Swords of the Iroquois
- Thread starter smjb
- Start date
As twovultures says, it depends on the relative political landscape.
It really depends on what Peacemaker's message was in the context of the formation of Haudenosaunee. And OTL is only a rough guide, with European crops, draft animals and other tech butterflying everything too.
At a glance, the Iroquois Confederacy looks like a fine and noble thing not unlike the more dewey-eyed vision of a benign world government. If all people are one, all will be at peace; surely this is a good thing?
But in fact the Confederacy is described in Wikipedia offhand as "imperialist" and even my very cursory knowledge tells me they were routinely at war with the Huron (another Iroquoian people) and that OTL they drove the Eire away. It might be that the pure form of Peacemaker's message was universal and pacifistic, but that in reality only a (large!) fraction of his targets came around and some of them only because it enhanced their power to beat up on third parties. Or it could be the original founders, who may or may not be drastically misrepresented by later myth (chances are they were somewhat) didn't aspire for sweeping idealism themselves and right from the get-go the plan was to form a big gang for more success in sweeping aside smaller ones.
Given that sort of realpolitik, someone has to be outside the charmed circle as the designated foe. Those someones might not be the Eire or Huron if there is someone beyond them to fight. It might be entirely reasonable for the original Haudenosaunee to include all peoples who share the same language roots and basic cultural orientation in the vicinity, the better to Other more distant rivals.
Or, the political geography could work out much as OTL, starting as a family quarrel within Iroquoian circles and only later ramifying out. Indeed, starting by including the Norse rather gets past the whole one language, one way of life, one people possible beginning and implies that who is in and who is out is decided on other criteria. Like, who is most immediately useful.
You have to get closer to the ground as it were and figure out who all these people are and what matters to them; just saying now they have horses is insufficient information.
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I found this excellent resource. (Mainly I'm posting it so I can find it easily later; will be AFK for a while.)
Of course, this is the Late Woodland Period that we're dealing with, so chances are there's all sorts of tribes no one's ever heard of because they'd all been absorbed by/merged into/run out by larger tribes centuries before European contact. (Never said I didn't set myself a challenge.)
Anyhow, now I've got to look into Norse battle tactics. In spite of what I named it, this timeline was going to gloss over the martial stuff. The name's actually a shout out to all these "guns of the X" timelines.
Anyhow, now I've got to look into Norse battle tactics. In spite of what I named it, this timeline was going to gloss over the martial stuff. The name's actually a shout out to all these "guns of the X" timelines.
Alright, I've just realized that I've been completely over-estimating the Vikings. Luckilly, I haven't committed anything "to paper" yet that makes me look like a complete idiot (only having one chapter published has its advantages), but still.
There's going to be a bit of a wait for chapter two, is what I'm saying.
There's going to be a bit of a wait for chapter two, is what I'm saying.
What, in terms of their tech? In terms of how much they could haul over?
The biggest problem with the New Vinland scenario that bothers me is, this business of their being Christian.
1142 is long after Iceland converted, which I believe happened in 1000 AD. Lemme check: yep. The council, the Thing, agreed to have the matter arbitrated--the issue was no abstraction though as King Olaf of Norway was taking steps to isolate Iceland until they came around to Christianity and threatening invasion. So the arbitrator, who had made sure all agreed to abide by his decision, came down on the Christian side--the only possible outcome that could lead to immediate peace.
Anyway this timeline diverges in that somehow the Vinland ventures get renewed. I've seen a lot of skepticism about that too, but no one disputes that the Norse could have sent more ships over and more of them could settle, though they argue how well they could possibly retain the more advanced elements of their culture, how likely or unlikely they'd be to get massacred by native Americans (probably after they start the massacring cycle to be sure!) and most of all--why in the name of the Christian God or the Aesiric pantheon they'd do such a thing?
