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, Taj society recognises four genders: firstborn, male, female and castrated.

Firstborns have access to leadership and political roles. They tend to own property rather than working on other people's land. They are educated on the sciences and humanities and trained on warfare. They are often part of the military elite.

Males can become firstborns, but as soon as they get a sister, they are downgraded to men. If a firstborn's family is struggling, they can be downgraded to men or women to be sold to a rich family.

Men are in charge of housekeeping and focus on construction, crafting, mining and metalwork. They often become eunuchs. Women decicate their lives to the arts, parenting, hunting, fishing and agriculture. They often become concubines.

Castrated consists of people who have commited crimes or are poor. Males undergo castration and circumcision and females a double mastectomy. They are sold either into servitude or slavery. They are not allowed to leave their owners' house 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.