This post delves into the practices and beliefs specific to Devotional Toana. Here, I'll answer questions pulled from this worldbuilding list, as well as a few of my own. Anything that is pulled from canon Star Wars sources will be marked with an asterisk (*). Feel free to ask me any clarifying questions you have! It really helps with the worldbuilding process!
About the afterlife: Everyone goes to the same afterlife, a relaxing, peaceful existence in a world that mimics real life, but is softer. The oceans are easier to fish, the mountains easier to climb, the soil easier to farm, so on and so forth. There is, however, a hierarchy. Depending on how honorable you were in life, your choices of profession expand or contract.
If you were a dishonorable person, you may only get two or three options. If you were a very honorable person, you can pick anything you like. If you were a dishonorable person and you were offered, for instance, either fisherman or customer service, and didn't want to spend your afterlife doing either of those things, you are free to hike up to a portal on top of Mount Appenza (an easier climb in Rhea's world) and be reincarnated.
About community: Community is the cornerstone of civilization. Everyone within a certain community has certain gifts and is obligated to use them for the betterment of the community. There is also a procedure for conflict resolution, because conflict is the beginning of chaos, and chaos is the root of evil, misfortune, and tragedy.
About interpersonal relationships: Interpersonal relationships are the building blocks of community and thus, the same rules apply. If, for whatever reason, a relationship needs to end (romantic breakup, toxic siblings, abusive parents, friendship growing more and more distant, etc.), you need to do your absolute best to end it peacefully and amicably. It's widely understood that that's not always possible, but all Toanans have to at least try, for honor's sake.
About the sentient's relationship with nature: The sentient being is not part of nature, but it is surrounded by nature. Nature is more than willing to destroy the sentient being, so it is the sentient's responsibility to be respectful of nature and not be destroyed.
About children: Children are very small people with their own thoughts and emotions. It is the family's and the community's responsibility to teach them how to be honorable members of society, but you still have to treat children according to the rules of honor while they're learning.
About gender: Devotional Toana is rather strict about gender roles, although actual adherence to said gender roles varies depending where on the fundamentalist-secularist spectrum your community falls.
On the fundamentalist side, women are the dominant sex. They act as the head of the family, are the primary caretakers of their children from ages birth to ten, can make decisions on behalf of their families, serve as representatives on community/town/city councils, and lead within their religious communities as storytellers and priests.
Men play a supporting role, providing money/food/supplies for the household, introducing their children to trades/the professional world as they become teenagers and young adults, enforcing the rules and laws, and defending their family's honor if it ever comes under question.
Being binary trans (mtf or ftm, but not nonbinary) is fine, but you have to adhere to the gender roles of your chosen gender.
About government: As Toana became prevalent at a time when plenty of other religions were alive and thriving, there has never been any kind of theocracy. Occasionally, in areas where Toana is the dominant or at least a major religion, there is a push for a temple representative in legislature or on councils, but they mostly leave each other be so long as neither break the rules of the other (for instance, if a Toanan practice broke Alderaanian law, the government would be within their rights to prosecute. Likewise, if an Alderaanian law or leader was dishonorable or causing chaos, Toanan citizens and religious leaders would be within their rights to protest or appeal to the courts).
About war: War is an absolute evil. It is the most conflict two groups can have, it is nothing but chaos, and it encourages people to act dishonorably. Most Toanans are pacifists and believe in ending wars as quickly as possible via negotiation.
There are some, however, who believe war is a necessary evil in the case of an oppressive force. If an outside force is causing chaos and acting dishonorably towards Toanans, they can fight back to put an end to it (this is the whole idea behind Bannai, the god of righteous war). The focus is still on ending the fighting as quickly as possible, however.
Birth: A month before a mother is due to give birth, her mother moves in temporarily to maintain her daughter's household and help take care of any other young children. After the birth, mother and baby are quarantined for twenty days, with the exception of the father and grandmother.
At the end of the twenty days, the community will get together for a party for the baby, where the baby's name will be announced. Toanan babies have two "given names" in addition to their family and house names (the family and house names idea is from @looseleafteeaves headcanons here. I imagine this is a pan-Alderaanian custom with slight variations from culture to culture). If the baby is a girl, then the mother chooses the first name and the father chooses the second. If it's a boy, then it's the other way around.
Coming of age: When a child comes of age (16 on Alderaan), their parents will take them to a temple and they will pledge themselves to a deity. This will be the deity that they will pray to first for the rest of their life, but they can still pray to other deities as well if the request is more relevant to someone else.
Toanan's are only allowed to change their pledged deity in the case of war, if their deity is thought to have sided with Kiikouda (deity of chaos).
Marriage: Marriage is a deeply intimate and private affair, involving the individuals getting married, Riinu (goddess of marriage), Miirta (goddess of passionate love), Miirtou (god of steadfast love), and the couple's pledged deities. No one else should be there. Afterwards, however there's a giant party to celebrate.
Generally speaking, husbands will assume the surname (family and house) of their new wife, but if the husband is from a significantly higher social class, then he might only take her family name.
