ACT I: THE THIRD WORLD

Lands of Red and Gold #20: Worlds In Collision

Continuity note: This instalment continues from shortly after the second section of the opening instalment (#0: First Contact) of the Prologue.

--

August 1619
D’Edels Land / Tiayal [Western coast of Australia]

Commander Frederik de Houtman stood at the summit of a hill in a new land, surrounded by two dozen sailors and three kinds of trees he had never seen before.  Scorching heat and waiting had been the features of most of his morning.  The sun beat down here, even when it was winter in this hemisphere.  At least the air was dry when compared to what he would find when he sailed north to the Indies.

He had to wait, of course.  He had decided to keep his men in the shade of this hill until they saw the natives coming out to meet them.  He did not want to alarm the natives by coming too close to their town unawares, and he also wanted to keep his ships in sight.  This hill was not very high, but it was tall enough to allow him to see the Amsterdam and the Dordrecht waiting at the nearby inlet.  The other ships of his expedition were further out to sea, as he had ordered.  All to the good.

“Need we wait here all day?” Pieter Stins said.

“If the natives don’t come out by mid-afternoon, we’ll go back to the boats,” said de Houtman.

Not all of the sailors appeared happy at that announcement, but he ignored their discontent.  If one of them wanted to say more, he would answer, but he would prefer to stay alert rather than be distracted by argument.

De Houtman went back to watching the native town.  The distance made fine details impossible to pick out, but he had always had keen eyes, so he could see the broad form of things.  The town was small; it probably held no more than five hundred people.  Oddly, it had no walls.  He wondered whether that meant that these natives had no enemies – which would be strange, if true – or if something more complex underlay that decision.

The town had three small docks jutting out into the river.  A few small boats were moored on those docks, and some smaller vessels which looked almost like canoes were pulled up onto the banks.  Impossible to be sure from this distance, of course, but he doubted that those boats were very seaworthy.  That would explain why all of those docks were here in the shelter of the inlet, rather than out facing the open sea.

While they waited, the sailors started to speculate amongst themselves about the nature of this strange people.  De Houtman half-listened while he watched the town, without speaking his own thoughts.  No-one knew much of anything about these people, of course, but that just added to the wildness of the speculation.  From what they had seen of the natives from a distance, they were dark-skinned, darker than anyone who lived in the Indies.  Maybe even as black as Africans.

One of the sailors pointed to the large birds which crowded a couple of the fields nearer the town.  “This must be like Africa.  It has blacks, and ostriches.”

“Those are no ostriches,” another sailor said.  “Wrong colour, not quite the right shape.  Besides, we’re too far from the Cape.”

De Houtman did not bother speaking, but of course the second sailor was right.  This land had strange crops and trees, and they had seen several kinds of brightly coloured birds flying around.  Yet it was not Africa.  A few Company ships had touched along this land’s western coast from time to time, even if they had found naught worth the visit.  This must be a whole new land.  After all, no-one had properly explored all of the Spice Islands yet; this could be just the southernmost and largest.

The sailors kept arguing amongst themselves.  Eventually, the conversation shifted to what De Houtman had already considered: whether this was one of the Spice Islands.  That led them to wonder whether they would be able to speak with the natives.  If this land had some contact with the more northerly Indies, that might be possible.  The languages of the Indies were closely-related; de Houtman himself had learned Malay and published a dictionary on their language.

With any luck, there would be a few people here who had learned Malay or a related language from traders.  If not, then possibly they had encountered shipwrecked Dutch sailors; there were certainly enough reefs and shoals along this dangerous coast.  Failing that, then they would have to use sign language and gestures.  Hardly ideal, but it would have to suffice until they could learn the natives’ speech.

“Captain, do you know what these trees are?”  Pieter Stins’ voice cut through de Houtman’s reverie.

Stins gestured to the trees which the sailors sheltered under.  Small as trees go, with grey-green leaves and twisted bark.  De Houtman had wondered what these trees were, but the natives had only planted a few at the hilltop and occasional scattered ones lower down.  He had been more interested in the two kinds of smaller, more numerous trees planted along the hilltops and at the edges of the fields on flatter ground.  Those trees were abundant, and one kind was started to sprout golden flowers.  He wondered what kind of fruit it produced.

Stins said, “I knew I’d seen something like this before, but couldn’t remember where.  In Pallaicatta [Pulicat, India].  It’s not quite the same, but I’d swear that this is a kind of sandalwood.”

“Sandalwood,” de Houtman repeated, vaguely aware of the silence that had descended over the sailors.  Sandalwood.  Source of wood, incense and fragrant oil, and one of the most valuable spices in India.  “Are you sure?”

“Not completely, but...”  Stins reached out and broke off a twig.  He had a quiet discussion with another sailor who had a tinderbox, and after a few moments they had the twig alight.  Stins sniffed the smoke rising from the twig, grinned, and passed it to de Houtman.  “Smell it for yourself.”

De Houtman needed only a quick whiff to recognise sandalwood.  Maybe not quite the same as Indian sandalwood, but close enough.  “I do believe we’ve discovered a reason to come back to this land,” he said.

The sailors went back to talking among themselves, leaving de Houtman to watch the town, and wait.  He was now even more willing to wait, even if the delay was frustrating.  He had already realised that this town and this new land offered opportunities.  Now he wondered what else it contained beside sandalwood.

He hoped he would have time to find out.  He had already sent a group of four sailors back to the ships to report on what had happened, and they had come back with word that Jacob d’Edel approved of waiting.  For now.  He could change his mind, of course.  Always a risk with having a Councillor of the Indies along on your expedition.

A few moments later, one of the sailors said, “Men coming out of the town!”

De Houtman followed the sailor’s gaze, and saw a group of people leaving the western edge of the town.  Impossible to count exact numbers at this distance, but there looked to be at least thirty of them.  More than his group of sailors, but not so many that he was inclined to withdraw back to the ships.

“Down to the base of the hill, then we can wait for them there,” he said.

As it happened, he had the sailors stop a short distance up the slope.  Better to watch the natives coming, and the higher ground should give them some advantage if attacked.

After a while, the group of natives appeared in the distance, walking along the shore of the river.

“What do you want us to do, sir?” Stins asked.

“Load your muskets, and make sure your cutlasses are where you can reach them quickly,” de Houtman said.  Wheel-locks were much better muskets to fire than the old matchlocks, and could be kept prepared for firing.  Still, if it came to a fight, his men would probably only have time for one shot.  After that, it would be steel on steel.

“Best if we don’t fight,” Stins said.

“Indeed.  If we must fight, though, best that we win,” de Houtman answered.  “Anyway, I hope to persuade a couple of the natives to come with us.”  That would be the best way to learn the natives’ language, assuming that none knew Malay.  And even limited knowledge of their speech would let the natives tell them much about this new land.

“And if they don’t want to come?” Stins asked.

“We’ll see,” de Houtman said.

When the natives drew close, he saw they were divided into two groups.  The leading group, about twenty men, were soldiers.  They wore armour of iron scales that ran from their shoulders to their knees.  The scales were fixed to some form of cloth that extended slightly past their knees.  Their shoulders were covered with two large metal plates that fitted around their necks.  The soldiers’ helmets were iron too, shaped to rise to a simple conical peak, with a noseguard attached.  They carried large oval wooden shields.  All of the soldiers had an axe slung over their backs, and he glimpsed a few with sheathed swords at their sides, too.

The soldiers were all dark-skinned, and to a man had full black beards.  Standing just behind the soldiers was a man who was obviously an officer or other high-ranked personage.  He had the same dark skin and full beard, but wore clothes made of some blue-purple cloth.  His only armour was a helmet, which shone as if with polished steel.  Around his neck, he wore some kind of neck ring; it was too far away to make out the details, but the gleam of gold was unmistakeable.

The other group of people looked to be servants, or at least were plainly-dressed.  Their clothes were made of light-coloured cloth wrapped around their bodies and arms, which left most of their legs exposed.  Where all of the soldiers were men and had black hair, about half of the servants were women, and all but one of them had blonde hair, even though their skins were equally dark.  None of the servant men wore a beard, either.

As the natives came near, de Houtman said, “Don’t shoot unless they’re about to attack us, but if it comes to a fight, shoot their leader first.”

The soldiers stopped about twenty paces away from the nearest sailors.  The front rank drove their shields into the ground in front of them, almost in unison, forming the shields into a wall.

The neck-ringed leader stood in the middle of the group of soldiers, just behind the first rank.  At this distance, de Houtman saw that he had a golden bracelet on his right wrist, and a matching silver one on his left.  The leader shouted out a few words in a language which made no sense whatsoever.

“We are Dutchmen,” de Houtman shouted back, in Dutch.  The natives showed no signs of recognising the language.

The leader shouted something else.  Most of the words were different; the only word he recognised from both times sounded something like “tiajal.”

“We are Dutchmen,” de Houtman shouted, this time in Malay.  Again, the natives showed no sign of recognition.

The native leader barked a single word in a commanding tone.  The front rank of soldiers pulled their shields up, took two steps forward, then drove them back into the earth.  Again, they acted in almost perfect unison.

“Damnation,” de Houtman muttered.  He did not like how close these soldiers were coming, not at all.  “If they come in closer, shoot them.  Aim for the leader.”

The sailors started to turn the wheel-shafts of their wheel-locks; a series of clicks announced that they were ready.

The native leader shouted more demands, in the tone of one used to being obeyed.  De Houtman held his hands palm upward in what he hoped was a gesture of peace.  No way to tell whether they would take it as that; these natives looked as if they were keen for a fight.

“Come no closer!” he shouted, in Malay.  Again, no sign of understanding from the natives.

The native leader shouted out another command, and his soldiers picked up their shields again.  That did it.  “Fire!” de Houtman bellowed.

Fire and smoke belched from the muskets in an irregular cacophony.  Shots flew through the air toward the ranks of natives.  The native leader collapsed to the ground, along with several other soldiers.  Some of the standing soldiers turned and ran, but a few pushed aside their shields, pulled out their axes, and charged at the Dutch sailors.

Most of the sailors dropped their muskets, drew their cutlasses, and ran to meet them.  De Houtman stayed back, along with half a dozen other sailors who were frantically reloading their muskets.  De Houtman had a cutlass himself, but he did not plan on drawing it unless he had no choice.

Fortunately, he did not need to.  The native soldiers had the look of veterans, but they probably had never seen guns before, judging from their reactions.  Whatever the reason, they had been broken by the first volley of musket fire, and were badly outnumbered.  Some died, a few fled.  After a few moments, the only natives left alive were four servants who had fallen to the ground rather than flee.

“What should we do now?” Pieter Stins asked.  His voice held more than a touch of reproach.  Two Dutch sailors were down, moaning and bleeding.  One more would never have a chance to moan again; an axe blow had nearly severed his neck.

“Catch those servants, before they flee too,” de Houtman said.  No need to tell the sailors to see to their comrades; they were already doing what they could.  Whether that would be anything useful was another question entirely, but they would make the effort.

The four servants did not attempt to flee.  Instead, they rose and walked hesitantly toward de Houtman, when the sailors gestured for them to do so.  There were three men and one woman.  Most looked young, except for one man whose receding hair had turned white.  The others all had blonde hair, which up close looked even stranger against their dark skins.

De Houtman assigned six sailors to guard the servants, and six more to carry their dead and wounded comrades back to the ships.

“We need to move quickly,” he said.  That town was large enough to contain more soldiers, and who could say how many more would be brought in from further afield?  “First, though, see what’s worth taking from those dead soldiers.”  A few samples of their weapons and armour, naturally.  Their leader’s gold jewellery would become de Houtman’s personal prize, at least for now.  And who could say what else these native soldiers would have on them?

--

Namai, scion of the noble family of Urdera, second only to the imperial family itself in its prominence [1], had long wondered what he had done to anger the King of Kings.  He had never learned why; the King of Kings’ choices were ineffable.  That had not stopped Namai from pondering the reasons why he had been exiled to the governorship of Archers Nest [2], rather than dwelling in the White City, as was his right of birth.

Now, though, he thought he might have found the first thing that made it worthwhile to be sent to govern this place so far from the White City.

This field at the edge of the Goanna River [Swan River] amounted to little in itself.  It was next to Sea-Eagle Tree, a minor town that had no virtue other than being near to Archers Nest.  Still, standing here in the morning light from the Source, after this strange visitation from the ever-ocean, this field held strange promises.  Or was it just strange dangers?

At first, he had thought this tale of giant ships and raw-skinned men to be nothing but the warped hysterics of a Djarwari peasant woman. Surely this was just a misguided report of Islanders who had broken the King of Kings’ edict and sailed around Sunset Point [3] to seek trade with the western shores.  It would have made much more sense.

Alas, he had clearly been mistaken.  Namai still could not find out exactly what had happened here, but what he could see from his own eyes was clear enough.  His brother-cousin-nephew Atjirra had brought twenty good Atjuntja soldiers to this field to investigate the report of strangers.  Now Atjirra lay dead, along with the majority of the soldiers and two peasants.

That much was certain.  If only he could be sure about anything else.

He had reports, of course, from the four peasants and seven soldiers who had survived the encounter, and who he had brought back here with him.  Yet that told him less than he wished.  He had been given eleven confused accounts which left him little clearer as to what had happened.  He had been given conflicting descriptions of what the strangers looked like, how many they were, and what they wore.

All of the descriptions agreed that the strangers had this striking pink-white raw skin.  But then, the tales had told of that even before he arrived here.  What he most wanted to know about were the strangers’ weapons, and here, he did not know whether to trust what he heard.  If these accounts were true, these strangers had weapons which could chain kuru to drive metal balls to incredible, deadly effect.

Maybe this was so, but the contradictory accounts of sounds of thunder, swirling dust, and belches of flame left him unconvinced.  No soldiers ever liked to admit that they had been defeated.  Maybe they had just invented an explanation about strangers who could reach across the great water’s eternity and drag kuru into the mortal lands to serve them.  Perhaps.

The strangers did use metal balls in some form, yes.  That much, he had seen with his own eyes, for a few of them had been left behind.  Unfortunately, nothing else had been.  The strangers had collected everything, including their own dead and wounded, however many they had been.  They had taken all of poor dead Atjirra’s ornaments, including the sun-kin, and weapons and armour from the other fallen soldiers, too.

Whatever else these strangers might be, they were definitely looters of the dead.  Extremely abhorrent.  But then the Islanders were distasteful in their way, and the King of Kings had agreed to tolerate them.  Would he decide the same thing was true here, if the strangers wished peace?

That went to the heart of the most serious question of all, even more than that of what weapons these strangers used.  What had caused this meeting to turn into a skirmish?  Were the strangers hostile, or was Atjirra a hothead, as he so often could be?  Was this bloodshed the workings of some malevolent kuru or worse yet, some twist of the Lord’s will?

After a moment, Namai nodded to the most senior surviving soldier.  “Are you sure that these men attacked first?”

The soldier hesitated, then said, “These are not men, but kuru.  No mortal men could strike as they did.”

“Do not give me stories about these raw-skinned men being kuru.  No kuru are visible to mortal eyes,” Namai said, his tone harsh enough to make the other man step back.

The soldier doubtless thought that only kuru could bind lesser kuru into weapons, and so concluded that these strange-looking men must be kuru.  Still, he should have known better.  Few people could ever glimpse kuru, or even hear them, and not without consuming special substances.  In any case, he refused to believe that any of these confused soldiers and peasants possessed the Sight.

“Ah, these... men shouted challenges.  When our noble leader told us to move closer to show we were uncowed, they released the thunder from their bound kuru.”

A couple of the other soldiers started to speak, most likely to contradict the senior soldier.  They stopped when Namai held up a hand.  He needed to think.  Even before he came here, he knew that these strangers had stood for many hours at the top of the nearby hill, in the shade of the sandalwood trees.  They had only come down when the soldiers approached.  Perhaps they had needed the shade.  Not for themselves, but if their weapons did chain kuru somehow, the shade would be necessary.  No kuru liked to be in the direct light of the Source, and lesser kuru such as those that might be bound into weapons would soon be consumed by the light.

If so, that would explain part of the strangers’ actions.  A small part.  For the rest, though, he could not decide it himself.  And that, after a moment, let him realise what he needed to do next.

Namai ran his gaze over the gathered soldiers, peasants and assorted functionaries, then clenched his left hand into a fist and smacked it against the open palm of his right hand.  That ancient gesture meant: I will brook no further argument.

“The families of the two dead peasants will be exempt from all tributes and labour drafts for the next, hmm, four years.  So let it be shown on the nearest land-stone to their homes.”

After some more thought, he continued, “The priests in Archers Nest will sacrifice to appease the Lord and to honour the Lady.  We will wait to see if they receive any messages or if the kuru-listeners hear any omens.”

He beckoned to the two nearest scribes.  When they came forward, he pointed to one.  “You will prepare a letter to Star Hill.  Tell them what has happened here, and ask what omens the heavens reveal.”  That scribe bowed and withdrew.

To the other scribe, Namai said, “Record what I say.”  The scribe shook his head, and produced two wax-covered tablets and a stylus.  “To his exalted majesty the King of Kings, from your servant Namai Urdera, governor of your garrison-city of Archers Nest: May the Lady continue to honour you and bring you good health and fortune.  May the earth continue to yield its bounty, that you may receive your due.”

He paused.  Choosing which of the ritual formulas of greeting to use was easy enough.  Deciding what he actually wanted to say was harder.  “Strangers have come across the great storm road from the west in great ships.  They are not Islanders.  They have killed your servant Atjirra Urdera and thirteen of your soldiers, then fled in their ships.  It is not yet sure whether they meant to kill or whether the Lord’s will brought the deaths.  More will be said once more is known.”

He gestured to show he had finished dictating, then said, “Set that to parchment and seal it.  Let the post-runners carry these letters to Star Hill and the White City.”

With that done, he decided, he could only wait, to see what word came back.  And he would watch, to see if these strangers sought to come back to the Middle Country.

--

[1] In the opinion of the Urdera family, anyway.

[2] Archers Nest is historical Redcliffe, a suburb of modern Perth.

[3] Sunset Point is historical Cape Leeuwin, the south-westernmost point on the Australian mainland.  The Atjuntja Emperor has an edict preventing the Islanders from sailing past that point, so that they cannot disrupt the internal trade between the Atjuntja western and southern coasts.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #21: The Third World

“My intention is to demonstrate briefly and clearly that the Dutch – that is to say, the subjects of the United Netherlands – have the right to sail to the East Indies, as they are doing now, and to engage in trade with the people there.  I shall base my argument on the following most specific and unimpeachable axiom of the Law of Nations, called a primary rule or first principle, the spirit which of which is self-evident and immutable, to wit: Every nation is free to travel to every other nation, and trade with it.”
- Hugo Grotius, Mare liberum, 1609

--

To his exalted majesty’s servant Namai Urdera, governor of the garrison-city of Archers Nest, from Birring Gabi, Chief Watcher of the West and Seventh Councillor [of Star Hill]: May the fortunate stars watch over you and the wanderers [planets] bring you joy and prosperity.  May you know your path as it stretches out before you in this life, your lives past, and your lives yet to come.

Take heed and beware: on the night these raw-skinned strangers arrived, four stars were ripped from the Python [1] and descended to the earth.  Know this to be true: four greater kuru have crossed over into the mortal realm.  Consider and understand: this augurs a time of great consternation, of potent forces at work.

Answers may be found, if you contemplate the Python.  Prey it finds, dangers it dispatches, not by poison or by swift strike, but by the slow embrace of the crushing death.  If war the raw-skins offer, resolution will not be found in one swift strike.  Measured, persistent, and unyielding action must be your response.  If peace the raw-skins offer, likewise let the wisdom of the Python guide your steps, while considering always that even the pacifistic may cause harm through mischance or greed.

--

December 1619
Batavia Fort, Java

Rain poured onto the roof, a steady drumbeat of water which had started a month before and which would continue for several more months – the annual rhythm of the monsoons.  This building, the new residence of the Governor-General of the East Indies, had been thrown up hastily, from the look of it.  As Commander Frederik de Houtman walked in, with Councillor Jacob d’Edel at his side, he could only hope that the rapid construction had been enough to withstand the endless rains.

Of course, if he had had his way, he would have met with Governor-General Jan Coen months earlier, before the monsoon started.  Alas, fortune had conspired against him.  Earlier this year, Coen had moved the headquarters of the Company to Batavia from its old site of Ambon.  De Houtman had not known that before he left the Netherlands, and so he had first taken his ships to Ambon, and then needed to resupply before he could come to Batavia.

“Have you met Coen before?” Jacob d’Edel asked, while they waited to be brought in to meet the Governor-General.

De Houtman shook his head.  He had seen Coen occasionally, at meetings of the Lords Seventeen in Amsterdam and Middleburg, but had never spoken with him.

