of Muslim Kir come from harsitex backgrounds. The spread of Islam among the harsitem helped to spur reforms in the Coscivian Orthodox and Catholic churches with regard to these communities, and many more harsit were ordained as deacons to improve this population's relationship with the Church.

In the post-Kirosocialist era, a small but visible minority of harsitem have adopted neo-Protestant forms of Christianity or joined new religious movements.

Crime

See also: Organised crime in Kiravia
In early modern times, many harsitem migrated from the hamlets to the proto-industrialising cities, where they hoped to seek better economic opportunities and overcome the prejudices of the countryside, but still found most doors closed to them and largely ended up in the urban equivalents of their previous professions in sanitation, butchery, and the like. Continued hardship led many into criminal lifestyles, forming all-harsitem criminal gangs, calling themselves simply “night workers”. These gangs consolidated into proper crime families, and formed symbiotic relationships with “gravedigger” crews made up of criminals from yakav backgrounds. Although the prominence of the Nightworkers and Gravediggers has declined in many cities due to competition from the more ethnic crime families, harsitem remain overrepresented in the criminal underworld to this day. Harsitem are also overrepresented in the Kiravian prison population.

Distribution

The phenomenon of untouchability and of untouchable castes was mainly limited to South Kirav and the Kiravic-speaking plains south of the Lake Belt east to Kaviska. Harsitem are absent from Upper Kirav and Farravonia, and in Andera their economic niche was filled by a different population, the zingibrem. Untouchability did not take root in the overseas colonies due to the different conditions and relative anonymity of the frontier.

Cities with large populations of urbanised harsitem include Kartika, Primóra, and Ilminsar.

Contemporary conditions

Today the harsitem population is 70-80% urban, both because of high rates of rural flight by members of these castes fleeing discrimination and because the economic transformations of the 20th century enabled many rural harsitem to escape their born identities and assimilate into the general ethnic majority of their region. Most harsitem remaining in rural areas are now engaged in agriculture, a field from which they were previously banned, either as smallholders or as labourers. Untouchability is still practiced by many Coscivians, especially in the countryside, but is no longer as pervasive as in the past. In urban areas, harsitem have been able to break into more diverse occupations, but nonetheless continue to dominate sanitation- and sewage-related jobs and their associated labour unions.

Politics

Harsitem are a somewhat competitive demographic, though with a pronounced lean toward provincial affiliates of the Coscivian National Congress. Harsitem were among the founders of the United Allegiance Society, the main predecessor of the CNC, and both organisations had a strong emphasis on Coscivian unity and ending discrimination against the harsitem and yakavem. In rural areas harsitem and yakavem often flaunt their Coscivian nationalist politics and associated symbolism as a way of affirming themselves as fellow Coscivians deserving of dignity, and also to differentiate themselves from the apolitical Trash Coscivians. In urban areas, harsitem are an important bloc vote that can be moved with the influence of harsitex unions and other organisations, for whose favour parties associated with the UDI and PDF compete. Northern Muslim harsit favour the Federalist Republican Alliance.