FAQs

What are the Jokka?
      Better to ask who are the Jokka, lest they take offense. They do occasionally visit the cheldzan . . . in short, the Jokka are a race of tri-sexed aliens living on the world Ke Bakil. They have two "puberties" during which they can Turn from one sex to the next, but after their second their sex is fixed. So you can be born male, Turn female, and back male. Or be born male, stay male, and Turn neuter. Or be born neuter and stay that way until the end. No one knows how the bones will roll.
      Ke Bakil's changing climate has not been kind to the Jokka. Their reproductive systems require more biological upkeep, and when lack of food or water, heatstroke or exertion threaten these systems, their bodies route what's needed away from less necessary organs . . . like the brain. Since the neuters can think for the species, higher intelligence is not necessary in the breeding sexes. The mind-death tends not to affect autonomic functions; it's the delicate processes of the higher brain that succumb the fastest.
      These two factors, the Turning and the mind-death, have shaped the culture and individual lives of the Jokka.

Is it Jokka, Jokkad or Jokku? And how do you pronounce all this?
      It's one Jokkad (singular), a group of Jokka (plural) and a Jokku item (possessive).
      Feel free to pronounce the words any way you like. If you attend one of my readings or catch me in person, you'll hear me say it this way though: one JOH-kahd, two JOH-kah, and a JOH-koo item. However, I will tell you now that I have been informed by the Jokka that I have a terrible accent. Thenet cringed all the way through my reading of the first twenty pages of The Worth of a Shell.
      You can get more information about the language and its pronounciation from the Lexicon page.


I'm also confused about the names. Their last names don't match their sexes?
      In the Southeastern culture, throughout the time periods covered by the stories currently available, a Jokkad's surname is a combination of their family or House and their birth-sex, not their current sex (which should be obvious to the Jokkad meeting them). So if a Jokkad was born male and ends up neuter, it still states its surname with the -emodo suffix. A Jokkad born female who Turns neuter and then Turns female again would state herself as -anadi to indicate her birth-sex, despite being anadi again.
      The House name, however, always indicates the current House, so people know who you hail from right now. So if a Jokkad was born to House Ashoi and ends up in House Ithera, then your surname includes Ithera, not Ashoi.


And this 'ke emodo' bit? Sometimes I've seen 'ke [person's name]' or 'ba eperu'. Help!
      "Ke" is roughly "respected" or "honored," so it's typical to use it as a title. "Respected male" (ke emodo), "Respected Ekkuli" (ke Ekkuli) or even the respected world: Ke Bakil, the name of their world. "Ba" is a pronoun used on someone who hasn't finished Turning yet.


Are the spirals on their skins in the illustrations natural?
      They are indeed. Different cultures at different time periods have opinions on what configurations are considered aesthetic; sometimes it's symmetry (and then split again into symmetry across what axis). Sometimes it's uniqueness of the forms. Sometimes it's the meaning of the spirals, since some cultures have assigned names and meanings to some of the most common forms of the spiral markings.
      Some Jokka are born without spiral markings at all... depending on the culture and time period, these Jokka are thought of as special or as freaks.
      ...And... I've caught some Jokka painting extra spirals on as a form of cosmetics. Depending on the time period, this is seen as outrageous, vain, eccentric or just another form of decoration. The first person I found doing this was, of course, Ekkuli, who showed up in three different illustrations with three sets of spirals. The only one I'm at all sure of is the vine around its neck.


What colors do they come in?
      Are you asking me or Mardin, who has the artist's eye? The answers are different. The Jokka see more colors than we do, and have an extensive vocabulary for colors that measure translucency and iridescence as well as hue. They see layers of colors more accurately than we do, and name those distinctly. As an author, I can describe those colors as 'moonlight on a white rock', versus, perhaps, moonlight on a yellow rock or on brown earth--they can see both the hint of the original color and the color of the light, whereas most of us would interpret the result as a grayish hue.
      As an artist, I have to make do with human-visible palettes, and while I can approximate the colors with translucent media (like watercolors), I know I'll never see what they see. So my answer, with a grain of salt, is that they come in every shade from pitch black to nacreous white, and in hue they can be any earth color, including some greenish ones, and some sky colors (blue-ish whites and grays). Hair colors include all the human norms and extend them in the same ways. There are some skin and hair colors that we would consider metallic as well, or iridescent. Eye colors run the entire spectrum.


