Animals

"The luminary stood in front of the bitter smelling bird, who sank towards him. When they finally touched, new animals sprung from them, animals of all different types, horned, furless, strong, small or tailed. So too did the washed up dead in the pool begin to change. Some among them grew two extra legs and others a second neck or tail."

"New life sprung from them, turning everyone into something new and making more"

There are lots of different types of animals but the ones that make up the majority of the hamlet population are an amalgamation of lots of different, typically bestial, characteristics. They are born from a union between Luminary Ramon and the Bird, who will meet to make more.

Hamels

When the hamels came they found the whales; as their ships passed, the whale rose its curious head from the depths of the ocean, showing itself to the passing sailors. One hamel, a luminary, brought one to shore and found within it an immutable medium. Pouring from a cut in its bloated scalp, the wax soaked their fur and put the hamel into a cocoon. They became a pupa, then an imago, and finally came out as a hamel again.

The hamlet belongs to the hamels. They are the ones who first built the settlement and the ones who first dicovered whales and their wax. They are responsible for building the Lower Hamlet. They once had the appearance of rams, but the only member of their race that can still be identified as a hamel is Ramon. It's possible that some of the "chimeric" animals were once hamels, but were changed when Ramon and the Double-Headed Eagle met.