Täy people

The Taj people (Winqomtaj: ) are an ethnic group native to central Soco that share the Winqomtaj language.

Genders
In contrast to the gender binary, Täy society recognises between five and seven genders: Wäkoe, Wägen, Wetuxa, Tämala, Ti, Ndusitäm and Ete.

Wäkoe and Wämbutel
The firstborn children of afluent families are assigned Wäkoe as their gender, this applies to both females and males, although male Wäkoe (also known as Wämbutel) will lose their status and be demoted to Tämala or Ndusitäm wäway as soon as the family gets a daughter. The upbringing of a Wäkoe is highly privileged, providing them access to high quality education in the sciences, arts and humanities giving them a great advantage to get high earning, high influence jobs that require little to no manual labor. Wäkoe make up most of the owning class with most of them owning companies like factories, plantations or naval floats. The political scene also sees an overrepresentation of Wäkoe with most small scale executive, judicial and legislative roles being delegated to noble and non noble Wäkoe alike. They also have access to education on warfare, making them the de facto leaders of the military. Wäkoe are one of the two genders that is allowed to marry and create a harem, but unlike Ndusitäm, Wäkoe can be married off to other Wäkoe and Ndusitäm as concubines to pay for a debt or fine if their family has no other eligible children.

Ete
The members of the Ete gender consist of people from poor or criminal backgrounds. Males undergo castration and circumcision and females a double mastectomy and clitorial hood circumcision to remove any identifiable sex characteristics. They are sold either into indentured servitude or slavery. They are not allowed to leave their owners' house or space designated for them to leave unsupervised, bare, adopt or rear children or own any money or possessions.

Funerals
The Taj funeral process begins by removing the brain, burying the deceased and, after a certain time, exhuming the body to remove any soft tissue vestige that has not been decomposed, and later burying it. The Taj believe that once the dead has lost its flesh in its entirety, death process is complete.

Taj graves are primed with a layer of sand, a layer of stones and shells and finally a layer of pelt on which the deceased will rest.

The soft tissue free skeleton would be retouched with reddish and ocre dyes, then it would be posed in a special way, extended, flexed or dismembered depending on the wishes of the deceased, his family or his rank and placed in a burial site of significance. Feathers, tools, weapons and personal items often accompany the body in its grave.

Ritual cannibalism
The Taj peoples believe the soul resides in the brain. They consume the brain of their deceased loved ones and teachers to keep a part of their soul within them, acquire their wisdom and preserve their memories.

To get to the deceased's brain, they carefully carve an incision along the circumference of the posterior side of the skull with sharp carving tools. It is believed that this practice gave origin to Taj treppanation brain surgeries.