ʇatarqla

The ʇatarqla were an early horse-riding culture of the North-Western Steppe who emerged alongside the Early Bronze Age cultures to the South and East.

Description
The west-shepherds are divided into a number of clans, defined by matrilineal blood-line and characterized by the aesthetically different breeds of sheep they each herd, in turn effects the appearance of an important character from each clan. A clan is lead by two people, a shaman, whose wisdom is predicated on age and on omens said to be carried by the wind, and war-chief, whose wisdom is predicated experience in battle. As a coming of age ritual, each child is given a ram, which they must kill without help. Should they succeed, they will join fighters of the clan and follow the leadership of the war-chief, and if they do not, they are left with the peaceful kin of the clan under guidance of the shaman. In the winter (if that is applicable to this part of the world, I understand that it doesn't generally snow at this latitude), when their migration takes them closest to the Shewa, they raid, both to take what they can, and as a ritual. During the raid, almost every fighter is dressed in a monstrous costume of hide, wool, and horn, and fight as savagely as they can, symbolically scaring away any bad-winds that would blow on them in coming year. Every fighter's costume is made by their clan, and is thus distinct in appearance that of other clans, though this difference is rarely noted by the cities which they attack. A few fighters, though, even a few who do not kill their ram, ride to the battles on horses, and often they are much more feared by the city-dwellers than their costumed kin.