Well, the idea that disgruntled Icelandic or even Norwegian pagans might not want to give up and hand their kids over to be baptized, and therefore might head out to the far territories where the missionaries haven't caught up with it yet--that seems rather reasonable to me. That a wave of Icelandic dissidents might abide by the agreement in Iceland but nurture a determination not to go on living in Iceland indefinitely seems so plausible to me I have to wonder why it didn't happen this way OTL. Perhaps they had to figure no matter how far they ran, the Christians would catch up with them eventually.
Well, maybe here, the nature of the POD itself is that someone knew, perhaps from earlier or contemporary Vinlandic explorations, that far to the south and up the river were native peoples they could cut a deal with, and these were a good long way past a gauntlet of less reasonable native people and so no one would be likely to follow them, at least not if they didn't actually know where they went.
Hence, Freya town.
Whereas, if we go with the idea that the second Vinland was settled by generic Icelanders or Greenlanders who were all nominally Christian and had been for some decades, first of all we have to wonder what other motive, if not fleeing Christian (and kingly) hegemony, could operate that didn't OTL. And how a bunch of Christian Norse in an isolated colony at the far end of the known world would expect to get new priests when the old ones died, how they would be kept in touch with the larger world the Church represented in general--and how likely the Catholic Church would be to lose track of this outpost of Christendom so far to the west. The Haudenosaunee negotiation would not be mainly one leading landholder then, but with the priest or priests as well; one imagines whatever clergy is sent to New Vinland is not going to settle for anything less than the complete conversion of the whole Haudenosaunee complex to Christianity.
So if sometime in the past 140 years a bunch of Christianized, even recently Christianized, Norse from Iceland, Greenland, or Norway settled, they'd bring priests and the policies of the Papacy along. Letters would be written to bishops, copies filed in Rome--New Vinland would almost certainly not be forgotten or totally neglected. If by some happenstance they do wind up being isolated, their priests have no bishops to do the rites of the sacrament of ordination to Holy Orders; there's no legitimate way for them to get new priests, and even if they decide their own priests can do the rites the new ones won't have the training the old ones got--gradually the colonial Christian church slips out of synch with European norms.
But meanwhile, I can't see it being allowed to name the town after Freya at any point. There's no such thing as a harmless respect for old pagan tradition among priests shepherding a flock of new converts.
So--I have an easy time, maybe too easy and uncritical, accepting a pagan Vanadsthorpe. A Christian one just wouldn't have that name and represents a very different political situation, one where Haudenosaunee involvement with the settlers will lead this native polity into contact with Europe's crowned kings (at least one anyway) and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.
Their being pagan refugees just seems to match the situation you described a lot more closely. And it simplifies their relationship with the Haudenosaunee considerably.
The biggest problem with the New Vinland scenario that bothers me is, this business of their being Christian.
1142 is long after Iceland converted, which I believe happened in 1000 AD. Lemme check: yep. The council, the Thing, agreed to have the matter arbitrated--the issue was no abstraction though as King Olaf of Norway was taking steps to isolate Iceland until they came around to Christianity and threatening invasion. So the arbitrator, who had made sure all agreed to abide by his decision, came down on the Christian side--the only possible outcome that could lead to immediate peace.
Anyway this timeline diverges in that somehow the Vinland ventures get renewed. I've seen a lot of skepticism about that too, but no one disputes that the Norse could have sent more ships over and more of them could settle, though they argue how well they could possibly retain the more advanced elements of their culture, how likely or unlikely they'd be to get massacred by native Americans (probably after they start the massacring cycle to be sure!) and most of all--why in the name of the Christian God or the Aesiric pantheon they'd do such a thing?
Well, the idea that disgruntled Icelandic or even Norwegian pagans might not want to give up and hand their kids over to be baptized, and therefore might head out to the far territories where the missionaries haven't caught up with it yet--that seems rather reasonable to me. That a wave of Icelandic dissidents might abide by the agreement in Iceland but nurture a determination not to go on living in Iceland indefinitely seems so plausible to me I have to wonder why it didn't happen this way OTL. Perhaps they had to figure no matter how far they ran, the Christians would catch up with them eventually.
