Lands of Red and Gold

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That remark could mean any of at least four things:

1) Bavaria is going to become an uberpower and colonial powerhouse
2) Bavaria is going to get some fragment of coastal territory in one or other of the European wars, and use this to set up a few small colonies a la Courland
3) I was being facetious
4) It was a typo/thinko, and I was really thinking of another power.

You pick. :D
The POD allows for 1) and 2).:)
 
The POD allows for 1) and 2).:)
Now I have this peculiar image of, after spending decades IOTL trying to gain Bavaria, Austria is going to be absorbed into Bavaria :eek:.

That has to be one of the greatest ideas ever. And very fitting, taking note of Jared's enjoyment in irony.
 
Now I have this peculiar image of, after spending decades IOTL trying to gain Bavaria, Austria is going to be absorbed into Bavaria :eek:.

That has to be one of the greatest ideas ever. And very fitting, taking note of Jared's enjoyment in irony.

The thought of Austria being absorbed into Bavaria also crossed my mind.:D
 
Now I have this peculiar image of, after spending decades IOTL trying to gain Bavaria, Austria is going to be absorbed into Bavaria :eek:.

That has to be one of the greatest ideas ever. And very fitting, taking note of Jared's enjoyment in irony.

The thought of Austria being absorbed into Bavaria also crossed my mind.:D

Perhaps the various diseases coming out of Australia wipe out the Hapsburg line allowing the Bavarian ruling house to come in and claim it (closest surviving relative, etc.).
 
Hmm. Are domestic cats that much larger than their wild ancestors? Not all domesticated species necessarily become larger, unless people are deliberately breeding for larger cats.

Domestic Cats, apart from certain breeds like the Maine Coon are generally slightly smaller than their African Wildcat ancestors* (and much smaller than European Wildcats) and have more delicate skull structures, perhaps due to consistently less formidable prey. OTH they seem far less altered by domestication (apart from behaviour) than any other animal that has been domesticated - possibly due to the difficulty in containment if you want them to clear vermin and there being not that much thats needed to change from the Wildcats. Based on this I'd guess domesticated Quolls will look pretty much like the wild ones but behave very differently.

*May of course be to more pressure on Wildcat fitness ;).
 
Domestic Cats, apart from certain breeds like the Maine Coon are generally slightly smaller than their African Wildcat ancestors* (and much smaller than European Wildcats) and have more delicate skull structures, perhaps due to consistently less formidable prey. OTH they seem far less altered by domestication (apart from behaviour) than any other animal that has been domesticated - possibly due to the difficulty in containment if you want them to clear vermin and there being not that much thats needed to change from the Wildcats. Based on this I'd guess domesticated Quolls will look pretty much like the wild ones but behave very differently.

*May of course be to more pressure on Wildcat fitness ;).

I've read suggestions that the reason is just one of feline development. Domestication in mammals (placentals, anyway) is effectively selecting for infantile features in adult animals. What is wanted is an animal that is friendly with everything it meets, but a host of "standard" traits come along with that, including infantile behavior (e.g. barking and wagging in dogs) and physiological traits (shortened skulls, patterned coats, etc.). But extremely young cats, wild and otherwise, behave fairly similar as infants as they do as adults. Anyone who has ever been stalked by a kitten can readily confirm this. The body type of infant cats is also closer to that of adults (you can't shorten that skull much more, after all).

For the question at hand, it's clear that domestication can increase the size of an animal. We do have horses and dogs, after all. But will they?

And I'm not familiar with the effects of domestication on marsupials. Has it even been done in OTL?
 

Seldrin

Banned
And I'm not familiar with the effects of domestication on marsupials. Has it even been done in OTL?

It's possible to domesticate kangaroos, I personally know some people who domesticated two grays and a red. It is incredibly hard to domesticate a marsupial outside of its infant stage, if not impossible. Kangaroos, when they're domesticated behave like dogs in terms of relationships with eachother and relationships with an owner e.g. they compete for affection and attempt to protect their owner.
I am not aware however, if this is a result of conditioning or something they do instinctively.
 