Fur, mane, scales, skin... what exactly do these people have?
      If you look closely at human skin, you'll see that it's translucent and has a scale-like pattern. What the Jokka have is similar, but more translucent, and the scale-like patterns are a little more obvious (to them, at least; they have better eyesight than we do). For the most part, the Jokka are covered with this skin. They have manes and tails, however, and hair growing from their wrists and over their ankles and feet. They have tufted ear tips, as well, and can have beards (subject to the cultural imperative of the time, and which sexes you were/are).
      As in humans, some individuals are more hirsute than others.


What about the fangs and the fingers and the claws? Was I mistaken in thinking these are linked to sex somehow?
      All Jokka have similar claws, but the fang length and the delicacy of hands and feet are secondary sexual characteristics that are awarded with the birth sex and change very little, if at all, throughout puberties. Jokka born anadi have needle-thin, sharp fangs and paws for feet. Jokka born emodo have coarse fangs and have feet that are almost like hands in themselves. Their fingers are very nimble. Eperu are somewhere in between. By looking at an individual's smile or at their feet, you can usually tell what they were born as.


What Earth animals are the Jokka based on?
      They're not. They're aliens. You'll get a different answer from everyone, anyway: some say they look like horses, others cats, others lizards or dinosaurs. Most people don't notice that they also look human.


So where are the humans?
      I haven't noticed any humans on or near Ke Bakil. The Jokka seem to be interesting enough without them.


If there are no humans, then are there any other species on Ke Bakil that share intelligence with the Jokka? Did whatever they evolve from survive?
      So far, the Jokka haven't noticed any such creatures . . . but there are only stories in the timeline up until a semi-settled age.


How long between the puberties, on average?
      As with humans, puberties in the Jokka vary not just by individual but also by diet and time period. Most Jokka in Kediil's age are done with both changes by the fifteenth year, putting the average age for the first change at eight or nine. In Thenet's time, it's shifted about two years forward: ten or eleven for the first change, and between sixteen and eighteen for the last.


How long do the Jokka live?
      Between fifty and sixty of their years, by Thenet's time. In Kediil's, it's closer to forty.


Is the mind-death permanent? Say, if a Jokkad Turns female in her second puberty, and for some reason damages her mind, does it heal if she Turns neuter on her final puberty?
      The physical process of Turning never heals mind damage. However, as with some strokes in humans, brain damage can "heal," in the sense that the brain can re-stabilize after a particularly devastating effect. Any brain damage sustained in the course of a Jokkad's life is, under normal circumstances, permanent.


So the mind-death isn't a loss of memory, but a loss of intelligence?
      Physiologically, the mind-death is like a form of stroke. The effects depend on what areas of the brain are affected and for how long. Mildly impaired Jokka might go about their lives without ever realizing that they've experienced any damage. Others might lose parts of the language, forget things they knew, confuse time and memories, have trouble with motor control. The worst and rarest end up in a vegetative state.
      It did not take long for the Jokka to figure out the causes of the mind-death from simple observation. Anything that intensifies the metabolic rate or skews the blood pressure one way or the other presents a danger. Stress, exertion, heatstroke (or hypothermia, though this is rare in their current climate) . . . even in some extreme cases, irregular eating schedules. Pregnancy, with its wild changes in the body, is a definite problem.


What kind of society do they have?
      The questions of society, religion, culture and politics all change wildly depending on the time period, the group and the geographical area. These are all rich enough questions that they end up answered in the stories as the Jokka move from one age to the next.


Where can I read more about the Jokka?
      The timeline page has links to all the stories currently available. You can also check the Clays for news of impending publications.


What brand of mane and tail conditioner do they use to maintain such luxurious hair?
      Kediil: Luxurious hair? This is a joke, yes? Pardon me while I pick the nettles and thorns from my mane and shake the sand from my tail. . . .
      Thenet: I still use some of Linuthet's formula. I'd never had lovely hair before she mixed her rinse for me. Northern thornrose, I think, in a sweet nut oil.
      Fatha: You want to know what I wash my anadi's hair in? And not to pay for the secrets, either, when creating such things is my business? Ah, but you could not make it yourself if you tried, I suppose. The secret is to know what's in season. It is the sap, the life of the tree, the flower that you want . . . the supple strength of it. Withdraw that and use it and you will see.