Tinglit Settlements

As mentioned, the least amount of info White has given is in regards to the Pacific Northwest. All we know, and some of it being conjecture;

1) They're largely Buddhist

2) There is smattering of small fiefdoms, with which contain some of the largest cities on the continent, and are republics--remniscent of the Italian city states.

3) However, a larger, de-urbanized feudal state exists east of the Cascades, called The District of Columbia.

4) The population has a subtle Asian ancestry.

In general, this indicates an Anglo-Asian fusion culture. However, the Northwest is also the home to some of the most sophisticated and high profile Native American cultures. I like to think the indigenous culture has a large influence on the area. Interestingly, I was looking for "Native American armor" I found most of the high profile historical cases belonged to the Tinglit people.

Some of flourishes include using the faces of their ancestors, which is fairly unique for old world cultures, but probably simpatico the ancestor-worshiping east. (Mind you, ancestor worship isn't particularly a part of Buddhism, but it's very likely the Medieval American version is very much a Pan-Asian McReligion) Another interesting facet is that ones with metal have Chinese coins sewn in. Overall, this makes it the best blueprint for the gestalt of Asian, Indigenous, and Medieval influences. Also of note is many Tinglit artifacts have found their way as far as Russia, meaning the concept of a sort of Pacific version of Colombian exchange is already baked in.

Also of note is Tinglit people are Matrilneaer, much like the Secretarial states. Of course, they're very far, but it might be worth considering terms of models and divergent evolution, etc.

Addendum on Heraldry

When I first wrote the piece about heraldry, it was largely off the series finale of Game of Thrones, and thinking about the banners which were a signature of the show. But I did some research on the most common sports team name/mascots, and came up with some interesting results.

It should be no surprise that eagle is the most popular mascot in all sports, from collegiate to pro. It's always been a popular symbol, from antiquity to American culture itself. Even when it's not specifically the bald eagle, we can imagine it being a frequent standard. "Falcon" and "Hawk" are also very ubiquitous, though some may have difficulty distinguishing.

What's very interesting is that the second most common is "tiger", which, as a non-native animal to the Americas, really is a testament to its popularity. I've said before that the tiger might overwhelm the as a heraldic beast for medieval Americans, due the latter's association with monarchies, which Medieval Americans would spend centuries trying to assure people that they're not coming back. Still, lions are no slouches, as larger cats make up half of the top ten. Panthers are also more popular, and as they are conceivably a New World creature, and a symbolic animal to those of African descent, they make sense as a frequent standard. (In fact, the African panther was fairly popular in Medieval Europe, and according to legend had fragrant breath.) The cougar, the quintessential North American "big cat" is another popular one. What's interesting is "wildcat", which in nature is something of a pre-domesticated cat, not extant in the Americas, but it's quite possibly people pick the name because it sounds a little more intimidating than "Bobcat", which may actually be the standard.

The cardinal is the most common non-predatory bird, and is an exclusive new world animal. Its distinctive look, and low key patriotism would probably appeal to those who want to add it to their coat of arms. In fact, it's one of the most six team names that so common as to belong to two respective of the "big four"sports. The others are aforementioned Panthers, as well as Giants, Kings, Rangers and Jets. Now "Giant" could be an interesting symbol, but as for the others--there are no more "jets", as mentioned before American Warlords don't want to associate themselves with European monarchs if they can help it (And a crown would be a flourish anyways), and the concept of "Ranger" would be too vague. (When Texas refers to "Rangers" and New York refers to "Rangers" they've very different things.

It should be said these six don't count team names which are synonymous. For instance Bengals/Tigers, Bears/Bruins, the various names for horses, and then of course, the countless names, some of them fairly derogatory, in reference to American Indians. For better or for worse, it's very likely Native American imagery would make its way into a lot Medieval American heraldry. They're both "exotic", but at the same time warlords would very frequently claim Indian blood for the sake of propriety. Other human warrior classes might be hard to implement into imagery. Maybe somebody who looks like a soldier of Classical Antiquity, but the unlearned would not be able to tell if it was meant to be a Trojan or a Spartan. A cowboy might be unlikely, as cowboys are considered antithetical to the knight's class. And of course, a knight might come across as absurdly redundant for a heraldic symbol, like a tuxedo t-shirt, or wearing a portrait of your own face.

Christmas Through New Years

The interesting thing about the "Holiday Season" in Medieval America is the swing between between the secular and the sacred, and the government vs. the private. In the old Middle Ages, Christmatime was one of revelry, to the point many protestant sects would ban it. its origins as a pagan festival,a nd its status as an industry unto itself in modern times, means there was always a battle between the two forces. Because the Federal Government recognized as Christmas as a holiday, and because the Non-Denominational Church made the U.S. federal holidays into liturgical ones, this brought this conflict into the new era. How do they thread this needle? Well, basically, by making the 12 Days of Christmas a strange cycle of binge and purge.

