Families And Choths On Avalon II

Ythrians throughout their Domain, including on Avalon, which has a majority human population, self-organize in choths which differ in size and traditions:

"...whether they be roughly analogous to clans, tribes, baronies, religious communes, republics, or whatever, [mainland choths] counted their numbers in the thousands at least. In Oronesia there were single households which bore the name; grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2012), p. 464.

Oronesia, a line of drowned peaks rising above the ocean's surface, is a haven for human or Ythrian eccentrics, each of whom has been able to colonize one or just a few small islands, hence the small choths. But, by contrast, the numerous fisher folk of the Highsky Choth occupy a long stretch of the Oronesian archipelago.

The most basic Ythrian social unit is the family, each requiring fiercely guarded territory for hunting or herding. The family of Lythran and Blawsa occupies a compound on a plateau of Mount Fairview. Senior family members and their children live in an old stone tower whereas the unwed, retainers and their kin live in lower wooden buildings with amberdragon and starbells growing on their sod roofs. The family belongs to Stormgate Choth.

Three centuries earlier, when the colonists had settled Avalonian archipelagos though not yet the Coronan continent, the Weathermaker Choth was described as an "...extended household..." (p. 297) with "...the core families..." housed in a "...tall stone tower..." (p. 297), above wooden buildings. This suggests two different kinds of choths. In Weathermaker, families share a tower. In Stormgate, they do not. But, by the time we read about Stormgate, an entire continent has been settled by the two species.

We are told somewhere, although I can't find it, that some choths are identified with a particular territory but others not. Wyvans (public officials/judges) are elected in each choth and also in each Khruath, a regular, regional fully democratic meeting that can be attended by every free adult in the given territory, regardless of choth. For the Great Khruath of Avalon, a computer-equipped staff filters questions and comments from two million enfranchised adults, including human choth-members, and, after only six hours, 83 percent vote in favor of continued resistance to Imperial Terra.