Mandalorian Holidays

[Aarlaya]

So there aren't any Mandalorian holidays listed anywhere that I could find. A friend of mine and I brainstormed some up recently; we tried to make at least one for each season. All of these take for granted that Manda'yaim is an almost entirely rural world.

Winter: This holiday takes place the week of the winter solstice. It's celebrated by families in their own homes and, since it's between harvest and planting, is a time for relaxation and enjoyment. There's speciality food and this is probably the time when most of an aliit's history and culture is passed to the next generation.

Spring: We actually don't have anything for this, but it likely would have been some kind of celebration linked with praising Kad'Hangir for defeating Arasuum and keeping life going in the old Mandalorian religion.

Summer: In summer, the holiday is less personal and more public: there are markets in town, storytelling, fights and games. Then at night it's kind of like a luau; singing, dancing, and a shared community meal. It's not uncommon for many couples to meet at these larger celebrations, so there's an emphasis on that too.

Fall: This is a harvest festival where neighbours or the larger clans come together to help each other. Food is preserved, supplies are stored. If they can, ver'verd come home to help their families. I'm thinking there are space-corn mazes to keep the children out of everyone's hair and teach them navigation skills.

Other holiday ideas:
Hod'haran was the god of chaos and disorder, maybe there's a holiday similar to April Fools left over. Clans likely have their own small holidays.

Thoughts?

[Ge'tal Buy'ce]

Space corn. Perfect. We'll add it to the list with blue milk and transparisteel. xD Needling aside, I really don't have a better name for it without mashing my keyboard, space corn works.

I'd recommend fleshing out spring a bit more. Maybe add a coming-of-age ceremony for adolescent Mando'ade that the adults play up as something intense and harrowing, and ends up being a serious, private one-on-one talk with an elder about the responsibilities of adulthood while a pre-recorded soundtrack of heavy hand-to-hand combat plays for the benefit of any prying ears.

For fall, I'd suggest one step further than navigating a (space) corn maze. Groups of teenagers (usually friends) are flown a few miles out of town into a nearby wilderness area, set down in a random location, and told they have to accomplish some objective before returning to town. It'd test operational skills, build teamwork, and get them out of everyone's hair while the younger kids play in the space corn and the adults do their thing. First team back to town gets recognized at a ceremony that night, last team gets mentored by the first team in survival skills and teamwork for the next year.

[Aarlaya]

Space corn. Perfect. We'll add it to the list with blue milk and transparisteel. xD Needling aside, I really don't have a better name for it without mashing my keyboard, space corn works.

I'd recommend fleshing out spring a bit more. Maybe add a coming-of-age ceremony for adolescent Mando'ade that the adults play up as something intense and harrowing, and ends up being a serious, private one-on-one talk with an elder about the responsibilities of adulthood while a pre-recorded soundtrack of heavy hand-to-hand combat plays for the benefit of any prying ears.

For fall, I'd suggest one step further than navigating a (space) corn maze. Groups of teenagers (usually friends) are flown a few miles out of town into a nearby wilderness area, set down in a random location, and told they have to accomplish some objective before returning to town. It'd test operational skills, build teamwork, and get them out of everyone's hair while the younger kids play in the space corn and the adults do their thing. First team back to town gets recognized at a ceremony that night, last team gets mentored by the first team in survival skills and teamwork for the next year.

I'll let the corn thing slide... just this once.

Coming of age is related more to birthday than a seasonal event, as far as I could tell. Spring is also planting season, so that's kind of a big deal. I like the teenager idea, but it would be important for them to help out with the work too, I think.

[Ge'tal Buy'ce]

Yeah, the coming of age thing wasn't particularly inspired. I'm just throwing ideas out.

I think the teenager thing would presume that the work was done (or at least far enough along that they could be spared for the afternoon). Get the grunt work that benefits from young, able bodies in the morning, do the more finessed work later while they're out on exercise. Or alternatively, do it early on the last morning of the festival, when they're tired and sore from the previous days' work (assuming the festival lasts more than one day).