Well, maybe here, the nature of the POD itself is that someone knew, perhaps from earlier or contemporary Vinlandic explorations, that far to the south and up the river were native peoples they could cut a deal with, and these were a good long way past a gauntlet of less reasonable native people and so no one would be likely to follow them, at least not if they didn't actually know where they went.
Hence, Freya town.
Whereas, if we go with the idea that the second Vinland was settled by generic Icelanders or Greenlanders who were all nominally Christian and had been for some decades, first of all we have to wonder what other motive, if not fleeing Christian (and kingly) hegemony, could operate that didn't OTL. And how a bunch of Christian Norse in an isolated colony at the far end of the known world would expect to get new priests when the old ones died, how they would be kept in touch with the larger world the Church represented in general--and how likely the Catholic Church would be to lose track of this outpost of Christendom so far to the west. The Haudenosaunee negotiation would not be mainly one leading landholder then, but with the priest or priests as well; one imagines whatever clergy is sent to New Vinland is not going to settle for anything less than the complete conversion of the whole Haudenosaunee complex to Christianity.
So if sometime in the past 140 years a bunch of Christianized, even recently Christianized, Norse from Iceland, Greenland, or Norway settled, they'd bring priests and the policies of the Papacy along. Letters would be written to bishops, copies filed in Rome--New Vinland would almost certainly not be forgotten or totally neglected. If by some happenstance they do wind up being isolated, their priests have no bishops to do the rites of the sacrament of ordination to Holy Orders; there's no legitimate way for them to get new priests, and even if they decide their own priests can do the rites the new ones won't have the training the old ones got--gradually the colonial Christian church slips out of synch with European norms.
But meanwhile, I can't see it being allowed to name the town after Freya at any point. There's no such thing as a harmless respect for old pagan tradition among priests shepherding a flock of new converts.
So--I have an easy time, maybe too easy and uncritical, accepting a pagan Vanadsthorpe. A Christian one just wouldn't have that name and represents a very different political situation, one where Haudenosaunee involvement with the settlers will lead this native polity into contact with Europe's crowned kings (at least one anyway) and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.
Their being pagan refugees just seems to match the situation you described a lot more closely. And it simplifies their relationship with the Haudenosaunee considerably.
Very interesting idea, and a good start getting it down on paper as well. I look forward to seeing more of it in the future. Subscribed!
@ Shevek23:
I was basing the Norse having the same sort of attitude for badassery on an assumed ubiquity of iron weapons and armor, which was not the case. Considering how primitive I knew Norse iron "mining" to be, it was a pretty damn stupid mistake. Still, though, I've come to the conclusion that it's not the end of the world; after all they managed to terrorize Europe without having superior weaponry.
Also, there's some evidence of trading between Norse and Indians in this period, (and lets just say without specifying my PoD--a magician nevern reveals his tricks, after all--that however much there was IOTL, there's more ITTL). Thorkill's grandfather simply was a trader who lucked out big time when he was offered land in exchange for his mercenary services, and he went back to Greenland and just picked up whomever he could get to go along with his crazy scheme. (EDIT: New Vinland ended up being very "metropolitan" with a good mix of Christains and Pagans, is what I'm saying.)
@ Kuld von Reyn:
Thank you.
@ altwere:
I'm basing my numbers on the conclusions of Dr. Barbara Mann, who managed to date the founding of the Haudenosaunee to the approximate period using three different dating methods--checking the date of the last eclipse, counting the number of Tododahos and multiplying that by the average reign of other lifetime appointments (kings, popes, supreme court justices), and translating the dates recorded on Iroquois mnemonic devices; each method on its own is kind of weak, IMO, but still, three different dating methods dated the Haudenosaunee to the same period. So yeah, I'm pretty confident of my numbers.
I'm fairly sure I've got enough info to write chapter two without utterly embarrassing myself, just as soon as I can find some names for Erie, Wendat, Wenro, and/or Attawandaron characters.
Other specific issues I need help with is info about when the Ojibwe moved into the Lake Superior region and who they replaced, but worst-case scenario (for this chapter, at any rate) I can just substitute all references to them with references to "Lake Superior". (Lake Superior-area copper mining was more advanced than Norse iron mining; ITTL soon after contact with New Vinland, they started providing most of the iron ore.)
