1 YUN-TUN New Year’s Holiday Celebrated on the Spring equinox, the New Year’s festivities on Tre-mang were colorful, loud, and delicious. At sundown Tre-manners carried lanterns into the streets and ceremoniously burned kitchen chairs. Decorated with bright paper and, occasionally, firecrackers, these chairs were symbolically burdened with the unwanted strife of the previous year. As the chairs burned, Tre-manners sang: There sits Grief—shudder Grief, shudder! There sits Fear—burn Fear, burn! With company like this, we’ll stand. We prefer to stand! After watching the flames, Tre-manners enjoyed a raucous street party, dancing over the cinders. Tre-manner coffee and auspicious foods were passed around freely in the crowd. Perferlum Jad-zum (Mushroom-Duck Tarts) were made small for ease of carrying. In the deep of the night, the more adventurous vented a year’s-worth of steam by gathering in nearby woods to have “blind-fights.” These skirmishes in the dark often resulted in injury but never in hard feelings as the participants were careful not to disclose their identities. The next afternoon (the morning being spent coping with hangovers and black-eyes), each Tre-manner household bought or built a brand new chair and, ritually planting their buttocks into it, hoped for comfort and ease in the coming year. For goatherd families, YunTun also marked the season that newborn kids bleated and pranced about the fields. It was a busy but joyous time. On the morning after Yun-Tun, children deemed responsible enough were given their own herding staff and the honor of naming the new goats.
An upper-class Tre-manner family poses for a rare photograph.
Rodney Peterson estimated that there were twice as many goats on Tre-mang as people and was surprised to learn that each of them had a name. He wrote: It is enough that the goatherds can command flocks of hundreds with a wave of their stick—they can also distinguish individual beasts upon a distant hill. At first, Peterson thought the goat names to be nonsensical and arbitrary, e.g., Broken Mast, Midnight Chill, Eastern Glow. But soon he learned otherwise: …(Tre-manners) name the animals such that, when called out, each by each, their names amount to a song. These songs are a source of amusement during the long dull days, and are sung in good natured competitions whenever herders meet. It was during the chair burning of Theodora’s Peterson’s first Yun-Tun that a local goatherd named Fedge Fent, took notice of her. Her journals tell us that, from the beginning, their relationship was complicated. The man, (short and blushing—I hardly got a look at him) handed me an oak twig, with the leaves still attached. I took it on impulse, it seemed rude not to, and just as quickly he was gone. By the giggles and sidelong glances of the women around me it was clear that something had happened. Too late, I learned that by taking the branch I had opened myself to his wooing. The next step, I’m told, is to go on a siff-linger or “kissing stroll.” Of course, I will do no such thing. There must be a way to return the branch without offense but no one will tell me how. They’re having too much fun winking and asking if I like his beard. Though she did manage to return the branch, and, also, over the next few months the flowers he left by her door, and the handmade flyswatter, and the herbed cheese rounds wrapped in rose-petals, Theodora kept the notes Fedge wrote and dutifully translated each in her journals. She admired that, though he had no schooling, Fedge had taught himself to write by studying books in the idle hours at pasture. Reading these entries, one can see the gentle poetry which slowly won her over. In this example, Fedge alludes to a Tre-manner folktale to express his fondness: Everyone knows the story of Effa Whit singing while salting cabbage. How she heard someone else singing the very same song, with a sweeter voice, and went out to see who was mocking her. She chased her echo so long that when she returned, the
cabbage was pickled. When I hear your voice, this is the story that comes to mind. You aren’t Effa, you aren’t the cabbage—you’re the echo. Lovely and uncatchable. One scholar consulted in the compiling of this book has suggested that this passage is a gentle way of praising Theodora’s stammer, which we know from her journals the Tre-manners called a “tongue echo.”
PERFERLUM JAD-ZUM Duck Mushroom Tarts “To the coarse and common meat pies which leave one greasy-lipped and sleepy, this delicate duck pastry is queen.” —Theodora Peterson 1 1⁄2 lbs duck breast 3 cups oyster mushrooms, coarsely chopped 2⁄3 cup shallots, sliced 2 tbsp butter 1 lb pie dough 1 tbsp salt 1 tbsp white flour 1 cup salted chicken broth (or 1 cube of bouillon and 1 cup water)
1.
Pre-heat oven to 440°F. If making pie dough from scratch, follow dough recipe from Pamatala Jad-zum: Storm Chowder Pie, page 47.
2.
Trim excess fat from duck breast and save for other dishes. Cut breast into ½inch cubes.
3.
In a large sauté pan, sauté shallots and mushrooms in butter over medium heat for 15 minutes. Set aside.
4.
In the same pan, add duck breast and 1 tsp butter and sauté covered for 10 minutes.
