Kitsi in a box

So these two kind of go hand in hand!

Firstly you have Homecoming, which happens about four times a year. It's when the rambling groups head back to their home towns, spend time with family, and share the goodies they've harvested, hunted, and traded for.

These moments are celebrated, because it's not always a guarantee a baleen out on a ramble will come home. Weather, bandits, sickness, wild animals... there are a lot of dangers out in the world.

So coming home is always cause for a night of celebration, and even a few days afterwards. Usually, the ramblers get out their fancy do clothes, swap stories with the elders, and tell tall tales to the kids.

At these celebrations, you'll find something similar to alcohol. Most is made from seaweed, salt water, and various other ingredients. If not watered down, or mixed into food, this stuff is potent. Hence why it's usually only brought out for parties and celebrations.

As for food, the sweeter foods are saved for events like this. Saps that have been hardened into something like hard candy, some species of "fruit" from the ocean and tide pools, etc.

Now for dances and ceremonies...

Sometimes you just gotta fight out an issue. or you want to see who's strong enough to lead a band, sometimes you're just bored and want a fun scrap. This contest, the "Balance dance", is actually a fight to see who has the most stamina, the better balance, and the cleverness to know when to push your opponent to knock them off balance but keep your own.

The contest evolved out of old territorial fight displays. Who's bigger, who's stronger, etc. The gloves are more modern inventions, because the intent of this "dance" is not to harm the other. It's to prove yourself worthy.

Now, injuries can and do happen. Tusks are still at play. Sometimes the gloves aren't available or are straight up ignored because the fighters are angry enough to want to do damage. But that becomes rarer and rarer as time goes by.

On the opposite end of fighting, there is the Rope Dance.

This is considered a bonding activity, and a challenge between a potential pairing of a Giver and a Carrier. The goal, to keep the rope taught between them and keep the beads moving. The closer you swing the glass to each other, the more trust and coordination there is between the two.

(Givers can and will wear decorations at the end of their tusks for these dances, to protect the Carriers when they get close. These decorations can be dried mist plants, woven bags full of sand or fluff gathered from plants, or really ritzy ones can be made of glass or shells)