Oh, and I have decided on what the Norse will call North America, when they get around to conceptualizing the continent as a whole; given that pretty much every nation they interact with in any meaningful way refers to it as Turtle Island, they will also call it Turtle Island. Google Translate claims that that's "Skjaldböku Eyju" in Icelandic, but I'd prefer a translation by an actual person into actual Old Norse. Any takers?
I was basing the Norse having the same sort of attitude for badassery on an assumed ubiquity of iron weapons and armor, which was not the case. Considering how primitive I knew Norse iron "mining" to be, it was a pretty damn stupid mistake. Still, though, I've come to the conclusion that it's not the end of the world; after all they managed to terrorize Europe without having superior weaponry.
Also, there's some evidence of trading between Norse and Indians in this period, (and lets just say without specifying my PoD--a magician nevern reveals his tricks, after all--that however much there was IOTL, there's more ITTL). Thorkill's grandfather simply was a trader who lucked out big time when he was offered land in exchange for his mercenary services, and he went back to Greenland and just picked up whomever he could get to go along with his crazy scheme. (EDIT: New Vinland ended up being very "metropolitan" with a good mix of Christains and Pagans, is what I'm saying.)
@ Kuld von Reyn:
Thank you.
@ altwere:
I'm basing my numbers on the conclusions of Dr. Barbara Mann, who managed to date the founding of the Haudenosaunee to the approximate period using three different dating methods--checking the date of the last eclipse, counting the number of Tododahos and multiplying that by the average reign of other lifetime appointments (kings, popes, supreme court justices), and translating the dates recorded on Iroquois mnemonic devices; each method on its own is kind of weak, IMO, but still, three different dating methods dated the Haudenosaunee to the same period. So yeah, I'm pretty confident of my numbers.
I'm fairly sure I've got enough info to write chapter two without utterly embarrassing myself, just as soon as I can find some names for Erie, Wendat, Wenro, and/or Attawandaron characters.
Other specific issues I need help with is info about when the Ojibwe moved into the Lake Superior region and who they replaced, but worst-case scenario (for this chapter, at any rate) I can just substitute all references to them with references to "Lake Superior". (Lake Superior-area copper mining was more advanced than Norse iron mining; ITTL soon after contact with New Vinland, they started providing most of the iron ore.)
Oh, and I have decided on what the Norse will call North America, when they get around to conceptualizing the continent as a whole; given that pretty much every nation they interact with in any meaningful way refers to it as Turtle Island, they will also call it Turtle Island. Google Translate claims that that's "Skjaldböku Eyju" in Icelandic, but I'd prefer a translation by an actual person into actual Old Norse. Any takers?
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This English-Old Norse dictionary might come in handy, though I have no ideas myself what to call the continent other than the traditional Vinland.
Umm....
Let's back up a bit, shall we.
a really good source for early (mostly Germanic) dictionaries is
http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz
which has dictionaries of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, etc.
(the Old Norse ones are INTO English, not from English)
I searched the whole site for "turtle" and the only hits were for "turtledoves" in Anglo-Saxon. I went ?Hmmm???
So I looked up "List of reptiles of Europe" on Wiki, and ALL the turtles there are from Southern Europe or Russia. None in Germany or Scandinavia.
Therefore, the Norse DIDN'T have a word for turtle, in all likelihood.
So... They need to invent a word. Do they construct something like modern Icelandic "Shieldback" (which is what you have) or German "Shieldtoad" (!?!). Or do they borrow the word from the first group of people they meet? What's Miqmaq for "turtle"?
Or do they give it some totally arbitrary and wrong name - like Columbia, America (after Europeans), Canada (=village in Iroquoian), Quebec (=narrows in Algonkian), etc., etc.
When I do "turtle" in Google Translate, it gives me "skjaldbaka" which is the same root as what you've got, but a different form, possibly genitive or accusative. Edit: Aha! dative.
