Life blood of Gaetan, the salmon are the great gift of the Sea (mother of three of the Celestial Gods) to humanity. They boil through the narrow straits of the Inner Channels, and practically throw themselves into the nets of the waiting villagers. The Fall and Spring runs are celebrated in huge festivals and parties, as everyone goes out to camp on the streams and catch and smoke salmon. The Fisher priesthood determines the proper starting time for the harvest (after allowing a certain period of time for the first salmon to travel unmolested to the upper stream beds), oversees the festivals, and makes augaries from the catch.
There are three major varieties of salmon that run in Gaetan:
Tali lakna ('copper'), the most common variety, with copper red flesh
Hashi ('sun'), a rarer variety, highly prized, with golden yellow skin.
Minko ('king'), almost never seen except in the rivers of Capitol Island, Minko are beautifully patterned in red, green, silver and gold. Their smoked flesh is sent out from the Capitol as a sign of the beneficence of the King.
There are also salmon runs on the An river in Tympania (and on the smaller streams and rivers of Rhythnor), but the An salmon are smaller, and have been heavily overfished by the Orsinians and the Ventrians. The waters of Tyre and Chaeronia are too warm for salmon.
Salmon!
I love salmon. That photo of the salmon run in the river is gorgeous. And the sun-moon-salmon mandela is very, very cool.
Sometimes I try to imagine what the Columbia River must have looked like, back before all the dams and the overfishing, when the salmon run came through. My mind usually balks at the image. It's a bit like trying to imagine what the great plains looked like when they were black with bison herds: I think it's often hard for us now even to imagine that sort of fecundity, which may have something also to do with the fact that I often find Earth religions weirdly non-intuitive. ("Dude. My food comes from the Costco.")
Yay humanity.
Cool. Glad you like the pics!
Cool. Glad you like the pics! That first red salmon looks mean, doesn't it? The river teaming with fish the way it would in Gaetan is really hard to visualize. Bison, yes, just like the skies full of passenger pigeons. And, humanity is so strange. I find it odd how _far_ we are from the organic meatiness of nature. "What, chicken doesn't always come boneless?" But then, bee larvae would probably look askance at flower nectar if given itstraight. We're just some strange bipedal crazy-environment-affecting critters that don't get how wierd they really truly are. Or how truly normal, I suppose.