Rutas
This long-isolated island-kingdom is populated by two basic races, the majority wadasa and minority wahindu. Both races are dark-skinned; the wadasa have flat noses and curly hair, while the wahindu have aquiline noses and straight hair.
Their language, kirutas or Rutasian, has Bantu grammar and core vocabulary, heavily overlaid with Sanskrit and Pali in much the same way, and to the same extent, that English has been influenced by French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; it is written in a form of the Devanagari script. Their religion, urutas or Rutasism, is a melange of animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
The national flag derives from a combination of religious symbols: black represents infinite space, the wheel represents cyclical time, and white represents the human world of light and life. The capital is Simbapur, the Lion City. The present maharaja is Rama IX; his authority is theoretically absolute, but in practice limited by custom (especially by the privileges of the upper castes) and religious law.
Rutasian society is divided into four castes: Brahmans (priests, judges and scribes), Shatriyas (kings, nobles, and warriors), Vaisyas (merchants and artisans), and Sudras (peasants and laborers). The castes are, to some extent, racially distinct: Sudras are predominately wadasa, Brahmans and Vaisyas predominately wahindu, Shatriyas mixed. Caste-status is not absolutely fixed: it is possible to shed one's caste by becoming a monk or nun, and men may take concubines of lower caste, whose children inherit the father's caste if he decides to legitimize them.
The economy is very statist, hampered by pervasive restrictions on production, exchange, and movement, such as internal tariffs and monopolies. However, with the arrival of the expedition of Commodore Feridoun Fournakes of Favonia-Hesperia, which concluded a commercial and diplomatic treaty between his own state and the maharaja, Rutas has finally been opened to foreign trade and investment.
The Fournakes Expedition also annexed two offshore islands that had been left uninhabited due to a religious prohibition against crossing salt water. For the same reason, Rutas will not send any embassies abroad, though it will accept foreign embassies, beginning with F-H's.
© 2000 by Karl Jahn