Note that combining forms with animals do NOT take the genitive "from cattle, birds, beasts, Fær-eyjar, Lamb-ey, Sauð-ey, Hrút-ey, Yxn-ey, Hafr-ey, Svín-ey, Kið-ey, Fugl-ey, Arn-ey, Æð-ey, Má-ey, Þern-ey, Úlf-ey, Bjarn-ey: from vegetation, Eng-ey, Akr-ey, Við-ey, Brok-ey, Mos-ey" (Cleasby and Vigfusson)
No 's' or 'ar' genitives at all. In other words, it wouldn't be "Turtle's Island" but the equivalent of Turtleisland.
Note, too, that while "eyland" exists, meaning island, it is redundant and far rarer than "ey" which means exactly the same thing. DON'T use eyland is my advice.
So.... Possibly something on the close order of "Skjaldbakey", IF you assume they independently come up with the same word as modern Icelandic.
Edit: Note, for instance, that the various words for "turtle" in English are all reasonably late and come from other languages. There is no native English word. Turtle and Tortoise are manglings of French words and Terrapin comes from a native language in the New World.
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Okay, I just finished the first draft of chapter 1.2 and there are still a few kinks to be worked out, but I am confident that I will have the next installment of this TL up and running by Friday.
I'm also thinking of a preliminary name for South America--though of course nothing official at this point, as that is way in the future. I'm thinking Suthrland. (Please, hold your applause for my creativity.) The main reason to have Norse names, though, is of course to have mainland Euorpeans mispronounce them--I'm thinking that Skjalddýrey and Suthrland will get Latinized as something like Scaldurai and Sutherland. (Yes, as in Keefer Sutherland).
I'm also thinking of a preliminary name for South America--though of course nothing official at this point, as that is way in the future. I'm thinking Suthrland. (Please, hold your applause for my creativity.) The main reason to have Norse names, though, is of course to have mainland Euorpeans mispronounce them--I'm thinking that Skjalddýrey and Suthrland will get Latinized as something like Scaldurai and Sutherland. (Yes, as in Keefer Sutherland).
I could believe that Icelander entrepreneurs would be a mix of Christians and pagans. I suspect the pagans have an edge, having extra motivation to leave Iceland. But they might well reach a gentleman's agreement (Karl's agreement? They aren't all Jarls and possibly one thing they are getting away from is the increasing formalization of class relations, with the Norwegian king moving in on them and all that) that everyone is free to believe, practice and teach as they see fit. With the pagans being pretty much the leaders they get to name the settlement as they like and the Christians, if they are not too fanatical, could go along with it, being used to all kinds of legacy placenames from before.
The biggest problem I have with Christian involvement in the project is that Catholic Christianity in the period places value on contact with Rome, or at least someone higher up in the hierarchy, so the New Vinland colony would tend to maintain contact with Europe, whereas your scenario seems to count on de facto isolation--it doesn't have to be total but obviously Turtleland falls off the European official radar. It can't do that if there are delegations from the Christian sector of the colony always showing up with reports and requests for a bishop and stuff like that. Plus of course the more enterprising members of religious orders and the Papal Curia are eventually going to take an interest in evangelizing the Natives. They have to fall out of contact or it's a different story!
So, if there are Christians among the settlers I suppose they aren't too obsessed with orthodoxy; they might actually be happy to be self-reliant, sort of homespun Protestants without the ideological opposition to Rome--just confident they can handle their own salvation themselves with whatever priests and learning they have among them. Presumably a copy of the Bible or three in Latin (the Vulgate) that they might eventually undertake to render as they see fit into Norse and possibly Haudensee. And other miscellaneous stuff, oral and written.
Around the year 1000, I don't believe the Pope had yet ordered mandatory and universal priestly celibacy; there were lots of married priests. And there were lots of non-canon purported "gospels" and the like around; the "Gospel of Nicodemius" was popular in Anglo-Saxon England for instance. So if they go off on their own hook, perhaps become disgruntled with some rulings from Rome (such as the priestly celibacy thing for instance) and decide to deliberately go off the grid, I can see the European secular and religious hierarchy forgetting about them and their new world, and the local Norse being happy to be shut of European politics in general.
