The ntate is a repository of law and lore. He judges any centaur who has transgressed against tribal law and sentences him. For minor infractions, shunning for a certain amount of time (a season or a year) is often used. Expulsion from the tsala is used for worse crimes. Centaurs only kill their own if the crime was particularly heinous.

The morwa is a battle-leader. If humans, a dragon, a herd of hungry rhacos, or some other threat approaches, he rallies the tsala's warriors and leads them off to combat. If the tsala is close enough to Saromatian borders that a raid looks possible, he would organize and lead that as well.

Centaur tsalas occassionally fight each other for a particularly good camping spot, especially in a drought year. The more desperate the straights, the more ferocious the fighting. In a good year, the "battle" may be nothing more than some stone-throwing by sore losers who got to their favorite spot a little too late. But in a bad year, when survival is on the line, things quickly turn bloody. Tsalas also raid each other, if the opportunity presents itself.

Centaur Society

In terms of gender equality, the centaurs are somewhere between the traditionally paternalistic dwarves and the human matriarchs. A centaur female is surprisingly unencumbered, even late into her pregnancy. Foals are considered adolescent by age five, and require much less delicate care than human infants even at birth. Centaur mares are much less burdened by child-rearing duties than human women. This gives them some flexibility in choosing which duties they will undertake in the tsala.

Hunting is a primary duty. Armed with spears and bows, centaur hunters flank and may attempt to ride down meat on the hoof. Antelope are a common prey. Rhacos is considered very tasty, but dangerous to acquire. The large birds travel in herds of their own, and their kicks are as dangerous as the centaurs' own.

In the right seasons, some gathering is done as well. Contrary to Saromatian myth, centaurs do not eat grass like cows. They do collect the seed-heads of the grasses of the Ride, though, and grind these down into a bitter flour. In the oases the centaurs prefer as campsites, there may be trees with nuts to harvest, gourd-vines, or berry bushes alongside a river. Fishing is also practiced when possible.

Centaur pleasures are simple. Dance, either formal and ritualistic or impromtu, is a favorite leisure activity. Rearing, kicking, cavorting - centaurs dancing is a strange but energetic sight. Dances may be accompanied by drumming and sometimes reed flutes. Foals pass their time with races and a ball-game called boroko. Songs, called "the soul of memory," are often sung.

Centaur Religion

Centaur religion is animistic. Everything has a spirit, although some spirits are more powerful than others. Shamans are skilled in communicating with the spirits, to placate them or ask favors of them.

Many - indeed, most - centaurs seek out totem spirits to guide them. For a shaman, this is a most important thing. A shaman's tie with her totem is very strong, and the shaman may manifest behaviors associated with her totem. For everyone else, the totem is a protective or patron spirit that is supposed to guide them.

In theory, any spirit could serve as a totem, right down to the spirit that lives among the rasberry bushes along a certain stream. In practice, most centaurs choose their totem from among the Great Spirits:

Thunder is a wild warrior's totem, the booming power of the storm.

Earth is generous but strong, a silent source of power.

Raven is clever but greedy.

Death is powerful but terrible. A centaur whose totem is Death will bring Death everywhere with him. A shaman tied to Death brings waves of slaughter. Centaurs fear those with Death totems and drive them off if they know them.

And there are many others, each fairly simple and elemental. Sun, Moon, Wind, and so on are all Great Spirits who represent important natural features. Killing Bird, a mythological centaur monster, is thought by some ntate and shamans to be the Death Spirit in physical form.

For whatever reasons, more centaur mares than stallions become shamans. But when males are initiated, they often make very powerful shamans.

Centaurs in Saromatia

Very few centaurs settle within Saromatia's borders. Some which were cast out by their tsalas manage to wander in. If the castout is a shaman, she might live at the edge of a town, offering fortune telling or herbal cures in exchange for some food and peace. Otherwise, the centaur can expect perpetual distrust, menial jobs, and ill-treatment. When the poor fellow grabs at many dry-goods as he can and gallops off back to the Ride, it only serves to confirm Saromatians' stereotype that all centaurs are untrustworthy thieves.

Another danger lurks for centaurs near human lands - wine. They are unaccustomed to it and quickly become drunk. Most centaurs are not pleasant drunks, either. A disturbing number develop a taste for the stuff and get drunk as often as possible.

For their part, the centaurs see the Saromatian border towns both as obstacles to more southward pastures, and as resources to be plundered. They are pretty sure the strange, small, two-legged creatures in the towns are intelligent. (They were first thought to be large and unusual insects, since they lived in hives like bees). Not very intelligent, obviously - they don't move their hives in bad weather, nor when centaurs raid it again and again. It's like a herd of antelope that don't know enough to run. But the range of goods in the hives is astounding. A centaur warrior with a human-made spear or sword is a happy centaur indeed, for they do not practice metalworking. For the most part, the centaurs are as happy to class humanity as "stupid brutes" as humanity is eager to apply that label to the centaurs.

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