Lamirai are usually compared to the common infant or toddlers. They're usually born in many numbers at one time to further the survival of struggling with underwater dangers that plague the lamira people. Many lamirai do not reach maturity, and are taken care of, generally, by the whole community. The majority of lamirai are not given too much affection or given special care because lamirans believe that in order for their babies to grow strong in the ways of survival, their infants must - with luck and fate - survive the first few years of their life in order to be strong for their arduous future.
Infants are mainly taught one thing before reaching the next stage of life; swimming, or ernai. Swimming becomes the basic survival method in keeping one's life intact. An infant that cannot swim is seen as even more hopeless to the walk of life and special care might be given to teach this lamirai. Lamirans do believe in survival amongst themselves, but the thought of not having any chance at all to survive after birth is too much to bear.
Because you have passed the stage of fate's fortune and survived this long, you are officially considered a member of your clan's family. Your clan might hold a celebration in order to name you (a Naming Ceremony); as lamira believe that if you bear a name as a lamirai, Death can track you down more easily. Your clanhead might give you a special gift of token that is a symbol held important by the clan.
Your skin now takes on a tinge of blue to it as your ernai skills increase. If an eranumi has been born in such places as a river, stream, lake or the very deepest parts of the ocean, it might affect the color of your skin differently.
You are taught the lami, or your specific tribe's language, at this time. Lami-anyissa, lami-fasch and lami-kyo litterally mean language of the anyissa, language of the fasch and language of the kyo. The strong bonds created between members of your clan are taught to you so that as you grow, they are hopefully revered and honored by you and your descendants.
Eventually your attributes in appearance, depending on where you've grown up or the aspects of your parents, cease and you look the way you do for the rest of your life...providing you stay under the waves. A celebration then commences of the named, grown eranumi. During the celebration, tests of strength, wits and skills are given. The whole community joins in during the celebration and a great feast is usually prepared. This is a time for each clan to gloat about the strengths their eranumis might prove in the tests. After all, it will be these young honored who will be formally inducted into their families' clans as full members when the celebration ends. It is also a time to honor the ancestors who have given great spirits of will to the eranumi who have luckily survived the dangers underwater since their birth. During this celebration, eranumi are given tasks to help serve their community and allowed to roam freely about their realms to do as they desire.
Lamirans encourage intelligence, strong sense of social obligation, fierce survival and secrecy. To keep their race living and thriving, these things are taught to all lamira; especially the young. Very rarely, when brought up inside lamiran culture will a lamira who's emerged to live surface life leave the old ways behind.
Most often bonding is like a game amongst the tribes. Males and females desire to see that their bonded have skills of strength in mind, will, survival, intellect and hunting. Often the two desiring to bond will test each other in order to see that their skills and intellect are equally balanced. Sometimes this might take days, sometimes weeks...sometimes years. Bonding should not be taken lightly; when a lamira finds an equal of their desired traits, they are seen as made for each other to be bonded for the rest of their lives. And equal does not always mean that one lamira must be equally skilled as the one they wish to bond with. For example, one with the strength to hunt well and one with the strength to prepare food well surely means both will eat well for the rest of their lives.
Any two that bond are seen as an opportunity to further their clan's growth, their tribe's growth and the growth of the race as a whole. The clans of the two bonding throw a celebration when the two in question finally agree to unite and the clan family heads of each offer a special blessing. Over time it has been known to be a competition as to which family or clan head that gives the better blessing. But it is generally taken to heart, the blessings, as it's important for the female or male's family to desire good-will to the pair's future.
They will give a ceremony of farewell for your spirit to finally be carried away to the stars by the Silver Manta Ray, or the druil lexandi, Death's right hand. It is said that once you've become a star in the sky...you are placed within the care of your ancestors to watch over your family or clan.
But they will also celebrate the aspects that you have given in your lifetime. The very things they will mourn losing will be the very things they celebrate having while you were alive. If you have borne children, they will be honored as the blessings you've left behind for your clan and tribe.