If the Norse Christians are on their own, they might or might not agree on their own orthodoxy but it would surely diverge from European Roman Catholicism. If they are making Haudensee converts probably the whole thing evolves a lot of syncretism with both Norse Eddic and Iroquois religious traditions--lots of saints that are thinly disguised Nordic and Native hero-figures or even gods; perhaps some more reflective part-time clerics evolve rather sophisticated philosophical perspectives integrating Hellenistic-Christian, Nordic and Native worldviews in a way they find harmonious and satisfactory.
Eventually the Europeans show up again, or perhaps the Haudensee Confederacy are the ones to send ships east, and Rome is horrified at their heresy!
But they are the ones on the ground on Turtle Island...
The biggest problem I have with Christian involvement in the project is that Catholic Christianity in the period places value on contact with Rome, or at least someone higher up in the hierarchy, so the New Vinland colony would tend to maintain contact with Europe, whereas your scenario seems to count on de facto isolation--it doesn't have to be total but obviously Turtleland falls off the European official radar. It can't do that if there are delegations from the Christian sector of the colony always showing up with reports and requests for a bishop and stuff like that. Plus of course the more enterprising members of religious orders and the Papal Curia are eventually going to take an interest in evangelizing the Natives. They have to fall out of contact or it's a different story!
So, if there are Christians among the settlers I suppose they aren't too obsessed with orthodoxy; they might actually be happy to be self-reliant, sort of homespun Protestants without the ideological opposition to Rome--just confident they can handle their own salvation themselves with whatever priests and learning they have among them. Presumably a copy of the Bible or three in Latin (the Vulgate) that they might eventually undertake to render as they see fit into Norse and possibly Haudensee. And other miscellaneous stuff, oral and written.
Around the year 1000, I don't believe the Pope had yet ordered mandatory and universal priestly celibacy; there were lots of married priests. And there were lots of non-canon purported "gospels" and the like around; the "Gospel of Nicodemius" was popular in Anglo-Saxon England for instance. So if they go off on their own hook, perhaps become disgruntled with some rulings from Rome (such as the priestly celibacy thing for instance) and decide to deliberately go off the grid, I can see the European secular and religious hierarchy forgetting about them and their new world, and the local Norse being happy to be shut of European politics in general.
If the Norse Christians are on their own, they might or might not agree on their own orthodoxy but it would surely diverge from European Roman Catholicism. If they are making Haudensee converts probably the whole thing evolves a lot of syncretism with both Norse Eddic and Iroquois religious traditions--lots of saints that are thinly disguised Nordic and Native hero-figures or even gods; perhaps some more reflective part-time clerics evolve rather sophisticated philosophical perspectives integrating Hellenistic-Christian, Nordic and Native worldviews in a way they find harmonious and satisfactory.
Eventually the Europeans show up again, or perhaps the Haudensee Confederacy are the ones to send ships east, and Rome is horrified at their heresy!
But they are the ones on the ground on Turtle Island...
Remember that 'beast' in its various forms (ON dýr, German Tier, English Deer) starts out meaning basically what we'd call a 'mammal'. Oh, sure, that wasn't an exact match, but I doubt they'd use Shield beast.
However, I did find
"eyðla, u, f. [early Swed. oydla; cp. Dan. ögle, 'der er ögler i mosen'] :-- a lizard, also a toad," (again from Cleasby and Vigfusson, from the same site above).
So "skjaldeðla" and "Skjaldeðley" look reasonable to me.
ð is voiced th sound (as in this, rather than in thin). Can be written 'dh', 'th' or 'd' depending on your transliteration scheme, if you want to avoid a specifically Norse character.
NB. On the US-International keyboard it's AltGr-d.
Edit: Google translate tells me the German word for "turtle" is "Schildkröte". Now, "Schild" is shield and "Kröte" is one of the words for toad, so a different Germanic language went that route.