“From what I hear, he’s sharp of both tongue and mind, and demands respect and strict obedience from all who serve him.  Be careful what you say and do.”

De Houtman nodded absently.  He was more concerned with how long it had taken Coen to meet them at all, even after they reached Batavia.  Apparently the Governor-General was more concerned with rebuilding the town, which had been burned in the fighting, and negotiating with the English, who were being more troublesome than usual [2].

Governor-General Coen rose to greet them as they entered his office.  He dressed as a gentleman should, in a full coat topped by a broad white ruff.  He had a narrow chin beard below a wider moustache, and his dark brown hair had been cut short to better suit the Indies’ heat.

They exchanged perfunctory greetings, then Coen said, “So, Commander Houtman, you’ve found something you’re proud of.”

A blunt man, indeed, de Houtman thought.  Still, Coen had the trust of the Seventeen Lords, so he was not a man to be crossed.  And de Houtman suspected that Coen would also be prepared to put whatever effort was required to achieve something, if he decided that it needed to be done.

De Houtman said, “We have found a whole new world, as isolated behind its oceans and deserts as the Americas were before Columbus.  The peoples who live there are as unknown to us as-”

Coen’s chuckle cut him short.  “And you consider yourself the next Columbus, no doubt.  I know that you styled yourself as Captain-General on your voyage here, even though you were never granted that title.”

De Houtman started to speak to defend himself, but Coen waved him to silence.  The Governor-General continued, “You may have earned that rank, if this new land brings rewards worth the visiting.”

“It does,” d’Edel said.

“Indeed?”  Coen steepled his fingers, and looked over them at the two men.  “Tell me, or better yet show me: what does this land produce that is worth the Company sending more ships there?  The reports from previous ships have not been encouraging.”

De Houtman placed two bracelets on the table, one of gold, one of silver.  He had taken those from the dead native leader.  Along with a larger neck-ring made of two pieces of gold twisted together, but Coen did not need to know about that.  The neck-ring would remain in de Houtman’s personal possession, until he could present it to the most important people he could meet back in the Netherlands.  For preference, to the Stadtholder, Maurits van Nassau, or at least to the assembled Lords Seventeen.

He said, “One of the natives’ nobles wore these.  The natives we brought back with us have confirmed that they mine gold and silver somewhere in their lands, although being peasants, they are too ignorant to tell us exactly where.”

Coen smiled.

Well he might, too, de Houtman thought.  Not only were gold and silver valuable in themselves, they were needed to buy the spices which the Company shipped back to Europe.  Using bullion of silver or gold, Company traders could buy spices which were worth more than the metals themselves.

“Gold would indeed be excellent, if we can obtain it usefully.  Is there anything else?”

“The natives have spices.  We have not found out how many kinds, yet; we do not know enough of their language to understand the spices which the natives know of.  Still, we can be sure of at least two.”

De Houtman placed a small twig on the table.  One of many samples; he had had his sailors cut down one of the sandalwood trees and bring it with them before they left d’Edels Land.  “This is a kind of sandalwood.  Not quite the same as that which comes from India, but still valuable, I dare say.”

He waited while Coen found a tinderbox, lit the twig, and inhaled the smoke.  The smile which lit the Governor-General’s face was perhaps not as wide as the first one, but still, he clearly approved of the fragrance.

“And the other spice?”

De Houtman said, “Sadly, we could not bring any samples, but the natives know of tobacco.  They recognised it when they saw our sailors smoking it, and begged to be allowed some themselves.”

He shrugged.  “They did not smoke it, though.  They mixed it with ashes from the ship’s ovens and chewed it.  As far as our sailors can understand their language, they liked it, but said that it was inferior to what grew in their homeland.”

This time, Coen’s expression was one of calculation, at least as far as de Houtman could judge.  Tobacco grew mostly in Brazil and the Caribbean islands, although sailors almost everywhere smoked it.  A new source of tobacco could be promising indeed, especially if it truly was superior to that grown in the Americas.  Or it might turn out to be useless; de Houtman did not know, but he wanted to find out.

“So, you have found a land of gold and spices.  What of the natives themselves?  A brief account only, if you please; if I want more details, I will ask for them.”

De Houtman gave a short account of the inlet in d’Edels Land, the strange plants, and their skirmish with the natives.  He continued, “We brought the natives back to the ships with us.  There were four, but one of them decided to jump off the ship and drown herself in the open sea rather than come with us.”  Actually, he suspected that the native woman had been raped by sailors, despite his strict orders to the contrary.  He could not prove that, though, and even if he had, he would not have admitted the failure here.

“A few sailors have learned something of their language, and we’ve started to teach them Dutch.  Their knowledge is still limited, so we don’t know much what their country is like.  They do know nothing of the Indies, though, or anywhere else in the world other than their own southern land.  They have some sort of king or lord  at a place they call the White City, but we need to know more of their language to find out much about that city.”

Coen said, “Would they be interested in trade?  Especially for gold.”

De Houtman glanced over at d’Edel.  Being a Councillor of the Indies, d’Edel was in a better position to deliver ambiguous news.  “We don’t know, yet,” d’Edel said.  “The natives we have are peasants, from what I can gather.  They babble about traders who visit somewhere to the south, but not the whys and wherefores.  To know more about the potential for trade, we’d need to find some natives of good standing.”

“We’ll have to find out, then,” Coen said.  “If they are unwilling to trade, can gold be easily seized?”

De Houtman said, “Difficult to say.  They know nothing whatsoever of muskets, nor of horses.  The natives were horrified when they first saw horses in Ambon.  But we don’t know how large their armies are.  Their fighting spirit is not to be despised; they killed two of my sailors, one immediately and a second who died of his wounds.”

Coen said, “I will think more on this.  Please send me a full written account of your meeting with these natives and everything which you have learned from them.  Thank you, Councillor, Commander; we will speak more of this soon.”

--

To his exalted majesty’s servant Namai Urdera, governor of the garrison-city of Archers Nest, from his exalted majesty’s servant Lerunna Mundi, chamberlain of the palace: May the Lord turn his eyes away from you.  May you know friendship and honour all the days of your life.

His exalted majesty Kepiuc Tjaanuc has heard your words and has instructed me to reply in his name.  Your vigilance is noted; your dedication is to be praised.  The death of your noble kinsman is to be mourned; may the Incarnator guide his spirit to a suitable rebirth.  His exalted majesty’s soldiers have died in his service, and deserve to be honoured.  Send to me a full list of their names and kin, that their names can be revered at the next equinox parade along the Walk of Kings, and that their kin may be rewarded from his exalted majesty’s storehouses.

His exalted majesty is pleased that all of the Middle Country recognises his supremacy, thanks to the Lady’s blessing and the Lord’s assent.  Always must this supremacy be preserved, whether from treachery or from rebellion or wanderers from the treeless lands or Islander mutterers [ie priests] or wind-blown visitors from the west.  You are instructed to keep watch, and respond to these strangers as you see fit if they return, provided that you always honour and uphold his exalted majesty’s supremacy.

--

Instructions for the yachts Hasewint, Assendelft and Wesel [3] having destination jointly to discover and explore the South-Land, 23 April 1620

Inasmuch as Our Masters [i.e. the Seventeen Lords] earnestly enjoin us to dispatch hence certain yachts for the purpose of making discovery of the South-Land; and since moreover experience has taught by great perils incurred by sundry of our ships - the urgent necessity of obtaining a full and accurate knowledge of the true bearing and conformation of the said land, that accidents may henceforth be prevented as much as possible [4]; besides this, seeing the late reports and accounts of the last ships to explore the said coast, it is highly desirable that an investigation should be made to ascertain which parts of these regions are inhabited, and whether any trade might with them be established [5].

Therefore, for the purpose before mentioned, we have resolved to fit out the yachts Hasewint, Assendelft and Wesel for undertaking the said voyage, and for ascertaining as much of the situation and nature of these regions as God Almighty shall vouchsafe to allow them.

You will accordingly set sail from here together, run out of Sunda Strait, and steer your course for the South-Land from the western extremity of Java, keeping as close to the wind as you will find at all possible, that by so doing you may avoid being driven too far westward by the south-easterly winds which generally blow in those waters.  You may therefore run on as far as the 32nd or 33rd degree, if you do not fall in with land before that latitude; having got so far without seeing land, you may conclude that you have fallen off too far to westward, for sundry ships coming from the Netherlands have accidentally come upon the South-Land in this latitude; you will in this case have to turn your course to eastward, and run on in this direction until you sight land.

When you shall have come upon the South-land in the said latitude or near it, you will skirt the coast of the same as far as latitude 50 degrees, in case the land should extend so far southward; but if the land should fall off before you have reached the said latitude, and should be found to trend eastward, you will follow its eastern extension for some time, and finding no further extension to southward, you will not proceed farther east, but turn back.  You will do the same if you should find the land to turn to westward.  In returning you will run along the coast as far as it extends to northward, next proceeding on an eastern course or in such wise as you shall find the land to extend: in which manner you will follow the coast as close inshore and as long as you shall find practicable, and as you deem your victuals and provisions to be sufficient for the return voyage, even if in so doing you should sail round the whole land and emerge to southward.

The main object for which you are dispatched on this occasion, is, that from 45 or 50 degrees, or from the farthest point to which the land shall be found to extend southward within these latitudes, up to the northernmost extremity of the South-Land, you will have to discover and survey all capes, forelands, bights, lands, islands, rocks, reefs, sandbanks, depths, shallows, roads, winds, currents and all that appertains to the same, so as to be able to map out and duly mark everything in its true latitude, longitude, bearings and conformation.  You will moreover go ashore in various places and diligently examine the coast in order to ascertain the nature of the land and the people, their towns and inhabited villages, the divisions of their kingdoms, their religion and policy, their wars, their rivers, the shape of their vessels, their fisheries, commodities and manufactures, but specially to inform yourselves what minerals, such as gold, silver, tin, iron, lead, and copper, what precious stones, pearls, vegetables, animals and fruits, these lands yield and produce.  In all of these regions, you will diligently inquire whether they yield anywhere sandal-wood, nutmegs, cloves, tobacco or other spices; likewise whether they have any good harbours and fertile tracts, where it would be possible to establish settlements, which might be expected to yield satisfactory returns.

To all of which particulars and whatever else may be worth noting, you will pay diligent attention, keeping a careful record or daily journal of the same, that we may get full information of all your doings and experiences, and the Company obtain due and perfect knowledge of the situation and natural features of these regions, in return for the heavy expenses to which she is put by this expedition.

To all the places which you shall touch at, you will give appropriate names such as in each instance the case shall seem to require, choosing for the same either the names of the United Provinces or of the towns situated therein, or any other appellations that you may deem fitting and worthy.  Of all which places, lands and islands, the commander and officers of these yachts, by order and pursuant to the commission of the Worshipful Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen, sent out to India by their High Mightinesses the States-General of the United Netherlands, and by the Lords Managers of the General Chartered United East India Company established in the same, will, by solemn declaration signed by the ships’ councils, take formal possession, and in sign thereof, besides, erect a stone column in such places as shall be taken possession of; the said column recording in bold, legible characters the year, the month, the day of the week and the date, the persons by whom and the hour of the day when such possession has been taken on behalf of the States-General above mentioned.  You will likewise endeavour to enter into friendly relations and make covenants with all such kings and nations as you shall happen to fall in with, and try to prevail upon them to place themselves under the protection of the States of the United Netherlands, of which covenants and alliances you will likewise cause proper documents to be drawn up and signed.

Any lands, islands, places, etc., which you shall take possession of, as aforesaid, you will duly mark in the chart, with their true latitude, longitude and bearings, together with the names newly conferred on the same.

According to the oath of allegiance which each of you, jointly and severally, has sworn to the Lords States General, His Princely Excellency and Lords Managers, none of you shall be allowed to secrete, or by underhand means to retain, any written documents, journals, drawings or observations touching the expedition, but every one of you shall be bound on his return here faithfully to deliver up the same without exception.

For the purpose of making a trial we have given orders for various articles to be put on board your ships, such as diverse ironmongery, cloths, coast-stuffs [from Coromandel in India] and linens; which you will show and try to dispose of to such natives as you may meet with, always diligently noting what articles are found to be most in demand, what quantities might be disposed of, and what might be obtained in exchange for them; we furthermore hand you samples of gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, pearls, sandal-wood, tobacco, nutmeg and cloves, that you may inquire whether these articles are known to the natives, and might be obtained there in any considerable quantity.

In landing anywhere you will use extreme caution, and never go ashore or into the interior unless well-armed, trusting no one, however innocent the natives may be in appearance, and with whatever kindness they may seem to receive you, being always ready to stand on the defensive, in order to prevent sudden traitorous surprises, the like of which, sad to say, have but too often been met with in similar cases, specially in the late landing of the ship Amsterdam.  And if any natives should come near your ships, you will likewise take due care that they suffer no molestation from our men.

In a word, you will suffer nothing to escape your notice, but carefully scrutinise whatever you find, and give us a full and proper report on your return, by doing which you will render good service to the United Netherlands and reap special honour for yourselves.

In places where you meet with natives, you will either by dexterity or by other means endeavour to get hold of a number of full-grown persons, or better still, of boys and girls, to the end that the latter may be brought up here and be turned to useful purpose in the said quarters when occasion shall serve.

The command of the three yachts has been entrusted to Frederik de Houtman, who during the voyage will carry the flag, convene the council and take the chair in the same, in virtue of our special commission granted to the said de Houtman for the purpose.

Given in the Fortress of Batavia, this 23rd of April, A.D. 1620. [6]

--

[1] The Python is more or less the constellation of Scorpio, although it includes a couple of stars in its “tail” from Sagittarius.

[2] Anglo-Dutch relations in the East Indies at this point were sometimes hostile, sometimes cooperative.  In the following year, diplomatic agreements between Amsterdam and London would allow closer cooperation.  In the historical East Indies, this cooperation broke down in 1623 with the Dutch executing some Englishmen (and others) accused of treason.  Things may change in the allohistorical East Indies, though, since both countries will soon have other things to worry about.

[3] Yachts were the preferred vessels for exploration since they had very shallow drafts and thus could explore much closer to shore than larger transport ships.  Dutch yachts of this era still had substantial crews; usually over a hundred men.

[4] By 1620, Dutch ships had actually been touching parts of the western coast for several years, and had prepared charts showing parts of the coast.  These charts were not always accurate, however; a regular complaint from Dutch captains in this period was that they were striking land in places other than where their charts indicated that this should be.  In historical Australia, this would largely be corrected by voyages in the late 1620s and early 1630s.  In allohistorical Aururia, de Houtman’s report of 1619 inspires earlier charting.

[5] While Governor-General Coen does not entirely disbelieve de Houtman’s account, he does suspect a certain amount of exaggeration.  This is because other Dutch ships which had been visiting parts of Aururia during the last four or five years had universally reported that the coast was barren and the natives were savages, when they found inhabitants at all.  Coen is unaware that the previous Dutch ships made landfall in the north-western parts of Aururia, which are quite hostile country and inhabited only by hunter-gatherers.  De Houtman’s expedition was the first one to make landfall far enough south to contact the farming peoples of the south-western corner of the continent.

[6] In historical Australia, similar instructions were given in 1622 to the captains of two Dutch yachts, the Haringh and Hasewint.  Their expedition did not go further than the Sunda Strait, since they were diverted to join the search for a missing ship (the Rotterdam).

--

Lands of Red and Gold #22: The Voyage of Tales

“These Wesel Landers have the most unpleasant looks and the worst features of any people that I ever saw.  Black and naked of skin, hair frizzled, their frames tall and thin, their face and chests painted white with lime or some similar pigment, their appearance is altogether distressing and unwelcoming.

They are the most wretched people in the world.  They lack for houses, garments of cloth or even of animal skin, they keep no sheep, poultry, or beast of any kind.  Their food comes from country that yields only meagre fish and roots that they dig wild from the earth.  They have no herbs or pulses, no grains or fruit that we saw, and lack the tools to catch the wild birds and beasts.”

Or so wrote Jan Vos, captain of the Hasewint, one of the three yachts in de Houtman’s expedition, sent to explore the western coast of what would come to be called Aururia.  He wrote this unflattering depiction of the inhabitants of what they had called Wesel Land; the first land they had sighted since passing through the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra [1].

His descriptions were harsh, but his disappointment was perhaps understandable.  He and his fellow captains had heard wild tales of the land which they were to explore.  De Houtman had been reasonably circumspect in his descriptions, but he had still spoken of a land of gold, sandalwood and tobacco, where the iron-using inhabitants had endless fields of yams and strange flowering trees.  The tales told by his sailors were more exaggerated, and grew in each telling and retelling in Batavia in the months between the Dordrecht’s arrival and the departure of the new voyage.

Instead of the expected land of abundance, their first landfall at Wesel Land (named after one of the expedition’s ships) found only an eroded, infertile country of coastal sandplains.  The hunter-gatherer inhabitants did not even know how to work metals and had no native crops.  Most of their tools were of stone; only occasional metal tools of copper or rusted iron had been traded through many hands from the farming peoples further south, although the Dutch sailors did not yet know this.

Instead of the sandalwood and spices they had been expecting, the natives had nothing to offer in trade.  They recognised iron and tobacco from the samples which the expedition brought, but could not supply either of those in any quantity.  Worse, the Dutch could not even communicate with them; the people here had no language in common with the native interpreters which de Houtman’s expedition had brought.

The voyage, though, continued.  From their initial landfall they sailed west, skirting and charting an island-studded coast with occasional bays and harbours, but no large rivers or fertile tracts of land.  Their instructions were to search these latitudes for any sign of the most valuable spices – sandalwood, cloves, nutmeg – which might grow there wild or domesticated, or for arable land where spice plantations could be established.  They found neither, only continued disappointment.

After several days of careful sailing through shallow seas and numerous islands, the coastline to their south opened into a wide gulf [Exmouth Gulf] with mangrove-lined shores and filled with sea turtles.  However, the shores of this gulf were dangerously shallow, and the surrounding lands dry and uninviting, so de Houtman marked the gulf on his charts as Turtle Sound and ordered his ships around its western extremity.

Here, for the first time the coastline turned south, which was the flotilla’s expected direction.  The southward voyage soon brought them into a region of the coast which was already sketchily marked on their charts; it was called Eendrachtsland, named by a Dutch explorer who had visited this region four years before.

Yet even here the disappointment continued, for an extensive coral reef along the shore [Ningaloo Reef] prevented them from coming close to the shore or making any further contact with the natives.  The expedition skirted wide of the coral-lined coast, and did not make landfall again until they had cleared the reef and came to the north point of a sand-dune covered island.

Here, they made a remarkable discovery.  A pewter plate had been nailed to a tree on this island.  Its inscription announced that this island had been visited by Dirk Hartog on the ship Eendracht in 1616 [2].

De Houtman noted the discovery of the plate in his journal, and mentioned the shallow waters of the bay further inland, although he did not give it a name.  Because of the shallow water and unpredictable currents, he ordered his ships not to enter the bay, and after resupplying with water, they continued their journey south.

De Houtman would never find out that he had bypassed the northernmost Atjuntja outpost, which the locals called Dugong Bay.  A penal colony established to mine salt and collect pearls, this outpost lacked sufficient water to sustain any substantial agriculture; being appointed as governor of Dugong Bay was a punishment reserved for Atjuntja nobles who had gravely displeased the King of Kings.

Once past the island, the expedition drew near a more familiar section of coastline.  Here, only the year before, de Houtman had discovered a series of low-lying islands with coral reefs surrounding them, which he had called the Abrolhos [3].  Because they had no high points or headlands to make them visible from a distance, he had almost lost a ship to the reefs the year before.

This time, because he knew of their location, he deliberately ordered his ships to stay closer to shore, making careful progress while charting the coastline.  Their caution meant that while they sighted the mainland coast many times, they did not attempt to land until they reached a locale where they were sure that there was a useful harbour or other safe landing.

After slow progress against unfavourable winds and contrary currents, de Houtman’s three ships reached a large promontory jutting into the Indian Ocean.  The shelter of this promontory created a reasonable harbour.  In this, they found several wharfs and jetties built into the water, with several small boats and canoes anchored.  On the shore beyond, they saw the first houses of wood and stone, and knew that they had found what they sought.

The houses which clustered around the docks were those of the artisans, fishermen and common folk of the Binyin people who were native to this region.  Beyond those houses, de Houtman’s sailors found field after field filled with workers.  They watched as the workers methodically dug out the yams, cut off the main part of the bulky tuber, replanted the remnant of the tuber and refilled the hole.  Thus, they became the first Europeans to witness a yam harvest [4].

Once they had bargained for safe travel, de Houtman’s sailors also became the first Europeans to glimpse an Atjuntja garrion-city.  Inland, beyond the docks and the low houses, rose walls of pale orange sandstone, a statement both of defence and authority.  This garrison-city of Seal Point was the residence of the Atjuntja governor of this region, as well as housing the administrators who oversaw life here, and the soldiers who enforced their will.

