taniluvun

Taniluvun is a term used in world-building and speculative fiction to describe a ritual process by which a community accesses and transmits its collective memory. In the standard portrayal, participants gather in a shared space to recall past events—both triumphs and traumas—through a combination of oral narration, music, gesture, and sensory cues that evoke memory.

Etymology and usage: The word is a constructed term from imagined languages associated with the river-dwelling cultures in many stories. It is sometimes broken into variants such as tanilu- and taniluv, reflecting dialectal differences. In most depictions, taniluvun denotes the act itself rather than a specific memory.

Practice: A taniluvun ceremony typically takes place at a seasonal or communal turning point. An elder storyteller leading a circle evokes particular memories; attendants provide percussion, vocal refrains, and scented smoke to cue sensory recall. A scribe records the memory in a ceremonial shard or tablet, ensuring it can be revisited by future generations.

Significance: The ritual is used to reinforce identity, teach moral lessons, and process collective trauma. It also raises questions about memory, agency, and who gets to shape the communal narrative. Some writers depict taniluvun as voluntary and consensual, while others portray it as ritualized expectation.

In literary and game contexts, taniluvun serves as a world-building device to explore culture, memory, and community resilience. It is not a real-world practice and has no empirical basis beyond its fictional context.