[PENDING REWRITE]
Culture of Kinkhnland
The culture of the Kinkhn people is a rather unique one on Mundus, and their culture is a source of great pride among most Kinkhn. Despite attempts to 'westernise' in the late 19th century and the increasing globalization of the modern day, the Kinkhn have managed to keep their unique culture alive and comparatively free of foreign influence into the modern era. However some might claim this was achieved in part thanks to the fostering of xenophobic and reactionary attitudes as well as draconian 'cultural preservation' laws; a statement not without merit. Certain scholars believe that there is no Kinkhn identity but rather several peoples who all fall under the umbrella of 'Kinkhn', however efforts at forging a national identity since the Empire's foundation have been widely successful. In modern times the vast majority of citizens identify with a singular Kinkhn identity despite the continuing existence of regional dialects and local customs & traditions. The exception to this are the various ethnic minorities in the nation; they were distinct peoples from the Kinkhns even before the existence of a unified Kinkhn identity, and were not subsumed into the national identity.
Gender Roles
Traditional Kinkhn culture has been referred to as one of the most matriarchal cultures on Mundus, something which it very rightly deserves. In simply terms the Kinkhns believe that whilst men are the stronger sex that women are the more intelligent. But beyond this men are lustful, violent, and dimwitted by nature and in the Kinkhn worldview this makes them unfit for leading or decision making, controlled as they are by their baser instincts. Women are the only ones allowed to hold positions of power in the government and the eldest woman is generally the head of the household. This stark dichotomy also manifests itself in the celebration of the feminine and the denigration of the masculine. Motherhood is considered extremely important in Kinkhn culture; the Empress herself is often viewed in the lens of a Mother of the Nation, who takes care of and rules her subjects as if they were her metaphorical children. Conversely fatherhood holds little importance; historically fathers had little say in their child's upbringing with the primary male role model being the child's maternal uncles. While this has changed into the modern day and fathers more often raise their own children, they are still considered second in importance the child's mother. Men also have to deal with the cultural expectation that they control themselves their inherent nature and to show subservience to their mothers then their wives. As a former Empress once famously said "Men are the body of the nation, but it is the women who are the nation's mind & soul".
Ancestor Worship
Among the Kinkhns family is of the utmost importance; it is expected that one place the needs of the family above the needs of the individual. Many even consider the Kinkhn nation itself to be akin to a giant, extended family and believe that it should be treated as such. Nowhere is this reference no obvious than in Kinkhn religion for the native Kinkhn religion, known as Laththi Brrphburuss (a phrase roughly translating to Ancestor Cults). The religion is based around the veneration of the spirits of the dead as well as the worship of deified ancestors. The faith has far too many gods to list as the vast majority of them are heavily regional & localized, with only a small handful being worshiped across the Empire. And all deities of this faith were, according to legend, once living breathing human being who ascended to the status of Gods upon their death. The only exception to this rule is the Allmother who birthed the world and all within it, but while she is an important being in the cosmology of the faith there is little active worship of her. The most common of these ancestral deities are the guardian deities, those who serve as the protector and patron of a family, place, people, etc. There are all manner of guardian deities and some have more than one; a family might worship both its founding member and a powerful & prestigious member as guardian deities. Whilst there is officially a codified method for determining whether or not an individual has ascended to godhood after death, in practice all it takes is for enough people to believe the person has become a god and to worship them as such.
In terms of priests the closest thing Laththi Brrphburuss has would the Hmxphi, more commonly known in English as shamans. They are women, and only women, who the faithful believe are able to achieve contact with and relay messages from the spirits of the deceased with the assistance of certain psychoactive plants. Any woman is able to undertake the training to become a shaman, though most claim to have received dreams or signs pointing them to becoming a shaman. The training itself takes years of tutelage underneath another full-shaman, and there is no standardized practice and what exactly it entails can vary greatly from region to region. Shamans also have several traditional responsibilities, such as taking part in various cultural rites to the upkeep of the shrines to local guardian deities.
Cannibalism
Perhaps the most famous, though some might say infamous, cultural practice of the Kinkhns is their casual attitudes towards that most forbidden of taboos: human cannibalism. Cannibalism is not merely an act that the Kinkhns tolerate, but one which they wholeheartedly accept and many practice on a regular basis. Kinkhn cannibalism has its origin in their funerary rites, which consisted of the consumption of the deceased's flesh both as a sign of respect & to assist their soul in passing on. But what began as a simple funeral rite has transformed itself into a corporate endeavor. In the modern era it is not uncommon for individuals to sell the rights to their corpse to a corporation (excepting a small portion of the flesh to be used in the funeral), and after the funeral is finished the company will take possession of the corpse and butcher it, selling the various pieces off to other companies to be turned into finished products. For the person's body is not just used for its meat; the meat & blood are turned into foodstuffs, the blood & bone are often used to create organic fertilizer, bones are often used in various crafts, etc. This is a phenomenon mostly found in urban & suburban populations however; in more rural regions the funeral typically involves the consumption of the entire corpse and the rest of the body is broken down and used by the community itself, as opposed to being sold for monetary gain. It does, however, bear mentioning that whilst cannibalism is completely acceptable the fact remains that not everyone sells their corpse & one cannot farm human beings, and because of this human meat and other human-based products are generally considered luxurious as opposed to everyday.
While cannibalism is not a taboo in and of itself like in most cultures across Mundus, there does remain several very important taboos regarding the practice in Kinkhn culture. The first is the consumption of the brain; the brain is traditional considered to be a gathering point of spiritual impurities in the body, and as a result eating the brains of a human being is strictly prohibited. The second is the consumption of those who died of disease; the body is considered impure & unfit for consumption and in these cases are traditionally cremated. Many anthropologists agree that these taboos came about in ancient Kinkhn culture as precautions against sickness resulting from their funerary rites; the brain taboo in particularly is often believed to be the result of the increased risk of prion diseases such as kuru associated with the consumption of brain & spinal nerve tissue. The third major taboo is against the consumption, in any part, of a still-living human being. The Kinkhn have just as great a taboo against eating another person as the rest of Mundus, however they believe that once a person has died and their soul has left their body that what remains is not a person. What remains is a mound of meat & bone & blood no different from the carcass of an animal. Even if the body part has been separated from the living person, it is still a part of them and thus part of a person. While this might seem needlessly pedantic to outsiders it is a very important distinction to the Kinkhns, and saying that they eat people is considered to be a grave insult.