Harkitumpaan

Harkitumpaan is a fictional term used in speculative fiction to denote a cultural practice and its associated locale. In its most common fictional depiction, harkitumpaan refers to a biennial communal gathering held beside a riverside settlement, where descendants of a vanished lineage recount legends, sing communal songs, and exchange crafts.

The name is presented in-world as derived from two roots of the imaginary language spoken by the people who invented the term; scholars within the fiction suggest hark- as "memory" and -tumpaan as "meeting place" (exact forms vary by author).

During harkitumpaan, participants wear color-coded garments, construct and relay memory tokens (handmade objects representing ancestral events), and perform a narrative cycle that links past, present, and future. A central figure, the keeper of memory, opens the rites and concludes with a collective vow to preserve the community's oral heritage.

In fiction, harkitumpaan serves as a lens on tradition versus modernity, communal resilience, and the politics of memory. Some authors relocate it to urban settings or reinterpret it as a digital-age ritual.

See also: oral tradition, collective memory, ritual.