[Aarlaya]

Oh, harvesting DEFINITELY takes more than one day Never personally baled hay, but that by itself takes a good month or so.
I do like the idea of that being worked in, though, in amongst the comings and goings.

[Mittramikad]

For fall, I'd suggest one step further than navigating a (space) corn maze. Groups of teenagers (usually friends) are flown a few miles out of town into a nearby wilderness area, set down in a random location, and told they have to accomplish some objective before returning to town. It'd test operational skills, build teamwork, and get them out of everyone's hair while the younger kids play in the space corn and the adults do their thing. First team back to town gets recognized at a ceremony that night, last team gets mentored by the first team in survival skills and teamwork for the next year.

I think this works a bit better as a coming of age ceremony as just work some stuff in about the resolnare. The mando'ade are a clan based society, having a coming of age on your birthday seems too individualistic, however coming of age after you worked as a team with your aliit'vode, cementing those relationships, that seems somehow better to me.

Maybe the evaar'la adi'ke could still do a corn maze and learn navigation and survival skills?

For the spring, what about an interclan competition? Like the Olympics, but much more focused on combat skills and perhaps there is a highly sought after religious item or trophy that the winners recieve.

It could have started in the past as a battle between the clans over a sacred place or highly sought after piece of land, then slowly morphed into joint training exercises, not unlike sparring. From there it could easily become a game.

As for the prize, during the time when it was still just a spring training, one of the clans found an old relic on the training grounds and declared themselves the "winners," even though at this point it wasn't a competition. Not to be out-done, the other clans demanded that they be given a chance to win it back, and so were the beginnings of the competition.

Now, it's a little more laid back, the competition is still incredibly fierce, but grand stories are told and passed down, traditional mando scran is eaten and bes'laar is played and sung. If you're the best at something you prove it here.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Sorry about the long post!

[Vlet Hansen]

The only thing I remember was celebrating the spring thaw

[Aarlaya]

The only thing I remember was celebrating the spring thaw

Well then, there's the spring! Do you remember what all it consisted of?

[Vlet Hansen]

Mostly playing games and eating outside to enjoy the (barely) warm weather, but I suspect it's more of an event in a place larger than kyrimorut

[Mittramikad]

A'oryc, does it have a name?

[Vlet Hansen]

I don't think they mentioned one, but I'd probably go with something along the lines of dar'ciryc

[Mittramikad]

Haha ori'emuuri bic!

[Aarlaya]

So I was thinking and figured I'd share (lucky ya'll ). Since it makes sense that wearing helmets naturally progressed with technology, masks and war paint were probably precursors. I could see facepaint as a factor in some of their holidays, at least or especially with children.

[Vlet Hansen]

Yeah, absolutely

[Ruus]

Do you think that mando'ade would see a corn maze as wasteful?
I also think it would make sense that some aliit'e would have holidays that others didn't. Specifically personal holidays that were related to their family/clan history.

Maybe one aliit always celebrates a certain day because years ago one of their verde defeated a jetii.
Or perhaps there was a tragedy and the clan gathers to give thanks that some were spared and to drink and eat in memory every year.

[Vlet Hansen]

Wasteful, perhaps, but if the harvest is good enough it might be worth the fun. There's other ways to do that, anyway. Go play spooky hide and seek in the woods...

[Aarlaya]

Do you think that mando'ade would see a corn maze as wasteful?

I always figured that they just harvested those bits first. But I'm not a farmer.

[Vlet Hansen]

I bet they'd opt more for a really intense game of hide and seek in the woods, anyway.

I miss paintball...

[Ruus]

I bet they'd opt more for a really intense game of hide and seek in the woods, anyway.

I miss paintball...

Ha! Yeah, I could definitely see them doing something like that. I bet it would get really intense.

[Ruus]

I bet they'd opt more for a really intense game of hide and seek in the woods, anyway.

I miss paintball...

Ha! Yeah, I could definitely see them doing something like that. I bet it would get really intense.