Lands of Red and Gold #10: Times of Bronze
Lands of Red and Gold #10: Times of Bronze

Continuity note: this post follows on directly from the first section of the prologue post.

* * *

February - March 1310
The Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia

Kawiti of the Tangata had explored far and wide around Te Ika a Maui [North Island, New Zealand], and once to the even larger island to the south. His father, who had taught him the arts of navigation, had sailed even further, being one of the pioneers who had guided the fleets of canoes bringing the Tangata from the ancestral homeland of Hawaiki. He had heard many tales, oft fanciful and extravagant. Yet Kawiti had never seen or heard of men like these.

Eight of them, no two men alike except that they all carried spears tipped with some strange yellowish-brown substance. When he first saw them, he thought that they all had skins black as night. Now he saw that that was a combination of shadows and artifice. Once they stood out of the shadows, he could see that these strange men were not fully black of skin; the small patches of skin visible beneath their cloaks and armours were darker than his own, but not midnight-black. Some sort of dye must have been used to darken the more visible parts of their skin. To aid in hunting, or through some strange custom? No way to know, not yet.

The leader of the dark men asked him another question in their incomprehensible language, pointing at them, then their boat, then to the water both north and south. After a moment, Kawiti realised that the man was asking where they had come from. He told his comrades to stay quiet – no point having everyone answering the question. He pointed to him and his comrades, then the boat, then he pointed east, and made repeated pushing gestures to show that they had come from far to the east.

That provoked a mixed response from the dark men. A couple laughed, as if not believing. Others spoke in raised voices, their expressions showing disbelief. The leader – if leader he truly was – snapped a command, and the arguments died back to murmurs. He asked a single-word question: “Guda?”

Having no idea what the word meant, Kawiti settled for gesturing to include himself and his comrades again, then pushing many times to the east, to show how far away it was.

The dark men argued amongst themselves for a few moments more, until they settled down. Their leader seemed to convince the others as much through volume as anything else. He then turned back to Kawiti, and gestured at himself and his comrades. “Raduru,” he said. “Iya Raduru.”

Kawiti nodded, and gestured to himself and his fellows. “Tangata. We are Tangata.”

The leader of the Raduru gestured to himself. “Gumaring. Uya Gumaring.”

Kawiti gave his own name.

The dark men – the Raduru – all smiled after that. Gumaring gave what sounded like more orders, from the crisp tone, and the Raduru passed over some gifts. They handed over two water skins and some kind of orange, translucent substance which felt slightly soft against his fingers. Almost like kauri gum, but different. Gumaring mimed eating the gum.

“Here’s hoping that offering us food makes us guests,” his cousin Nene said.

“And here’s hoping that this isn’t like kauri gum,” Kawiti said. Dried kauri gum could be dug from the earth, and was very useful for its gleam and appearance, but no-one ever ate it.

He chewed on a small portion of the gum, and found that it was sweet. Very sweet. He washed it down with a mouthful of water. An unusual taste, but a pleasant one. His fellows did the same.

“We should return the favour,” Kawiti said. Except that all they had for food was cold, smoked moa meat and raw kumara [sweet potato]. Explorers were used to such fare, but he did not know if he wanted to offer it to strangers. Did the Raduru see offering any food as a greeting, or would they prefer only something sweet or fine-tasting? No way to know, so would if offend them more to offer no food in response, or to offer food they did not like?

Gumaring solved the matter for him. He quietly regathered the now much-emptier water skins. He gave some lengthy explanation which made no sense whatsoever – maybe wondering if they could learn a few words here and there – and then returned to using gestures. He conveyed the idea that he wanted the Tangata to come with his men to the north, and copied Kawiti’s earlier gesture to indicate that it would be a long way to travel.

Using a variety of gestures and signals of his own, Kawiti managed to get through the idea that he and his comrades would travel in that direction, but by water. He would not leave the canoe behind and have no way to reach home without making another, especially with no surety that they could make new sails.

