Story:Why the Ikanatans have long names

The city of Ikanata was founded by the house of Dolamon when Dolamon Raanda built a home in unsettled place for the sake of convenience. The settlement would grow and the house of Dolamon would continue for 4 generations as the ruling house of Ikanata. Raanda's great grandson, Dolamon Semba, had three wives and many children, with the youngest child of his last wife being Dolamon Kobaaye. Despite being in the least prestigious position in the lineage, Kobaaye was a proud man, and took great joy in espousing the prestige of his name. He would go on to marry the firstborn daughter of the Wotete family, who held great power in a nearby city. Through custom he would have to take her name, and their children would too, but his ego was too large, so he insisted on being referred to by his original house, and when their first child was born, he resisted the child having solely her name. So, he made a bargain, while he would relent and every other child would be a wotete, the lineage of the first would be a compromise, a new lineage of both their names combined, Lamonwotet.

Lamonwotet Siiba as she would be named, would go on to have a family of her own with two husbands. Under Oye law the lineage of the child only mattered based on the mother, children of marriages with multiple husbands don't have different positions depending on whom sired them, as they all have the one mother. With this in mind, she we go on to have son who would marry the lady Yaaye Kwamina. By then Ikanata had grown very large, and the Lamonwotet did not hold the same prestige as their forebears the Dolamon did - and still do. The Yaaye family were not too powerful themselves, but were still a noteworthy merchant family from Datwa, thus still commanded some respect. Kwamina entered her marriage with good knowledge of these matters, and was well under the impression that the Lamonwotet man was marrying her in attempt to raise the Ojo of the name, by showing it's precedence over other families, and would go on to quickly marry other women. Kwamina however was the firstborn of a matrilineal marriage, and wanted to maintain her family's Ojo within the city, so she divised a plan.

She took the case of her marriage to the local Agaks and gave her case such: As they were both of matrilineal marriages her place as the firstborn took precedence, as her husband was born after several other children. In addition, the lack of records over which of his fathers had sired him also raised questions, there was no proof that he was the first of either of them either, and thus there was equal chance that his siblings held precedence over him even if patrilineal lines were considered., so rightfully she held the most Ojo in the marriage, and thus should be made the superior in the marriage. This argument proved fruitful, and her marriage was deemed to be in her favour - however the Agaks, all men, did not want to leave this situation with their own pride wounded, so they drew upon the Lamonwotet history to make one caveat: While husband would take on the Yaaye name, and she woud be able to marry other men, her first son would go under the lineage of Lamonwoteteyaaye, no matter which husband sired it.

he ensuing child, Lamonwoteteyaaye Momed would grow to be a humble man, and took great humour in his situation. He would go on to only have one wife, a common woman named Gwala, whom together with him would run an Inn in the quiet outskirts of Ikanata. They only had the one child, a boy named Toto. The child would colloquially go by that name alone, as is custom among the Oye lay-people, but when Momed was asked about the boy's lineage, and as he would assure to him in confidence, the boy was Gwalamonwoteteyaaye Toto, in honour of his mother, and humble birth. When Toto came of age, Ikanata was at war, and while it was of no consequence to him initially, the city's situation was dire, and troops of the opposing city state began to close in, prepared for conquest. As where Toto lived lied outside the city walls his, community would be one of the first to be raided, and all who could fled into the city. However his parents were ailing, as they had him late in life, and did not have the strength to bring themselves into the city, let alone with all their belongings, and did not wish to leave the inn they had spent their whole lives running behind. Many others within the community were likewise left behind, the old the sick, the orphaned, and those who had been too late to flee, and found themselves outside the heavily built up barricades and armaments.

Toto was no man to leave his family behind to die, and had already likewise been too late to leave, but he was a man of resolve. When it became clear that danger was close, and enemy troops closed in on Ikanata, he sought to defend his community. He brought everyone left into the inn, and gathered up all of the food, water and material the community had remaining and barricaded the inside. Along with this, he improvised spears, slings and darts, and gathered up rocks, as well as building a hidden tunnel for escape, and blocking the entrances with wine barrels. When the day came that troops came into the community, they found little to steal and resolved to burn it all down and merely pass through - but when a group of men came upon the inn, they had melons in their eyes. The inn was not abandoned like the rest of the buildings, and had clear signs there was loot to be had, but when they came close they were met with resistance. Toto, alone, from the Inn's rooftop, threw down spears and darts and stones and did so with the skill to wound all 12 of them, killing 3.