Finally, same-sex marriages are allowed, with one complication: there needs to be children. If a couple doesn't raise a child, they are seen as not contributing to their community. Most infertile couples and some same-sex couples get around this by just adopting, but sometimes a couple will open an orphanage together to fulfil the requirement. It's such a prevalent stereotype that if someone wanted to speak about a same-sex couple euphemistically (such as we do about straight couples with phrases like "tying the knot" or "getting hitched"), one would talk about "opening an orphanage" (i.e. "Rouge and Cara are getting pretty serious! Think they're planning on... opening an orphanage anytime soon? *wink wink*" and "Tycho and Raymus just broke ground on their new orphanage. The afterparty was great!").
Death: The end of life is a sad but peaceful time because it is believed that the dead person is either in a happier afterlife, or is coming back to be reincarnated. Toanans are typically buried either in tombs or in the ground, always facing the direction they died because it's believed that that is the direction that Rhea (goddess of death) summoned them towards. If you turn them a different way, they might get lost.
You never ever are cremated in Toanan tradition. If a Toanan's body is burned, they are immediately sent to be a servant of Kiikouda and can never reincarnate again.
Worship: Toanan families keep a shrine in their home with figurines of commonly-prayed-to deities and practitioners are supposed to pray once a day. Adults will usually wear a charm (on a necklace, bracelet, etc.) with their pledged deity's iconography. If one doesn't have a shrine at home, doesn't have a figurine of the specific deity they want to pray to, needs religious advice, or needs to receive a blessing, one would go to the local temple.
There are several temples in every major city on Alderaan, at least one temple in most sizable towns, and there's even a temple in the Alderaanian-populated area of Coruscant (although Toanans tend to stay on Alderaan if they can help it, because they believe their gods live there). All temples contain shrines to all of the deities and at least one priest.
As for the blessings, those are taken when one needs direct help from a specific deity (job interview, proposal, nerve-wracking test at school, it can be anything really). In order to do that, one needs something digestible to be blessed by a priest, and the invoked deity will help as long as the blessed food item is in one's body. "Blessing a laxative," is a saying that comes from this practice that means you are putting a lot of effort into something that won't do you any good, when you could be using your energy more wisely.
Priesthood organization: All religious leaders (about 85% women and 15% men) have to attend religious schooling for four to six years before they can start practicing. They also do not pledge themselves to any deity. The first four years are spent memorizing the core myths about the deities, how the deities interact with each other, and the history of Toana on Alderaan.
If one leaves school after this point, they are qualified to be storytellers. Storytellers work in temples by teaching the myths during weekly gatherings and during daycare if the temple has one (common in big cities). They are also expected to participate in all service work done by the temple. They are not permitted to give blessings, carry out ceremonies (except where one is time sensitive, such as a funeral, and a priest absolutely cannot be gotten), or be elected to religious office.
The last two years of school teach one how to give blessings, carry out ceremonies, manage community conflicts, and make figurines for shrines. After school, priests are sent out on assignment to wherever they are needed. Both priests and storytellers are expected to live in or very near the temple.
In large temples with several priests, they work in shifts with one or two being available for consult (or "on call") at a time, while the others rest, work on service projects, or do leisure activities. In very small temples with only one priest, said priest is on call around the clock and is always at risk of being interrupted or woken up when they are needed.
There is a central temple in Juranno and the chief priest of said temple is called "the head." The chief priests of the seven most populated temples (not including the central one) form a council called "the shoulders", which is led by the head. This council is responsible for assigning priests to where they're most needed, allocating funds as needed, managing inter-temple conflicts, deciding theological debates, and creating new myths if a new theological question arises that can't be answered by the existing myths.
The head priests of all the other temples are called "the arms" and are responsible for advocating for the needs of their own temples. Senior priests (those who have been doing their jobs for two decades or more and aren't head priests) are called "the hands" and are responsible for supervising the junior priests, organizing service projects, and making sure everything within the temple is running smoothly.
Finally, the junior priests are called "the fingers" and do all of the day-to-day work that makes the temple run. Singular priests in very small village temples are technically considered "arms" but are often referred to as "fingernails" because they have very little power and are hanging onto their sanity by their fingernails.
Storytellers and priests are allowed to get married and have children. Storytellers usually do, but some priests choose not to as their work takes up a lot of their time and energy.
Gingerbell Blossom Festival*: Spring Equinox celebration of life and growth. It has bled into mainstream Alderaanian culture, but still has some religious overtones. Celebrated with sacrifices to Bailio (god of life) and whatever major spirits may be around, and some people celebrate by planting flowers anywhere they can be grown. It is also a very popular time to get married.
Harvest Festival: Mostly celebrated by people in the agriculture and wine industries. Celebrated by sacrificing to Maiouel (deity of leisure, merrymaking, and alcohol), eating with family and friends, and lots of drinking. Also serves to kick off the new year in the Toanan calendar.
Winter's Heart*: One of the many midwinter celebrations on Alderaan, it takes place on the winter solstice. Traditionally, it is a very solemn holiday set aside to mourn the dead, as winter in the mountains can be a very dangerous time. As technology advances and life gets safer, it retains its solemnity, but loses a lot of its sadness. Usually observed with sacrifices to Rhea (goddess of death) and Antil (god of hope)
Silver Flow*: This holiday is celebrated by almost every culture on Alderaan. Glimmerfish* will lay their eggs in Alderaan's waterways and, in the fall when they hatch, the baby glimmerfish will turn the rivers silver as they head to the seas. In certain places, like where major rivers meet the sea, this phenomenon can be seen from space. In Toana, the holiday is set aside for the celebration of mothers and community.