De Houtman’s expedition had brought two interpreters with them, peasants who had more or less voluntarily accompanied de Houtman’s sailors on his first visit to the South Land [5].  These peasants were of the Djarwari people who dwelt further south, but their dialect was close enough to the locals to allow communication.

Contact was wary, but peaceful.  The Atjuntja governor had been forewarned by post-runners, who carried word from further south of the brief skirmish near Archers Nest [Perth].  He did not allow any of the Dutch sailors inside the walls of Seal Point, but they were permitted to visit the local town which had grown up outside the walls.  The Dutch found the town-dwellers to be quite friendly, especially some of the local women.

Although the Dutch did not know this at the time, this friendly contact would have unfortunate consequences for both sides.  De Houtman’s ships had already sailed on when the Dutch sailors started to fall ill with a strange form of influenza which brought quick fatigue and turned faces and lips blue.  In time, this illness would claim the lives of seventeen Dutch sailors, including Captain Jan Vos of the Hasewint, and weaken many more.  Their interpreters recognised the disease and called it “blue-sleep,” but the Dutch sailors christened it sweating-fever.

While they were in Spear Point, however, de Houtman and his sailors knew nothing of this.  In accordance with his instructions, he offered the Atjuntja governor the friendship and protection of the United Netherlands.  When that offer was translated and understood, it produced nothing but raucous laughter.  The governor of Seal Point explained that friendship was all very well, and not to be despised.  Yet all of the Middle Country was under the rule of the King of Kings, who lived in the White City at the centre of the universe, and who needed protection from nothing in the mortal realms.

With this exchange, de Houtman finally began to grasp the extent of the nation he had contacted.  He had made landfall at a place more than 400 kilometres further north than his first visit, only to be told that it was under the rule of the same King of Kings in a distant city.  He knew that the Atjuntja lands extended some distance further north and an indeterminate distance to the east, and now he was reminded that the White City was somewhere far to the south, too.

When his diplomatic advances came to naught, de Houtman and his fellow captains explored a matter which was even closer to their hearts: trade.  The Company had been generous in supplying them with samples of trade goods: iron and steel manufactures; linen and other textiles; Coromandel goods such as lacquered boxes, screens and chests [6]; metals, gems and similar such as gold, silver, lead, tin, pearls, and coloured glass; and very limited quantities of spices such as nutmeg, mace, sandalwood, tobacco and cloves.

To their delight, the Atjuntja governor and his administrators recognised most of their trade goods.  Gold and silver they acknowledged, although they did not appear greatly impressed.  Lead they viewed with disdain as commonplace; pearls and glass interested them more.  Textiles and lacquer work interested them even more, as did some of the iron cookware and utensils [7].  Of the most valued goods, the spices, though, they recognised tobacco but treated it as nothing of consequence, and they thought that the Indian sandalwood was inferior.  Alas, of the other spices, they knew nothing, and appeared to care but little.

To de Houtman’s frustration, the Atjuntja governor bluntly refused to conduct trade.  He explained that everything valuable in the Middle Country belonged to the King of Kings, and that it would not be traded without his permission.  Everyday items such as food, wood and tobacco could be exchanged as gifts between friends, and some of them had already been supplied to the visiting Dutch.  However, items of value such as gold, silver, sandalwood, “worked goods” and kunduri were part of the tribute owed to the King of Kings, and could not be exchanged elsewhere without his approval.

The Dutch disappointment was almost palpable; severe enough that de Houtman took some time before he remembered to ask what kunduri was.  His interpreter refused to relay the question, saying that would be like asking a man to explain what water was.  Instead, the interpreter simply explained that kunduri was to tobacco what yam wine was to water.

After three days of explanation and frustration, de Houtman decided that they had found out all that they could from Seal Point.  Privately, he told his captains that he hoped to find a place further south where the natives would be willing to trade, no matter what restrictions their emperor might have placed on them.

From Seal Point, the expedition continued southward, charting the coast and noting as they explored that the shore country was becoming ever more fertile.  De Houtman and his captains named many geographical features, with no regard whatsoever for what the natives called them.

The captains knew both elation and frustration as they ventured ever further south.  Elation, because their methodical progress permitted them to draw extremely accurate charts of the coastline, currents, and other features of interest.  Frustration, because the fever claimed too many of their crew, and because further visits to the coast provided exchanges of food but met the same absolute refusal to trade any goods which the natives deemed valuable.

Before too much longer, the expedition struck trouble.  The three ships were nearing the latitude where de Houtman had made landfall on his last visit.  Mindful of the bloodshed on this previous occasion, he had planned to avoid any contact with the natives in this region.  Alas, weather and ocean currents interfered with his plans.  Overnight, the wind shifted to a land breeze, and unknown to his captains, an eddy in the current pushed their ships further out to sea [8].

The Wesel, at that point the lead yacht in the expedition, struck rocks near an offshore island.  De Houtman had known of this island, naming it Rottnest on his previous expedition, but had not been able to warn the other ships in time.  Taking on water, the Wesel’s new captain had no choice put to bring the vessel into sheltered water to effect repairs.  There was only one suitable anchorage on the mainland; a narrow inlet which they had called Swan River, and on whose shores Atjuntja and Dutchmen had first shed each others’ blood.

Despite de Houtman’s misgivings, the Atjuntja did not attack them on sight.  The immediate problem was preventing their interpreters from fleeing home.  Once that was under control, they met a deputation from the Atjuntja governor, who reported that they would be permitted to anchor in the river, and would be provided with gifts of food and some timber to help them repair their vessel.  De Houtman, who had by now gained some understanding of how Atjuntja society worked, responded with gifts of his own, including iron cooking utensils and tobacco to the families of the peasants and soldiers who had been killed in the last skirmish.

Repairs to Wesel took nearly two weeks.  They could have been hurried, but de Houtman did not urge his sailors to make haste, since he decided that staying here would allow him to fulfill more of his instructions.  Governor-General Coen had ordered his expedition to survey what vegetables, animals, fruits and other produce could be obtained in the South Land.  While a few sailors worked on the Wesel, the rest were rotated through visits ashore, learning what they could of the region which they called d’Edels Land.

Thus, the sailors of de Houtman’s expedition were the first to learn much of what Aururia produced and how its inhabitants lived.  They saw Archers Nest, another garrison-city, but built away from the coast in a reminder that the Atjuntja did not look to the sea.  They saw the many fields of what the Atjuntja called wealth-trees, and asked what these trees could produce that was so valuable.  The Atjuntja responded by giving their Dutch guests an ample supply of wattleseeds and wattle gum.  De Houtman ordered that some of these seeds be brought back to Batavia, along with some of the ubiquitous yams, in case they would prove suitable to grow there [9].

The Atjuntja crops presented their Dutch visitors with a strange combination of the familiar and the exotic.  Flax they knew; while the Atjuntja species differed in its appearance, it produced similar fibres and seeds.  De Houtman also noted in his journal: “they grow a variety of indigo here, which produces a dye as fine as anything I have seen from India.  Yet their indigo plant is more versatile, for by different preparations they may use the same leaves to produce either the true indigo colour, or a brilliant yellow, or a noteworthy green [10].”

Other Atjuntja crops simply left the Dutch perplexed.  They recognised the timber of eucalypts as being extremely useful; those were the main source of the wood they used to repair the Wesel.  Yet the smell of eucalypts was like nothing they had ever encountered before, and reminded them that this land was an exotic place.  Likewise, the local dried fruits offered tastes unlike anything which the Dutch had known; after sampling dried quandong, de Houtman recorded in his journal that he wished that he had visited the South Land when these fruits were in season.

Still, no crops offered such a complete mix of the familiar and exotic as tobacco and related crops which the Atjuntja used.  Tobacco was something with which every Dutch sailor was familiar.  So, indeed, were most European sailors; they had been spreading tobacco around the world since their first contact with the Americas.  The Atjuntja tobacco crops were distinctive in their appearance, but could still be recognised as forms of tobacco [11].

Yet while the Atjuntja grew and used tobacco, they universally told the Dutch sailors that this tobacco was merely an inferior product.  The drug of choice was kunduri.  This time, de Houtman overrode the wishes of his interpreters and asked the Atjuntja governor what kunduri was and why it was so valuable.  The governor replied that kunduri was what every Atjuntja man would use if he could, but that it was rare and came from beyond the sunrise.  He had a reasonable quantity, but few of his soldiers or administrators were so fortunate.

In what was an extremely generous gesture, although de Houtman did not yet recognise it as such, the governor of Archers Nest sent for some of his personal supply of kunduri and offered a sample to de Houtman.

The appearance of the kunduri was unremarkable; dried leaves and plant stems which did not look much like tobacco.  Still, following instructions, de Houtman mixed the kunduri with wood ash and chewed it.  He described the resulting sensation in his journal: “I chewed this kunduri for several minutes, and a sensation of bliss and relaxation came over me.  I no longer cared who was in the room, nor what they might say or do.  The effect was akin to the euphoria I might feel after several glasses of good French wine [12].”

The Dutch sailors found the same mixture of familiar and exotic in the Atjuntja domestic animals.  Dogs were familiar, except that the breeds which the Atjuntja had developed had no European equivalents.  Ducks they knew, although again, the breeds were unfamiliar.  Captain de Vries of the Assendelft recorded in his log that “they use ducks in as many numbers and varieties as Dutch farmers use chickens.”  Quolls were an exotic animal, but the Dutch did their best to link them to more familiar forms; they referred to domesticated quolls as native pole-cats.  To the Dutch, emus were the most exotic of the domesticated animas; oversized flightless birds with voracious appetites and booming calls which could be heard over a mile away.  The captains’ journal entries indicated bemusement about whether the emus would be of any worth as poultry in Europe.

Before leaving Archers Nest, de Houtman recorded in his journal that he believed that this was the most promising site yet for a trading post, if the Atjuntja could be persuaded to permit one.  He also recorded his frustration at convincing any natives to come voluntarily, and noted that he did not want word to spread ahead of his voyage that the Dutch were kidnappers.  He noted that the time to kidnap natives would be at the last place they visited.

As the three ships sailed south of Archers Nest, their journal entries grew increasingly enthusiastic about the merits of d’Edels Land.  The land was well-watered, the vegetation grew ever more luxuriant, with some towering forests visible along the shores.

The expedition continued its diligent work of charting, but for some time after visiting Archers Nest, de Houtman did not allow any extensive visits ashore.  He had by now become obsessed with sailing to the Atjuntja capital.  And while his peasant interpreters did not have a detailed understanding of the geography, they had reported that he needed to pass a major landmark called Sunset Point [Cape Leeuwin] and sail east along the “great storm road” to reach the White City.

As it happened, for all of his conscientiousness, de Houtman would never sight Sunset Point, although he believed until his dying day that he had done so.  Sunset Point was one of the world’s three great capes [13], marking the merging of two oceans, but was also surrounded by several rocks and small islands which reached further into the ocean.  De Houtman steered the Hasewint clear of those rocks, missing the cape itself, and brought his ships east in the strong winds of the Roaring Forties.

At every town which he visited along the southern coast, he had his interpreters ask if he had reached the White City.  Three times, he visited a city or town and was disappointed when he received a negative answer.

On 26 July, the Hasewint sailed into a wide natural harbour, and then further into an inner harbour.  De Houtman saw crowded docks, a towering row of statues behind them on the shore, and beyond that twin mountains with colossal edifices built into their sides, and he knew that he would not need to have his interpreters ask the question again.

--

[1] De Houtman’s expedition first touched land about halfway between the historical towns of Port Hedland and Karratha.  The region which they call Wesel Land is semi-arid country covered in spinifex grass and scattered trees.  It is too close to the equator for Aururian crops to grow, and in any case the rainfall is so low that any farming would be extremely marginal.

[2] In historical Australia, the Dirk Hartog plate was rediscovered in 1697 by another Dutch captain, Willem de Vlamingh, who replaced it with another pewter plate of his own and took the original back to Amsterdam.  The Hartog Plate is the oldest known European artefact associated with Australia.

[3] Those islands still bear that name in historical Australia; formally they are called the Houtman Abrolhos, which is usually shortened to Abrolhos.

[4] Red yams are harvested in late April-May, when the tubers are at their largest and the above-ground portions of the plant are starting to wither and die back in preparation for the coming winter.

[5] De Houtman had brought three captives back to Batavia, but only two had been sent back with him.  The third was kept in Batavia to learn more Dutch, and as a safeguard in case something happened to de Houtman’s exploratory voyage.

[6] These lacquered products were mostly manufactured in China, but the trading networks saw them re-exported to the Coromandel Coast of India, and this became the common name for them.

[7] They would have been even more impressed by muskets, but de Houtman had prudently ordered his sailors not to fire muskets except at uttermost need, or describe their function.  He wanted them to be a surprise if they were attacked.  The Atjuntja had heard exaggerated tales from the south that these raw-skinned strangers could chain kuru and throw thunder balls, but did not recognise the muskets for what they were.

[8] The currents on the coast of Western Australia are quite complex; there is a major warm water current which moves south (the Leeuwin Current), but it is bracketed by cold-water currents which move north.  This is one of the many features which make navigation along the Western Australian coast so troublesome.

[9] Red yams, at least, will not grow so close to the equator.  Wattles are not quite as sensitive to latitude, but the Dutch will still have difficulty getting the main domesticated species to grow properly in a tropical climate.

[10] This plant is native indigo (Indigofera australis), a relative of true indigo (I. tinctoria).  Native indigo is widespread across much of the continent, and in historical Australia it was used in early colonial times to dye wool.

[11] Native Australian species of tobacco have been used as narcotics for tens of millennia; the main one cultivated by the Atjuntja is Nicotiana rotundifolia (sometimes classified as N. suaveolens).  This is similar to common tobacco in its cultivation, although the Atjuntja only chew tobacco (mixed with wood ash); they do not smoke it.

[12] This is de Houtman’s introduction to the drug known in historical Australia as pituri.  John King, the only survivor of the Burke and Wills expedition of 1860-61, reported a similar reaction when he first experienced pituri.  Kunduri is grown in parts of the Nyalananga [Murray] basin and exported to many parts of the continent; it reaches the Atjuntja via Islander trading ships.  It does have a stronger effect than tobacco; the nicotine content of kunduri/ pituri is up to four times stronger than that of modern commercial tobacco.  The drug also contains other alkaloids such as nor-nicotine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine, which add to its potency.

[13] The three great capes are three major landmarks in the Southern Ocean.  Cape Horn in South America divides the Atlantic from the Pacific, the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa divides the Atlantic from the Indian Ocean, and Cape Leeuwin in south-western Australia divides the Indian Ocean from the Pacific.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #23: The City Between The Waters

“She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.”

- William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” Act II, Scene IV

--

Excerpts from “My Life in the South-Land”.  Written by Pieter Stins, a sailor who served in de Houtman’s first and second voyages to what would come to be called Aururia.

Our ships sailed into the harbour of Witte Stad [1] on 26 July.  Even before we came ashore, we knew we had reached a city like no other in the South-Land.  Buildings covered the shore, some in a large city in the main harbour, and a smaller quarter across the water.  Neither quarter had walls, and even from a distance it seemed as if everything had been built on a colossal scale.

There were docks aplenty; unlike the smaller cities, Witte Stad had boats in abundance.  A few boats moved in the harbour, most of them small vessels like those of the other cities.  One was larger and completely strange; twin hulls, lateen rigged, steered with a rudder rather than steering oar.  One of our translators said that this was an Islander ship, from some subject people who live in the east and who sail west to trade and to honour the native emperor.

The city officials had known we were coming.  They declared that only Captain-General de Houtman and thirteen other men could come ashore into the main city at any one time.  The rest would have to stay at the foreign quarter across the water.

The Captain-General did not trust them, and had our ships stay well out to sea in the main harbour.  The natives were meticulous in watching and counting who came and went; throughout our time there, we would only ever have fourteen men ashore at any one time.  I was fortunate enough to be among the thirteen whom the Captain-General chose to accompany him into Witte Stad...

My memories of Witte Stad are confused in their order and their sense.  Throughout my time there, especially the first few days, it felt as if I were walking through a dream.  This is a city like no other, the jewel of the Orient, a place of mystery, splendour and horror combined.  Here, the native emperor has gathered everything important in his realm into one place; gold, stone, gardens, animals, men, and heathen gods.

Everything in the city has been built to be larger than life.  A man cannot walk down any street without being dwarfed by statues, whether of men or idols, looming over him wherever he walks.  It is crowded, thronging with men from all quarters of this realm.  I know not the numbers, but there must be tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands.  More men and women dwell here in any city of the Netherlands, or any European city I have seen.  Some cities of the Orient may be larger, but none that I have seen or heard of have been built on this scale designed to make men feel like mice [2].

Two sounds I always remember from my time in Witte Stad.  One is the noises of construction and maintenance.  Seldom can a man walk far in this city without witnessing the toils of those who serve their emperor.  Men labour to move materials, to shape and repair statues, to smooth and maintain the roads, to build in wood and stone, to clean and polish buildings [3].  When their work itself is silent, then the natives provide their own noise, chanting and singing as they labour.  I could not decide whether the music is because they are joyful to work or to take their minds from their endless labour.

Another sound I will never forget is the endless sound of water.  It is not as loud as the toils of labour, but it is always present.  Rare is it indeed to find a place in the city where a man cannot hear the sound of water, whether flowing, cascading, bubbling from fountains, or dripping from the mouths of statues.

The natives adore the sound of water, and devote much of their labour to ensuring that it can always be heard.  Fountains are numerous throughout the city.  Sometimes water spouts from elaborately carved statues, sometimes it cascades over rocks in melodies which the natives find pleasing, and often it fills basins where a man can drink his fill whenever he chooses.

Nowhere do the natives use water more lavishly than the place they call the Thousand-fold Garden [4].  This is a veritable wonder of nature, of carefully shaped stones and plants.  An endless array of trees and shrubs, a maze of flowers and beauty, trod by ducks with feathers of a thousand hues.  Amidst the Garden is always the sound of water; cascading over rocks, flowing down falls, or bubbling from artfully arranged fountains that mimic the natural world...

When I first witnessed the Garden, I thought that the natives must have heard of Eden as God made it in the beginning, and that they had done their best to create a replacement for it in this fallen world.  Alas, I soon learned how mistaken I was in this regard.

The natives’ beliefs are a corruption of Christianity.  They refer to the Lord, but believe that they must make endless sacrifices.  They know not that Christ died for all our sins, and kill men or shed their blood slowly in the name of pain.  I will not commit to paper a full report of the bloodthirsty abominations they commit in the name of their perverted gospel.  Theirs is a heathen religion of torture, the twisted worship of a false Christ, a malformed degradation of all that is good and holy...

The natives of Witte Stad are divided into two peoples.  The people who call themselves the Atjuntja are the rulers; not all the people of this stock are considered noble, but they all think of themselves as better than their subjects.  In skin and in features, there is naught to distinguish an Atjuntja from their subjects, but all of their men wear full beards, and they do not permit the same to their subjects.  Most all of the Atjuntja have black hair.

Their subjects go by a variety of names; the one most common I heard was Yaora, but sometimes they call themselves Yuduwungu and Madujal [5].  Most of these Yaora have blonde or light hair, though their skins are much darker.  With some of the Yaora men, their hair is darker, especially those who have grown older, but not yet old enough for their hair to turn gray or white.  The men among them do not all shave, but those who have beards keep them trimmed short.  Our native interpreters told me that among the Atjuntja, light hair is considered a sign of common blood, although the other Yaora do not care about it in the same way...

While Witte Stad is unlike the smaller towns and cities of the South-Land in many ways, it seems to me that most of all it is designed to be a spectacle.  In its construction, its waters, and its streets, it is shaped to ensure that all who visit here know that this is the residence of their emperor.

It is kept that way by most careful arrangement.  For these Atjuntja do not even allow animals to wander free and disturb the streets.  While these people know nothing of sheep, horses or pigs, they have nooroons [emus], dogs and ducks, but they do not allow them to roam the streets, except for the multi-hued ducks in the Garden.  They even keep out the pole-cats [quolls] that they use to hunt vermin.  Perhaps animals are kept away because they are so fastidious about keeping their streets clean; I do not know.  But I do know that this city is a place of wonder.

--

July-August 1620
Witte Stad / Milgawee [White City]
D’Edels Land / Tiayal [western coast of Australia]

A cool breeze swept across North Water into the Foreign Quarter.  Standing on the shore, looking west to the twin peaks at the heart of the greatest Ajuntja city, Yuma thought that the wind was most appropriate.  It brought the tangy aroma of salt water, diluted slightly by fragrances of eucalypts and shrubs, a silent reminder that these Atjuntja worshipped nature instead of understanding it.  Still, more important than the smell, the wind blew from the direction of the three strange ships that waited silently in the other harbour, West Water.