Gumaring appeared happy enough with this, and then had another voluble discussion with the other Raduru. As before, he seemed to settle it as much by volume as by persuasion. After that, Gumaring kept pointing to himself, then to the boat, indicating that he wanted to travel with them, leaving the other men to journey by land. Kawiti was more than happy for that; having Gumaring along would avoid any problems with wherever these people lived at the other end. Still, he asked the other Tangata, preferring to make sure that they were happy rather than have friction on the trip.

“Fine. Just be glad they all didn’t want to come,” Nene said. The others gave their agreement, too.

All of the Raduru came back to the canoe. They seemed utterly fascinated by it, as if they had never seen a boat like it before. “What would they think of a big waka?” Kawiti asked.

The other Tangata laughed. This small exploration canoe could carry a few men a long way, but it was nothing like the much larger waka which had carried their fathers from Hawaiki, and which were used nowadays to take settlers further south along Te Ika a Maui. A waka could carry eighty men across the seas to a new home.

Even this one? Kawiti wondered, for a moment, but dismissed the thought. He was here to explore, not to raid. The Big Man back home would decide whether to settle or to trade or to ignore this new land altogether. Still, from what he had seen of these Raduru and their shields and strange spears, it would not be easy to push them aside, if they wanted no newcomers. Te Ika a Maui had been empty, and thus easily settled. This land... Wait and see, he reminded himself.

Once off the shore, the wind favoured them. It blew from the land, which made it easy enough for Kawiti to take the canoe north by sail power alone. The canoe could be paddled if they absolutely needed to, but he would rather not go to that effort. Who could say how much further north the Raduru dwelt?

Gumaring proved to be a pleasant enough sailing companion. He did not become disturbed or aggressive, and spent most of his time going back and forth with Nene and Kawiti about the meanings of a few words in each other’s languages. Kawiti was most intrigued by found the strange yellow-brown substance which these Raduru used. Gumaring had a shield made out of it, which gleamed, and a serviceable knife, and a spearhead, which were much duller. The substance seemed to be as hard as most stones, and looked to be perfect for making all sorts of tools.

After a few attempts, Gumaring indicated that his people called the substance dunu. After even more effort, Kawiti managed to get across a question about where the substance came from. By virtue of lots of gestures, mimes, and lengthy if incomprehensible explanations, Gumaring explained that dunu was made from two substances melted together. One was apparently dug from the earth, and the other came from somewhere to the south. A very long way away, from the way in which Gumaring kept making pushing gestures.

Just how big is this island? Kawiti wondered. He knew no way to get that question across, but he was extremely intrigued. The two moa-filled islands which the Tangata had found for themselves were far larger than any other islands known about anywhere, according to what he his father and every other navigator had said. How could this western island be even bigger?

They sailed north for a while, enough for the sun to sink noticeably lower over the western land. They passed several beaches, then neared a rather large headland which jutted out into the sea. At Gumaring’s indication, he steered the canoe wide of the headland. When they passed, he saw that a building had been built near the highest point on the headland. Even from the distance, he could see that the whole building had been made out of some light yellow stone. As their canoe passed, smoke started to pour from the building. A watchtower and a signal fire, he supposed. Gumaring tried to explain more about it, but Kawiti and Nene could not figure out his meaning.

Once around the headland, he saw a couple of other small canoes in the water, being rapidly paddled toward the shore. Made from some kind of bark sewn together, from what he could see of them, not dug out from a tree trunk like any proper canoe should be. He vaguely wondered why these Raduru needed to do that, when they had so many trees to shape into dugouts, and why they did not use outriggers to stabilise their canoes on the seas. Maybe they knew no better; it would explain why they had been so fascinated by the first glimpse of the Tangata canoe. If those bark-skin canoes were as flimsy as they looked, he would not take one out of sight of land, and given a choice, he wouldn’t even take them onto the water.

Thoughts of canoes were driven from his mind as they neared a small sheltered harbour. The people in the other canoes landed them and carried them up the beach, but other people were waiting to meet them. A lot of people. A couple of hundred men lined the shore, waiting for them. It was hard to be sure at a distance, but it looked as if they all had spears and shields. Beyond the beach rose walls of the same creamy-yellow stone which had been used to make the watchtower.

