They called it Poronomâva, the land of bloodstone. They said it was the place where the blood of their ancestors flowed out, leaving their souls light enough to join the spirits. The earthly essences that left their bodies filtered into the ground and marked it forever, creating Poronôma, jasper.

Once upon a time, long before that land had been known as the land of Poronôma, it was known as Sadâva, land of the spirits. The gods had seen fit to make it their resting place – or, at least, that is one of the many stories that are told by wisewomen or singing men.

According to them, the first union of Moon Father and Mother Rôdo happened in a great, ancestral lake: as the Mother Rôdo grew heavy with the spirit of her children, Moon Father built an island in the middle of the ancestral lake, so that their offspring would have a home away from the cold waters. In that land, the spirits grew and thrived; when they came into their own, however, they used their magic to create three bridges: a greenstone bridge pushing north, a silver bridge pushing south and a bridge of brass pushing to the east. Thus, the ancestral lake was divided into three, and the island of the spirits became a part of the world.

Untold years passed.

They say the ancestors, the very first ones, buried their most worthy men and women in Poronomâva. They would not burn their bodies as the Arhada later did, but they would cover them in reeds and leaves, then pebbles and earth and then let the grass grow above them. A great persimmon tree witnessed all those deaths, all the ancestral blood penetrating the land, making the stones red, all all the souls leaving the Poronomâva.

No man of the Arhada ever saw that, and the tradition was lost, the land abandoned to itself. The lakeshores were easier to live in, warmer in the winters, cooler in the summers. Fish were plentiful and rôdo abundant. And so that sacred place could once again experience that divine rest it offered when the Mother and Father divine set it as the childhood home for their offspring.

Centuries passed.

A persimmon tree, the same tree that may have seen the ancestors as they performed their ancient rites, stood in the centre of a circle of stumps. The land was being cleared by a group of men as their bovines grazed on soft, fragrant grasses. They had returned.

It was an old, sturdy tree, older perhaps than any other tree in that forest: the men were leaving him last, knowing they would find a treasure within it: Black, dense wood – ebony – enough to make prised objects to fill five treasuries. The tree was gone, along with all the others who had stood on that hill for such a long time. More would be planted.

A year passed.

A fence, wooden poles and cattail stalk, was being set around the perimeter where the old mother wanted the new grove to be built. Young boys were making sure that their cattle was taken out of that square, unable to enter it as the saplings grew. A square of twenty-four trees per side: that would give many thousands of pecans in a good year. In the centre, a shrine. As the grove grew around it, the men would leave an offer to the spirits of the grove, to ensure it grew properly: a buffalo horn, a small piece of copper, shining like the sun in a very cold year, a wooden pipe to thank them of their hospitality. The grove would thank them in return, when the time came.

Ten Years Passed.

The axes swung against the fence, shattering it, as younger men gathered the pieces to dry them and and burn them. The trees had grown, and harvests were fruitful enough to allow the cattle back in. As soon as they found an entry into the perimeter of the grove, they made their way in, encouraged by their pastor. Oxen and cows happily went to ruminate the grasses and wild flowers that had grown high inside the fence. The man and the matriarch who had ordained that work were there, looking on as the men opened that plot of land. They walked in, following the cattle, to the central shrine.

The small wooden house had been emptied of all the gifts accumulated throughout the years, gifts the matriarch would take back to her treasury.

The man looked at his lady. "Shall I?" She nodded.

His axe swung against the walls of the shrine. The spirits had gifted that land and the grove of Poronomâva was now theirs.

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Background – As pecans, fruit wines and preserved fruits grow as a lucrative item of trade in the lakes, the Arhada push themselves forward along the Isthmus, reclaiming the underpopulated lands between them and the Zonowodjon people. Increased populations and higher levels of inequality in the North pressure people to move south and newer, smaller villages sprout up below the hills as paddy agriculture expands in its snakelike pattern along the lakeshore. In the hilly interior, however, groves grow more developed and rich, as the locals begin to experiment with the domestication and grafting of new fruit trees.