Yuma, third-most senior trading captain of the Tjula bloodline, was not usually a man given to indecision.  Few Nangu trading captains were.  In a world where the greatest profit went to the boldest, a captain who hesitated would be lucky if his bloodline elders did not strip him of his command or find his crew deserting for captains who earned greater wealth and glory.

Now, though, he had found himself watching for two days, and he had still come no closer to a decision.  He was the captain of the last Nangu great-ship of the winter’s trading fleet to remain in Milgawee.  The rest had departed over the last two weeks.  Those with better captains carried cargoes of sandalwood, spices, gold and fragrant oils; those with weaker captains bore mostly iron, silver, or dyes.

Yuma himself had brought his ship, the Restless, to these western lands with a cargo of kunduri, Tjibarr jewellery, and gum cider.  He had carefully negotiated a series of exchanges of most of this cargo for sandalwood and gold.  He could have finished his trading a week ago, but had held on to the rest of his loading of kunduri to see if he could bargain for a better deal once the Atjuntja realised that the other ships were gone and that no more kunduri could be had until the next trading fleet arrived months later.

Thanks to that delay, and perhaps the guidance of the sixth path, he had been the first Nangu captain to glimpse these strange ships enter the harbour.  Ships larger than even the finest Nangu great-ship.  Perhaps not as manoeuvrable, but an intimidating sight nonetheless.  He had known instantly that these were foreigners; the pitiful Atjuntja knowledge of shipbuilding would not allow them to build anything remotely approaching the quality of these ships.

Word from across the water at the main quarter of Milgawee brought endless rumours of the strangers who used these ships.  Raw-skinned men from beyond the world, as the Atjuntja understood it.  Men with strange skills and crafts, none more awe-inspiring than that they could bind thunderbolts and use them as weapons.  Men who had visited the western coast the previous year and killed Atjuntja soldiers, but who had returned speaking of peace.  Apparently the commander of these raw-skinned men had been admitted to the Palace of a Thousand Rooms to meet with the King of Kings.

Yuma doubted that last part of the rumours, at least.  The myriad complexities of Atjuntja protocol would not allow the King of Kings to meet with any stranger so easily.  Not that it would matter; the Atjuntja conducted such negotiations through intermediaries anyway.

Still, no matter what the Atjuntja babbled about, he knew that these strangers must be men like any other.  No-one had ever heard of any western islands worth visiting before, and the King of Kings’ edict against western exploration meant that few Nangu had tried to find such islands.  But it was only sensible that such lands existed.  After all, if the Maori came from Aotearoa beyond the sunrise, why should there not be other islands beyond the sunset?

Which left Yuma in an odd position.  He was, for now, the only Nangu trading captain to know about these strange ships from beyond the west.  A few Nangu lived here permanently, but they were of no consequence for his purposes.  No-one else back on the Island would hear word of these strangers for months unless he carried it.

So he had to decide whether to approach them, and how to find out what he could.  If these raw-skins were wealthy, trade with them could prove to be very valuable.  Unfortunately, there was another problem.  The bearded Atjuntja buffoons were always wary of any Nangu captains who sailed further west; they preferred trade to flow through their home ports.  They would be very suspicious of anything which they saw as an attempt to bypass them.

Then he had to consider these strangers themselves.  They had been told that they could dock in the Foreign Quarter, if they wished, but they had chosen to keep their ships well out in the harbour.  These actions spoke of a people who were full of suspicion.  Any surreptitious attempts to sail to those ships would be more likely to bring an attack than a conversation.  And the few strangers who went ashore to the main quarter of the city were being closely watched, he was sure.  It would be difficult to speak to them without the Atjuntja finding out.

As he stared across the water, Yuma decided that for now, it would not be worth his while trying to contact these raw-skinned strangers.  They were only three ships in one visit; they would not have that much worth trading for directly.  Better to finish his own trading for now and sail back to the Island.

Once back home, he could consider other ways to take advantage of this new discovery.  Perhaps take a great-ship further west into the sunset, to see if he could find these stranger’s home islands.  Or he could bring a more carefully-chosen cargo next time, with more samples of many goods, to find out what these raw-skinned strangers wanted to trade for.

For now, though, he decided, these strangers should be left alone.

--

Lerunna Mundi, chamberlain of the palace, most favoured servant of the Petal Throne [6], reached for the kunduri pouch at his waist.  Only a small ball, of course; enough to relax, not to stupefy.  During an important negotiation, only a fool would drop a boulder into the stillness [7].

Still, he welcomed the double blessing the kunduri brought.  For one, he had a welcome break while he rolled the ground leaves into ash from a lantern, shaped them into a ball and chewed them.  That let him force the raw-skinned commander – dee Ootman, he called himself – into blessed silence for a few moments.

For another, the blissful relaxation of kunduri let him rebuild the aura of calm and relaxation which His Exalted Majesty had ordered in all dealings with these Raw Ones.  Oh, this dee Ootman was not a complete fool, as far as such things went.  But this outlander was so wrong-headed in his expectations that the difference was sometimes difficult to remember.

With the kunduri chewed and his spirit’s essence restored, Lerunna turned his attention back to the outlander.  As patiently as he could, he said, “You will not be admitted to see the King of Kings.  You are not of the blessed; you cannot hear his voice.”

How could even an ignorant outlander have so much difficulty grasping such a fundamental truth?  No-one would be allowed to hear the Voice of Divinity without being of the right birth.  Being an outlander was a disadvantage, but not an insurmountable one.  Some of the Thousand Rooms had hosted outlanders as imperial guests, usually some desert chieftain who needed to be pacified, or occasional eastern delegations from the Islanders, Mutjing or Gunnagal.  “If your western sta-tjol-der comes himself or sends one of his kin, perhaps His Exalted Majesty will grant his blessing and allow an audience.”

The peasant interpreter looked worried when he had to translate that.  The conversation between the two went back and forth for some time; Lerunna supposed that the interpreter was taking the opportunity to explain some truths to dee Ootman.

Taking advantage of the pause, Lerunna made a closer study of this outlander.  His clothing was a mixture of marvel and stupidity.  Made of some fibre called wool, or so he understood from the previous conversations, that was suppler than even the finest linen.  Yet it was woven into strange tubes wrapped around arms and legs, and belted closely at his waist, in a form that seemed far too hot and uncomfortable.

This dee Ootman knew enough of proper appearance to wear a full beard, yet several of the outlanders with him did not.  All of these men had pink skin which showed when they flushed.  Likewise, his beard and hair were coloured orange-red; an odd hue for a commander.  Some of his men had dark hair, and others had blonde, but the colour of their hair did not appear to correspond to any difference in rank.

Odd, very odd.  Easterners all had dark hair, so they could not use that to distinguish amongst themselves.  These westerners, though, had different classes and different hair colour.  Why did they not use this information?

After the interpreter finished explaining a few truths, dee Ootman said, “If your King of Kings will not meet me, how can I be sure that he has agreed to terms of trade?”

Even the bliss of kunduri could not stop Lerunna from nodding in sheer disbelief at this outlander’s ignorance.  He composed himself, then said, “His Exalted Majesty has chosen me to speak on his behalf.  I bear his message, I speak with his words.  His Majesty is minded to allow trade, or he would not invite me to speak with you at all.”

As the interpreter laboriously relayed his words into the outlander tongue, Lerunna reflected how frustrating it was to work through a peasant interpreter.  Not to mention another sign of this dee Ootman’s wrong-headedness.  Any outlander who came to the White City to trade and negotiate should have taken the time to learn the Atjuntja tongue.  The Islanders, warped through they were in other ways, had long known that.  So did the few desert chieftains who had been permitted into the White City.  Why did these raw-skinned outlanders not do the same?

Maybe, Lerunna wondered, dee Ootman was more cunning than he appeared.  Maybe this bearded commander had learned the Atjuntja language, but chose not to reveal it.  So far, dee Ootman had not shown any signs of understanding when he heard Lerunna speak, but maybe that was a ruse.  Perhaps this outlander kept silent because he had more time to think while the interpreter relayed the words, or in case he overhead conversations.  Lerunna decided that he would have to be careful speaking in the Atjuntja language in the presence of any outlanders, even if the interpreters were not present or not translating.

Dee Ootman said, “Your King of Kings’ willingness to trade is welcome.  Yet it is frustrating that we have had to wait so long before we could meet anyone to discuss trade.”

Again, Lerunna wondered how this outlander could misunderstand something so simple.  “You are in the dominion of the King of Kings, who fears nothing in the mortal realms.  Here, you will follow his timing and his wishes.  If you were in the realm of your sta-tjol-der, then you would do as he pleased.  Here, you will wait on our pleasure.”

Dee Ootman nodded when that was translated.  The interpreter hastily explained that amongst these outlanders, a nod meant agreement rather than distrust or disapproval.

After that, they settled down to discuss trade terms.  The negotiations were leisurely, drawn out over three days of production of samples, exchanges of gifts, presentation of food, and other appropriate courtesies.  Dee Oootman learned quickly; by the end of the negotiations, he had become much more polite in his dealings.

The terms of trade which they eventually agreed were much as Lerunna had expected, of course.  For all of the courtesy, exchange of gifts and marvellous products which these outlanders offered, they were strangers to this land.  They had to accept His Exalted Majesty’s terms if they wished to trade at all.

As per his instructions, Lerunna thus secured agreement to trade terms barely changed from what the Islanders followed.  Trade was to be conducted at two ports on the western coast, with the land for the trading posts negotiated with the local governors.  These outlander ships were not to make landfall anywhere other than the two trading posts, except in emergency if they needed food or repairs.  If their ships had to land, then they should stay no longer than needed for repairs, food, or favourable weather for sailing.

Only the named trade goods were to be exchanged at the trading posts, and nothing else of value.  If the outlanders had new goods which they wished to trade, they must first gain the approval of His Exalted Majesty or one of his governors.  The outlanders could live and worship within the bounds of the trading posts, but when venturing outside, they would not speak of their own faith or seek to convert any of the King of Kings’ subjects.

In all of the negotiations, only two matters gave Lerunna any real surprises.  The first was when he stated that while the outlanders could build their own dwellings within the trading posts, they could not build any fortifications.

“What if we are threatened?” dee Ootman asked.  “There are other nations whose ships may try to attack our trading posts.”

A meaningless answer, as far as Lerunna was concerned.  The whole of the Middle Country lived under the King of Kings’ peace, and his sovereignty.  His Exalted Majesty would protect people, and he would not suffer walls to be built around subject cities which might be used to support rebellion.  The only exceptions came in frontier areas where the desert dwellers might raid.  Even then, any wall-builders were carefully watched.

He said, “If you fear for your safety, ask of the governors, and they will provide Atjuntja troops for your protection.”

The other surprising matter came when dee Ootman wanted to write the terms of the trade agreement.  Very good to want it in writing, of course.  Yet he presented some flimsy stuff which he called paper, and wanted the trade agreement written on that.  Lerunna threw back his head and laughed at that nonsense.  Oh, this lightweight material might perhaps be more useful than parchment for everyday messages and records, but what kind of fool would present it as a binding pact of trade?

He said, “What use have we for that material which is even more crumbling than parchment?  No treaty set on parchment will last.  Our agreement will be written in stone here in the White City, and repeated on land-stones at the sites of your trading posts.”

--

Captain-General Frederik de Houtman stood on the stern of the Assendelft, watching as Witte Stad faded into the distance.  First the trees and flowers blended into the background, then the shapes of the statues became impossible to discern, and then the docks blurred into insignificance.  His last sight of Witte Stad was of the Twin Peaks, clad in green and stone, slowly vanishing in clouds that blew in from the west.

With the great city fading, de Houtman allowed a broad smile to creep across his face.  “I do believe we will be congratulated for what we’ve accomplished here.”

Captain Cornelisz de Vries nodded.  “So we should be.  A city like that...  As God is my witness, never have I been so bittersweet about leaving a port.  How can those people combine such wonder with such depravity?”

De Houtman shrugged.  “They won’t inflict their heathen rites on us.”  Of all the astonishing things in this city of wonders, the greatest was that the victims of this sacrificial blood-letting had all freely volunteered.  “I’m not happy to witness those events, but it won’t stop us trading with them.”

Negotiating a trade treaty had taken much longer than it should have, especially the endless frustration of never getting any meeting with their emperor.  Still, he had achieved the most important part of his mission: a trade agreement.

And what riches it would bring!

He knew, now, what trade goods would be preferred here.  Even if when finding out, the Atjuntja had refused to call what they did trade.  They had called it exchanges of gifts, since trade was only permitted to Dutchmen on their western coast.  For now, anyway; that prohibition would not last forever.

The exchanges had been an acceptable substitute for trade, and had told him what he needed to know.  These Atjuntja had been impressed with cotton textiles, with tin and steel, with rum, and most of all with the lacquered chest from Coromandel.  They were not at all impressed with Brazilian tobacco, but then he did not like their version of tobacco, either.  He had seen that some of it was brought on his ships anyway, naturally.  Maybe others would find it more palatable.  If not, sometimes any tobacco was better than none.  Besides, he had a few samples of their kunduri, which was better than tobacco, in his estimation.  Even if the Atjuntja had been horrified when he tried smoking it.

Regardless of how valuable this kunduri might prove to be, this land had many other goods of worth: gold, silver, sandalwood, indigo and other dyes, and salt.  Some of their other produce might be valuable, too.  The gum of their wealth-trees resembled gum arabic; perhaps it could be sold for a suitable profit.  Their peppers had a hotter taste than any which de Houtman had ever experienced; maybe they, too, could be sold as a spice.

De Vries said, “Are you sure you want to sail no further east?”

“Quite.  We have fulfilled our instructions,” de Houtman said.

Enough of the instructions, at least.  He had explored, charted, recorded and negotiated.  He had secured a trade agreement and permission at two sites to be chosen – no doubt this Archers Nest, and somewhere else he would leave to the Governor-General to consider.  He had met with a few of these Islanders who lived in this city’s foreign quarter, and who had mentioned something of their own lands far to the east [8].  He had brought enough gold and silver to pay for the cost of this expedition, even if everything else he had found turned out to be worthless.

Oh, he had not quite fulfilled everything.  He had not secured any of the natives by force, judging that it would do too much harm.  One of his sailors had brought back a native mistress, but that woman would hardly be available for the Company’s use.  Nor had he extended the Netherlands’ protection to these Atjuntja, but no-one could have achieved that.

He had accomplished everything that the Company could have hoped for, and more besides.  As the three Dutch yachts navigated out of the harbour and began the slow journey west, de Houtman could only look forward with eager anticipation to the new tomorrows which awaited him.

--

[1] Witte Stad is Dutch for White City.  It acquired this name because the native translators have a habit of translating the meaning of names, where they have such meanings, rather than transliterating them.  So they consistently translated the city’s component words into Dutch as Witte Stad.  Thus, this became the name by which the White City would become known in the wider world.  For a while, at least.

[2] Amsterdam, the largest city in the Netherlands at this time, had around 50,000 people.  Rotterdam was smaller.  The White City at its fullest holds around 200,000 people, and this expedition is visiting at a time when workers are not needed in the fields, so most of the drafted labourers are in residence.  There were actually many cities larger than the White City at this time, even in Europe; London was slightly larger, and Paris about twice the size.  However, the scale on which the White City is built makes it seem much larger than the relatively cramped, crowded European cities.

[3] The construction and repair of the White City is not always this laborious, but de Houtman’s expedition visited during the peak season of the year, when drafted labour is present in large numbers, and when most of the maintenance is performed.

[4] This name is a mistranslation from the real Atjuntja name, which would be more accurately translated as the Garden of Ten Thousand Steps.  The native translators did not yet have a complete grasp of the Dutch language.

[5] Stins has misunderstood the relationship between the peoples of the Middle Country.  Originally, Yaora was the collective name for all of the related peoples who occupied the south-western portion of Aururia, including the Atjuntja themselves.  The name is still sometimes used in that sense, but the more common modern usage is to refer to any non-Atjuntja subject people within the Middle Country.  Yuduwungu and Madujal are the names of two of the subject peoples, and who are numerous enough that they make up the most common labour draftees to the White City.

[6] In his own mind, at least.

[7] This Atjuntja metaphor can be approximately translated as “only a fool would cloud his sense.”

[8] De Houtman successfully sent some sailors to land in the Foreign Quarter of the White City.  Those sailors met with some of the Nangu who lived there and learned some things about them, although all of the Nangu trading ships had left before De Houtman’s sailors visited the Foreign Quarter.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #24: Of Traders, Treasures and Trailblazers

“Portugal and Spain held the keys of the treasure house of the east and the west.  But it was neither Portugal with her tiny population, and her empire that was little more than a line of forts and factories 10,000 miles long, nor Spain, for centuries an army on the march and now staggering beneath the responsibilities of her vast and scattered empire, devout to fanaticism, and with an incapacity for economic affairs which seemed almost inspired, which reaped the material harvest of the empires into which they had stepped, the one by patient toil, the other by luck.  Gathering spoils which they could not retain, and amassing wealth which slipped through their fingers, they were little more than the political agents of minds more astute and characters better versed in the arts of peace...  The economic capital of the new civilization was Antwerp... its typical figure, the paymaster of princes, was the international financier.

Convulsions of war and tides of religion unseated Antwerp from its commercial throne, the city besieged and its dissenting inhabitants dispersed.  While force of arms might move borders, wealth migrated according to its own dictates, not the whims of princes.  As the seventeenth century neared, international commerce continued in Amsterdam from where it had halted in Antwerp...”

- W H Stanhope, “Religion and the Birth of Capitalism”

--

Captain-General Frederik de Houtman’s second voyage to Aururia was, for the Dutch, a shining success.  A trade agreement had been negotiated, and a valuable collection of sample trade goods had been brought back to guide the Company’s merchants in their pursuit of profit.  Better yet, the expedition had brought back a host of information in charts, logs and journals to aid in the planning and conduct of further ventures.

The descendants of the Atjuntja and the other Aururian peoples would not have quite the same view of de Houtman’s voyage.  Of course, that was hardly something that concerned Governor-General Coen or the other senior officers of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie.  De Houtman and his fellow captains were showered with honours on their return.

Along with the honours, Jan Pieterszoon Coen gave the captains and their crews strict orders not to talk about their new discoveries.  All had sworn oaths to the Company and to the United Netherlands, and those oaths had to be obeyed.  They were to reveal nothing of this new South-Land, particularly about its wealth, and most particularly its location.

This order lasted about as long as it took the Dutch sailors to reach the nearest tavern.

The Dutch sailors did not intend to tell foreigners the secrets, exactly, but alcohol and secrets rarely go together.  Mostly, they talked to other Dutchmen, who in turn repeated rumours to other compatriots.  The taverns of Batavia were not the exclusive preserve of Dutchmen; apart from the local Javanese, this was a trading post sometimes visited by Englishmen, and occasionally by the Portuguese [1].

The Dutch sailors did not give detailed directions, but, inevitably, they talked.  Within a few months, the Javanese, English and Portuguese knew that the VOC had discovered some fantastical new land somewhere to the south.  Or was it to the east?  Rumours spread, no two of them the same, about where this new land was and what it contained.  The stories spread to Timor, to Malaya, to Surat, and in time to London, Lisbon and Madrid...

--

With the prestige secured from his second voyage, de Houtman successfully manoeuvred for command of the third expedition to the South-Land.  He obtained appointment to the task of negotiating for the construction of the first Dutch outpost on the South-Land, and overseeing the first trade conducted there.

De Houtman set about his new task with enthusiasm.  With a fresh fleet of ships loaded with carefully-chosen supplies, he returned to the South-Land in 1621 to establish a trading post.  His chosen site was familiar from two previous visits: the Swan River.  Given that he had already secured the permission of the King of Kings, it did not take long for de Houtman to negotiate the local governor’s agreement to set up his new trading outpost.

De Houtman had chosen a site on the south bank at the mouth of the Swan River, at a distance he thought was about fifteen miles from the local garrison-city.  He optimistically called the site Fort Nassau [Fremantle], even though his trade treaty stated – and the governor had reiterated – that no fortifications were to be built.  His sailors were set to the task of constructing houses and other key dwellings.  De Houtman used a few judiciously-chosen gifts to obtain the assistance of some local labourers to speed the process.  Fort Nassau was developed into a useable state and declared open after three months, although completing some stone buildings would take over another year.

Atjuntja nobles and merchants (often the same people) had already started to gather before Fort Nassau officially opened.  The samples of Dutch trade goods the previous year had attracted a great deal of interest, and de Houtman assured all arrivals that they would be given the opportunity to bargain for similar goods.  De Houtman had always been an astute bargainer, and he was in a particularly favourable situation here.  In most cases, the Atjuntja merchants bid against each other to obtain the most favoured goods.

