Ïhwa-Antï

Ïhwa-Antï was a Merienti born in the southern coast of Tenwä, before embarking on a ship to follow Isänie and his own clan south to the rumored Attasaraï. Formerly the head of a large clan, he became an advisor to the younger and inexperienced Isänie, who found herself at the head of an entire tribe at the dawn of the Second Age.

The old head of his clan offered his help where he could, and though he scoffed when
Isänie chose to go another route, he rarely went against her wishes. While he was certain
that he was always correct, he was not above admitting that other ways had a chance to work almost as well as his.

Personality

Ïhwa-Antï was, in his youth, a playful and mischievous boy who never stopped running until he collapsed on some bed of fur or wild grass. He learned fishing and archery early on, and proved a great talent in both. Still, he enjoyed the art of hunting more than catching fish.

After reaching adulthood, Ïhwa-Antï took every opportunity to enter the forest, whether it was to hunt or place traps, or to simply escape for a moment and take a break. He enjoyed his life and his place in the clan, and loved the feasts and festivals of midwinter and -summer alike, but there were also moments when he simply wished to hear the sounds of nature and nothing else. A break from the noise of life, so he would not come to hate it.

He treasured his bow, which he had crafted before becoming an adult, and let no one else touch it. He cherished his freedom and grew angry and bitter once it ended and he became, in his words, useless. It took a while for Ïhwa-Antï to find a new place for himself, though finding anything useful to do, such as crafting and even teaching the younger children, eased his pain.

Appearance

A round-faced man even in his leaner years, Ïhwa-Antï wore a short beard and kept his hair to his shoulders, never so long as to be in the way during hunting trips, even after the incident which made him unable to hunt. Over the years the dark of his hair turned lighter with some strands of hair turning entirely gray.

His eyes were a shade of light brown mixed with spots of deep green. They held a calm gaze of a wise man, though not without a blink of mischief—a well-maintained relic from his younger days.

Unable to walk without support, Ïhwa-Antï had carved himself a staff from the wood of a young birch, to which he was often seen leaning on as he wandered. He would not walk without it, and would not accept help from anyone even were his wooden support out of reach.

Life

As a young adult Ïhwa-Antï injured his knee on a hunting trip which left him permanently unable to use it properly. The early end to his hunting days, something he truly enjoyed doing, left the man with a tint of bitterness. Instead of a hunter, he made himself useful in other ways—mostly by crafting tools and clothing, anything that would let him sit and rest his leg as he worked.

Later in his life he became something of an advisor and later a leader, and finally accepted a position as the clan head. Having experienced both the life of a hunter and a woodsman, and essentially being an extra parent for the children running around their camp grounds, he had learned much about life of both the men and women of his clan. This knowledge he put to full use during his time as clan head until his retirement two decades later.

Ïhwa-Antï, a retired head of a large clan, left the shores of old Tenwä for rumored new lands in the south. These new lands, he found, were the Attasaraï, and in Ullonwï, its northern coast, he and the rest of the merientei would build their new home.

When the ships landed on the shore of misty Ullonwï, the people had little left. Theirs vessels had barely survived the fourteen day journey from Tenwä, and much of their supplies were either gone or rotting away. They required food, shelter and ways to survive in a land where the primordial energy of nature no longer obeyed them nor did the land obey the laws they had known until then.

Ïhwa-Antï faintly recalled stories of days both old and forgotten, when his ancestors had to survive through a similar period of cold and death without relying on the old folk and spirits of nature, who themselves were suffering beneath a weakened sun. He was among only few who still knew of those gloomy days, for happy stories were much easier to share and remember.

Using this near-forgotten lore of days past, Ïhwa-Antï lended himself to Isänie as an advisor and aid to lean on when she had need. His greatest achievement perhaps was the development of slash-and-burn style agriculture, where the burning of the land also cleansed it from malicious or tainted spirits, as he called them. He was also one to spark the idea of an assembly of clans, which came to be known as Anëhtoma, though without Isänie, the tribe's symbol of unity and origin, nothing would have come of it.

Ïhwa-Antï did what he could until his passing a decade later. Much of his last year in life was spent resting and fighting against an illness which would eventually take him. He was buried with other merientei in a place called the Ancestral Glade, one of the first graveyards kept by Ullonwï's people.