What would you expect to find in a tribal village?

[soggymuse]

So I'm working on a cave map (you can see the WIP here) and I've gotten to the point where I'm wanting to start filling up the "rooms" with signs of life.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to put in it, though. I've got lists of buildings to include in city maps and garrisons, but most of those don't apply at all in this situation. For one thing, the village is underground in a warren of tunnels and caves. For another, they're a simple tribe who hunt for their food (so no farms), craft items on an individual basis (so no workshops), and share as needed (so no commercial shops either).

So far, all I've got is:

• Healer's Den
• A couple of armouries at the tunnel entrances and throughout the caverns to fight off rogue mole-like creatures that live in the tunnels with them
• Council chamber where the village gathers for rituals and meetings
• Hot springs "bath house"
• Small caves and off-shoot tunnels for food storage

The rest are mostly homes with simple furnishings. That's not a heck of a lot for a map made up of three levels of tunnels and caves on a 220x180 foot scale. Does anyone have any ideas of what else I could include on this map?

[waldronate]

To figure out what you need, start with the basics:
* Sleep
* Eat
* Eliminate
* Reproduce
* Defend
* Envy
* Complain

Then elaborate a little:

Sleeping chambers. May be individual, family, or communal.
Food production. May be exterior as fields or interior as mushroom farms that use decaying stuff from outside, something that lives on geothermal heat, or something else entirely.
Food storage. Usually dry, cool, and dark with a door to protect against vermin. Humidity tends to be bad for food unless it's sealed out somehow.
Food preparation. a kitchen of sorts. Typically at least a place for a fire and a spit to roast things over it.
Food consumption. usually has tables and seating (possibly in the form of rugs). Something like dogs or servants will serve as cleanup. Will attract vermin such as mice and roaches due to poor hygiene.
Toilets. All that food has to go somewhere. It's always nice if you can use a local river that's upstream from the poor folk / hated neighbors. May provide a nice place to store garments because the ammonia will keep away moths and things that would otherwise damage the clothes.
May be dedicated birthing rooms. Will likely be places to watch over or educate the young (may be coincident with general communal spaces). Possibly ceremonial naughty-time places.
Defense will be against vermin, the local fauna, and any enemies. Very simple defensive items like doors and pits in entryways that have removable bridges will serve as a first line of defense. Will also include any communal weapon storage. If there are weapons, most likely there is a place to make and repair weapons. If metal, then a forge (which implies fuel, raw material, and tools).
Making your neighbors jealous of you is important because it affects social status. Jewelry, clothing, and fancy version of standard items are all good ways to do this. Items traded from neighbors will generally have higher value than local items.
Complaint is one of the most vital elements of a society that naturally falls out from envy and most of the other activities. It's the glue that holds us all together. A tribal council is the internal forum for formal complaints; the local government is the external forum for such complaints. Facilitating complaints often may require alcohol or other such mood-altering substances, implying a production area for such.

There are of course, many other functions, depending on the culture and situation (for example: a desert community is unlikely to have much use for docks, while a well might be out of place in a jungle). In most places, producing a structure is expensive and that structure will likely be used for multiple activities. If the society lives in multi-family structures as with certain Amazonian tribes, the structure will serve as a place to relax, discuss, prepare food, produce and repair garments and weapons and generally serve as the central hub of the social unit. Dedicated single-purpose structures or rooms are largely a result of fairly recent affluence or basic hygiene requirements. For example, a slaughterhouse or tannery are generally not good places to sleep or reproduce. A dedicated room for moving between other rooms (a corridor) is a fairly recent invention, especially in lower-class housing.

[soggymuse]

Iiiiiii have no idea how to draw representations of most of them bwahahahahaha. To the Google-mobile!

These are awesome suggestions, waldronate, thanks. (I did write an immense reply but they were mostly notes for my own personal benefit so I deleted them off my post here.) Your post has given me quite a few ideas, and I've already started adding pit fires for the kitchen area under one of the "sun roofs" (vents? Shafts?) for ventilation. I might need to move the healer's den for the same reason, though.

[rdanhenry]

A midden (trash pile). It's probably the most characteristic human artifact of all, from prehistoric caves with generations of bones, shells, and whatnot to the modern landfill. If people are living in the caves, it will be located to not be too near dwelling areas, but not inconveniently far, either. This may be entirely separate from their own excrement, which is more likely to be kept farther away from their living space.

It also sounds like they will be primitive enough that they will want fire going at all time. Not full ablaze, but sustaining hot coals, as starting a fire from scratch at low technology is a time-consuming and difficult process. They may well be able to create fire through friction, but it is so much easier to keep a living flame on hand. This could be kept in a dedicated chamber, probably sacred to the fire spirit(s).

Speaking of spirits, some areas for religious activities are likely to exist.

You still want some work areas, because you don't want chips of stone getting into the furs you'll be sleeping in.

Unless they're a non-human obligate carnivore species or living in arctic conditions, gathering will be at least as important as hunting, which likely means using some local product to make some form of bread, probably a simply flatbread. Or maybe they just make mush out of the local grains. In either case, it needs to be ground down and grinding rocks would provide another location.

[soggymuse]

-headdesk- I had a long reply for you, rdanhenry, but Firefox crashed and it's gone. Needless to say you've given me a lot of ideas, so thank you. <3