A sapient species from the planet Pahkwa, recent members of the United Federation of Planets.
Culture[]
“To a hunting people, you must understand, the prey is a powerful, complex entity with a will of its own. To bring it down, we must respect and understand its behaviour - its personality. We must be able to judge its moods, guard against its anger. And as often as not, the prey wins. Hunting packs routinely come back empty-handed. Sometimes they come back smaller than they started. So to us, the prey is anything but an inferior. It is a mighty force on whom our very survival depends. How could we not believe it has a mind and a soul?”
(-Dr. Ree)
Religion[]
In religious terms, the Pahkwa-thanh are often described as “aggressively pantheistic”. Their faith contains numerous deities, none of which are granted higher status than the others. This religion is intimately entwined with hunting, and acknowledgement of the gods (which are often more accurately nature spirits or animal souls) involves active participation in predatory pursuits. There is no set limit to the gods a Pahkwa-thanh may honour, as each individual or clan may place a new twist on established phenomena, identifying the essence of further gods within them. The modern pantheon is simply a collective drawn from the combined deities of each tribe, clan or culture. Because there are no boundaries to the faith, each new god is easily accepted as another facet of the natural, spiritual world. Religious conflict such as permeates the history of Earth was thus unknown among Pahkwa-thanh, and when a global culture formed, it simply united the various traditions to accommodate all. The Pahkwa-thanh deities do not require the oversight or worship of mortals, but do demand reverence and respect. Given that Pahkwa-thanh are a part of the natural order, and not exempt from its structures, this respect does not take the form of civilized ritual or ceremony, but instead simple participation in the natural cycle. By throwing themselves aggressively into the hunt, grappling in a literal manner with the creatures they prey upon, so too do they grapple metaphorically with its soul, on a spiritual level. In doing so, they honour it appropriately (as discussed above).