clan: one of the fourteen political, social, and familial groupings that form the basis of Haran society; although the people within the first clans were not actually related, but chose to affiliate themselves with one of the original fourteen founders, at this point the clans are interrelated in complex and often confusing fashion. Each clan controls a particular territory, and, as one result, surnames are not used on Hara, as the majority of people in any one location would have the same (clan) surname. The original territories varied in the quality and abundance of their resources, and the Stane clan has parleyed their original good luck into economic and political dominance. The fourteen clans are: Aldman, Blithman, Casnot, Delacoste, Donavie, Ferane, Landeriche, Makpays, Massingberd, Maychilder, Newcomen, Stane, Stiller, and Trencevent.
counterpoint: the highest pitched of the traditional dance drums; as the name implies, it usually plays variations on the middle or bass line that carries the dance rhythm.
countre: another name for a counterpoint drum.
coupelet: passenger vehicle, common in urban areas, used by hire-companies to carry middle- and high-status passengers.
coy: literally, "sweetie" or "darling"; a generic and not necessarily intimate endearment with ironic overtones.
dance house, dance houses: a public or private club, sometimes also selling food, drink, and drugs, where patrons meet to dance and frequently to engage in trade.
dandi: colloquial term for a mem or the active partner in a homo- sexual relationship; the implication is "trying hard, but not re- ally a man."
docker, dockers: man or woman who works on the Bonemarche docks, either as day labor or for the harbormaster himself; this group is outside most of the traditional kinship networks, and has always been both marginalized and highly politicized.
draisine: small, six-wheeled cargo vehicle with either an open or enclosed cargo bed, used to gather and transport the land-harvest; requires minimal roads even in the deep jungle.
Embankment: streets overlooking the harbor and Harbor Market of Bonemarche; the district where most of the city's trade takes place.
entrait: the opening bars of a drummed dance, signaling both the dance and the intended pace.
Equatoriale: the area of the main continent on and south of the equator, mostly deep jungle; the territory was assigned to the Ferane, Newcomen, Blithman, Aldman, and Trencevent clans at settlement, though Casnot disputes some of Newcomen's claims. Historically, the area has been both relatively poor and extremely traditional.
Estaern: the northeastern coast of the main continent, assigned to the Delacoste, Makpays, and Landeriche clans at settlement; Estaern is also the largest urban area in the district, and both district and city have a reputation for avoiding politics at all costs.
faitou, faitous: a servant or servants of either gender, usually related to his or her employer by clan or mesnie ties.
franca: the dialect spoken on Hara; not closely related to the Concord Creole.
garce: literally an offensive word for boy, used for homosexual women, particularly women perceived as behaving as men, and for mems.
gellion: offensive word for herms, also used for mems and fems, emphasizing the perceived sterility of any relationship; most common in traditional areas.
ghost rana: an offshoot of the traditional political song- and-dance groups, conceived as a mirror-image and reversal of their power; unlike a traditional rana, a ghost rana makes no noise, but will act, and act violently, to restore its conception of order. Ghost ranas tend to be traditional in their beliefs.
gran'mesnie: social structure intermediate between a mesnie and the clan; it is composed of from 3 to 10 mesnies generally claiming a common line of descent. Gran'mesnies are common only in the larger clans.
halving: politest, though still potentially insulting, colloquial term for a herm, and by extension for mems and fems as well; literally means half-and-half, and implies that one is neither man nor woman.
harvest: generic term for the flora collected for export and local use; delivered to the off-world companies twice a year at Midsummer and Midwinter.
Important Man, Important Woman: a man or woman who has, by virtue either of a job or by election, been accepted as someone who can represent or speak for the clan.
ironwood: low-growing tree found in the jungle edge; the wood is naturally very hard, and can, with care, be fire-cured to make it as hard as metal.
jackamie: literally "boyfriend"; always a very casual term that can easily become an insult.
jack, jack-faitou: male servant, usually related to his employer by clan or mesnie ties.
jigg: a three-wheeled cart used in both city and back country; carries a driver and one passenger, plus a small cargo.
jillamie: literally "girlfriend"; always very casual, and can easily become an insult.
kittereen, kittereens: a racing vehicle popular on Hara; essentially a small rocket engine mounted on a light frame.
land-spiders: species of crustacean native to Hara, which spin a silk that forms the basis of a number of local and export industries.
long-bit: local coin, usually glass or wood, worth .10 meg.
luci: luminescent colony-dwelling sand flies, once used as a light source.
luciole: old-fashioned lamp, usually spherical, designed to house a colony of luci.
mairaiche: farm; source of cultivated crops rather than harvest.
marianj: part-time or semi-professional prostitute who plays a passive or woman's part.
marijak: part-time or semi-professional prostitute who plays an active or man's part.
meg: basic unit of Haran currency.
memore: wake, memorial gathering.
mesnie, mesnies: basic unit of (traditional) Haran society, a group of households (i.e., a man, a woman, and their children) living together in a single compound and usually working together at a profession or industry; all the households in a mesnie are related, and marriage within the mesnie is considered incest and forbidden.