Even with his previous experience of the White City, he was surprised by some of the priorities they set.  The most highly-prized items were anything which showed great craftsmanship; lacquered goods, richly-decorated textiles, and the like.  Steel ingots were worth half their weight in gold, and tin ingots only slightly less valued.  Rum and brandy were held in similarly high esteem, especially after de Houtman’s traders generously provided some free samples.  Wine, though, they would not accept.  Nor, despite his best efforts, could he persuade any Atjuntja to trade lead ingots for anything.

In exchange, de Houtman’s trade ships were laden down with the commodities he had most desired.  Gold and silver in abundance.  Sandalwood in smaller quantities but, if anything, greater value.  Dyes, especially their magnificent indigo.  Considerable quantities of their mints and peppers and lesser spices, brought mostly to see if they could be resold for greater value.  Yet despite his best efforts, he could not persuade any Atjuntja to offer kunduri at a price he would accept.  Instead, he received many variations of responses which amounted to, “Kunduri is not something we trade, it is something we trade for.”

Still, after de Houtman concluding his trading, he had the ebullient feeling that he had accomplished as much here as in his previous voyage.  He left Fort Nassau in the command of a junior officer, and sailed for Batavia.  There, he received another hero’s welcome.  As de Houtman had expected, Coen was well-pleased with him.

Unfortunately, Coen would not stay pleased for long.

--

With trade expanding between Batavia and the South-Land, the rumours of newfound Dutch wealth spread ever further.  They caused some consternation in London, where the governor and directors of the East India Trading Company had been considering a delicate situation.

An opportunity had arisen in the Middle East, where Persia had declared war on Spain, and was besieging the Spanish garrison on the island of Kishm, near the vital Spanish-held island of Hormuz.  That port had been in Portuguese and then Spanish hands for nearly a century, and offered a gateway to Persia.  The Persian commanders had requested English help in capturing Kishm and then Hormuz, and had offered to allow English merchants entry into the valuable silk trade.

Alas, opportunity was balanced by danger, namely, the risk of outright war with Spain.  England and Spain had been at peace for nearly two decades, and the Company might find that its pursuit of profit in the Gulf would cause a broader war.  The heads of the Company were minded to ignore that risk, trusting to Providence and the good offices of King James I to ensure peace was preserved.

However, now the governor and directors had a new risk to consider: the rising power of the Dutch, and more precisely that of the VOC.  The two companies had been rivals in the East Indies for two decades, until they negotiated a recent truce.  Now, if the VOC had found a spectacular new source of wealth, could they be trusted to hold to that truce?  If not, perhaps it would be better to cooperate with Spain against the Dutch, rather than starting what could become two wars.

The directors considered this dilemma for a few days.  In the end, they decided that the immediate opportunity was worthwhile.  Trade with Persia would be a valuable new market.  Besides, the Spanish were Catholics, and not to be trusted.  So they accepted the proposed alliance with the Persians, and decided that they would deal with the consequences when they came.

The planned attack on Kishm Island went ahead two weeks later than originally planned.  The English fleet bombarded the fort and quickly forced the Spanish garrison to surrender; the assault sustained very few casualties [2].  Bolstered by this success, the English and Persian forces conducted a joint operation against Hormuz, with the Persians attacking by land while the English scattered the Spanish fleet and bombarding the castle.

Hormuz surrendered on 7 May 1622, and the Persians took control of the island, while the Spanish retreated to a secondary outpost at Muscat.  Honouring their agreement, all Christian prisoners were repatriated to England, and plans began for the exchange of English cloth for Persian silk.  Spain was outraged, and the Company was forced to pay ten thousand pounds each to James I and the Duke of Buckingham in compensation for the efforts they went to in preserving peace [3].

--

Frederik de Houtman was an extraordinary man.  An explorer, but also a self-promoter and liar.  An astronomer and a visionary, recorder of constellations unknown and charter of lands unvisited by Europeans.  A linguist who recorded the first European dictionary of the Malayan language, and an optimist who always trusted that fate would reward him.  An opportunist with an eye for the main chance, but whose vision ultimately deserted him.

After his three voyages to the South-Land, de Houtman was eager to return to the Netherlands to describe in person what he had found.  And, of course, to receive the adulation he believed he deserved for his discoveries.

Governor-General Coen willingly allowed de Houtman to return home, but was dismayed by what happened when the explorer made it to the Netherlands.  De Houtman took the opportunity to describe his triumphs ad nauseum.  He was careful enough to present his tales only to those who could be relied upon to keep the details secret: Company lords and officers, the Stadtholder, and other government officials.

Unfortunately, that was the limit of de Houtman’s discretion.  To hear him speak, a listener would believe that his actions alone had been responsible for the discovery of the South-Land.  And that no-one else had the wit to recognise the opportunities.  To add to his misdoings, de Houtman presented a magnificent golden neck-ring to Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel.  This neck-ring was a prize which de Houtman had collected while in the South-Land, but he had retained it rather than giving it to the Company.

De Houtman’s generous gift endeared him to the Stadtholder, but it enraged the Lords Seventeen.  Combined with his ever more frequent self-promotion, it ensured that he would never be trusted by the Company again.  De Houtman was denied any further commissions, and lived out the remainder of his life in Europe.  While he died a rich man, he never again set foot on the South-Land.

--

As the years turned, despite de Houtman’s departure, and regardless of the distant battles and manoeuvring in the Gulf, the Dutch were busy shipping goods to and from their newly-discovered land.  A few outbound fleets from the Netherlands were ordered to stop at Fort Nassau on their way to Batavia, conducting trade with the Atjuntja merchants.  Prices had fallen after the initial novelty – no longer did the Atjuntja value steel as half the worth of gold – but any Dutch ship which stopped to trade at Fort Nassau always left with more valuable cargo than when it arrived.

Fortunately for the Dutch, the Atjuntja and the rest of the world, the long shipping times meant that most diseases were not exchanged between the two peoples.  Incubation periods were mostly too short; a disease would burn its way through a ship’s crew either before it reached the South-Land, or before the departing ships made their next landfall at Batavia.

Not all diseases were contained by the ocean barrier, of course.  The first venereal diseases had been left behind at Seal Point in 1620 when de Houtman’s expedition visited there.  Blue-sleep was an ever-present threat to Dutch sailors when they came ashore; many of them caught the illness.  Yet this was a fast-burning disease; while many sailors fell ill and some died from it, it ran through a ship’s crew before they reached the Indies.

The greatest threat awaiting the Dutch in the South-Land was the malady called the Waiting Death.  No epidemic of Marnitja had swept through the Atjuntja lands in the last decade before the Dutch arrival, so they were safe, for now.

The isolation of the seas would not last, of course.  Eventually an asymptomatic carrier would make the journey, or a fast ship would carry disease to a new shore.  If nothing else, some maladies would linger in blankets or textiles and bring Eurasian diseases to the South-Land, or Aururian diseases to the Old World, but that time was not yet.

--

While the Company officers were glad of the profitable trade they had found at Fort Nassau, they were eager to discover more.  The first visit to the White City had told them that the Islanders lived far to the east, but not the details of how to travel there.

So a few of their officers did some exploration by land along the Atjuntja road network.  That was tolerated, up to a point, provided that they did not attempt to trade.  Yet they were always watched, and discouraged most strongly from coming by land to the White City or any other place where they might encounter Islander traders.  The King of Kings did not wish his two trading partners to contact each other directly, realising full well the problems that this would bring for the carefully controlled Atjuntja internal trade and tribute networks.

Thus, the Dutch land explorations gave them some grasp of the geography of the Atjuntja dominions, but did not let them explore any further trade.  Some inland regions were also expressly off limits, such as the vicinity of Star Hill or the main gold mines at Golden Blood.  To build new trade networks, they would have to venture along the seas.

In 1622, Governor-General Coen ordered the first voyage be sent to explore past the Atjuntja dominions in pursuit of new trade markets.  Pieter Dirkzoon was named captain of the Leeuwin, with the yacht Nijptang accompanying, and given orders to explore the southern coast of the South-Land.  He was instructed to explore east past the White City, in the hope of reaching the Islander homeland and determining whether it was worthwhile establishing direct trade with this barely-known people.

Mindful of the Atjuntja watchfulness, Dirkzoon led his two ships from Batavia to Fort Nassau, where they resupplied before steering well south of Cape Hasewint [Cape Leeuwin].  His ships stayed out at sea until they had passed what they judged to be the easternmost Atjuntja dominion, Red Eye, then turned north.

As it happened, Dirkzoon was correct in his navigation, and he brought his ships close to the shore at what were no longer Ajuntja lands.

Unfortunately, these lands were uninhabited for good reason.  The endless westerly winds gave the Dutch ships great speed, but the coast they faced was the bleakest that any of them had ever seen or heard of.  This barren stretch of coast consisted of seemingly-endless sea cliffs, imposing bulwarks of stone which reached 300 feet high or more, stretching from horizon to everlasting horizon.  Above the cliff-tops was nothing at all but featureless emptiness; no trees, no rivers emptying, nothing but hundreds of miles of unwelcoming hostility.

The coast was ever-intimidating, never approachable.  Besides the fierce winds pushing them against the cliffs, the seas themselves were a threat.  Immense wind-driven swells broke endlessly upon the sea-cliffs, slowly eroding their bases, with force that would shatter even the largest ship to driftwood and splinters in an instant.

In an unusual display of originality, since new lands were normally named after high-ranking Company officers, Dirkzoon christened this endless barrenness as Kust van de Nachtmerrie [Nightmare Coast].

With such an unwelcoming and dangerous coast, Dirkzoon could not keep his ships constantly in sight of the shoreline.  To do so risked disaster, since a gust of wind or more than usually potent set of swells would destroy his ships in a heartbeat.  Thus, while he maintained enough sightings of the cliffs to know that they continued, he missed the one small break in the cliffs which marked a lonely Islander settlement that the locals so aptly christened in their own language as Isolation.

Dirkzoon kept on, doggedly persistent, until his expedition reached a point where the sea cliffs turned to the south-east.  This was the worst possible direction, since it would force the ships ever further away from Batavia.  His orders had anticipated sailing around the South-Land and back up to tropical latitudes, where he could return to Batavia in relative safety.

Alas, he now faced seemingly endless sea-cliffs stretching away in the wrong direction.  For all Dirkzoon knew, the bleakly featureless cliffs stretched all the way to the South Pole.  While he knew that the Islanders lived here somewhere, he did not know how far, or how friendly they would be.  With dwindling supplies, hostile seas, and the prospect of a very slow voyage back west against the wind, he was minded to turn back.

Decision time came when the two ships reached a couple of small islands off the coast.  The seas calmed enough to allow a few boats to venture ashore and confirm that these islands were uninhabited.  The sailors replenished their supplies of fresh water from the islands, but otherwise found that these isolated rocky outposts had nothing to commend them.

While Dirkzoon’s ships lingered at these two islands, a rare shift in the wind saw the breeze come from the east.  This fortunate change was enough to convince Dirkzoon to turn back; he might not get another such opportunity.  So he ended his exploration and brought his two ships back to Batavia, where he provided them with charts and descriptions of bleakness, but not the new trading markets which Coen had sought [4].

--

With the failure of Dirkzoon’s 1622 expedition, Coen and the VOC decided to focus other priorities, rather than further exploration.  War had broken out with Spain-Portugal in 1621.  The Company concentrated its efforts on protecting its Far Eastern holdings and seizing other places of known value, rather than diverting valuable ships for another costly, challenging, and probably fruitless expedition.  Instead, in accordance with their treaty, they built a second trading post near the Atjuntja garrison-city of Seal Point, which they called Fort Zeelandia.  Being nearer to the salt-harvesting regions, this new outpost saw greater trading in salt, but otherwise its goods were similar to Fort Nassau.

Coen knew that the South-Land contained other nations and markets.  However, he had also learned that gold and sandalwood, the most valuable goods of the South-Land, were what the Islanders came to Atjuntja lands to trade for.  They would not find these goods if they ventured further east.  The only known trade goods from further east were kunduri and gum cider.  Gum cider was of little value to the Company.  Kunduri was spoiled in Coen’s eyes for another reason: when he had first tried smoking it, he had inhaled so much of the stronger substance that it had caused him to vomit.  He had refused to try kunduri again, and decided that it was worthless.  While some other Company officers had sampled the drug and now savoured it, Coen was too stubborn to change his mind.

Thus, over the next four years, Coen ordered that Company ships focus on the known rewards of gold, sandalwood and sweet peppers [5].  This provided valuable capital for supporting Company activities elsewhere in the Orient, particularly for building new ships and recruiting mercenaries for garrisons and raids.  The wealth of Asia beckoned; Coen hoped to monopolise shipping between the nations.  The commodities of the South-Land were merely building blocks in the corporate edifice he wanted to construct.

The Company only decided to change its policy when it received direct word from the Islanders.  In late 1625, a Nangu trading captain named Yuma Tjula discreetly arranged for some Djarwari labourers returning to their homeland to pass on an invitation to the commander of Fort Nassau.  This gave the Dutch enough of a description of the southern coast of the South-Land to know how to sail to Islander-held territory.

With this inspiration, the Lords Seventeen commissioned a new expedition of discovery.  They sent three ships, under the command of François Thijssen in the Valk, to make contact with the Islanders.  Unlike his predecessor, Thijssen was given explicit orders to explore further east, to find a way around the expected edge of the South-Land and return to Batavia by a more northerly route.

So, in 1626 and 1627, François Thijssen commanded an expedition which some would later claim to make him the greatest European explorer of Aururia.  Even those who did not give him that rank placed him a close second behind Frederik de Houtman.

Thijssen did not visit set out from Fort Nassau as his predecessor had done, but came directly from Europe via Mauritius.  Knowing that the winds were more reliable in higher latitudes, he sailed well south of Cape Hasewint, and did not turn north until he judged he had neared the longitude where Dirkzoon had turned back.

Thijssen had, in fact, gone further east than he intended, and by the time he sailed north he made landfall near the tip of what would come to be called Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia].  He followed the coast until he reached the Mutjing city of Pankala, where he and his sailors were the first Europeans to contact a Gunnagalic people in their own land.

From here, Thijssen charted some of the coast, then crossed over to the Island, where he spent a few days at Crescent Bay before sailing on to Jugara on the mainland.  Here, among many other accomplishments, he became the first Dutchman to visit the kingdom of Tjibarr, and the first to trade for a significant quantity of kunduri [6].

Due to warnings from both Tjibarr and the Islanders, he avoided any efforts to contact the Yadji.  Instead, he sailed further south, where he explored much of the south and east coasts of an island which would later be named for him, although he called it New Holland [Tasmania].  Here, he became the first European to contact the Kurnawal, and the first to be utterly confused by attempts to translate their allusion-laden poetry.

In keeping with his orders, Thijssen sailed further east across a great expanse of sea, until he made landfall on the western coast of the southern island of Aotearoa [New Zealand].  The local Maori king ordered his sailors to depart or be killed, saying that they had no interest in visitors.  Thijssen decided that combat was pointless, and withdrew.  He sailed up the western coast of Aotearoa, meeting with similar hostility and sometimes violence whenever he made contact with the Maori kingdoms.  So he confined himself to mapping the western coast of the two islands (although he believed they were a single island), and sailed north into the Pacific.

Thijssen’s expedition went much further north, visiting Tonga before turning west, sailing north of New Guinea, and returning to Batavia in November 1627.  Here, he had a wealth of tales which he planned to tell.

Unfortunately, the world had changed by then.

--

“Sire, Your Majesty finds yourself in a situation in which no part of your dominions is not under attack from your enemies, in league and conspiracy so extensive that one can without any exaggeration say that the whole of the rest of the world is turned against Your Majesty alone, in Asia, Africa and Europe.”
- Gaspar de Guzman, Count-Duke of Olivares to Philip IV of Spain (and Philip III of Portugal), 26 July 1625

--

[1] Strictly speaking, these Portuguese visitors would have been considered Spanish; those two countries had had a unified crown since 1580.  Most of the trade in the East Indies was conducted by the Portuguese, though.  At this point, Spain-Portugal and the Netherlands had a truce, and there was still some contact between traders on both sides.  (The truce was due to expire in March 1621).

[2] The similar historical attack which happened a couple of weeks earlier was also successful, but one of the (few) casualties was the notable English explorer William Baffin.  Baffin had made his name exploring the artic regions of North America, going further north than any before him while searching unsuccessfully for a passage to India.  He had recently joined the East India Trading Company, and was present for the assault on Kishm, where he met an untimely end.  With the allohistorical delay to the attack, Baffin survives.

[3] This is essentially the same outcome as happened historically, although the historical date for the fall of Hormuz was 22 April 1622.

[4] The progress of Pieter Dirkzoon’s exploration is similar to that of the historical exploration of Francois Thijssen in the ship Gulden Zeepaerdt in 1627; he charted much of the southern coast of Australia but turned back when the coast started to stretch to the south-east.  The islands which Dirkzoon discovered are in historical Australia still called the Nuyts Archipelago, which Thijssen named after a high-ranking passenger on his ship.

[5] Sweet peppers are what the Dutch call the various pepperbushes that the Atjuntja cultivate (Tasmannia spp, especially T. lanceolata).  The berries of these plants are initially sweet, but with an intense peppery aftertaste.  Per weight, they have about ten times the spiciness of common peppers, and they are developing into a profitable spice which the VOC exports to Europe.

[6] Some influential (or, perhaps, influenced) historians would argue that his establishment of trade in kunduri was more important than his contact with Tjibarr.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #25: The Gates of Tartarus

“And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.  And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth...”
- Revelation 6:8

--

Infectious diseases are the greatest killers of humanity throughout history.  In war and in peace, diverse infestations of diseases have ravaged the world’s population time and again. Effective treatments have been rare until the last couple of centuries of human history, and even today many diseases can only be prevented, not cured.

Yet, as is well-known, while epidemic diseases can kill humans wherever on the globe they may live, the diseases themselves did not originate from all parts of the world.  The Old World had more than a dozen major killers which were transported along with Old Worlders to the other continents and islands, but the rest of the world did not have any major killers awaiting Old Worlders when they arrived [1].

So, as Europeans reached other parts of the world, they brought a host of diseases with them.  Smallpox, measles, typhus and influenza are usually considered the deadliest killers, but malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria, plague, mumps, typhoid, chickenpox, rubella, and other diseases were also major scourges.

Look into the depths of allohistory, however, and this exchange of diseases was not always one-way.  In the continent which history calls Australia, and allohistory calls Aururia, the inhabitants have long suffered from a variety of diseases.  Many of these are minor, non-fatal, or otherwise constrained by geographical and biological factors to the continent itself.  Still, the Aururian continent holds three diseases with the potential to become worldwide killers: blue-sleep, swamp rash, and Marnitja.

Blue-sleep is a form of avian influenza, which originated from migrating birds that travel between Aururia and parts of Asia and Europe.  Like all forms of influenza, it is airborne, highly contagious, and mutates rapidly, making long-term immunity impossible, although people who have survived a previous infection are unlikely to die from a re-infection.  Infected victims quickly experience fatigue and have their faces and lips turn blue, but in other respects the disease is similar to common influenza.

Being derived from avian influenza, blue-sleep has extreme potential to turn into a pandemic.  The worst influenza pandemics in both history and allohistory originated from avian derived forms of influenza, and blue-sleep is no exception.  The historical Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is estimated to have killed about 5% of the global population, and blue-sleep has a similarly lethal potential.

Blue-sleep is infectious and common enough that it afflicted Dutch visitors as early as de Houtman’s second expedition to Aururia.  Fortunately for the rest of the world, blue-sleep spread very rapidly amongst ship crews, and the main Dutch trading post at Fort Nassau was a considerable sailing time from the next port of call at Batavia.  This meant that while Dutch sailors regularly caught blue-sleep, transmission of the virus across the oceans was much more difficult.

Swamp rash is a mosquito-borne virus which evolved from the historical Barmah Forest virus.  It produces chills, fever, fatigue, swollen joints, and a blistery rash which spreads over most of the body.  While most of the victims recover, in some cases the infection enters the lymphatic system, leading to painfully swollen lymph nodes and eventual death.

Swamp rash is not a continent-wide disease.  The virus is mostly confined to the artificial wetlands in the Nyalananga [Murray] basin, although it has recently spread to the wetlands in the western regions of the Yadji lands [south-western Victoria].  For it to spread further, however, is unlikely.  The mosquitoes which carry swamp rash are short-lived species, and the birds which are its other natural hosts do not migrate beyond the continent.  While it would not be impossible for the virus to spread overseas, it would be unlikely.