Basically, starting from roughly Thanksgiving, the habit seems to be party, get your act together, party again, and so and so on. You have a week of feasting and drinking, and then going and praying extra hard to Jesus, and attending services. Then, the winter solstice, and from the 21st, the 24th, you go hog wild, all the rum and Frosty and Rudolph, and wassling that in many ways resembles the Industrial Age Office Christmas Party, and which got the Holiday banned in the first place. But once Christmas Eve is here, you go to services, and spend it with your family. But come the 26th, it's one more week of just having a good time by New Years Eve the expectation is that you get it out of your system and spend New Years Day in the Church. Christmastide does not extend into January, and some scholars even claim the Wise Men were just in time for Christ's birth. It was seen as an economically conservative move.

The Quebecois follow the fairly traditional Catholic European model of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, with the New Year being informally celebrated as a "12th" night, but being largely secular.

The ascetic lifestyle of the Mormons usually keeps Christmas as sacred as possible, equal in both stature and restraint as Easter, thought the tabernacle choir remains a tradition. It should be said some of the singers are career, will sometimes ensure they stay soprano. They recognize the Gergorian calendar, but do not make any big deal of it besides services, especially since nobody gets drunk.

The Buddhists of the Northwests celebrate the new year between January and February 20th, due to the Asian influence, and that the relative mildness of the climate keeps them from really embracing winter festivals. Christmas is celebratted

Seasonal Figures

Between ancient myth and modern pop-culture and urban folkore are the sort of fanciful mythical figures, often associated with children's stories and holidays. They're a mishmash of pagan beliefs, Victorian mores, and greeting card mascots.Various media like The Santa Clause, The Guardians of Childhood and various Rankin Bass specials have established something of a pantheon, and these codified versions would be most familiar to Americans.

There's Santa Claus, maybe the most well-known legendary being . Consumerism had diminished in Medieval America, but stockings will still occasionally be stuffed. He's a little more mercenary, and the gift-giving transactual, so that the better treats you leave out, the more impressive gifts you get.

The Easter Bunny is the springtime counterpart to Santa, and although chocolate is now a luxury, eggs are relatively easy to come by, and actually, one of the more common snack foods.

The Tooth Fairy is the third member of the gift-giving triumvirate. Of course, children aren't going to get legal tender just for losing a tooth. In fact, for many peasant families, they usually don't even have money per se, and live on a barter system. They are told to plant a tooth for good luck.

With Father Time, and Mother Nature, you have two personifications (And old man with a scythe and hourglass, or a woman decked in foliage) that show up in a great deal of Neo-Medieval art and stories. That is, a character may plead with them for favors, and run afoul and get their comeuppance. Jack Frost, a relatively recent personification of winter, is also fairly well known. It's quite possible a specific embodiment of autumn may appear in Medieval America, as the seasons in the Northeast in particular are very distinct. The Sandman survive as a good excuse as to why we wake up with crust in our eyes. There's also Death, or the Grim Reaper.

The two beings from classical mythology that remain the most iconic outside of the context of Greek or Roman settings are Cupid and Neptune. Their associations with the Pagan past are, if not forgotten, somewhat dissociated with the general layman. Cupid is seen a cherub who is responsible for the tender passions, and maybe even an excuse for sexual improprieties.  Neptune is a somewhat revered/feared figure for sailors, and the father of all mermaids.

There's also the legend of the stork, as well as the groundhog. Everyone knows there's a groundhog, and works like the movie Groundhog Day has probably given the creature a mystic power, though it's unlikely the name Punxsutawney Phil has really stuck.

And of course, there's Uncle Sam, the personification of America, which is now divided, but in the non-Denominational Church he's exists as a saint and rugged warrior. Both Saint Patrick and Saint George, Merlin and King Arthur. He's the patron for the 4th and July, and a nostalgic, wistful icon of what was.

Halloween Monsters

How has modern "Halloween" influenced the neo-Medieval's view of the superstitious villagers who came up with legends to begin with? Especially  after a century of codification and then subversion?

Vampires

Vampires have certainly undergone different permutations from ghastly to sexy, but nowadays they definitely take the most cues from Dracula, as sort of the landed class of monsters. Their classic Hollywood weaknesses like crucifixes, garlic, and sunlight are brought up, and while most Europeans have forgotten turning into a bat lore, the New World vampire bat figures greatly into their legends. The story of Dracula is very popular, due to the character's ubiquity, and that an honest-to-God Texan features in the original novel!

Werewolves

The humanoid, bipedal werewolf is more common than the "just turns into a wolf" type, and very interestingly, "werewolf" is more or less synonymous with a local translation for "beast".

