Hoppers
| Hop Clans | |
|---|---|
 Flag adopted by the Solidary Congress of Hop-Harvesting Peoples in 21115 to represent the Hopper people | |
| Type | Ethnoclass |
| Population | ~4,500,000-10,200,000 |
| Language | West Coast Marine Coscivian Kiravic Coscivian Others |
| Religion | Christianity, Komarism |
| Lifestyle | Agrarian Migratory (traditional) |
| IDO Status | Vulnerable |
| Colour | |
| Distribution | |
| Region | Farravonia, Highlands, South, Central |
Hoppers, also referred to as hop-harvesting peoples or the hop clans are a Coscivian ethnosocial group (or groups), often described as an ethnoclass or caste, who are traditionally engaged in the cultivation and harvesting of hops. The labour-intensive nature of hop harvesting and processing created a large demand for migrant workers during the harvest season. Migrant worker families organised themselves into clans for protection during their annual travels, mutual aid during the off-season, and in some cases collective bargaining with landowners. Although different clans and groups of clans may be of different ethnic backgrounds, speak different languages and dialects, and inhabit different parts of the country, they nonetheless feel a sense of kinship and solidarity with other hopper clans. Hoppers have often leveraged their crucial role in the production of one of Kiravia's most important commodities in order to protect their communal interests and advance themselves politically and economically. In modern times, even though most hoppers are no longer actually engaged in hop harvesting, people of hopper descent continue to marry mainly within the hopper community and retain a distinct group identity. Hoppers often vote as a bloc in state and local elections, encouraging political parties and candidates to court the hopper vote, and giving rise to dedicated hoppers' parties in some areas.
As a legacy of their migratory lifestyle, historical landlessness, and lower social status, hoppers as a class experience poorer economic, educational, and health outcomes than the average Coscivian-Kiravian. These inequalities have narrowed in modern times but still persist, especially in rural and highland areas.
History
Beer has been a core staple of the Kiravian diet for nutritional, ritual, and recreational reasons since time immemorial. Accordingly, hops have always been an extremely important commodity. For most of settled Coscivian history, hop production was a small-scale undertaking and most hops were grown in household or communal village hop gardens, though these are records of entire tribes or villages specialising in hop production, particularly during periods when large parts of the landmass were brought under the rule of one large empire or another, creating conditions more conducive to larger-scale, long-distance commerce.
The Kiravian hop clans originated in the [PERIOD], mainly in South Kirav and the Transaterandic territories. The oceanic climate of these areas and a growing demand for beer in the growing cities and towns spurred the establishment of large hop plantations which required much more labour during the harvest season than they did during the rest of the year. Landless peasants, migratory Coscivian tribes, the younger sons of poorer townspeople, Celts, and Urom alike were recruited as harvesters. The hop clans were originally something akin to an early labour union, organised among the hoppers to negotiate with landowners, help members find housing and employment during the off-season, provide logistical oversight and security during seasonal migrations, and (often violently) maintain their control over the harvest labour supply by intimidating scabs and planters. Over time, these labour cartels became clans in proper, developing a sense of fictive kinship and their own distinctive cultures and customs. Those wishing to join a clan (usually in order to take harvest work) had to undergo ritual initiation.
Hop clans also emerged in Farravonia and the Western Highlands after these areas became colonised by Coscivians and became used for intensive hop cultivation.
Hopper clans would often stage strikes or form armed mobs to protest poor working conditions or drive a harder bargain with employers. These actions would often be coordinated with neighbouring hop clans, and could threaten to shut down production across an entire region.
[Hop clans during early modernity, Colour Wars, and all that. Political party formation]
Hoppers were generally supportive of Kirosocialism and the Kirosocialist government's efforts to reduce the power of the landed gentry. In the countryside, Hoppers were eager recruits for Kirosocialist militia, and the Hopper ethnic neighbourhoods that had formed in many cities were hotbeds of radical socialism and the point of origin for many left-wing riots. Hopper support for the Kiravian Union was initially quite firm, but soured over time in the face of economic underperformance and failure of Kirosocialist agricultural policy. A violent string of Hopper-led anti-government riots in [TWO-YEAR PERIOD] helped spur the régime's decision to legalise the cultivation of cannabis for export, in the hope that pot plantation jobs would keep restless Hoppers occupied, as well as earn some much-needed hard currency for the State. After the end of the Kiravian Union, Hoppers remained committed to left-wing politics, reconstituting new hoppers' parties to fight for their economic and communal interests. The recovery of the Kiravian private brewing industry and the opening of new export markets for beer resulted in greatly improved conditions for rural hoppers during the 21190s, enabling many to acquire land and petty capital. The general culmination of post-Kirosocialist economic growth raised many urbanised hoppers into the middle class and engendered a more moderate turn in hopper politics, with many of the hoppers' parties moving toward the centre-left of becoming altogether non-ideological during that decade.
With post-Kirosocialist economic liberalisation and the mechanisation of agriculture, most ethnic hoppers are no longer directly involved in the traditional mode of hop harvesting, though a significant minority are, especially in inland states and parts of Kiravian Crona. Many have taken up commercial hop cultivation, either as family farmers or as members of coöperative enterprises with other hoppers. Two major Kiravian pale ales - Great Aterandic KPA and HVMVLVS - are manufactured by a hopper collective and a partially employee-owned company with a predominantly hopper workforce, respectively. Many now live in cities and towns, though urbanised hoppers tend to form ethnic neighbourhoods with other hoppers and retain their clan affiliations and hopper identity.
[Lots of hoppers illegally grow pot. The Federal Police estimate that Hopper crews are responsible for ~40% of the nation's illegal ganja crop. Of 424 persons arrested in connexion with large-scale clandestine reefer cultivation Ilfenóra, Cascada, and Metrea since 21195, 328 have belonged to hop clans.]
Geographic distribution
Today, hoppers can be found in most parts of the Kiravian Federacy, at least in small numbers. However, they are most heavily concentrated in areas with oceanic climates well-suited to growing hops, such as the Eastern Highlands, the Transaterandic Uplands, the West Coast, and the northern tier of South Kirav, and this is where the largest and most visible hopper communities are found. Numerically significant (but more dispersed) hopper communities can be found throughout Central and Upper Kirav and the Northwest.
Hoppers are least common in Upper Kirav and along the North Coast, which is not only too cold for hop cultivation, but has also developed a long tradition of alternative flavourings for beer, such as spruce, heather, and elderberry.
List of Hopper Clans
- Clan Ápskatśa - Mainly of Kaltan, Gaelic, and Urom descent, living in Kiorgia and Tanuvia.
- Clan Dukláva - Of Tínoran, Æran, and Kaltem heritage, living in Ventarya, Trinatria, and parts of Hanoram.
- Clan Lupulin - Of Pelargian, Kastovan, and Antaric Coscivian descent, living in Metrea.
- Clan Perrin - Mainly of Kyrnan Coscivian and Pretannic Celtic heritage, living in North Ateranda, Etivéra, and Íarthakelva.
- Clan Hōrstom - Of Antaric Coscivian descent, living in Cascada.
- Clan Peronin - Of Peninsular Coscivian descent, claim to have been hop cultivators since the First Coscivian Empire.
Cuisine
Hoppers drink a fuckton of the hoppiest IPAs imaginable because of course they do.