The mortality rate of swamp rash varies.  The Gunnagal who live along the Nyalananga itself have evolved some natural resistance to the virus, and so their mortality rate is only about 5% for children and less for adults.  For visitors from elsewhere in the continent, or overseas, the mortality rate is about 10% for adults, and worse for children.

Of all of the afflictions found on the Aururian continent, however, none is deadlier than what the locals call the Waiting Death: Marnitja, in the Gunnagal language.  Marnitja is an allohistorical henipavirus, related to the historical Hendra and Nipah viruses, and more distantly to measles and mumps.  Marnitja originated as a bat-borne virus which spread via domesticated dingos and ultimately evolved into an exclusively human epidemic.

People infected with Marnitja show a distinctive two-stage set of symptoms.  The first stage is a haemorrhagic infection of the lungs called the “pink cough,” where the fevered victims experience severe coughing and other breathing difficulties.  They also suffer from fatigue, fever, and sometimes blood loss and renal failure.  Some survivors of the pink cough have life-long breathing problems.

Survivors of the pink cough, however, are not yet free of Marnitja.  While they are no longer infectious, they may still be afflicted with the second stage of the virus.  This is a form of encephalitis, an infection of their central nervous system which leads to fever, seizures, delirium and almost inevitable death.  Survivors of the pink cough have to endure an interminable wait to find out whether they will succumb to the delirium; the usual period is two to three months, but on rare occasions it can take as long as three years [2].  This lingering period of uncertainty is what led the survivors to christen the disease the Waiting Death.

The fatality rate of Marnitja varies considerably, depending on a population’s previous exposure to this virus or to infectious diseases in general.  Amongst the Aururian peoples, each epidemic usually kills less than 5% of the population.  For Eurasian peoples, the virus would kill anywhere between 10-15% of the population, depending on their nutritional levels and general health.  For peoples with insufficient exposure to epidemic diseases – which in the early seventeenth century means most of the New World – the fatality rate is likely to be in excess of 20% of the population.

Given the shipping times between Aururia and the East Indies, Marnitja is also unlikely to be transmitted by direct infection.  However, one of the distinctive features of Marnitja is that it produces a relatively high proportion (up to 0.5%) of asymptomatic carriers.  Anyone who becomes an asymptomatic carrier will be infectious for life, and it will only take one such person to travel from Aururia to the rest of the world for Marnitja to become a global problem.

--

The first European exposure to Marnitja was in April 1625, when a Dutch trading fleet arrived in Fort Nassau [Perth] after sailing from the Netherlands.  The Waiting Death burned through the ships Dordrecht and Sardam as they sailed to Batavia, but the pink cough had run its course before the ships reached the East Indies.  While some of the sailors would later die in a fevered delirium, by this stage they were no longer infectious.  One of their Yaora mistresses recognised the Waiting Death and described it to the Dutch, but they did not pay it much heed.  They treated this malady as simply one more in a long list of tropical diseases which often struck Europeans who visited the Spice Islands.

They would soon learn the gravity of their mistake.

Centuries later, a collaboration of three authors – an epidemiologist, a linguist, and a historian – would trace the path of the first Marnitja epidemic as it burned across the globe.  Their efforts were dedicated, their report exhaustive, and it would eventually be published in three languages on as many continents.

This report marked the authors as the first to accomplish many things.  They were the first to trace the oldest references to the virus.  They were the first to recommend the application of what would become the near-universal name for the disease (Marnitja), replacing the host of appellations which the disease had carried before that: the Dutch curse, the dying cough, the sweating sleep, the unholy death, and many more.

What these authors were not the first to do was discover the name of the first Dutch asymptomatic carrier who carried the disease to the world.  History would never record that name.  Yet these authors gave this carrier a name anyway: Patient Zero.

The authors discovered that Patient Zero was a sailor aboard the Dutch merchant ship Vliegende Hollander, which landed at Fort Nassau on 15 October 1626.  Several sailors caught Marnitja on this visit, and many of them died from it.  As before, the Dutch assumed that this was another tropical malady, and after conducting normal trade, set sail for Batavia.  The Vliegende Hollander was one of four ships in this trading fleet, but after its arrival, it was the only one to be reloaded with gold and spices for a quick return to the Netherlands, along with five other ships making the voyage home.

The authors presumed that Patient Zero stayed on the Vliegende Hollander for most of the unloading and reloading, for there is no record that Marnitja spread from him to anyone in Batavia.  The Vliegende Hollander and its fellow ships sailed west with the November monsoons.  While crossing the Indian Ocean, the Vliegende Hollander became damaged in a storm, and had to put ashore on the eastern coast of Madagascar for repairs.  Relations with the locals were peaceable enough after the captain provided a few gifts, and the repairs were effected over the next few weeks.  The Vliegende Hollander departed the island for Amsterdam, some time behind its fellow ships.  However, it left a legacy behind.

Madagascar became the first region of the Old World to know the scourge of Marnitja.  In 1627, the affliction burned its way across the island, earning it the name of “burning lungs.” It left behind a legacy of fevered, coughing victims, survivors with breathing difficulties, and other survivors who did not yet know the doom which awaited them.

The Mozambique Channel presented no barrier to an epidemic of the Waiting Death.  Madagascar had long been a hub of traders coming to and from East Africa; the Portuguese who had begun to establish colonies along the coast were only seeking to break into a much longer-established market.  From Madagascar, trading vessels carried the new affliction near-simultaneously to the Portuguese outposts at the Island of Mozambique and Zanzibar.

Once established on the African mainland, Marnitja spread rapidly both north and south.  It left a deadly passage as far south as the Cape, devastating the Bantu and Khoisan peoples of southern Africa.  To the north, it spread more slowly, reaching Ethiopia in 1628 and then Egypt in 1629.  Seaborne trade carried it to the Persian Gulf in 1628, striking first at Muscat, then spreading along both shores of the Gulf and into Persian lands.

Marnitja reached Mecca in time for the annual hajj in 1629.  Among the victims were a few pilgrims who believed that they had been spared from the visitation of this new malady, when in fact they would be bearing the disease home with them.  From Egypt, Mecca and Persia, the disease was poised to spread over the rest of the House of Islam.  However, it did not spread much into Christian Europe, for by this time the Waiting Death had already reached that continent by another route.

From Ethiopia, Marnitja did not just spread north; it also burned its way west across the Sahel.  In time, it devastated all of the West African peoples, including kingdoms such as Allada, Oyo and Kaabu.  As well as the suffering inflicted on these regions by the disease itself, the first wave of Marnitja also struck the European slave-trading outposts in West Africa.

Unfortunately, this was not enough to destroy the slave trade entirely, not with sugar planters in Brazil and the Caribbean with a seemingly endless demand for more labour.  In 1630, among the unfortunate slaves crammed into European trading vessels were three asymptomatic carriers, two bound for Brazil, the other for Hispaniola.  From here, the disease spread rapidly throughout the Caribbean and Portuguese Brazil, and more slowly into Mesoamerica, through Central America, and down into Peru.  All of the heavily-settled parts of New Spain were also struck by the virus.  The main wave of infection burned out in the northern deserts of New Spain and did not penetrate into most of North America.  However, over the next few years, secondary waves of infection struck the European colonies on the eastern seaboard, and spread to the neighbouring Amerindian peoples.

Europe itself first felt the Waiting Death thanks to Patient Zero.  On 21 August 1627, the Vliegende Hollander sailed into Amsterdam, where its crew disembarked.  One week later, the first Dutch men and women developed fevers and chills, followed quickly by a hacking cough which grew ever worse.

Two days later, Marnitja caused its first deaths on the European mainland.  The first of uncountably many.  Many prominent Dutchmen died, including Frederik de Houtman, the discoverer of the South-Land, who succumbed to the pink cough on 1 October 1627 [3].  Still, Frederick Henry, the Prince of Orange, survived the disease without any apparent ill effects.

At this time, Europe was nine years into a war which another history would call the Thirty Years War.  The Dutch Republic was not involved in the main part of this struggle, although it had been at war with Spain-Portugal since 1621.  Its neighbours were at the forefront of the fighting, though; the Holy Roman Empire was the key battleground, and Christian IV of Denmark had led his kingdom into the war two years earlier.

In 1628, Marnitja spread rapidly through war-ravaged Germany, killing both sides indiscriminately.  Recognising where it had come from, if not the cause of the disease, the Germans referred to the epidemic as the Dutch curse.  It was a curse which would kill many of their people in the days to come, including several of the leading political and military figures of the day.

Like so many of his subjects, Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor, was afflicted by a severe bout of the pink cough.  While he survived, he was gravely weakened, with breathing difficulties which would persist for the remainder of his truncated life.  Left more vulnerable to other infections, he would succumb to pneumonia in 1631 [4].

The Catholic forces had two leading generals at this time.  One, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, died in a fevered delirium in February 1628.  The other, Albrecht von Wallenstein, also caught the Dutch curse but escaped with only mild symptoms.  However, the deaths and disruption caused by the disease meant that he had to abandon his plans for a siege of Straslund, the last holdout Protestant port on the southern Baltic coast.

On the Protestant side, the most prominent casualty of the Dutch curse was John George I, Elector of Saxony.  Christian IV of Denmark survived, although he lost several of his children, including Prince Frederick [who would later have become King Frederick III].  His designated heir, Christian, survived Marnitja but experienced severe scarring of his lungs, which would later shorten Christian’s life.

Most other major Protestant rulers survived, although Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Prussia was permanently invalided by breathing problems caused by the pink cough.  The effective governance of his state passed to his Catholic chancellor, Adam, Count of Schwarzenberg.

The Dutch curse could not, of course, be confined to the combatants in what would now not be called the Thirty Years War.  It crossed the Rhine and swept into France around the same time as it was ravaging Germany.  Here, Cardinal Richelieu had taken personal command of the royal armies besieging the Huguenots in La Rochelle.  In April 1628 he died coughing up blood, and the Dutch curse took so many soldiers with him that the government forces abandoned the siege.  The epidemic spread from here into Spain, where it took a heavy toll of the population, including several prominent nobles, although Felipe IV survived.

The Dutch curse spread eastward and southward from the Holy Roman Empire.  In 1629, Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, became one of the rarest of survivors, one who suffered but survived the delirium of the Waiting Death.  Unfortunately, it left him with severe paralysis and impaired speech.  His Francophile wife Christine Marie, the Duchess consort, was then pregnant with the future Louise Christine, and became the de facto regent of Savoy.  Further south in Rome, Pope Urban VIII survived the curse, although several of his most prominent cardinals did not.

In its eastward spread, the Dutch curse cut a deadly path through Poland-Lithuania; the monarch Zygmunt III survived, but lost one of his sons, Aleksander Karol.  The disease spread on into Muscovy, as well as passing south into the Ottoman-ruled Balkans.  Sultan Murad IV survived without apparently even catching the disease, although it struck his court.  The most prominent casualty in the Sublime Porte was the Grand Vizier, Gazi Ekrem Hüsrev Pasha.  From here, it combined with the other wave of infection coming through Persia and Arabia, and burned its way across the length and breadth of Asia.

One final tendril of infection went north from Lithuania into Swedish-ruled Estonia, and thence into peninsular Sweden in 1630.  This was a secondary wave of infection, since the disease had already entered Sweden from Denmark in 1628.  However, among those who had not caught Marnitja during the first wave was the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus.  He caught the pink cough in May 1630, and survived.  By this time, though, word from the Netherlands (via several Aururian mistresses) meant that the Swedish monarch knew that he still needed to wait to see whether the delirium would take him.  He might succumb in any time up to three years.

Gustavus Adolphus decided that if he did die, he would leave a legacy worth remembering.

--

Blue-sleep took longer to expand its deadly reach out of Aururia.  Confined by sailing times from their trading posts, no early Dutch ship would bring the disease back to the Indies.

However, the Dutch were not the only early explorers of Aururia.

Portugal and England knew of the Dutch discovery of a new land near the Indies; word had not taken long to spread.  However, the VOC had been assiduous in restricting knowledge of charts and other important navigational details, so other nations were not sure exactly where this new land could be found, or how to navigate it safely.  England soon found other concerns besides the distant rumour of gold, but Portugal had a greater presence in the Indies.  And, due to a combination of religious concerns and an ongoing war with the Dutch, a greater motivation to explore these new lands.

Father António de Andrade was a distinguished Portuguese Jesuit who had spent two and a half decades as the Society of Jesus’ chief missionary in the Indies.  He had been recalled to Goa in 1624, but he retained an interest in affairs in the Indies.  With ever-growing rumours of the new land which the Dutch had discovered, he decided to return there and explore this new land to see whether he could spread the Word of God to the new peoples.

De Andrade returned to Flores in the Indies in 1629 along with his brother, Manuel Marques, and arranged for a ship to be sent to explore these new lands.  Under de Andrade’s guidance, the ship sailed to the south-east and explored part of the South-Land.  They called this region Costa Problematica [Troublesome Coast], for what they found was a barren, forbidding land, with the natives being very reluctant to approach.  De Andrade persisted, and had some brief encounters with some of the natives, but was unable to induce any of the natives to return to Flores on board the Portuguese ship.

De Andrade’s visit marked the first Portuguese exploration of Aururia.  It failed in terms of direct conversion, but he had always known that was unlikely on a first visit.  The expedition did develop some useful charts of parts of the new land.  Unfortunately, the sailing times were quick enough that it also brought back something else with it: blue-sleep.  A sailor had caught the disease during one of the meetings with the Aururians, and it spread amongst the crew on the voyage back to Flores.  Several of the sailors were still infectious when it reached the Portuguese colony.

Once a disease such as blue-sleep was established in the Indies, it inevitably spread.  Airborne, easily transmissible and often lethal, blue-sleep followed the trade routes throughout the Indies and onto the Asian mainland.  From here, it burned across the length of Asia and on into Africa and Europe.

Blue-sleep ravaged Europe in 1631-2.  While the overall toll from this disease was lower than that of Marnitja, the greatest proportion of the deaths was among young adults [5].  This meant that it killed many young men of military age, which had considerable effects on the armies then fighting across much of the continent.

The disease took its toll of prominent members of European society, too.  Perhaps the most notable victim was Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland.  His death left his infant son Charles II as nominal sovereign and his dominions to be governed by an uncertain regency, with the claimants including George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham [6] and Thomas Wentworth.

In Poland-Lithuania, King Zygmunt III still survived, but the royal family lost another prominent member.  The most prominent prince, Wladyslaw [who would have become King Wladyslaw IV in 1632] succumbed to blue-sleep.

The Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg suffered a severe toll due to an unfortunate confluence of timing; the children of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, and many of the other leading members of the House, were at the most vulnerable age.  Ferdinand III had only succeeded his father for six weeks when he succumbed to blue-sleep on 18 October 1631.  His only brother, Archduke Leopold, had died two weeks before, leaving no direct male heirs.  He had only two surviving sisters, and one of them, Cecilia Renata, died in early November.

Worse, there were now no suitably-aged close male relatives amongst the Austrian Habsburgs.  The closest male-line relative was the three-year-old Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Further Austria, and cousin of Ferdinand III.  Ferdinand Charles had himself been born posthumously; his mother had been pregnant when his father Leopold, the old Emperor’s last surviving brother [7] had died from the Dutch curse in April 1628.

The only other alternative was to find a husband for the last surviving daughter of Ferdinand II: Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria.  She was reportedly intelligent, stern, driven, opinionated – and an extremely attractive political prize.  The intrigues started before Ferdinand III’s body had a chance to grow cold...

--

The seventeenth century was already a time of global upheaval.  The European powers had begun their assault on the globe which would see them establish colonial control over most of the world’s surface in the next few centuries.  The deepening climatic effects of the Little Ice Age brought famine and other agricultural problems to much of the planet.

The Americas were in the midst of the greatest population replacement of the modern era.  Japan was nearing the time when it would have chosen to close itself off from all but carefully regulated contact with the rest of the world.  In China, the worsening climatic conditions brought about social unrest which would have led to the collapse of the native Ming Dynasty and its replacement by the foreign Manchu.  In Europe itself, the continent convulsed as old political and religious certainties crumbled.

In these volatile times, the twin waves of Aururian epidemics could only add to the upheaval.  Collectively, they killed 19% of the global population - over 100 million people - and their effects did not stop there.  Marnitja, in particular, would recur every generation and depress the global population growth rate for centuries.  The world which followed would be an emptier place.

More, the deaths and devastation had inevitable effects on the world’s psyche.  A new age had dawned, or so some later historians would say, when describing the changing attitudes to religion, to labour, and to social and political institutions.

Of course, some of those historians would argue that, for all of the death and upheaval which Aururian diseases caused, that this was not the greatest effect which the discovery of Aururia would have on the rest of the world.

--

[1] Apart from maybe syphilis, but there’s not yet been a definitive answer on whether that disease was from the Old World, the New World, or a fusion of the two.

[2] This waiting period is longer than that described in the earlier post on Aururian diseases (#8).  It has been extended to reflect some of the recent real-world discoveries about Hendra virus and Nipah virus; in some cases, those diseases have taken over 4 years for the viral encephalitis to appear.

[3] This did not, in fact, shorten de Houtman’s life by very much; in real history he died only a few weeks later.

[4] In real history, Ferdinand died in 1637.

[5] In this regard, blue-sleep is much like a historical avian-derived influenza virus, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.  That disease, too, was most deadly for young adults.

[6] Historically, Buckingham was assassinated in August 1628 by a disgruntled soldier; here, the dislocation of diseases means that he was not in the vicinity of his would-be assassin, and so survives for the time being.

[7] Yes, another Leopold.  Like many European royal families, the Habsburgs had a habit of recycling names.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #26: The Sounds of Harmony

“The greatest of leaders speaks the least, and inspires the most.  He does not demand obedience, he receives it.  A lesser leader seeks respect, a greater leader knows that he will earn it.  The greatest deeds of a leader are those which his followers perform without needing his instructions.”

- From Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road], a text composed in Tjibarr in the fifteenth century, and widely respected by both Plirite and Tjarrling believers

--

Serpent Day, Cycle of Salt, 382nd Year of Harmony (4.10.382) [1] / 10 July 1621
Crescent Bay, The Island [Kingscote, Kangaroo Island]

Wind blew steadily from the north, swirling an irregular course across the city streets, up the hill slopes, and through the open doors of the temple.  With it came the tang of salt, a reminder of the seas that formed the livelihood of all the Nangu.  Perhaps it carried the sounds of the city streets, too, but they could not be heard.  As with all proper houses of harmony, the Temple of the Five Winds supplied its own sounds.

Tinkles, ringing and thuds came from the chimes that hung on every exterior wall and in some of the open passages inside; a soothing irregular melody born of the endless breeze and marked in sounds of brass and wood.  Underlying the loud but unpredictable chimes came the softer but steadier beat of hands striking stretched emu skin; the reliable rhythm of temple drums.

Yuma Tjula let the noises of the temple wash over him, cleansing his mind and bringing him closer to a state of harmony.  So it always was when he came here.  He was not a devout man, either in his own estimation or that of the priests who remarked on his attitude.  Still, he had attended the Temple of the Five Winds since childhood, when duty called or when he needed guidance.

Such as now.

Yuma knelt in the north-easternmost chamber of the temple.  Closest to the sun, given where it stood in the morning sky, and its light flowed into the room through the half-moon windows spaced along the walls.  Beneath those openings, shapes had been carved from wood and attached to each wall; stylised depictions of a myriad of divine beings.

In the centre of the chamber, a gilded statue loomed large, but Yuma gave it little heed.  The Good Man had mastered wisdom, but he had much loftier concerns than intervening on behalf of one repentant trading captain.  Instead, Yuma had taken up a position beneath the ornately-carved forms of the Fire Brothers; ruby-eyed Carrak standing with burning sword held aloft, while diamond-eyed Burrayang knelt to turn over ashes into new life.

Head bowed, knees aching but ignored, Yuma shaped the litany of his soul into fitting words, that the Fire Brothers might hear his misdeeds and grant him guidance.  He explained his inaction in the White City, far to the west.  How the giant ships of the Raw Men had appeared in the harbours while his own vessel was there to trade.

His voice growing softer, his tone more despondent even to his own ears, Yuma admitted how he had failed to follow the third path, the path of decisiveness.  He could have taken decisive action by contacting the Raw Men directly, or he could have waited properly, until they had the chance to contact him.  Instead, he had taken a half-measure, neither truly decisive nor truly inactive, by finishing his trade and then departing.  He had thought, in his own misguided mind, that he could return next season to make proper contact.

Instead, he had learned that in his absence the Raw Men had visited the Nangu who lived in the Foreign Quarter.  They had spoken briefly to the resident Nangu, then departed.  Their new trade agreement, proclaimed in stone in the White City, announced that the Raw Men were restricted to ports beyond Sunset Point, where they could not contact the Nangu.

