Daxian people
The Daxian people are an ethnolinguistic group native to Audonia who share a common language, culture and ancestry. They are the majority group in the nations of Daxia and a significant minority in Canpei, Timbia and Rusana. Several diaspora groups of varying sizes exist in other places in Audonia and overseas as a result of a mercantilist mindset. The Daxian ethnonym is a corruption of the name Da Xié meaning Great Harmony, which was the name of the first ever recorded dynasty to form in Daxia. The historical point of origin of the Daxian people is believed to be located in central Daxia where the first organized polities took shape and created the precursor states that preceded the Xie dynasty. The early Daxian people developed for the most part in isolation, shielded as they were by mountains to the west, the sea to the east and south and the vast distances of the empty steppes to the north. This isolation led to the development of a cultural insularity that permeates traditional 'Daxian-ness' to the modern day, and is expressed in many aspects of Daxian life and historic trends, from political concepts tinged with notions of superiority such as Zhangwo, to historical relations with other peoples dictated by Daxian need to dominate and subjugate them, to an intense dislike and distrust of foreigners even today and a predilection for inbreeding.
 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 821 million approximate | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Daxia | 689,254,654 |
 Canpei | 15,122,035 |
 Timbia | 11,328,249 |
 Rusana | 5,668,650 |
| Languages | |
| Daxian language | |
| Religion | |
| Ancestor Daxian religion, Christianity, Islam, Tianism | |
Culture
The essential cultural mores of the Daxian people can be said to hark back to antiquity and while not immutable through time, the patterns set down by the Xie dynasty were mostly upheld by their successors in power. The ability of a dynasty at the height of its glory to form and shape men of learning that could in turn elucidate and teach the favored philosophies of the time to the great masses, while staying within the margins of what was already established Daxian-ness, determine in great measure that dynasty's contribution to the culture of the Daxian people.
Social practices
Bigamy and Endogamy
Bigamy has been practiced in Daxia for thousands of years, going back to the reign of Emperor Chiliang of the Xie dynasty. An old man by the time he ascended to the imperial throne, Chiliang's progeny had suffered from great misfortune and he had no male heir. The emperor consulted with a great council of sages and their learned conclusion was that the emperor should be allowed to marry as many wives as he needed. Not lacking in wisdom himself, the emperor counseled restraint, were he to sire too many sons they would surely fight amongst themselves and tear the empire to bloody shreds once Chiliang passed on, and so two wives would suffice for his great need. So resolved, Chiliang set aside his aged wife, married two nubile maidens that beget him three strong sons to carry on his bloodline into the future. And so that none of his subjects had cause to complain that their emperor ate alone, he passed a decree that was carved in imperial marble: Let all the subjects living on my lands and under my sky secure the immortality of their names, as have I, let every man be entitled to marrying twice; this is known as Chiliang's Pact. This decree was studiously respected by all succeeding dynasties for a number of reasons, the vast majority of the population worked in agriculture for a long time, having two wives meant more kids were available to add to a farm's labor pool. Abrogating Chiliang's Pact would be very unpopular, especially if the emperor continued the practice himself, which they would want to do given the high rates of infant mortality even among nobility. Bigamy was codified by every dynasty from Shang to Qian, all of which also made legal provisions for the caring of the numerous abandoned children and laws on the payment of pensions by the state to widows with small children. Bigamy continues to be legal in the modern era and Daxians continue to practice it but not to the same extent as in the past. The rising cost of living, insufficient social services, marital breakdown and the onerous expenses of having many children and also of divorcing dissuade many men from fulfilling their right to be bigamous.
Endogamy is the practice of marriage within a certain ethnic, religious or social group. Daxian people have for reasons of history and tradition, always frowned upon unions with non-Daxians. A partial explanation to this can be provided by the Zhangwo ideology, the core idea being that the Daxians have been so successful at building a bureaucratic empire because the divine have ordained them as a superior race. This idea has been both a curse and a blessing for smaller ethnic groups living in areas that border the Daxian heartlands; a boon because the massive Daxian people could have absorbed and diluted them into the greater whole if not for the fact that it was seen as culturally repugnant to marry a foreigner, a curse because their inability to marry Daxians meant they would never be truly accepted in that society, dooming them to subservience, suspicion and cruelty. One well known example is that of the Degei people, a nomadic people that lived in the grasslands north of Daxia for hundreds of years and interacted and were influenced by it in many ways. The anthroposcopy of the average Degei has historically been considered to be close enough to the average Daxian as to be distantly related, the pigmentation of the skin and the elongated epicanthal folds lending themselves to a certain compatibility, if traditional looks were to be preserved in offspring. And yet despite the physical similarities, the Degei people were never truly seen as anything but uncultured, foul and treacherous barbarians, useful in a fight if you could get them to obey by feeding them trinkets and lofty but meaningless honors. Some historians have posited that the great revolt of Darukh Khan started with his innermost, most secret insecurity, that he admired the Daxian people but could not and would not ever be accepted by them as an equal no matter what he did. The allure of endogamy within Daxian society has ebbed and flowed across history and its hold has not always been absolute or equally respected in specific geographic parts of the empire. The settlers who colonized Xisheng found themselves fighting the natives almost from the very start and this hostile reception shaped their own attitudes and sharpened their native xenophobia; Xisheng's Daxian's took refuge in their redoubts and limited their contact with the Cronan peoples for three hundred years. Comparatively the explorers who discovered and colonized Peratra were received peacefully and traded in peace with many tribes for a number of years, this coupled with the great distances to the homeland softened and cracked the allure of endogamy; Timbia today is an example of a society with a great degree of mixing between native Polynesians and Daxians.
Daxian Racialism
A topic greatly discussed among scholars both foreign and domestic is the origin of Daxia's racialism, how far back in history lie its roots and if ancient Daxians were even prejudiced against other races. While one the great sources and justification of Daxian racialism is always named as Considerations of Yang Imperial Expansion, written in 680 CE by Heian Xiujian, First Minister of the Yang court, most experts now agree that the true origin lies much far back, in ancient texts and rites of Daxia's native religion. While Considerations of Yang Imperial Expansion is the premier text used and expanded on at the dynasty level to inflame and denigrate the foreign, at the popular level it was the priests and men of the hedge who spoke to the commoners of the need to protect the purity of the lands from that which was strange, dangerous and unholy. Tablets dated as far back as 2,400 BCE contain religious poems and hymns extolling the pure and calling on the faithful to honor the Gods of the Earth and the Air by defending their Great Garden (interpreted to be the land of Daxia from the Shadows beyond the Garden and their servants. The tablets include an addition in less prosaic language, a listing of the known servants of the dark including the names of city-states to the west such as Nasrad, Khaton, Turaq and Rilban; cities then under the rule of king Iyachtu, an ancestor of the later self-style Highest of Kings, Xvim the Black.
Gigantomania
can we make it bigger
Self-Perception
Generational Greed
Numerology
there is power in numbers
Social Hierarchy
Backward Classes
who's boss and why its not you