Midsummer: one of the two major holidays on Hara (the other is Midwinter), celebrated by nearly everyone; also marks the beginning and end of most off-world contracts, and clan elections are held then.
mir, miri: traditional term of respect for a man of slightly superior rank; as there is no true generic plural, miri is generally used for groups of mixed gender.
mirrim, mirrimi: traditional term of respect for a woman of slightly superior rank.
mosstaas: literally, "mustache"; Bonemarche's city militia, which also functions as a kind of police force.
odd-bodied: colloquial generic term for herms, mems, and fems.
offetre: literally "offering"; an act or object produced by a man or woman acting as one of the spirits.
pharmaceutical, pharmaceuticals: generic term for all off- world companies doing business on Hara.
player: an off-worlder who is involved in trade, or who is willing to pay for sexual favors; not a common term outside of Bonemarche and assimilated areas.
presance: a danced or sung commentary on political issues; by staging the comment as a performance, the performers avoid the legal and customary ban on "frivolous" (i.e., unsanctioned by authority) discussions of politics in a public place or manner; the technique, developed out of the rana tradition, has been most commonly used by groups advocating closer ties with the Concord.
rana, ranas, also rana band, rana dancers: a group of men and women who use traditional drum dances to express a political opinion; rana performances are traditionally protected by the Trickster, and by custom cannot be stopped unless the ranas make an explicit request for their audience to take political action. Ranas traditionally wear multicolored ribbons, a mark of the Trickster, as a sign of their special status.
rover: small, four-seat vehicle used to carry paying passengers around the urban centers.
sea-harvest: generic term for the myriad products gathered from Hara's oceans and either used locally or sold to off-world buyers.
> seraal, seraals: the harvest territory controlled by a mesnie; this may be either a stretch of land with its trails and growing plants, or a stretch of beach and ocean bottom.
seraaliste, seraalistes: the man or woman within each clan who is primarily responsible for negotiating with the off-world buyers; he or she is also responsible for mediating among his or her clan's mesnies. This is an elective office.
shaal: length of fabric, often highly decorated, used to wrap head and shoulders in traditional Haran clothing.
shay: most common cargo vehicle on Hara, with a broad, usually open cargo platform and a two-seat driver's cab.
the spirits: celestial beings that occupy an intermediate position between God (defined as ineffable, unknowable, and not terribly interested in human beings) and Man. The spirits inter- cede for and interact with human beings, and grant favors more willingly, and as a result, their worship, through services and offetre, is far more important to most Harans than the distant God. Harans generally believe that a man or woman can take on some of the characteristics of a spirit, either through dance, concentration, or sheer serendipity, and when in that state, his or her acts are seen as the actions of the spirit.
Agede, the Doorkeeper: Agede's domain is change, death, birth, and healing.
the Captain: the Captain's domain is that of power, action, and battle; he is also the patron of sailors and travelers.
Caritan, the Cripple: her domain is fate and compassion, and she both provides charity and punishes the wicked; proverbially "the Cripple moves slow but she doesn't stumble."
Cousin-Jack, the Harvester, also Cousin: Cousin's domain is the land and its flora, as well as the deep jungle, and he is also the spirit of hearth and home.
Genevoe, the Trickster: he is patron of ranas and other performers, and the changeable spirit of holiday and weather; his particular domain is the ocean shallows.
the Heart-breaker: she is the spirit of lust, love, and spring- time; her domain is the deep sea; she is also the protector of children and fools.
Madansa of the Markets, also the Marketwoman: she is the spirit of the marketplace, and of kitchens and food; she is generally considered to be Cousin's daughter or wife, and so subservient to his authority in the mesnie.
swetemetes: literally, sweetmeats; sexual insult implying prostitution, usually used of men.
three-up: a shay that has been modified to carry at least one more passenger, at the cost of a reduced passenger area.
tonnere, tonnere-bas: the deepest of the traditional drums, and the one that generally carries the dance rhythm.
trade: specifically, the semi-organized business of sex (paid for in money or favors) between off-worlders and indigenes of either legal gender; because these transactions take place outside the normal social systems, and involve unusually large sums of money and/or metal as inducement, an indigene in trade, whether a man or a woman, is not necessarily considered to be a prostitute. By extension, the term also covers indigenes and off-worlders who facilitate the buying and selling of sexual favors, and the various permits that allow off-worlders to stay on Hara.
vendee: a man or woman who holds customary or legal title to a space in a recognized market.
vieuvant: an "old soul," a man or woman who is recognized as a reliable and accurate conduit for the will of one or more of the spirits; some vieuvants speak only for one spirit, others for more than one.
Watch: the largest division of Haran society, based on the original divisions of the ship that brought the first colonists to Hara. There are five Watches: White (command), Blue (medical/scientific), Black (engineering), Green (land-trained colonists), and Red (ocean-trained colonists). Watches retain certain administrative duties, and are also used to determine marriageability; the larger clans are split between Watches to help keep the genetic mix stable.
Watch Council: the closest thing to a central governing body on Hara, the Watch Council consists of three representatives from each of the Watches, elected from the clans within that Watch according to a complex (and variable) formula based on both population and wealth.
wrangwys: literally, "wrong way," generally used to refer to herms, mems, and fems, and anyone whose sexual preferences don't match the male/female model; has been adopted by that group as a self-referential term and is not insulting within the group.
wry-abed: the politest colloquial term for men who prefer to have sex with men and women who prefer to have sex with women.
wyfie: literally, "little wife," implying a less-than-satisfactory substitute; colloquial and offensive term for a fem or a homosexual man.
About the Author
Melissa Scott studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, and earned her PhD. in comparative history. She published her first novel in 1984, and has since written some two dozen science fiction and fantasy works, including three co-authored with her partner, Lisa A. Barnett.
Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, this is perfectly integrated into the rest of the story and is rarely a major focus of the story. Shadow Man, alone among Scott's works, focuses explicitly on issues of sexuality and gender.
She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and has won several Lambda Literary Awards.
In addition to writing, Scott also teaches writing, offering classes via her website and publishing a writing guide.
Scott lived with her partner, author Lisa A. Barnett, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for 27 years, until the latter's death of breast cancer on May 2, 2006.
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