Oh, the lost opportunity!  Since that time, Yuma had come to the unfortunate realisation that his actions had been waal [ie bringing discord], due to his lack of proper decisiveness.  No point asking the Fire Brothers to correct his mistake; if they were prepared to intercede and change the past, then it would have already been remade.  Instead, he asked for them to guide him in proper decisiveness in the future.  There would be more chances with these Raw Men, if he sought them, and if he acted properly when the moments were granted.

His prayers concluded, Yuma waited in silence for a long moment, straining to hear if he would receive any instructions.  He heard nothing, no still small voice whispering beneath the sounds of harmony.  All as he had more than half expected.  If the Fire Brothers were going to guide him along the path, then he would need to be alert in the future; they offered nothing immediate.

Of course, he would also need to consider his own actions, and build his own knowledge of the paths.  So it always was; the search for self-insight and greater understanding was a lifelong endeavour.  He would not need to come to a temple for such striving, though.  He would reflect on his own deeds, and ensure that he was guiding his own steps along the paths.

With his main purpose completed, Yuma rose, glad to give his weary knees rest.  He moved to stand with bowed head beneath the statue of the Good Man, and muttered a few invocations of respect for his exalted knowledge.  He walked around the statue to face west, then added a brief prayer of respect for all of his ancestors and descendants.

Yuma ambled silently through the corridors of the temple until he reached the eastern entrance.  He exchanged a few polite, ritualised phrases with the two priests seated on either side of the doorway, then strode down the hillside path toward the main buildings of Crescent Bay.

As he hurried down the path, he still found time to look over the town, and the shining blue seas beyond.  Crescent Bay itself had the look of stone and all too precious wood, while the sparkling water beyond was decorated with a half-dozen ships.  Yuma classified them with an ease born of much experience at sea.

The one ship sailing in from the east was a day-farer, an ancient design whose shallow draft allowed it to be pulled up on any beach in case of a change in the weather.  Its crew would have taken it on a fishing voyage to bring in some of the sea’s bounty.  Hardly the grandest use of a ship, but one which might return a slight profit.  The other five ships were sailing in from the north-west.  They were all double-hulled regular ships, heavily laden with yams and other essential food from Pankala or some other Mutjing port.

Yuma’s own bloodline had ships taking part in that trade, he presumed, although he had not bothered to check anytime recently.  Like most Nangu sailors, he had learned his craft on the regular round trips between the Island and the Seven Sisters [ie the Mutjing lands].  As soon as he became a captain, though, he took his ship elsewhere.  No captain could earn a decent profit trading for food.

As he descended from the hill and strode through the town, people stepped out of his path.  Not all of them would know him by name or sight, though he thought that most would; perhaps he flattered himself.  Still, all of them could see the headwreath that held his hair back from his face.  Dyed with sea purple [2], woven with Yadji gold-thread and studded with Maori jade and river sapphires, it proclaimed that he was a captain of great wealth and substance.  Men blocked his path at their peril, and fortunately everyone today recognised it.

The white-gray granite walls of the Council Hall loomed large above him as he neared, although they lacked the ornateness of the Temple of the Five Winds, or most any other temple on the Island.  Naturally.  Few elders would allow their bloodlines to spend much of their hard-earned trading wealth for a building which those elders usually visited only once a year.  Yet pious captains and elders would lavish much more of their fortunes to support the priests who balanced the harmony that allowed the Nangu to flourish.

The guards at the doors of the council chamber admitted him with nothing but a brief nod.  All as it should be.  As the third-most senior captain of the Tjula bloodline, Yuma had the right to attend any meeting of the Council, and hear what the elders decided.  Perhaps even speak to influence them, given the opportunity.

Inside, a series of tables had been arranged into a rough circle.  The tables bespoke more wealth than the rest of the chamber, since they were made from jarrah wood which had been shipped back from Tiayal [ie Atjuntja lands].  Twenty-one seats were arranged around these tables; one for the elder of each of the surviving bloodlines.  Everyone else in the room had to stand behind.

Seven of those seats were still empty when Yuma entered the room; those elders had yet to enter the chamber.  Perhaps not all of the elders would be near the town to attend.  Today marked an almost unheard of event; the Council had been called together outside of the usual annual meeting at the autumn equinox, halfway through the year.  A sign of the importance which had been attached to the news out of the west, and another reminder to Yuma of the blunder he had made in committing a half-measure.

Yuma exchanged greetings with Wirnugal, elder of the Tjula, and with three other senior captains who had gathered for this meeting of the Council.  Keeping his voice low, he asked, “Are all of the other elders expected?”

Wirnugal said, “The Manyilti and Wolalta elders will not be attending; they are both off the Island.  All of the others should arrive soon.”  His voice had an undertone of frustration; presumably the late-arriving elders were seeking to show their status by making others wait for them.

Yuma also wondered, absently, why the Manyilti and Wolalta elders were not anywhere on the Island.  Elders rarely left the Island except for one of two reasons: to visit some holy sites in the Five Rivers, or to personally oversee some important trading venture.

Neither of those two elders was particularly pious, so Yuma doubted that their absence had anything to do with religious visits.  That meant some new trade coup might well be in the offing.  The port captain of Jugara, the gateway to the Five Rivers, was of the Manyilti bloodline, so perhaps their elder was negotiating new trade terms with some Tjibarr faction.  Wolalta captains had won their greatest trading coups in voyages to the Spice Coast [ie the eastern Australian coastline]; might they have made some new discovery there?

His musings were cut short when a group of five elders arrived together.  Suspicion hardened in his heart.  Perhaps these elders had waited to enter together as a group to avoid any concerns of status.  Or, more likely, they had been conducting private negotiations.  Very unfortunate, in that case, since these elders also represented some of the most powerful bloodlines.

He knew them all, of course.  Such as the most senior of the elders, titled the Lorekeeper because of his twin roles as rememberer of Council decisions and adjudicator of disputes.  It made sense for him to arrive late.  But the others did not have his seniority, only their pride and their wealth.  It was not fitting for them to keep the rest of the elders waiting.

Punalta Warrikendi ambled to his seat, as if he would never be hurried.  Probably not an act, in his case.  Punalta was renowned as the most devout elder.  He might almost have been a priest himself, and occasional rumours suggested that he planned to retire to one temple or another.  It had never happened, though.  Yuma suspected that Punalta preferred to remain on the Council and focus their minds on proper questions of harmony and perseverance.

The third elder wore a full beard, which was so rare for a Nangu that he was near universally known as the Beard.  He had picked up that habit when he was a trader who lived for many years in the Foreign Quarter of the White City.  That time had given him many valuable connections amongst the Atjuntja.  Under his aegis, the Kalendi had become one of the wealthiest bloodlines.

Still, Yuma thought that the Beard had become too much like an Atjuntja, and not just in ways as trivial as appearance.  Rumours were rife that the Beard had acquired some of the other distasteful Atjuntja habits.  If true, though, he indulged those habits only behind the closed walls of his city residence or in his manor overlooking the Narrows, and neither he nor his Mutjing mistresses spoke openly of his habits.  The Beard also possessed a powerful rage which he used when challenged.  So not even the priests dared to call him out on those rumours.

The fourth elder to take his seat had lighter skin than the norm for a Nangu, and a coarseness to his features proclaimed his foreign heritage.  Nakatta was the only elder who was not Island-born.  A native Gunnagal from upriver Tjibarr, he had been adopted into the Muwanna bloodline and rose to prominence after several bold trading coups with his former countrymen.  Under his auspices, the Muwanna continued to negotiate favourable trade terms with the ever-shifting factions of Tjibarr.

The fifth elder, Burra Liwang, had a peculiar way of stepping, moving his feet so silently and delicately that he gave the impression of sliding rather than walking.  His effortless pace allowed him ample time to look over the room, offering friendly smiles to most of the elders, including Wirnugal.  Those smiles offered some reassurance that the five elders had not been conducting private negotiations to the disadvantage of the other bloodlines.

Of course, Burra often played the role of peacemaker among the bloodlines.  The role suited his temperament, and he was also helped by his bloodline’s holdings.  The Liwang had relatively few trading ships.  They obtained most of their wealth because they had the largest holdings on the Island itself, and controlled the largest proportion of local spice and dye production.  Their main trade was with other bloodlines who would then export the dyes and spices.  They had found it more convenient to establish a reputation for equal dealing with all other bloodlines, rather than needing to outdo rivals in foreign trade.

When Burra was seated, the Lorekeeper moved to his own chair.  He nodded to the two empty chairs and said, “With your elders absent, will the most senior captains present of the Wolalta and Manyilti sit on their behalf?”

As the two captains moved into chairs, the Lorekeeper met the gaze of the black-clad priest who stood just inside the door.  The priest moved to stand beside the Lorekeeper, and offered an opening invocation for the meeting, calling for all present to remember the wisdom of the Good Man and conduct themselves in accordance with the Sevenfold Path.

Servants moved around next, pouring gum cider into silver goblets for each seated man.  It had to be gum cider, of course; offering any lesser beverage here would be an insult.

The Lorekeeper said, “The Council has been called together out of season to discuss this news of outlanders.”  He provided a brief summary of the contact between these Raw Men, the Atjuntja, and the Nangu in the west.  “So the Council must decide whether restrictions should be placed on contact and trade with these Raw Men.”

“A captain has the right to trade wherever he wishes,” the Beard said.

Contentiousness rang clearly in his voice, offering a warning.  In some bloodlines, the elder was simply one strong voice among many.  Among the Kalendi, though, the Beard’s word was absolute.  If he took offence at an action, a feud could follow, or worse yet a vendetta.

“There is precedent for binding the bloodlines,” the Lorekeeper said, his voice calm.  “In 183 [1422 AD], the Council agreed to restrict all contact with the Atjuntja to their designated trade ports, and to punish any captain who sought to trade elsewhere.  That edict was allowed to lapse in 211 [1450 AD], and has been enforced by custom ever since.”

All as it should be, Yuma thought.  Custom and familiarity made it easier for men to walk the right paths, which was why they were usually followed.  Of course, the custom was adhered to in this case due to the unspoken threat that any bloodline who broke the Atjuntja trade edict would find every other bloodline turning on them.

The Lorekeeper added, “But the Council has that authority, if it so chooses.”

The Beard grunted, rather than offering any substantive answer.  That was an even more ominous sign that he was determined to force his own way.  He had the determination to push that into feud or vendetta, too.

Yuma hoped that the Beard could be persuaded to show restraint.  Once there had been twenty-four bloodlines on the Island.  Three had been destroyed utterly in vendettas, and over the centuries some others had come close to destruction.  Bloodlines always competed with each other in commercial rivalries, but sometimes those rivalries became matters of pride or hatred.  In those cases, a feud or vendetta could follow, with the knife replacing the trade bargain.  No matter how much the priests decried them for bringing discord, vendettas could still be called, and inevitably turned out deadly for both sides.  Not to mention for outsiders caught up in the chaos.

When he spoke, Nakatta’s voice still had a slight rasp which betrayed his foreign origins.  “Before we consider that, we must know more of these far westerners.  What has been seen of them?”

“Only their one visit to the White City,” said the Lorekeeper.  “Everything else is rumour and wild tales.”

“One should never give too much heed to rumours,” the Beard said.  That remark produced a number of carefully blank faces around the chamber.

“These Raw Men are real,” said Punalta.  “Yet they are also strange.  Strangeness leads to uncertainty, to tale-mongering, and to exaggeration.  Rumours are inevitable, in such circumstances.  We must not allow wild tales to lead us to discord.”

“It is nature of their strangeness that concerns me,” Nakatta said.  “Every people have their own customs which appear strange to others, especially peoples who have not learnt the paths of harmony.  Are these Raw Men strange only because they are different, or because they have crafts and knowledge that we lack, as our forefathers did not know of the working of iron before we learned from the Atjuntja?”

A sign! Yuma realised, at that moment.  The Fire Brothers must have been listening after all, and allowed him to see it.  He tapped his foot on the stone floor, a polite way of signalling that he wanted to speak.

Wirnugal, fortunately, was alert.  “I wish one of my captains to be permitted to speak,” he said.

The Lorekeeper glanced around the elders.  When none of them objected, he signalled for Yuma to proceed.

Yuma thought for a moment, considering how much information he should reveal.  Knowledge was a trade good, often the most valuable of all.  Yet he needed to be decisive, and knowledge was of no use if it was never acted on.  “These Raw Men have some crafts which we lack.  Shipbuilding, of a certainty, and perhaps others.  I have seen their mighty vessels in the White City, large enough to make a great-ship seem small.  Of the other rumours I cannot speak with assurance, but they are said to have great knowledge of weapons, too.”

“How fast are those ships?” asked the captain sitting for the Wolalta elder; Yuma did not know his name.

“I cannot be certain; I saw them only within the harbour.  Their sails are large, though.  I expect that they can run very fast with the wind.  Into the wind, I think that our ships would be more agile.”

“How would they have built ships so large?” another elder asked, but the Lorekeeper signalled for silence.

The Lorekeeper said, “These questions should be answered, but not in this time and place.  Thank you for your words to the elders, Yuma Tjula.”

Nakatta said, “Shipbuilding or not, we must know these Raw Men’s interests.  Have they comes as wanderers [explorers] or as traders?”

“Both, so far as we can tell,” the Lorekeeper said.  “They have concluded a trade agreement with the King of Kings.  But they came first as wanderers, and wanderers they will no doubt continue to be.”

“Will they wander to the island, then?” Nakatta asked.

That question provoked some heated discussion.  The Beard led a group of about a third of the elders who exclaimed about the myriad opportunities available for trade with these new Raw Men, whoever they were.  Nakatta led a similar number of elders who pointed out the threat of competition, and the dangers of having these outlanders sail directly to the Island.

Yuma wondered about the dangers himself.  The only other true seafarers in the world were the Maori, and they did not sail further than the Cider Isle.  That had always left the Nangu free to trade and sail elsewhere, whenever they pleased.  Without competition, and without threat.

Still, if these Raw Men had such marvellous trade goods, the wealth that they could bring would be fantastic.  Even if they had superior knowledge, well, the Nangu could learn from them.  They had learned ironworking from the Atjuntja, and, if the old stories were true, other arts of seafaring from the Maori.  They could learn again, if they needed.

After the elders had argued for a while, Punalta said, “This debate ignores the essential question.  Do these Raw Men know of the Good Man and the Sevenfold Path?”

The Lorekeeper said, “No, not according to the reports.  They worship three gods like the Yadji, not two like the Atjuntja.  They think that their gods’ will is absolute, that nothing men can do will change their destiny.  They are even worse than the Atjuntja, apparently, for they believe that all men are depraved and will act to bring discord.”

“Then they must be taught the truth,” Punalta said.  “If we do not teach them to act according to the Sevenfold Path, then the consequences of their disharmony will not be limited to them; they will bring chaos and disruption to us all.”

“So, then, we must contact and trade with them,” the Beard said.

“And invite them to bring their disharmony to us?” Nakatta answered.

Burra Liwang, who had been silent throughout the long argument, tapped his foot on the stone.  An unusual action for an elder, but it got everybody’s attention.  Burra said, “These Raw Men will come anyway, whether we hide or not.  They already know we are here.  The Atjuntja would have told them of us even if they had not met our own people.  They are wanderers, so they will come.  If so, better that we contact them in the west than on our own Island.”

As he usually did, Burra had found a way to bring the elders to agreement.  With him guiding the discussion, the Council agreed to circumspectly search for a way to contact the Raw Men’s trading posts in the western Atjuntja lands, when they were established.

If that failed, then captains would be permitted to sail into the west beyond Sunset Point, if they wanted to brave the endless winds.  Any captains who wanted to do so could see if they could sail directly to the Raw Men’s homelands.  However, the Council ordered that any west-venturing captains must make absolutely certain that they gave the Atjuntja no warning, and that they did not land anywhere on western Atjuntja lands.  That would break the Nangu’s own trade agreements with the Atjuntja, and in a way which brought no gain.

With that agreement, the Lorekeeper called the Council meeting to an end.

Yuma kept his face carefully impassive, but he now knew what he had to do.

--

[1] The Gunnagal calendar (adopted by the Nangu) divides the year into 30 cycles of 12 days, with an additional 5 or 6 intercalary days at the end of the year.  Each of the days and cycles are both named and numbered.  So 4.10.382 is the fourth day in the tenth cycle of the year 382, ie Serpent Day in the Cycle of Salt.  There are also “months” of 30 days, which overlap this timing and are used for some social and religious purposes, but which are not used in the standard version of naming and numbering days.

[2] Sea purple refers to a dye made from the large rock shell (Thais orbita), a relative of the Mediterranean sea snails that produced purple and blue dyes which were extremely valued commodities in classical times.  Even to the Nangu, sea purple is a rare and valuable dye; while there are no formal restrictions on who can wear it, the price it commands means that only elders, the greatest trade captains, and their most favoured wives and mistresses can afford to do so.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #27: Amidst The Falling Stars

“When tillage begins, other arts follow.  The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.”
- Daniel Webster, “Remarks on Agriculture”

--

Second Harvest Season, 23rd Year of King of Kings Kepiuc Tjaanuc [November 1625]
Near Seal Point [Geraldton, Western Australia]

Cerulean skies above, the boundless light of the Source unmarred by clouds.  The bountiful illumination stirred the heat from the soil and drove any meddlesome kuru into refuge of shadows or underground hideaways.  Warmth filled the world from horizon to endless horizon in all the sweat-inducing heat of second harvest, if not quite the baking dryness of full summer [1].

A golden time, or so it should be, thought Ngutta son of Palkana.  With his family, he stood among the wealth-trees [wattles] on the western edge of their holdings.  No longer did the trees bloom golden, but their fallen petals still coated the ground in a reminder of the faded flowers.  New shoots sprouted from where the flowers had been, small branches which ended in long pods.  The pods were light green except where they had started to turn brown at their edges, and stood out in contrast with the much darker green of the tiny leaves.

Gold still sparkled from the wealth-trees, occasional flashes from where the first drops of gum oozed from the bark of the trunk and lower branches.  After the main harvest had been completed, Ngutta would return with his sons to prune the trees and cut gashes into the bark at carefully chosen points, to return a much larger yield of gum.  For now, though, they had other work to do.

After so many years, Ngutta and his family went about their tasks in smooth routine.  His two youngest daughters – the only ones left in his household after their elder sisters had departed on their marriages – and his younger wife laid down mats around the base of one wealth-tree, then moved on to the next.

Behind them followed his elder wife and the two youngest of the four sons who still lived beneath his roof.  They used long hooked poles to shake the branches, releasing the pods to fall to the waiting mats.  A few stray leaves, twigs, insects and other detritus fell with the pods.  The pole-carriers ignored that, simply making sure that all of the pods had been shaken loose before moving on to the next tree, where more mats waited ready for them.

Ngutta followed with his eldest and third eldest sons.  He still missed his second son, who had gone to Seal Point to work for the Atjuntja and find a town-born wife, despite Ngutta’s misgivings.  But that absence would not impair the harvest; his remaining sons knew their roles.

He and his elder sons collected the mats, and shook them carefully.  The mats had been woven with small gaps, so that most of the leaves and other small material fell through the holes.  They emptied the seed pods into canvas bags, and handed the mats to his younger sons, who had returned to collect them and carry them ahead.  Then Ngutta and his elder sons carried the bags to the next tree to repeat the process.

When all of the bags were full, the whole family would gather to carry them back to the nearest storehouse.  There the seed pods could be held until they popped open in a few weeks, with the wealth-seeds going into storage and the empty pods used to feed ducks and noroons [emus].

The rhythm of the tree harvest was ancient.  Ngutta had learned it from his father, who had learned it from his father before him, and so on back an uncounted number of generations.  It had served him well all his life.  Even in drought years, the wealth-trees still produced a harvest of seeds, albeit a smaller one.

Now, though, he wondered if all their effort would be futile.

Ngutta had always thought of himself as a successful manager of his family’s holdings.  He knew how to divide his lands and rotate his crops so that he always received a good harvest of two kinds of wealth-seeds, of red yams, and warran yams.  Depending on the year and his needs, he ensured yields of flax, of indigo, or quandongs.  When there were problems with fire, drought or poor soils, he knew what to plant or what to leave unharvested so that the bounty of the earth would be sustained.

For the first time, though, his biggest problem was not harvesting crops, but storing crops.

The last few years had been strange ones.  Rumours permeated the Middle Country, speaking of raw-skinned strangers who had come from the west, and who had brought goods with them to match anything provided by the Islanders.  With the strangers had come other tales, of new maladies that claimed lives or left their victims disfigured, of ill-favoured omens witnessed among the stars, of displaced kuru crossing over from the liquid eternity, and about the Lord turning more of his attention to the King of Kings’ dominions.

Ngutta did not know how much credence to give those rumours, but he knew the affliction which was ruining his family’s holdings.

Rats.

Rats had always been a problem of sorts for raiding stored food.  But their numbers could usually be contained by farm quolls and occasional hunts by himself and his family when farm work permitted.

