they seem semi domesticated, helping with the farmwork in return for permission to live
Yeah, looks like the nicer farmers allowed them to work for food and easyness instead of punishing them for stealing it. Wonder if there are more stories in this vein.
The PoV Mister speaks about the yukkuri living in the rural village. Some points:
- The natural environment in the village are good, so yukkuri keep on making children. This means the villagers have volunteers who regularly clean up the children to keep the population in check. - Rural yukkuri behave more like wild yukkuri rather than urban strays. - The yukkuri here are mainly categorized into two groups, those who live near the village and those in the forest. - Those living in the village build their house, look for mate and start a family. Unlike urban strays, they're mostly well behaved and don't antagonize human. Their main food are grass and insects. - These yukkuri understand "sharing easyness" and farmers often share part of the crop with them as reward for helping. - Those living in the mountain forest consider the whole mountain as their easy place. They live in community with a leader. Their main food are wild fruits and bugs. - Unfortunately, forest yukkuri see human as enemy who are "hoarding all the easyness" and thus they often attack farms to take "their share of easyness".
They say "Yukkuri Hegemony", the prime example of that being the big incident with the field's vegetables.On the other hand, village yukkuri help with farming, taking as compensation some vegetables.It is said they say "Yukkuri share things".Saying they conquered vegetables that grow on their own, night after night they invaded the fields.