Among what few cultural peculiarities the nomadic yinglet tribes of the western desert can claim to call their own, there are few as unique and morbid as the practice they call "the trail of bones."

A strange ritual wherein the yinglet ties a string taut around the tip of his tail, cutting off blood flow until the flesh necrotizes, desiccates, and eventually falls off. The mummified piece is then carefully picked up and the flesh stripped from the bones, which are cleaned and mounted on a prosthetic tail. The prosthetic appendage serves as an ossuary of its own bones, a display carefully crafted to be as close to the missing flesh's original weight so as to impede the yinglet's balance as little as possible.

Practitioners claim this helps fight dehydration, by reducing the total amount of skin pores through which water can escape, but the veracity of this statement has yet to be proven. Some would even argue that removing flesh in which water could be retained is downright detrimental, but the yinglet tribes remain steadfast in their belief.

The females are spared this practice, which further elevates their status and prestige, as they are often the only ones in a given tribe to sport complete, lusciously furred tails.

The trail of bones is often used as a rite of passage into adulthood, and yinglets who refuse are commonly shunned or mocked until they cave in to social pressure or are forced to walk the trail of bones under threat of exile. As they age, males tend to repeat the process several more times, either as celebration of milestone events or as a routine to mark the passage of years.

Over time, these tribes have bred themselves to have longer and longer tails, maximizing the effects of their females' appearance, and allowing the males to walk the trail a few more times than their previous generations would.

The veils they wear protect their eyes from both the glare of the sun and stray windblown sand grains, and are woven in such a way that the yinglets see through with little difficulty. As such, those veils are rarely removed, increasing the mystic aura that the desert yinglets carry around themselves with the rattling of their bones.

Depicted here, a wizened elder inspecting the bindings of the prosthetic tail of a younger male who has just finished walking his first steps on the trail of bones.

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This idea just popped up in my head and I felt it was worth trying out, so have some orphan worldbuilding for morbid necro-yings.

Yinglets were birthed from the brilliant mind of  Valsalia