Gumaring leaped off the canoe as soon as it touched sand underneath the waves, even before it was fully ashore. He started shouting at the other Raduru while he ran toward them. Kawiti ignored them for the moment, and made sure that the canoe was brought ashore properly. He needed to make sure that it was above the high-water mark. That much he could do. Keeping the canoe safe from the Raduru would be another matter, but they seemed friendly enough so far.

More raised voices carried across from where Gumaring spoke to his fellows, but they sounded more excited than angry. By the time Kawiti and the other Tangata had secured the canoe above the high-water mark, the crowd of warriors had separated somewhat. Gumaring gestured for them to follow him. “Bigan,” he kept repeating, over and over. Presumably that meant something like “come,” but who could say for sure?

Gumaring led them toward the walled town, or whatever it was. A few of the Raduru followed behind, while others dispersed. As they drew near, Kawiti’s gaze focused mostly on the creamy-yellow walls. It looked something like the sandstone he had seen in a few places in Te Ika a Maui, but not quite the same colour. Whatever it was made of, though, the wall was high. Higher than a man could reach. These Raduru must expect raids from their neighbours, then, especially if they had gone to the trouble of building a watchtower.

“What are those birds?” Nene asked, pointing off to the left. Not far from the walls, a large space of land had been enclosed by a fence and ditch. Inside it crowded a large number of birds. Big, flightless birds, reminiscent of moa, although no moa had a black-feathered head with patches of naked blue skin, like those bird heads which poked over the fence to watch the people outside.

“Not moa,” one of the other Tangata said. “Ever tried to keep moa fenced in?”

Kawiti chuckled, as did the others. A few hunters had tried to herd moa into enclosures to keep them around to be killed during harder times. It never worked. If a moa took fright, it would run in panic. If there was nowhere to run except into a fence, then the moa would run into the fence, either killing itself or breaking down the fence. Sometimes both.

“Don’t look as big as moas,” Nene said. “Not the decent ones, anyway.”

Kawiti shrugged. The biggest moas sometimes weighed more than two men, well worth the hunting, even with the ever-increasing distances needed to travel to find and kill them. These birds looked smaller, but would still make for a fine feast.

Gumaring led them inside the stone walls of the Raduru town. Inside, buildings of stone and wood crowded near to each other, except for one road which ran through the town. Some kind of dark grey stones had been laid into the ground to form a solid surface on the street. That was a marvellous idea – stones would not turn to mud whenever it rained.

“How many people live here?” Nene asked, as they walked along the winding street. Building after building lay on either side, with narrower unpaved streets running off. “Hundreds? Tens of hundreds?”

Kawiti nodded. The entire extended family networks of their iwi [clan] numbered less than ten hundreds of people. This crowded town had to hold at least that many people. How numerous were the Raduru? The more he thought on it, the more he doubted that the Big Man would ever order the settlement of this western island. Not anywhere that the Raduru claimed, anyway.

About a dozen of the Raduru warriors still followed them into the town; the rest had returned to whatever they were doing before the Tangata arrived. Gumaring led the way to a large stone building at the top of a small hill. The building was surrounded by an open area paved with more stones, and separated from the rest of the town by a low wall about knee-height.

A man waited inside the paved area. A brief glance confirmed him as someone of high status, with elaborate, colourful clothes and some accoutrements made from the same dunu which the other Raduru used for spearheads and some shields. This was clearly the Big Man of the Raduru. He did not bear any shield or other weapons, save for a gleaming dunu dagger at his belt. He wore a cloak wrapped around him, dyed in alternating lines of green and light blue, and fastened by a clasp of a material which looked like dunu, but which had a yellower, brighter sheen. He had a bracelet on each arm made from the same metal, and several other decorations of dunu. His headdress was an elaborate work formed in three overlapping circles, one projecting from either side of his head, and the third just above it. Brightly coloured feathers had been attached to the headdress, an iridescent arrangement of greens, blues, oranges and yellows.

Gumaring dropped down to one knee before the Big Man, and lowered his head level with his neck. He made a motion to signal for the Tangata to do the same. Kawiti did so, and the others followed his lead.

