#khemut

in khemite hekatic practice the original principle is the ahtet, formless and undifferentiated, all-encompassing and unrealised. it has no shape, no colour, no centre and no boundary (or it might be better to say it possesses all forms simultaneously, which is much the same).

because of this, to make use of the ahtet it must first be given definition. this is accomplished through division, the primary act of creation (one may witness such an act by watching newly cut grain be threshed into stalk and seed). while the ahtet may be divided infinitely, the first division is always into the green and red principles, wadju and desha.

desha is hot, dry, energetic, disordered, and protean. it is associated primarily with the desert and the planting season. wadju is cool, wet, stable, and still; it is associated with the river and the flooding season. wadju tames desha and turns it towards productive ends through ordering and directing its energies; this is the growing season. the khemite people also consider these to be the masculine and feminine principles.

khemut is matriarchal- the purpose of men, whose natures are energetic but disorderly is to be directed by women, whose natures are logical, patient and orderly. communion of the red and green principles is the purpose of marriage. the reunification of wadju and desha, true synthesis into the black principle, is called rekati and is the sole province of the empress.

wadju is understood to be primarily cultivated in the womb, while desha is primarily cultivated in the testes, though men and women are known to contain a measure of both red and green in different balances (children are considered to be of formless ahtet-principle until they reach puberty). one may alter the balance of their principles through dedicated spiritual practice, a correct diet, and certain medicines; this is an important component of medicine as imbalanced principles are a primary source of illness. indeed, if one were dedicated enough to this practice, they could entirely alter the balance of their internal principles so that the green principle is predominant in their body where red once was, or vice-versa. one might even use such techniques to alter the physical traits of the body- such is the basis of hekatic internal alchemy, after all.

therefore, to cultivate the wadju principle is to practice internal alchemy to grow one's feminine force. it has nothing to do with the food review app. theres only so many combinations of letters and sounds okay

The heruwet was a group of villages that formed an interdependent structure of trade, marriage, and mutual support. It can be traced back centuries before Rekhet to clan groupings that predate the formation of imperial power. Indeed, each heruwet has been observed to have distinct rituals & material culture developed over extraordinary periods of time, as evidenced by examples of pottery, clothing and religious items recovered from craters K1, K5 and K7 demonstrating persistent features particular to individual heruwet spanning across multiple historic epochs. The essential function of the heruwet was to overcome the limitations faced by a single village. Essential goods, particularly those scarce to one but plentiful to another were traded freely between heruwet members, as well as high-quality livestock to enable inter-village animal husbandry, typically on market days taking place in one village and attended by others. Marriages were arranged primarily between families of a single heruwet, and newly married men would move to live with the family of their wife, creating familial ties that strengthened the bonds between communities. In times of hardship, grain was shared amongst heruwet villages to ensure collective survival as the less affected supported those facing the worst hardship. In periods where centralised imperial power was weak, the heruwet essentially formed self-governing units that would band together for defence and survival.This is not to suggest that relations between heruwet members were always harmonious, as a court record dated to the fifth year of the Shomu Empress demonstrates:

Record of a dispute between the family of Muti of the village of Het and the family of Sudra of the village of Nanu, in the fifth year of Shomu (Life! Prosperity! Health!), on the ninth day of Rheti. The case was adjudicated by the magistrate of catfish-rank Nenibetu.The headmother of the family of Muti alleged that she had lent five head best-quality red cattle  to the family of Sudra for the purposes of breeding, with the understanding that one-half of the resultant offspring would be returned to the village of Het along with the original five animals. The headmother of the family of Sudra denied these claims, stating instead that the cattle had always belonged to her family, and she possessed records proving this ownership from long before the agreement to share their offspring. She furthermore insisted it be noted that the people of Het are known to be cheats and liars and that its cattle are of inferior quality anyway.The news of these records of ownership was received by the magistrate Nenibetu with some interest, as  the court's taxation surveys contained no record of best-quality red cattle in the herds of the Het or Muti families. As neither headmother was able to account for this discrepancy, all five head of cattle were confiscated as back taxes owed. In this manner was was the matter resolved to the satisfaction of the court and of Mahat.

The scribe of oryx-rank Ah-Horati, who recorded this matter, swears that all transpired as it was written.

Life and all good things to Shomu (may she reign one million years)!

The heruwet was also a crucial structure of religious life, as it was common for each village within one to share a patron deity or deities, typically either a revered ancestor-figure or a god associated with a feature of the local environment such as a river or mountain. Priestesses and healers would move between the villages of a heruwet, and religious ceremonies, particularly festival days, would bring together the villages in shared observance and celebration. Heruwet often shared a single place of entombment and burial, in some cases co-opting much older structures that lay nearby and had otherwise fallen into disuse. 

Under the Zahn administration, the heruwet system was damaged by predominantly aristocratic land ownership, Myrnahn policies of strict tenancy, and the wide-scale use of slavery on estate farms. Cultural and historical bonds remained strong however, and in the wake of abolishment of private slave ownership by the Hemshu Empress and the significant land reforms that followed the heruwet structure began to reassert itself. This was, in fact, a major goal of the early Rekhet administration, which took further steps to strengthen traditional village structures. Prior to Rekhet, the heruwet had been an unmanaged and essentially self-managing structure, defined primarily by relations between family households and informal trade agreements. Important arrangements and decisions affecting the entire heruwet were typically made by a gathering between headmothers of each village's prominent families. In the early years of Rekhet however, the Hemshu Empress made efforts to formalise the heruwet as an administrative subdivision, instituting the mutual obligations of the villages to their sisters as a matter of law. While this was largely successful within those heruwet that lay within the central domains of imperial power, overseen by officials who adjudicated legal matters and exercised administrative power, outlying settlements largely continued in the fashion that they always had.