Mikana (Anakim spelled backward; Anakim are 'giants', more or less, in the Bible) are giants, they live in the world of Allare, on the country of Luminne. I don't really know much about them myself, so you can ask questions and most likely I'll make up something as I post a reply.

What is their day to day life like?

What kind of houses do they live in?

What kind of food do they eat?

How do they view the world outside them?

Their day to day life is more or less quiet. Then men were often out making repairs to buildings or storage caves, especially after avalanches of either snow and/or boulders. Women stay in the village and tend to the matters of farm life, child rearing, and gardening. Both men and women know how to hunt, and train the younger generation for adult life. The children can be found everywhere on the mountains, romping around the rocky slopes and throwing rocks at each others (at least the boys do. Rocks to them are more small boulders to humans).

That's a bit of a rough outline. But it works.

Their houses are embedded deep into the mountain. The houses resemble Dwarf tunnels, but larger and with stirs leading up to at least two or three additional stories. The doorways are made of rock, and blend into the mountain wall almost perfectly. The 'houses' are connected by twisting tunnels, tall enough for a full grown male giant (about twelve feet, give or take a foot) and wide enough for three giants to walk side by side.

They eat large mountain animals, and sometimes fish, depending on how often they can get some. They also eat tall grasses that grow on the sides further down on the mountains. The grasses grow from a sort of edible root, which is rather large.

The Mikana view Luminne's other inhabitants as slightly odd. The Mikana aren't really ones for war, but they will fight if there's a good enough reason. Luminne, however, is slightly more prone to go to war (but even then, it still hangs back until absolutely necessary, most of the time). The Mikana can't understand why the other peoples would build their homes in the open. But otherwise, they live peacefully with them, even though they think the customs and tradition of the rest of Luminne are odd or even silly.

I like them!

What manner of armaments do they bear!?

What's armaments?

Weapons, things to inflict pain, tools to defend ones self and country. The sum of every boy's dreams.

Haha, gotcha.

Their weapons are rather large and more or less bulky. They mainly use hammers with wide faces (flat sides, whatever you'd call them). They use spears, too, but only a few of them do, since finding trees tall enough to be used easily is difficult, if you don't know what forests to look in.

For large-scale, wartime weapons, the big things that were used in LotR on the gates of Minas Tirith... a battering ram? Something like that. Those are a common sight. One or two catapults may be seen, as well.

I like them, though i'm not a big fan of the whole anakim backwards thing.

Oh? Why?

Well I mainly don't like it because it's kind of cheating, also it's a bit heavy handed and makes a point a little too much.
Also everyone does this and it's become the normal thing to do.

I don't understand. Why would it be cheating? What point does it make?

What do you mean by heavy-handed?

I hope I'm not sounding rude. I'm just curious.

When I find things like that in a story it always draws me out of the world and it loses its realness kind of.
I know many of my friends agree with me but maybe we're just all weird and it doesn't bother anyone else.

Hmmm, I could see that. But no one would really know unless directly told (or maybe they're just super clever and figure it out), right?

Warning, there are a lot more super clever people out there than anyone ever dared dream.

I think it's creative using Anakim backwards. I find no problem with it.

Really, the problem I have with it is lots of amateur books have it, yet none of the big ones i.e. Tolkien, Lewis, etc. have them.
And it's too creative to spell something backwards, really.

Anakim aren't mentioned a lot of times, I didn't even know they existed until I read a book with them.

Too creative? I didn't know you could be too creative.

What other books spell names backwards?

This is probably derailing. We can continue through PM, if you'd like. I hope I'm not coming across as rude. I'm just curious.

I have a series in which one of the main characters' name is Leinad, which is Daniel spelled backwards.

Sorry I never got back to this.
Spelling something backwards just comes off as lazy to me. It also comes off as you don't think your audience get the parallels.
Those are the major things with me, but just because I don't like it doesn't mean you can't do it.

I think spelling something backwards is a creative twist. I didn't even notice Mikana as being Anakim backwards. I took it for a name in and of itself. I don't think it's a problem if people don't realize the parallel there. Of course, all of this is just opinion, so I may be wrong.

Could there be a problem if people realized it? The way you said it, it sounded as if there may be one. Of course, that could be just me.

To use a slightly taboo example, J. K. Rowling did a lot of neat tie-ins with names and I loved it. I wouldn't say the name replaces the symbolism, it just confirms it. I'm not sure if I've gone on my meanings of names rant for you guys yet but I think a name should always mean something and using it backwards is just fine in my book. (or yours )

At the risk of sounding like an utter fool, what is Anakim?

Anakim are more or less giants in the Bible, in the Old Testament. I don't quite remember where, though (I'm getting the idea they were mentioned when Moses sent out the spies, but I could be wrong).

She did? Where?

Thought that was Nephilim...

Sirius=dog star
Romulus and Remus=roman myth of two sons raised by a wolf
Lee Jordan code named River=Jordan River

Those are just a few examples, I don't know that any of hers were backwards but I think it's great. It gives such a sense of purpose when I read things like that.

And it's all good, I use a variation of Nephilim for some of my people too...

Probably. I don't quite remember where they were. They were somewhere.

I had noticed some of those (well, one). That's pretty cool, though. Wasn't Bellatrix one of them, too?

Yes, I believe so. There were many more I just don't remember them all off the top of my head.