When they rose, the Big Man exchanged a few words with Gumaring, but did not try to speak to the Tangata directly. Kawiti did not know whether that was because the Big Man was smarter than Gumaring – who kept trying to speak with them in a language which they did not understand – or whether the Big Man thought he was too important to speak to them directly. No way to know, yet, but Kawiti wanted to find out as much as he could about these Raduru, including what their Big Man thought. Returning to Te Ika a Maui now would mean only a few brief tales, which would not do much to increase his status. Being the first to bring back a detailed account of some of the Raduru learning would be much more useful.

The Big Man turned and walked to the wall of the main building. A fire burned here, with a woman tending to it. A small rounded vessel made of another strange substance hung above the fire, with steam wafting occasionally from the lid. Kawiti was not sure exactly the rounded vessel was made from; it looked almost like clay, but harder and drier, and decorated with patterns of black lines and spirals. They waited while the woman ladled some of the boiling water into six cups made from the same kind of substance as the boiling vessel. The woman sprinkled some sort of bright green powdered substance onto the top of each cup – they looked like crushed leaves – then stirred it in with a smaller ladle.

The Big Man took each of the cups and handed them to the Tangata one by one. He said something which sounded formalised and slow, although the words were as unintelligible as everything else. The scent wafting up from the cup smelled pleasantly sweet, but with a hint of something more tart underneath. At the Big Man’s gesture, he took a slow sip from the cup; the water was hot, but not undrinkable. The flavour was oddly pleasant; the drink had more than a hint of tartness, stronger than he had had expected from the smell, but still drinkable [1]. He finished the drink, and the others did the same. At a guess – and he hated to guess – this was how the Big Man welcomed guests. Which was good; being accepted as a guest should give some protection from trouble.

After that, Gumaring showed them to a building near the Big Man’s house, and indicated that they could live here. They spent the next few hours discussing the implications of all that they had seen here. There was much to wonder about, since so much of what they had seen was new and alien. No-one was sure which of these new things was the most important, but they were all sure that what they had seen here could be very useful back in Te Ika a Maui.

That evening, they were invited to a feast. About a hundred people were there eating, about half of them women. That was unlike the Tangata, where the women would only eat once the men were finished. He said, “No-one touch a woman here unless she touches you first. Don’t let your gaze linger on any woman for too long, either.” Among the Tangata, nothing could be more guaranteed to start a fight than over women, and he suspected that the same held true here.

Throughout the feast, he paid little attention to the people, but more to the food. The centrepiece was a couple of large roasted birds, which from their size had to be like the ones they had seen on the way in. They were certainly worth the eating, although he thought that he preferred moa. Besides the meat, there were a variety of vegetables to eat, spiced with a variety of flavours which he enjoyed without being able to put a name to them. He recognised one of the plants as a kind of yam, something like those which the Tangata had brought to Te Ika a Maui, but of a strange red colour. They grew much larger than anything which could be grown on that island, too. That interested him more than anything else which he had seen so far. Sweet potato, yams, taro and other crops did not grow well on Te Ika a Maui, at least compared to what his father had said about how large they grew back on Hawaiki [2]. And a man could not live on moa alone. Would these red yams and other foods be better-suited to growing back east?

The Tangata’s discussions after the feast that night were slower, since it was harder to think on a very full stomach, but they all agreed that they wanted to stay for longer. There were plenty of questions which Kawiti wanted to ask, once he learned the words to use. Starting with how big this land really was.

The Tangata were allowed to stay for several weeks. The Raduru seemed to have endless hospitality for guests. Kawiti was able to find out much more about the Raduru. He found out early on that they had neighbours to the south that they were at intermittent war with, which seemed to consist of a series of raids every few months, but nothing more. He learned of the many plants they grew, of red yams, of wealth-trees which produced edible seeds and gum and had many other uses, of flax and nettles which they used for weaving and linen and ropes. He learned of the emus and ducks which they raised tame, like dogs, so that they could have them to eat without needing to go hunting. He learned how they shaped and baked clay into pottery – such a useful thing! He learned of the metal dunu, the working metal of so many uses, and the sun and moon metals which they used for ornamental purposes. These Raduru were fond of decorating everything, it seemed. Their Big Man and his wives dressed the most ornately, but everyone had at least one set of brightly-decorated clothes.

