Molodo

Molodo lies on Jambu's west coast, bordered by Baluchistan on the north and Meluhha on the south. Apart from its central plains the country is rugged and hard to cross, served only by packed-earth paths and winding mountain trails. Its brown-skinned, black-haired people of average height wear layers of rough wool against mountain cold and live in wood, thatch and felt huts tucked into valleys or along the coast. They herd and shear goats and sheep, farm the lowlands and plains and mine a little iron and copper in the Kush mountains, but are mostly poor.

Each year tribal elders gather at Karak to renew old pacts and settle disputes, and the tribes meet at Kandar for a trade gathering of more than a week, full of singing, dancing and feasting, where they pool fleece, blankets, ingots, herbs, hashish and the odd grain surplus and fix prices for the season's trade with Meluhha. Herat is where war chiefs gather when danger threatens. Not especially warlike, the tribes still unite against their old enemies, the Horse Nomads of Baluchistan, in swift hit-and-run raids and counter-raids on horseback.

They worship tribal gods, usually an earth mother and a goat-man father standing for fertility and herding. A cult of goat worshippers in the eastern mountains dresses in goatskins and honors guests: families draw lots, and the winner feeds the visitor goat cheese and dried meat and usually offers his wife or daughter, repeating the lottery each night; refusing may be a grievous insult. Molodons also shriek and howl to show joy, and men give thanks by rubbing their beards on a person's face. Their mounted game of Karkash pits teams of 10-200 riders passing a stuffed bull carcass towards a goal.