As the army continued on through the town more men gathered in aid of their comrades, until dozens of men gathered around the inn. For a day Toto kept them back, through until the night. Tossing more and more in their direction. Pots of boiling oil and red hot pans, kitchen implements of every sort sharpened and weighted to cut flesh and break bone, and even bedpans of fetid excreta to inflict disgust and disease. For a day and a night he held them back, until the whole battalion was brought to a halt, while the rest of the army closed in on Ikanata. For one more day he held them back, but by that evening he was surrounded and knew he could not hold out much longer. When the moment came that the men took rest from their bombardment, he stood holding his spear aloft and called for their attention before breaking his spear as a show of surrender. "I have opened the doors and removed the barricades. My food and wine is yours to take, and I am your prisoner"

The men jeered in celebration, and they poured into the building to plunder it. While the food supply had mostly been drained the inn was still rife with valuables and barrels of wine. As the men packed the inn the survivors were secured in the hidden tunnel, and when the men had dispersed far enough away, they fled out into the jungle. The men were raucous in their looting, and were so deep in their revelry they gave little thought to Toto, who slunk around the inn, piercing barrels so it soaked the floor and scattering debris as he went. When he exited the building the remaining soldiers recieved him, and began to take him prisoner, until they saw smoke come out from under the doors. They began to shout to their comrades inside and in their distraction Toto struck them, and fled henceforth into the brush.

In the uproar the men had become drunk and foolish, and as shouts from their comrades grew louder and louder it was late when the realised their dire situation, and the building was up in the flames. The men scattered and stumbled over each other struggling and fighting to get out. Men from upstairs began to fall through the old floors, and crushed their comrades underneath them. Others leapt out off of the roof and fell flat and broken on the ground. The flames only grew taller and taller until no more men could leave, and the screaming mass of drunken soldiers were left alone to roast. While many men still remained the damage had been done, and what men were left were exhausted by Toto's efforts. Although still a sizable cohort, the battalion were delayed and sent into disarray and by the morning they had barely put themselves into order, with low supplies and little moral. In the meantime the siege on the city continued, but the enemy forces failed to see that one side remained unmanned by attackers. When he was sure his community was safe in the jungle, Toto went up to quiet city walls, and spoke up to the men guarding it.

"Brothers! That great fire last night was of my doing, and I have taken many of the enemy's men with it! They lie tired and sick, and the enemy's rear is left unmanned!, Come, make haste with maces and javelins so we may catch them unaware and cut them down!"

The guards were cautious, and rightly so, but they saw that those with him were not real soldiers and that he was smeared with ash, and bore the marks of battle waged unarmoured, much unlike any competent soldier would. Toto's father spoke up: "I am the boy's father. Bring me a noble of the house of Yaaye, or one of the house of Lamonwotet, and they will confirm that my lineage, and thus his, is that of this country, as they are my brothers and cousins " In time a commander came: "I am Rawon Yaaye Inaka, who here claims to be of my blood?" "I am your uncle Momed, I saw you as a young lad, long ago. Your mother brought along to dinner, and you ate and ate until you were drinking soup from my very bowl" At that moment the rawon's eyes lit up "He speaks the truth! Let them in, and heed his son's word. Should he betray us and lead us to our doom, he shall be dead by my hand". With that the gates were unbarred and opened, and a squadron emerged to recieve the party, armed as Toto requested. Sure to his word, he led them through the city, and the sprung an attack on the unwary battalion. With that they took their arms and supplies. He sent back some men with arms and supplies, men that were known to the guard. "We shall spring upon them from behind, and in the uproar sally out, so that they may be crushed" With that Toto sent them off, and he lead the rest of his men through the jungle and began to pillage the enemy's rear lines. They set fire to the tents and let loose the livestock, destroyed the stockpiles and slaughtered their captains. The army would soon raise alarm, and Toto was beset by the full force of the siege.

But as his cohort grew smaller and the fighting carried on he saw fires from the sieging side of the enemy. Soldiers flooded from out of the city from the front gates and the flank, and soon the army was set into confusion. Their own weapons were used against them, and as they fought on foot with the defending force, javelins rained down upon them from the walls above. The army did not much longer hold out, and they began to scatter in confusion and desperation. As the last of the men were slaughtered and captured, and their positions overrun, the Ikanatans took prisoner of their very general and took pride in their victory. Toto and the Rawon Yaaye would go on to lead the army onwards and decimated their forces further, and took use of the captured general to broker a peace in their favour. Toto was quickly celebrated as a champion of the people, and grew into the favour of the high and low class alike.

In honour of his deeds, his noble lineage was recognised and he took the moniker of Gwalamonwoteteyaaye. He would later go on to marry the noblewoman Banladijo Zamadiiya, who would be his only wife. In recognition of his heritage, and to assert his ideals of equality amongst the people, his wife kept her name, and their children would go on to be named Gwalamombanladijonwoteteyaaye. His high status and unwavering morals proved popular among the people, and was sought to be emulated by the nobility, who then began the practice of combining their house names in a multitude of ways. While the practice's status as a fashionable trend would die out, it served to equalise the many noble houses, and imbued the people of Ikanata with much more humility than the other Omolain city states. Ikanata would be one of the first authorities to set and enforce a standard, written lore for naming conventions, later serving as a model for the legislature of the United Okriti nation, being adopted and modified with the governmental restructuring of 29PC