Kawiti even had the chance to join them on a couple of hunts. They used rangelands to the south to hunt for a strange hopping animal which they called kangaroo [3]. These kangaroos were hard to find, but the meat had a stronger, more welcome flavour than emu, which was why they still hunted for it. The Raduru he went with laughed at him sometimes when he hunted; Gumaring explained that they thought he was clumsy. The laughter stung at first, but he soon learned how effortlessly the Raduru could move without being seen. Even knowing exactly where they were, he still sometimes could not see them. Moa were much easier to hunt than kangaroos; as often as not a man could walk right up to them. These kangaroos were another prospect altogether, and a man had to learn to camouflage himself well to come near enough to strike them with arrow or spear.

It took several weeks before he or the other Tangata could communicate with the Raduru at anything past the basics. Gestures could only go so far, but they did learn a few words here and there, enough to let him attempt some longer conversations. At one of the evening feasts, after a successful hunt which saw the Big Man give Gumaring the prize cut from the kangaroo he had killed, Kawiti asked the question he had wanted to ask for so long. “How big this land?’

Gumaring said, “Half the world.”

Just when I thought that we understood each other, Kawiti thought, but he persisted. “How long to walk to other side of land?”

“Land go on forever,” Gumaring said. “Half world land, in west, other half world water, in east. Little water on land, river and swamp and lagoon, just as little land on water, like island you come from. But most on each half of world. No end to land if go west; it go on forever, like time.”

Odd. All lands were islands, in the end. Water surrounded everything, just as in the end of time it would cover everything, but that mean that this must be a very large island. Bigger even that Te Ika a Maui, by everything Kawiti had seen and heard.

He tried a question which might get a clearer answer. “Who else live on this land?”

A couple of nearby people overheard that question, and it provoked another of the arguments of which the Raduru were so fond. Eventually Gumaring won the argument by volume, as he usually did. “People some-like us live north and south. Putanjura live north, snakes of Nyumigal live south. Some times with them both we talk, some times we fight.”

“And to the west?” Kawiti asked.

“No easy to cross big up,” Gumaring said. A moment later, Kawiti realised he meant the cliffs which lined the interior along this coast, rising up high and leaving only rugged terrain beyond. “High empty country, where few hill-men live, but not else much. Not know who live past that, not for sure. Wanderer-trader-liars go, come back, say what they want make them look brave or see what tales fools believe.”

More argument followed, and this time one of the other speakers won, calling someone else over. Kawiti could never pronounce this man’s name properly; the closest he could get was Junibara, but that was not quite right.

Junibara said, “Past big up, hills rise high-high. Paths go through for those-know-guide, but long time take. Go far, land flat and dry. River-men live there, in big, big towns. One called... Garr-ki-mung. Hundreds of hundreds live there. River-men no have sea, so make own lakes for fish. Have much-much dunu and drink water-that-burns-and-bravens. Each River-Man think he best in world, always speak and not let other man finish talking. Big Man there and his servants store words in clay so always know what-happen-where-when. Dry there, always dry, except where river flows.”

Kawiti kept his face still. This land was very, very big, then, and full of people. Rahiri, the Big Man of the Tangata back home, would be very interested in all of this. Kawiti was not sure what Rahiri would want to do once he had heard it. For himself, he thought that coming back here again and again might be the best use for the navigation skills which his father had mad him learn, no matter how much he had hated it at the time.

* * *

[1] These are leaves from the lemon-scented tea tree (Leptospermum petersonii), which in historical Australia were used by early colonial settlers to make a substitute for tea. The flavour is reminiscent of lemon, although not quite as tart.

[2] Despite what has sometimes been written about them, the Maori did grow a variety of Polynesian crops in New Zealand, not just sweet potato. However, these plants often did not grow very well, and even those which grew the best – yams and taro – were mostly restricted to north-facing gardens in the northern part of the North Island. Even sweet potato did not grow in much of the South Island.

