Manaan

The antipathy toward Manaani is simple enough to explain. During a time when the majority of Kharakians were hard-working farmers, clinging to life with teeth and fingernails, the Manaani maintained a traditional nomadic existence. They traveled from place to place, stopping at watering places to rest; if the water was surrounded by a hold, the Manaani expected hospitality. Although they were rarely hostile toward farmers and city dwellers, they resisted any attempts to settle or civilize their kiith. Driven by a hunger for new experiences and a restlessness few other Kharakians could understand, the Manaani could never stay in one place for long—they simply picked up stakes and moved on into the wastes again, leaving the security (and the hard work) of house and hold behind them.

The earliest historical mention of "Manaani wanderers" comes from the year 340, when holdings along the shore of the White Desert complained that their farms had been raided by the Travelers. According to the report they sent to their kiith-sa, the White Desert holders had recently closed their gates to a wandering kiith, refusing them permission to make camp by the waterside. Although the Manaani went away peacefully at the time, they returned by night and came over the wall "by the hundreds", overwhelming the resistance of the surprised holders. In the end, the Manaani were accused of stealing nearly a ton of food and many hundred man-weights of water -- which was, coincidentally, just a bit more than the tribute which was owed by the White Desert holders to their kiith-sa that year.

The tale of the White Desert holders was dubious for many reasons, although it was widely believed by landed Kharakii at the time and for many centuries to follow. The report that Manaani came over the wall of a sand-dike "by the hundreds" is absurd, given the fact that traditional Manaani never traveled in groups larger than an extended family and in such a group, there would have been a dozen able-bodied men at most. To find Manaani "by the hundreds," one would have had to seek them out at a Gathering, their yearly meeting on the sands of Ferin Sha ("The Dancing Ground"). Not only was Ferin Sha nearly 200 miles from the White Desert, but focus at such a Gathering would be celebration and drinking, not killing and looting. Fighting of any kind was forbidden at Ferin Sha -- to profane sacred ground with spilled blood was the greatest Manaani taboo.

Is this to say there was no basis for Kiith Manaan’s early reputation as thieves? Unfortunately, no. If the majority of Manaani were innocent of raiding, there were still some who undoubtedly traveled in greater strength and might have been capable of carrying off a few water barrels. The majority of travelers were probably guilty of a little judicious pilfering from time to time, even if it was only picking a pocket or picking fruit in the night. The real question is not whether the Manaani were really thieves, but why, if they were widely believed to be thieves, would the majority of holdings open their gates to Manaani visitors? An answer of one word will suffice: entertainment.

The Manaani were always traders, but prior to the Great Migration they could never compete with the legitimate trade routes among the northern holdings - -at least when it came to transporting mundane cargoes. In order to survive, a kiith of travelers needed to bring their would-be hosts something they could not get cheaper or more routinely somewhere else. In some cases, Manaani would carry rare drugs or medicines that could be found only in remote places, or traffic in taboo items, but since their caravans were often searched before being allowed to enter a holding, the Manaani would more often carry a less tangible but even more valuable freight: music, laughter, and spectacle, a break from the hard and unending work of a desert farmer’s life. For many years, Kiith Manaan survived by their wits and their ability to amuse hold-born Kharaki. Singers and poets, magicians, dancers, actors and con men -- there was nothing to the rumor that Manaani could perform dark magic, but they could certainly make your purse and your 15-year-old daughter disappear.

After the Great Migration began, life changed drastically for the Manaani. Although they played no important role in the First Crossing, a small kiith of travelers accompanied the Paktu in the sandsailers that left Albegiido in 490. Most of them returned to the north in 497, bringing their three-masted ships with them. The Manaani took to the new technology in droves and made many improvements to the original design.

During the beginning of the Heresy Wars, Manaani still living in the north suffered badly under the rule of Siidim and Gaalsi; their free-wheeling and joyous attitude was anathema to both of the great kiith, and one of the few points of doctrine that both parties could agree on was that Manaani were abominations before the eyes of Sajuuk. The last celebration at Ferin Sha was held in 513; during which an army of Siddim attacked the Dancing Ground and slaughtered the celebrants wholesale.

After the massacre at Ferin Sha, the majority of Kiith Manaan survivors took to the sail and the sword. Manaani raiders, once largely a myth, became a grim and terrible reality to Siddim holdings that bordered on the desert. No one was safe from the pirate sailers, and the sight of a mast on the horizon was an occasion of panic and terror. Within a hundred years, however, the Manaani exhausted their appetite for bloodshed and began to use their ships for more profitable ventures. When the great mother of their kiith-sa, Jora Manaan, declared the war on the Siidim at an end in 656, the Manaani built a new Dancing Ground in the Paktu-held south and turned their fleet completely to trade.

The questing spirit of the Manaani is not dead even today. Kiith Manaan still controls enormous wealth, and of all the Kharakid kiithid it is the most likely to produce a diplomat or a statesman. Manaani also are common in the ranks of Scout pilots and are always eager to volunteer when it’s time to fly an experimental craft. Being the first to see anything new and different is a hunger that still burns deep in their blood.