'Ou'ithahh

'Ou'ithahh is a concoction won from slugs, that is quintessential to the Duinikens unique form of stone carving. Stone as a medium for writing is used by many peoples across Samtôs surface and throughout the cave-tinents. But regular carving methods allow only for angular letters with straight lines, due to the stones hardness. Duiniken carvings though are highly rounded and indeed their script is even called Duiniken Cursive because of its flowing, wavy lines.

The Duiniken produce 'ou'ithahh by keeping the slugs called 'Ásehhrág Korhheith and collecting and processing their feces. This viscous fuid is applied to stones and makes them soft enough to scrape out letters and decórs even with wooden implements. This led to the Duiniken developing this special type of writing and a unique stone carving art style called chár muinóg.

Unlike other applications, the 'Ásehhrág Korhheith is not directly used in the product. 'ou'ithahh is rather a paste made in part from the slugs feces. The production of these feces is somewhat special though, as only a very specific diet makes the slugs defecate an ingredient fit for its purpose. First the slugs are collected and kept in a cool and damp place for one to two days. In most cases they are collected from the wild, washed and put in a damp cloth or an earthenware container together with a damp cloth. After a while the slugs have cleared out their intestines and then get washed again, to get rid of any impurities. A paste of ground and then fermented sílou, that is a weed found almost everywhere close to water in eastern Erana is fed to them. The feces stemming from the sílou based diet are meticulously collected out of the containers where the slugs are kept. This goes on for a few days before the slugs are replaced as the sílou paste is not especially nutritious and the Duiniken release the slugs into the wild again to replace them with fresh slugs.

Next, salt and vinegar are mixed in equal parts and thoroughly stirred to solve as much of the salt as possible. Experiments have been made with different types of vinegar, but vinegar from white wine and from apples have proven to work best. The last third of the mix is the feces of the 'Ásehhrág Korhheith, which is also stirred in very well. The result is a soft, mustard-coloured paste with an earthy odor. As the recipe only works with exact thirds of the three ingredients, the limiting facor of producing 'ou'ithahh proves to be the slug feces, as it is very labour intensive.

Another problem arising with 'ou'ithahh is, that it is not easy to store. Even under the best conditions - a cold, dark and damp environment, it gets bad after a few days, turning darker in colour and becoming friable. So the use of 'ou'ithahh is restricted to the right time of the year and to ideal storing and transportation conditions. 'Ou'ithahh can be used to carve a wide variety of stone: shale, granite, marble and others. An exception are ore-bearing stones, as the metal seems to decrease the effectiveness of the paste. 'Ou'ithahh is applied with brushes of all kinds and quite easy to handle. After soaking in for a short while, before the softened stone is carved out with a wooden spoon or blade called bí. Lastly the stone is washed to remove the paste so it does not eat deeper into the surface and muddy the carefully carved lines.

The impact this paste had and still has on the Duiniken culture as well as the culture of the Tarrabaenians cannot be underestimated. The Duiniken use 'ou'ithahh for their famed stone carvings, the oldest of which date back into the late Era of the Trees. The Duiniken still use this very material to this day as the distribution of the 'Ásehhrág Korhheith reaches to Nuat Duinis Talou in the East, so the technology did not get lost as it might have otherwise, since the Tarrabaenians, Messellat Mdûlûn, peoples of Andaperna and Skaura Orohlen know of the Duiniken stone carvings and the impressive texts in Duiniken Cursive, but have never gotten the chance to adapt the technology from the Duiniken. The Skaura Orohlen have no need for it, since they are mostly oral storytellers and only seldomly use their runes in very specific circumstances, the Messellat Mdûlûn shun the Duiniken and their technology for historical reasons and the peoples in Andaperna employ a cuneiform writing system that does not lend itself too well to stone carving or is angular enough to not need a technology like 'ou'ithahh.

The Tarrabaenians on the other hand admire the technology and are trying their best to reinvent it or find a substitute. The reason for this is not only the admiration for Duiniken culture as a whole, but also the fact, that Tarrabaenians use stone for their burial sites and are themselves known for their artful bas-reliefs on covers of stone coffins, memorials and stelae.