Hashurukasane

The Hashurukasane (literally 'people of Hashuru' in Itarakoské) are a people, or more accurately a large group of peoples, who inhabit the south of the Empire. Aside from the Tarakasane themselves, perhaps no culture and ethnicity has had a deeper influence on the shape of the Empire than that of Hashuru.

Definitions
Main article: Hashuru

The most common definition of whom the term encompasses is geographical; by this definition, the land of 'Hashuru' includes most of the middle course of the Ansarién, and the tributaries both on its left and right banks.

The clearest boundary of Hashuru is on the east, where it is bounded by the vast belt of wetlands, formed by the two lakes Condova and Thukdova and the Great Marsh of the Nine Rivers running between them. The Ansakasane lie to the east of that formidable geographical barrier.

To their north, the Hashurukasane and their culture runs up against the Tarakasane; on the west are the Gékhalkasane, who have asserted their political independence from the Hashuru polities for centuries, but are linguistically and culturally quite close to them.

Internal Differences
The above definition assumes, as do many contemporary scholars, that the Hashurukasane make up a single ethnicity; this is very arguable, however.

Physiology
A well-known - indeed almost stereotypical - feature of the Hashurukasane is fair hair, which is especially striking given that almost all Tarakasane have black or dark brown hair. This trait is nonetheless not all that common; it is estimated that about one in ten of the Hashurukasane have blonde hair, and perhaps another tenth have an intermediate, light brown colour. In fact the Gékhalkasane who live to the west have a much higher incidence of this trait, and it is possible that the trait originated with them.

Since the people of Hashuru are also known to worship fire, it is a common misconception among northerners that blonde Hashurukasane are known as 'flame-heads' and are worshipped for their hair. The latter is patently untrue, but ironically, cultural diffusion has since made the term layumin fanna, 'flame-like hair' common in Hashuru.

History
Main article: History of the Hashurukasane

The beginnings of the Hashurukasane as a people are lost to history, though the area of the middle Ansarién has always been known to the Tarakasane as an area populated by a 'fenced', namely settled, people. As early as the semi-legendary Damu Dynasty, there have been records of 'Ashor', 'Yashai' and other similar names in divination texts and inscriptions, which point to where Hashuru is.

Certainly, by the foundation of the Guha Dynasty, the first fully historical Imperial regime, the Hashurukasane were already a well-known people on the southern flanks of the Empire, with whom the Guha had intense contacts - political, diplomatic, and eventually military.

In 76 Guha, Tairazun Kamané launched a large scale expedition, taking a supposed 1,200 chariots (around 70,000 to 80,000 troops) southwards in order to conquer the southern barbarians once and for all. The expedition was an unmitigated disaster; Kamané was killed and his body captured, as were thousands of troops, dealing a massive blow to the Guha Empire's ability to even keep control within its own realm. Nonetheless the Empire recovered, and the pattern of frequent short wars, punctuated by treaties and envoys, appears to have continued.

These contacts with a politically sophisticated people eventually sparked deep political and social transformations among the Hashurukasane themselves. Formerly organised into tribes, they eventually began to form states, and over a process lasting some two and a half centuries these many states coalesced into a single, powerful State of Hashuru. This state remained for centuries as an independent kingdom and adversary of the Guha, and was indirectly responsible for the destruction of that dynasty and the rise of the Omé.

Culture
Main article: Hashuruilé Culture

Besides the Tarakasane themselves, the Hashurukasane have had a great impact on the culture of the Empire as a whole, and the reverse is also true. The culture of Hashuru, especially after it formed into a state, has heavily influences from the north; their political forms and major ceremonies mostly mimic or adapt those of the Guha and Omé dynasties.

At the same time, however, expansion towards the south, west and east meant the constant absorption of non-Imperial cultural elements, along with the fundamentally different culture of the Hashurukasane themselves. In the wider society, the Hashurukasane are well known to have their own, very distinctive forms and rites.

Language
Main article: Hashurukoské

The term Hashurukoské implies that there is a single language spoken in the south; while this has since been widely recognised to be untrue by the scholars of the period, the singular term remains in use.

The Hashurukoské languages are in fact a closely related group of languages, of which the varieties spoken in the heartlands of Hashuru are the best known and best represented in writing and literature. The affinity of Hashurukoské to Itarakoské is much debated; it is unclear if their similarities in vocabulary and in some aspects of grammar are the result of common descent, or simply areal features after a millennium of mixing.