Mummy

The kingdom of New Mexico did their best to emulate Ancient Egypt (and to a certain extent, the great pre-Columbian empires), which includes God emperors, pyramids, and of course mummification. For their part, Easterners like to spin yarns of explorers venturing into the deserts and coming across Mummy cults. On the one hand, this has the positive effect of discouraging the idea of defiling the tombs of indigenous folks, but on the other, they're somewhat put off by more sanitary embalming methods.

Frankenstein

Unlike a lot of monsters,  Frankenstein's monster is not really a "species" per se, but his legend has captivated people for generations, especially since the story resonates in a world that vaguely knows mankind paid some kind of price  for growing too proud. The story of Frankenstein probably encourages a Luddite sensibility in the population, almost a polar opposite to witchcraft.

Witches

The  concept of the "Witch Hunt" is a pejorative in American culture, but in a reversion, people are going to go back to the superstitious ways. Especially since even modern Americans seem to have the meaning of a witch hunt backwards. New England probably resembles its colonial era more than any other region, so hysteria is going to happen. For its part, the top brass Non-Denominational Church denies the existence of witches, but The United States needs some kind of justification for warring against the Voodoo practitioners of the Secretarial States...Some retelling of TheWizard of Oz explain away Glinda as more of a "fairy" then a witch.

Clowns

Showbiz folk are not trusted in the more God-fearing Medieval America, and doubly so as, in the new Middle Ages, performers are more likely to wear a face-covering mask than mere makeup. In fact, in some languages, "clown" basically translates to "colorful, disguised brigand" more than "Jolly entertainer".

Cowboys

Once upon a time, "Cowboy" was considered as American as something gets, but now they have an unsavory reputation as barbaric apostates. Their raids and foreign religion have certainly not endeared them to the Midwesterner, but the red-state vs blue state mentality of the Northeast, and the South being almost completely composed of those we would consider "people of color"has given the East a sort of bad "ancestral memory" of those who don the cowboy hat.

Population Density

This tiny little picture showed up when talking about "red" voting blocks vs "blue", and how the red covers a great swath of geographical area, despite having a smaller population. It's interesting to compare it to White's population map For the most part, both largely correspond in terms of where people live, (New York is almost eerie) it's just that the the major Urban centers, particularly those of the Mid-Atlantic, the Southwest, and Chicagoland. The Northeast has an urban sprawl impossible to maintain outside industrialization, and California owes its smaller population to scarcity of roads and water. Given that Ohio and Indiana are  reasonably populated, it seems possible White conjured up the Bailey invasion for the explicit purpose of keeping the Midwest in check.

Florida of course, has seen a huge population plunge. This might be the result of thin soil and hurricanes, or perhaps White had another barbarian invasion.

Anyways, these areas that are the most rural and isolated (as long as they're attached to arable farmland) would be the least changed by the medieval regression, and their values would most likely Medieval American values. pockets of relative progressiveness would most thrive the best in less urbanized areas that still lean left like Maine, Vermont and Minnesota.

Hair

Most of the continent tends to braid their hair when possible. It keeps it from getting messy, it keeps the oil out of your face, and it's good for doing labor. The stigma of women wearing their hair out is less common than the European middle ages, but it's still not encouraged. Even in the south, where women are given more status, you're likely to see hair wrapped up, but it's not so much because they're hiding their hair, as they have no hair to hide.

In the south it is extremely common to shave one's head, or at least crop it so close that it resembles a mixture of the U.S. Army crew cut, and the kind worn by Medieval Normans. There are both practical and social reasons. From a practical standpoint, once you get into the subtropical regions, hair can be rather uncomfortable, as well as prone to lice and infection. From a social standpoint, the racial mixture of the south meant that the wide variety of hair textures made catch-all means of treatment rather difficult, so the custom was to cut it as short as possible. During the times of blood quantums, it was also a way for Warlords to drop the question of lineage. It was also popular for members of the Non-Denominational church, as it helped unite all the Churchmen into one identity, as well give them a sense of anonymity when they're moved around from district to district.

Interestingly, as you go further and further south, the hair actually becomes somewhat longer and more elaborate. This is because the nobility of the deep south has taken to wearing wigs over their completely shaved heads. They favor lighter, even outright white hair for their wigs, but they're not powdered--they're usually made from livestock. They're also not the overly elaborate periwigs of the 17th and 18th centuries, but relatively simple--sometimes braided, but more common in the "Dutch page" cut, but bangs definitely feature heavily.

As you go out West however, it can be very common to wear one's hair long, but nobles and merchant cities favor a haved/braided combination not unlike the style of Native Americans, or the Chinese Queue, owing to both the Native and Asian influences that become much stronger past the Mississippi. The great plains will see long hair and and long mustaches, which would be evocative of a Hell's Angel.