Borders

While looking through the image archive, I discovered certain files with "bar" attached. It was then I went back and realized most of the pages on the site were bordered with certain designs. It was a nice little touch that may have gone unnoticed, and it was interesting to see where certain regions had a recurring theme. This may have just been something to do for fun, but I think it also hints at the kind of aesthetics these different regions may have. I think the fringes of clothing and jewelry would very much reflect their bars, so it does warrant some looking into, should one seek to do artwork based on White's world.

White had two general borders, a "keybar" and one that was a shrunken down version of the main map. However, the rest seemed to generally reflect the religion of the area. (Which once again, I point to jewelry and the like) One border which would probably only get play for one page is the Jewish one. I actually haven't touched too much on real religion on this site, but I think this means the story of Jews in Medieval America might have been an interesting one from White.

All the pages pertaining to cowboys have a border that includes quilted looking arrow designs. White already knocked out three pages with this culture, with Tribalism being the only unfinished article that this border would likely belong too. However, since the Rizzini flag is in the archives, and there are two herdsmen territories, they may had pages created for them with this particular border. Whatever page the Texas map would go to (Which would probably be one of the aforementioned pages) would likely get it as well.

The most used border is, and probably would continue to be, the "fubar", which has the design of the cross on it. It's seen on the page for the Non-Denominational Church, the USA, and Iowa. We probably would have seen it on the nations that made up the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and a few southern nations. (I'm guessing anywhere between seven and ten nation pages) Quebec may get the border as well. Even though its something of a quirk on the map, it's not mutually unintelligible with the rest of Eastern culture. I would also take a stab that Feudalism would get the cross border, as with a few frontier exceptions, the feudal states tend to practice Non-Denom. It's a little less exclusive with the Knights, but I would bet they get that border as well.

The "loop" bar may have been the second most common "culture" bar. So far we've seen it with all the desert-based pages. The Hydraulic Empire page has this motif. Both California and Deseret are given this design as well, and it's pretty certain their corresponding religions would have been bordered. And there's a good chance the Irrigation page would have would have had this border too. But not certain.

Because looking around, an unused design called the "nmex" bar shows up. which very clearly has a quilted southwestern feel to it. This would pretty certainly go on the page for New MExico and New Age, but it seems strange to split the desert nations up. But I suppose this it's there to make the distinction between the more "anglo" desert people of California and Utah, as opposed to the more Hispanic/native culture we're going to find down south. The irrigation page could go on either page, but the New Mexico motif may get custody of that one, to generally keep up with an at-least three-per-page ratio we're going with here.

On both the Secretarial States and Southern Farmer pages, we have a border which is referred to in the archives as the "snake bar". Pretty much makes sense since it's already associated with two of the other pages that make up the culture of the Gulf, of which Voodoo is the prominent religion. It's certain that would have gone onto the Voodoo page. (Especially since, once again, relgion seems to be a driving force behind the bars) As to what individual countries the snake bar would have bordered, Louisiana is the only sure thing. It's certainly possible it would have gone on the Southern Front or the Deep South page, but we can't be sure. As mentioned in other articles, the transition from northern to southern culture is gradual, and Georgia might not necessarily have much in common culturally with the Gulf.

And then we have the "northwest" bar, found here. As you can see, a pretty clear yin-yang marks the center, but if you put it in bar form, you see both crosses and moon crescents. This may be a coincidence and White was playing with abstract designs, but this may indicate how much Cascadian Buddhism may differ from its counterpart from across the Pacific. Obviously we'd have the Buddhism page with this border, and the District of Columbia page. But I don't know how many we have beyond that. First, I don't know if the Northwest merchants get their own page. But the rest of the icons the Northwest gets have Northeast counterparts. On both the Government and Warfare maps "Republic" and "Pikemem" are both shown on the Northwest corner. And this map shows that, if there isn't a higher population of pikemen and republics in the Northwest, they play a bigger proportional role than they do in the East.

I don't know what the make iof the oklbar. Looking it up, the only references I could find were Oklahoma and a town in Minnesota, both which are kind of politically banished in this age. I suppose going with the relgion theme, it might go with the "heresy" pages, of which there are two. It might have been an orphaned page for "Here be monsters".