[3] Of course, the Raduru words for kangaroo (and emu, and quite a few other things) are different to their historical equivalents, but they have been translated for convenience.

* * *

Thoughts?
 
It's possible to domesticate kangaroos, I personally know some people who domesticated two grays and a red. It is incredibly hard to domesticate a marsupial outside of its infant stage, if not impossible. Kangaroos, when they're domesticated behave like dogs in terms of relationships with eachother and relationships with an owner e.g. they compete for affection and attempt to protect their owner.
I am not aware however, if this is a result of conditioning or something they do instinctively.

That's not domestication. That's taming. World of difference. Dogs are domesticated. Horses are domesticated. Tigers, for example, not.
 
There is a world of difference between taming and domestication, but animals can be semi-domesticated and still be useful, if they are suffciently small or non-aggressive enough and will breed in captivity, and so provide the route to domestication.

What you'd do with a tame kangaroo, I'm not quite sure.
 
will the tangata be bringing anything back home with them?
emus? diseases? bronze?

great update jared.
as always looking forward to more.
 
apparently i fail at thinking.

Yay for update! and it is interesting.

err, that's pretty much all i have to say, sadly :(
 
Wonderful update!

Not a hint of sickness yet I see. I guess the Raduru are isolated enough they don't have regular epidemics going through their population. It looks like the Maori might actually get most of the agricultural package before a major plague hits. Well, they may have some issues getting emus across right away, but the rest should be fairly easy.

It looks like it will be beneficial for the Tangata as well. It sounds like this group is from a marginal area of South Island which would soon revert to hunter-gatherers.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Actually, something I just thought of: would the *Aborigines be likely to develop paper? I don't know if there are any Australian plants equivalent to papyrus, and I have absolutely no idea how the idea of wood-pulp paper was first developed, but it does seem like something that might be useful if they had it.

And what might actually be amusing is if the Maori start settling those tropical regions in northern Australia. Granted, they've still got plenty of New Zealand to settle, but the Polynesian crop package would presumably grow quite well in the Australian north.
 
I assume contact with Australia is OTL? My knowledge of Oceania's history is scanty.
My knowledge is limited as well, however, AFAIK nobody from New Zealand or other Oceanian islands reached Australia in OTL before European colonization of the continent. Maori sailed to New Zealand from Hawaiki (their mythical homeland, situated somewhere in Eastern Polynesia) and forgot seafaring skills soon afterwards. New Zealand was so rich and large that they did not want to sail farther.
Jared has mentioned in prologue some Maori bigman, who sent canoe to explore new lands soon after *New Zealand's settlement, and that canoe's crew discovered *Australia. That bigman could exist in OTL (and his canoe would return without great news, having met hunter-gatherers in Australia), but in LoRaG Maorian visit would have most important consequences because of presence of the high-level civilization in the discovered continent.
 
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The Maori are going to want the Aboriginal agricultural package -but what do they have to trade?

Hmmm... Canoe tech vs. a bunch of seeds, maybe a few birds. Ya, the Aborigines might think they were STEALING from the Maori. (And the Maori would be sure they had by far the better deal.)

What did the Maori use for cloth for sails, OTL? Or even the Polynesians, now that I think of it? they made cloth for clothing from a tree bark, IIRC, but I'm not sure that would stand up to use as a sail.
 
What did the Maori use for cloth for sails, OTL? Or even the Polynesians, now that I think of it? they made cloth for clothing from a tree bark, IIRC, but I'm not sure that would stand up to use as a sail.
The Polynesians used pandanus leaves. It is really interesting what did the Maori use, because I'm not sure that pandanus could thrive in relatively cold New Zealand (there are some 600 species of these plants, but almost all of them grow in the tropical zone of Earth).
In OTL the Maori cultivated New Zealand flax (two species - harakeke, wharariki) for their clothing, baskets, nets and so on. This website (http://www.alibrown.co.nz/history-of-new-zealand-flax.html) claims that New Zealand flax is ideal for sail-making too, but there is no examples of Maorian sails on the site.
Maybe, the Maori discontinued long-distance maritime travel because of want of pandanus and (possible) unreliability of New Zealand flax as material for sails?
 
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