5.
Remove duck with a slotted spoon and pour duck fat into a clean bowl.
6.
Replace 1 tbsp of duck fat in pan. Add flour and whisk constantly over medium heat for 5 minutes.
7.
Add broth and whisk to create a roux.
8.
Remove from heat. In a medium bowl mix duck, onion mixture, roux and 2 tsp salt.
9.
On a lightly floured surface, roll pie dough to one centimeter thickness.
10.
Cut into circles large enough to line muffin pan with a little extra crust above the depression. A cereal bowl can make a good cutter. Combine scraps to use all dough. Try not to over work the dough as it will become tough.
11.
Spoon pie filling into pie dough and crimp or flute edges.
12.
Bake for 30 minutes or until tart crust is golden brown. Remove from muffin pan and set to cool on cooling rack. Serve warm.
Duck Mushroom Tarts from the New Year’s Festival.
AGRITCH Tre-manner “Coffee” “This nourishing drink is a comforting alternative to coffee or tea. Better by far than the chicory or dandelion root brews advocated by zealots back home—it is best with warm milk.” —T.P. 2⁄3
cup unsalted hazelnuts 11⁄2 cups almond flour (or 2 cups raw unsalted almonds) 1 vanilla bean pod, minced 1 cup quinoa 4 tbsp unsulfured blackstrap molasses
1.
In a coffee grinder or food processor, grind hazel nuts until fine. If using whole almonds, grind them too.
2.
In a large sauté pan roast ground hazelnuts, almond flour, vanilla, and quinoa over medium-high heat for 15 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid burning.
3.
When the mixture is the color of coconut husk, add molasses and stir for 5 minutes.
4.
Spread onto a clean cookie sheet to cool. Break clumps with a spoon.
5.
When completely cool, store agritch in an airtight container.
6.
When ready to use, steep in boiling water as you would coffee or loose tea.
Agritch is a comforting, non-caffeinated beverage.
THE WAKING ISLAND While Tre-manner coffee didn’t have a caffeine kick, it was nevertheless a morning staple in every household. Theodora explained its popularity in her journals: It’s a comfort to hold the warm cup in your hands and inhale the roasted scents. Tre-manners say it helps bring the spirit back to the body after its journey in the dream worlds. Despite fervent scholarly arguments on the subject, our understanding of Tre-manner religion is mostly speculation. The truth is obscured, in part, because Tre-manners deliberately misled missionaries about island traditions and practices. The inflammatory writings of colonial generals looking for license to oust Tre-manners from their homes are even less credible. Except for the funereal practices elaborated in later chapters, Rodney Peterson wrote little on the subject except to note “…a distasteful paganism” and “…the dream nonsense.” It may be that worship practices, animist or ancestral, varied from village to village. Whether Tremanners had a deist religion at all is debatable. Most scholars agree, though, that Tre-manners shared an intriguing view of the universe. Theodora’s notes confirm this: A typical islander believes that Tre-mang alone represents reality and that the rest of the world is a dream. The Pongaroo word for foreigner, nattlegit, translates roughly as “sleepwalker.” This belief, called somno-solipsism by some anthropologists, may be the closest thing Tre-manners had to a broad cosmology.
This explains why Tre-manner refugees of the cataclysm lamented not that they wished to go home, but that they wished to wake up.
THE NOTORIOUS STRIPED AUGETTE It’s a good bet that the duck-pie recipe above is very close to what Theodora tasted on the island, even though Tre-manner ducks were a special breed. Named for its distinctive striped plumage and beak, the Striped Augette was carefully bred as a fast-growing and reliable egg-layer. Though extinct now, all reports indicate Augettes were aggressive and ornery. Nevertheless, Tre-manners tolerated
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The striped Augette duck is one of the many Tre-manner treasures lost forever.
An inter-collegiate husbandry program in conjunction with the Heritage Ark Foundation is attempting to recreate the Augette using hybrids of The Blue Creole and Crested Dwarf Duck, both of which are believed to be closely related to the Tremanner breed. In 1714 a well-meaning British diplomat, apparently unaware of the duck’s notorious ill humor, made a gift of the visually striking animal to the young Queen Anne. The beast attacked the Queen and was destroyed by a palace guard. News of the incident quickly spread across Europe and inspired a children’s rhyme which is still sung today: Quack Quack Quack Skirts Held High Quack Quack Quack Hear Anne Cry
Eventually, the notorious bad attitude of Striped Augettes spawned fantastical tales abroad. An illustration of a “Tre-manner Devil Duck” appeared in Scott’s Natural Survey of the Atlantic and was clearly drafted from hearsay alone.
Stereotypes of Tre-mang as exotic and dangerous island were perpetuated by images like this one.