The Ismae Index pt. 7
Considering the Puka: A Sociological Overview
by Lady Orilausko
Pukas are relatively new as a sentient species, though as I will later explain they are not the newest. Until SE 934, pukas were considered wild creatures like the hiisi—though displaying pack behaviors and known to use simple tools, they were thought not to possess self-awareness, language, or community structure. It was even fashionable early in the Second Epoch for members of the Vazztain court to keep pukas as pets, a practice that led to Acknowledgement Day.
The story of puka sentience has likely been distorted and exaggerated over the centuries, so I use the text given to me by a dear friend and skald. It is considered, he tells me, to be the earliest prose version.
As every little puka girl and boy knows, Acknowledgement Day marks the first time pukas were recognized as sentient. Before that cold Falak day, we either lived in the wild or we lived at the sufferance of other species as their pets.
Jidryy, a chivori noblewoman, had fallen asleep on her veranda one aftermid, her pet puka Froniker curled up on her lap. It was late Falak, and the weather was turning cold. When the sun had set, the puka woke before his mistress.
Frost collected on the windows. The puka could see his breath.
Froniker saw that his mistress was already going pale with the evening’s chill. He rose, went inside and retrieved a blanket for her but was unable to find his own. He covered his mistress and climbed back onto her lap, curling as close to her warm body as possible.
The motion woke Jidryy. She was surprised to find the blanket over her. "How did this get here?" she asked aloud. Her mate was away, and Fronkier had never done such a thing before.
Then it happened: Froniker spoke. His words, perfect Vazztain. “I couldn’t find mine, Moocha… and I’m cold.“
Their sentience was quickly apparent across the isles. Suddenly, pukas could carry on conversations, do math, play games. Imagine if a creature living in your lawn suddenly asked you about the weather. Surviving records from that era point to some general confusion among the karju and chivori of the time, which turned ugly (I told you, it always does) before the species was genuinely recognized as mental equals.
Ironically, the very thing that brought them into the community of sentience, created a rift among pukas that lasts into our modern era. One side claims pukas were always sentient and simply withheld that fact for their own collective reasons. Perhaps they liked being left alone or being pampered as pets. Perhaps they feared the other species would see them as a threat. Perhaps they were already connected by a latent form of farspeech and had no need to interact with other species. This theory holds that once Jidryy spread the news of Froniker's conversation, others began prompting their pets, who confessed their own sentience until it grew to be a commonly known fact.
The second theory proposes that puka sentience was a genuine awakening, a moment of natural evolution or divine elevation—depending on your leanings. That web now called farspeech existed in all pukas, this theory claims, and when one puka achieved his sentience, speaking and interacting differently with the other species, the change spread through them all almost instantaneously, swimming across that spiderweb to change them all.
Despite many research projects, no historians, zoeticists, or anthropologists have proven one or the other—or something else entirely. I prefer the latter. It's more poetic.
Prior to the first Acknowledgement Day, those pukas not in captivity lived in groups (originally termed "packs") in the wild, primarily on the strip of islands that is now the southern Nors, Bankal, and Haasteboah. Many of these groups still exist, known colloquially as "feral pukas", though the term hardly applies. I have visited two such settlements, and the pukas in them had houses—albeit simple ones—and in most respects the communities are no more primitive than those of rustic karju and chivori. Most of these groups speak Pukar, a patois of non-verbal communication and Plainspeak that developed across the community since the time of Froniker.
Like the Estoans (who I will return to when we discuss the karju), these "feral" communities eschew the complexities of contemporary world, living outside our greater society and keeping their ancestral rituals alive. Among these is the coming-of-age piercing of the new adult's thick nose bridge with a metal ring. I am told it is both deeply painful and a source of great pride.
Outside of these venerable settlements, puka culture generally varies depending on location—pukas born in the Nors tend to follow Norian social structures and mores, those from Chiva'vastezz follows Vazztain, and so on—but always with a core of commonalities, especially around mating and family. Possibly due to the brevity of their time on Ismae, most pukas mate quickly and for life. Formal marriage is the norm and usually occurs between ages of ten and fourteen. Marriage is generally done for love though arranged marriages are not uncommon. Not having children is considered taboo among pukas, so multiple children are anticipated, even demanded, from each pairing. Extended families tend to be huge and highly interactive. One friend described them as "almost suffocating" while another called them "security in an insecure world."
Another connecting thread among different puka cultures is their predilection for following a strong leader, perhaps because of their early pack structure. Though pukas in general have no compunction about following a leader from another species, a small percentage of pukas are born with a personality that is naturally dominant over the rest. Of the hundreds of pukas I've met over my lifetime, less than a dozen of them could be considered leaders. Those who did lead were among the most intelligent, ruthless, and cunning individuals I have known—and I served in the court of Chiva'vastezz.
Another culture commonly adopted by pukas is the Billidoc Union. Many pukas have signed onto existing vessels or bought their own, finding the constant activity of a trader's life preferable. I will write at length about the Billidoc Union in another monograph.