A new kind of rat had appeared around his farm this year, though.  Black and alien.  No larger than the more familiar kinds, but much less shy around people, and much more numerous.  The farm quolls ate until they were full, gorging themselves on rats, but the rats kept breeding, and kept eating.  Much of the first harvest of wealth-seeds had already been damaged, and Ngutta had little more confidence for this crop.  As for what he would do when the Atjuntja came to demand their tribute, he did not know.

As he laboured to collect the wealth-seeds, Ngutta had an even more unwelcome thought.  When ill fortune became prevalent enough, the Atjuntja would think that the Lord had turned more of his attention toward the King of Kings’ dominions.  If that happened, then there would be calls for volunteers for sacrifice.  Many volunteers.  And if volunteers were not forthcoming, what would the Atjuntja do?

Ngutta did not know, but despite the heat of second harvest and of his labour beneath the Source, he still felt chilled.

--

“In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men.”
- Cicero

--

Eagle Day, Cycle of Life, 387th Year of Harmony (12.21.387) / 27 November 1626
Milgawee (White City) [Albany, Western Australia]
Tiayal (the Middle Country) [western coast of Australia]

Lopitja, called the Red by some, had travelled far and wide within the Five Rivers, and even beyond.  It was both a privilege and a necessity for one of the most acclaimed physicians in the world.  In his travels he had seen many things, and accomplished many things.

Yet never had he travelled so far, seen so much, or, in his own estimation at least, accomplished so much.

A few months before, Lopitja had visited the Island to seek the wisdom of the priests at the Temple of Broken Chimes.  A rare visit for a Gunnagal, but then he had always followed the Sevenfold Path, even if not in quite the same way as the Islanders, and he had found the priests’ advice useful in the past.

The visit had been purely for Lopitja’s own insight.  Rarely if ever did the Islanders bother to consult Gunnagal physicians – which was their loss – and in any case, few physicians were willing to leave the Five Rivers to provide medical consultation.  So Lopitja had been astonished when one of the Islander elders had asked for his professional advice.

He had been tempted to refuse, since the request had involved much more than a simple consultation.  Even among the few physicians who travelled beyond the Five Rivers, none in living memory had committed to the risks of a long Islander voyage.  The Islanders were seafarers like no others within the circles of the world, but even their ships sometimes failed to reach their destinations.  Especially into the winds and storms of a voyage to the far west.

The Islander elder had been persuasive, though.  He was Gunnagal-born himself, and he understood the value of physicians.  As would anyone who came from the Five Rivers.  Lopitja had accepted, out of a combination of curiosity, lucrative compensation for his time, the chance to extend his learning, and the knowledge that having an Islander elder owe him a favour was no small blessing.

So Lopitja had found himself in the White City, the place beyond the western storms.  Tales of that distant city had been exaggerated, or so he had always thought.  He had found out how wrong he was.  The White City was larger even than Tjibarr of the Lakes, more ornate than Garrkimang with its ancient glories of the long-vanished Empire.  A tribute to the boundless power of the King of Kings, who wielded so much more authority than any monarch in the Five Rivers, or even the Yadji Regent.

Still, for all of the splendour of the City Between the Waters, he had come here to examine people, not buildings.  A new affliction had struck the Atjuntja lands, one severe enough that the Islanders had thought it worth sending for a Gunnagal physician.

And so Lopitja had come.  Now he had accomplished something which no other physician had achieved since the great Dulabul: he had diagnosed the symptoms of a new bushfire disease [epidemic disease].  The corpus of physicians’ knowledge included many maladies, but most of those were slow-burning, afflicting only a few individuals but persisting for years.

Bushfire diseases were, fortunately, much rarer.  When they struck, they spread very quickly, burning their way across the world and killing thousands or tens of thousands.  So far as Lopitja had known, so far as any Gunnagal physician had known, there were only two: blue-sleep and Marnitja.

Now there was a third.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands were dying in the White City from this new affliction, and an uncountable number in the countryside beyond.  Local rumours linked this bushfire disease to many sources, but Lopitja cared nothing for rumours, and still less for the misguided Atjuntja belief that any ill event was due to the Lord’s will.

This new bushfire disease was a severe affliction, but it had nothing to do with the actions of some god.  Like all maladies, it was indirectly an effect of discord somewhere in the world, but the disease itself was simply a physical manifestation of that discord.  All physical aspects of the world could be understood, and in the case of diseases, sometimes even contained or treated.

A bell rang three times.  Among the Atjuntja, that was a polite way of announcing that someone of great importance had arrived and wanted to be admitted.  The Islanders who lived in the Foreign Quarter had adopted the same habit, it seemed.

Lopitja left the sickroom where the last afflicted survivors had been gathered to rest and recover their strength.

Inside the antechamber of the sickhouse, the Islander elder, Nakatta, waited with barely-concealed impatience.  After a brief exchange of polite greetings, Nakatta said, “You now understand this malady?”

“With as much wisdom as the Good Man can grant in such a short time of learning,” Lopitja said.  He paused, wondering how many details he should inflict on the elder.

“I have called it swelling-fever,” he said.  The Atjuntja gave it many other names, but it was a physician’s privilege to name a new illness which he described.  “It is marked by severe swelling, like so” – he gestured to show swelling which started on both cheeks and ran down under the chin – “and pain in the jaw and head.  Some men swell around their manhood, too.  Many recover after that.  Those who do not recover will suffer fever, afflictions of the head, and sometimes of the intestines, leading to vomiting.  Some will die of the fever, or in delirium which is like a lesser form of Marnitja.”

“Will this affliction spread to the Island?” the elder asked.

Lopitja said, “I cannot be sure.  But I can tell you that if any men on your ships show the signs which I have described, you must not allow that ship to land.  It must remain offshore until a cycle [twelve days] has passed after the last person has shown any of the signs of swelling-fever.  Only then can the passengers be allowed to return to the shore.”

Nakatta said, “Will that be enough?”

“I hope so,” Lopitja said, but he could offer no stronger reassurance.

--

“Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.”
- Henri Frederic Amiel

--

August 1631
The White City, Tiayal

Drums beat out a slow two-beat, the rhythm echoing back and forth across the Third Audience Hall.  The hall’s purpose was exactly as its name signified, the third-largest audience chamber in the Palace; the King of Kings had ordered its name changed from the former title of Hall of Lorikeets.

The Third Hall could hold over two thousand people who had come before the King of Kings.  Only a relative handful of nobles, officials and attendants were gathered here today.  Namai of the Urdera, governor of Archers Nest, waited in their midst.  He vaguely thought that it would be better to hold this audience in one of the many smaller chambers in the Palace.  But then, apart from his oddly prosaic preference in names, the King of Kings had always thought that something which was worth doing was worth overdoing.

The echoing drums shifted to a three-beat, a warning of who approached.  Namai lowered his head slightly in preparation.

A few moments later, the drums changed to a staccato four-beat, and the herald proclaimed, “Lower your eyes!  He comes among you!  Lower your eyes!  He comes among you, the blessed of the Lady, the Voice of Divinity, the mightiest in the mortal realms, the occupant of the Petal Throne, the one who has no equal, the King of Kings, his exalted majesty Kepiuc Tjaanuc!”

Namai lowered his head until he saw only the floor in front of him.  Around him, everyone else did the same.  He heard, rather than saw, the King of Kings enter the chamber and sit on the less ornate representation of the true Petal Throne.  While he did, he strove to keep his breathing soft and regular.  No matter what fate the King of Kings had in mind for him, he would not reveal any fear or uncertainty.

The herald announced, “Namai, scion of the Urdera, you may raise your eyes and approach the throne.”

As Namai walked toward the King of Kings, he struggled to keep his footsteps steady.  The herald had not called him the governor of Archers Nest.  That omission could hardly be accidental.  Namai had always thought his governorship in such a distant garrison-city had been a sign of the King of Kings’ disfavour, being banished from the glories and comforts of the White City.  Even having first choice of the Raw Men’s trading goods did not alleviate his sense of exile.  Still, how much worse could things be if he was to be stripped of the title in such public circumstances?

Namai stopped seven paces from the throne, and raised his head to meet the King of Kings’ gaze.

His exalted majesty, Kepiuc Tjaanuc, wore clothes and head-dress of perfumed splendour, as he always did.  Namai knew better than to look for any meaning there.  But he noticed the gray in the King of Kings’ beard, the increasing web of lines which marked his forehead and cheeks.  Time was always both friend and foe; it wore a man down to nothing, and then allowed him rebirth.  For this life, though, it had become the King of Kings’ enemy.

The King of Kings kept his face expressionless, and gave no word of greeting.  Instead, he made some gestures with his right hand.  Lerunna, the chamberlain of the palace, stepped forward to stand beside the throne.  “His exalted majesty asks you to tell him the state of his country of Archers Nest.”

Oh, the humiliation!  Namai made an effort to keep his face still, but he doubted that he succeeded.  The King of Kings had refused to speak directly to him!  Namai was of the blessed; as a scion of a noble house, it was his birthright.  He was permitted to hear the Voice of Divinity... yet the King of Kings would not countenance it.  And again, there had been no reference to Namai’s rank of governor of Archers Nest.

Nor could Namai tell the King of Kings anything which he did not already know.  Namai had been astute in sending parchments – and more recently, paper traded from the Raw Men– advising the White City of the troubles which plagued Archers Nest and its environs.

“Archers Nest is both favoured and afflicted.  The ships of the Raw Men call there often, engaging in the trade which your exalted majesty has permitted.  They have brought many wondrous new things – steel, cotton cloth, donkeys, Coromandel works.  Yet strange new afflictions have come with them, claiming the lives of many of your exalted majesty’s subjects.  A swelling sickness – the little death [mumps].  Plagues of sores, rashes, and fevers, leading to broken men [syphilis].  The red cough [tuberculosis] spreads through the country.  Many fields lie untended or have been abandoned for want of workers.  Endless infestations of rats have ruined many storehouses.  The tribute to your exalted majesty has been reduced.”

Lerunna glanced at the King of Kings, then said, “These plagues have not all been confined to Archers Nest.  Perhaps you have suffered worst, but all of his exalted majesty’s dominions have been afflicted.  What have you done to protect his exalted majesty’s interests?”

“Everything I can,” Namai said.  “I have consulted the omens, and been diligent in following them.  I have ordered more quolls bred, and more ratcatchers trained.  Builders have been ordered to strengthen storehouses and leave other construction work for a more auspicious time.  I have released more peasants from garrison labour to help harvest the fields.”

“Yet the troubles continue,” Lerunna said.

It was not a question, so Namai simply raised his right palm to show agreement.

The King of Kings gestured again, then Lerunna said, “The Lord has turned his attention to the mortal realms.  Many sacrifices have been made, but the troubles continue.  His exalted majesty asks what should be done to appease Him.”

Namai shivered, despite all of his efforts at self-control.  He had grown up with the language of the court, even if he had not been able to put this knowledge to proper use during his long years of exile.  He knew a call for a volunteer when he heard one.  And with the troubles which afflicted Tiayal, this would not be a call simply for a sacrifice to the pain.

No, this was a call for a sacrifice to the death.  That much, Namai was not willing to do.  His long years in exile had been sacrifice enough, as far as he was concerned.  He would prefer to let other nobles sacrifice themselves when the blood of peasants had failed.

Except that the King of Kings would not be satisfied with that.  Clearly, Namai was the chosen sacrifice, and the alternative was to be publicly humiliated by being stripped of his rank as governor.  Unless...

Namai said, “It is these Raw Men who have brought the Lord’s attention.”

Lerunna said coldly, “His exalted majesty will not order the Raw Men to trade no more with the Middle Country.”

Namai noted that the chamberlain had not bothered to consult with the King of Kings before answering that question.  That made him wonder what other politics troubled the court.  The plagues were worst around Archers Nest, but they had also reached the White City.  The people must be unhappy.  Were the nobles, too?  Yet the nobles were also the ones who received most of the wondrous new goods from the Raw Men, and would be greatly aggrieved if they lost this source of wealth.  If the King of Kings ordered trade cut off, how secure would he be on the Petal Throne?

Still, that would not help his own situation.  Namai said, “If the Raw Men are the ones who have brought the Lord’s attention, then it can only be their blood which appeases Him.”

That suggestion brought the King of Kings’ eyes back to meet Namai’s gaze.  “No outlander has ever been called to sacrifice himself to the Lord,” the King of Kings said.

“No outlanders have ever brought the Lord’s attention to the Middle Country before,” Namai said.

The King of Kings remained silent for a long moment.  Eventually, he spoke in a raised voice which carried clearly across the Third Hall.  “Nami of the Urdera, governor of Archers Nest, you are ordered to return to the garrison-city.  Once there, you will ask the Raw Men to provide three volunteers to be sacrificed to the death in the House of Appeasement, that the Lord’s attention may be turned away.”

Namai lowered his eyes to the floor.  “I hear and obey.”

--

[1] The Atjuntja divide the calendar into six unequal seasons.  Second harvest is from late October to mid-December, and corresponds to the time when they collect the seeds from late-flowering wattles (mostly Acacia victoriae).  The Atjuntja summer starts from mid-December and runs until roughly the end of February.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #28: Cruel World

“According to the judgement of all knowledgeable people it is considered certain that the war in this land will neither cease nor be ended as long as the king of Spain remains peaceably in possession of the kingdom of Portugal and that kingdom’s East Indian dependencies; and of the West Indies, which have made him powerful and rich such that he can afford to continue the war here in the Netherlands.”
- Anonymous pamphlet printed in Amsterdam in the early 17th century

--

Renewal Season, 29th Year of King of Kings Kepiuc Tjaanuc / August-September 1631
Archers Nest / Fort Nassau [Perth & environs]
Tiayal / D’Edels Land [western coast of Australia]

“Land ahoy!” came the cry from somewhere far up amongst the sails of the Wapen van Hoorn.

Lars Knudsen uttered a silent prayer of thanks.  He heartily despised long sea voyages.  This leg of the journey from the new settlement at Port de Warwick [Mauritius] had been especially difficult, with endlessly strong winds, immense waves and storms.  Two of the other ships in the fleet had been scattered by the inclement weather; no way to know whether they had been wrecked in the endless seas.

He stood with a hand against a mast to steady himself.  Sailors claimed that all men could learn to balance themselves on a rolling ship’s deck, but he had never acquired the art.  One more reason to dislike sea voyages, along with boredom, risk of shipwreck, seasickness, ever-present danger of scurvy, and so much else.  If not for the riches to be found here at the far end of the world, he would never have accepted this commission.

The rocking of the ship lessened as it drew nearer to the shore.  Behind him, Knudsen heard the ship’s officers shouting orders about turning to port and changing sails, but he gave it little heed.  It was the captain’s job to command the ship; he would only interfere if he asked questions or watched too closely.

Besides, he had much more interest in what could be seen on this new land.  He made his unsteady way to the right side of the ship – sailors called it starboard, but he cared little for sailors’ talk – to look out over the land.  To his disappointment, he was too far from the shore to see much other than glimpses of cliff faces interspersed with occasional beaches.  No sign of the natives, or their wealth.

“They are nearby,” he murmured, only half-aware that he had spoken aloud.

The land he saw now, however imperfectly, was the land which had sustained his hope throughout the rigours of the journey from Amsterdam.

A land with many names, and many promises.  D’Edels Land.  The South Land.  Teegal.  A land of gold and sandalwood, of exotic animals and plants, of strange crops and stranger men.  Smaller but more alien even than the first discovery of the Americas.

A land of promise, balanced by horrors.  A scourge had come out the South Land which ravaged Europe, felling monarchs and commoners alike.  Calls had come both within in the Netherlands and from elsewhere in Europe – including his own Danish homeland – for closure of all contact with this land.

The Company had refused those demands.  So far, the Dutch Republic backed them.  The South Land simply offered too much profit, and the Company and the Netherlands had great need of its wealth.  Spain assailed the Dutch at home and around the globe.  The South Land’s gold could pay for their homeland’s defence, and support Dutch actions in eliminating their Catholic enemy’s colonies wherever they could be reached.

More, the English were reportedly gazing longingly at the Dutch outposts, too.  Fellow Protestants they might be, but under the aggressive guidance of their new Regent, they were looking remarkably unfriendly.  If war came, then there would be even more need of the South Land’s gold to pay for driving out the English, too.

The Wapen van Hoorn sailed steadily north.  Knudsen kept his place at the ship’s side.  His broad-brimmed hat spared him from the sun, both its glare and its burning touch.  He caught impressions of the features of the land as the ship passed: long beaches with sand stretching on sand; small, empty islands; and occasional signs of cultivation.

The cultivation interested him most, for what it might tell him about the natives.  Unfortunately, he could not recognise much of consequence.  None of the fields had familiar crops or animals– no grain, no horses, no cattle.  Of course, he had known that this land had strange crops.  Many of the fields were empty, while others were covered with strange trees.  The trees intrigued him; many of them bloomed with an abundance of yellow flowers, so that whole fields looked golden.  He hoped that was an omen of what he would find when the ship reached Fort Nassau.

As the day faded into afternoon, the Wapen van Hoorn rounded a large island and sailed into calmer waters.  Soon afterward, Knudsen had his first glimpse of Fort Nassau.

“Doesn’t look much like a fort,” he murmured.  A cluster of buildings constructed from stone and timber, nestled in a triangle of land formed by sea and the inlet of a river.  The buildings sprawled back out of sight, but there were no walls or other signs of fortifications.  Only a rather impressive collection of docks – even the largest of Company trading fleets could anchor here – and the construction beyond.

As the ship docked, Knudsen made a closer inspection of his new home.  There was a sort of order to it; a broad cobbled avenue separated the docks from an open square behind, and a cluster of buildings in stone.  That avenue looked as if ran around all of the stone buildings.  Within that avenue, most of the people he saw were Dutchmen, or at least others of white stock.  Outside of that avenue, away from the docks, most of the buildings were timber, and built up against each other in a slap-dash manner.  All of the men he saw there had dark skins, like the natives here were reported to have.  It looked as if the Company had built its own premises, and then the natives had decided to live nearby.

I’ll have to check whether my command runs to those native buildings, he thought.  He was, or rather was about to become, the governor of Fort Nassau.  But how could he govern properly if Company authority did not run to the natives who lived right next to his hometown?

Men on shore helped the Wapen van Hoorn to dock, but the current governor did not seem to have come out to greet the new arrivals.  Maybe the current governor ran a lax fort.  Knudsen hoped that was the reason, since anything other explanation would be worse – it would mean that he had arrived to face a major problem on his first day of his new governorship.

Knudsen made sure that he was one of the first men ashore.  Someone did step forward to greet him, then, a thin-faced man with pockmarks that showed he had survived smallpox.  He bowed, ever so slightly.  “I am Piet Janszoon.  And you are...?”

Impolite man, I will remember you, Knudsen silently promised.  True, the other man did not know his rank, but he should have shown more deference to someone who was clearly of high rank.

Knudsen pitched his voice to make sure that it carried.  “Lars Knudsen, by the grace of God and the commission of the Lords Seventeen appointed to the governorship of Fort Nassau!”

Stillness descended around him, as sailors stopped whatever errands or tasks they were performing to look at him.  All as he had hoped.

The thin-faced man, though, just nodded slightly and said, “Welcome, governor.  We’d heard you were coming, but yours is the first ship from the Netherlands that we have seen in over three months.”

Knudsen said, “Never mind that.  Just take me to the former governor.”

Janszoon said, “Governor Hermanszoon is at church, or he would have greeted you himself.  Would you like to join him there, or wait for him at the governor’s residence?”

“Take me to the governor’s house,” Knudsen said.  He had lived in the Netherlands for fifteen years, and worked for the Company in one role or another for ten, but he still followed the Lutheran creed of his youth.  He had no interest in attending a Calvinist service except where protocol required it.

The thin-faced man bowed, barely deeper than last time, then snapped a quick order to one of the sailors to make sure that Knudsen’s goods were brought to the governor’s residence.  Evidently Janszoon could organise things, even if he lacked politeness.

The governor’s residence turned out to be just across the avenue and main square.  Judging by the men constantly entering and leaving, the single-floored building served as the centre of administration too.  That was reasonable enough; Fort Nassau was not that large, and the wealth it earned would be better used paying for the Company’s operations elsewhere than in building an opulent governor’s residence.  For his own part, Knudsen expected to earn much from his tenure as governor, but he would take that wealth back home with him, not spend it here.

Inside the governor’s house, Janszoon showed him to a comfortable room to wait.  Perhaps an hour later, a tall, full-bearded man strode into the room and gave a quick bow.  “Governor Claes Hermanszoon.  Welcome to Fort Nassau.”

Knudsen returned the bow.  “Governor Lars Knudsen... or I should say, Governor-to-be.”

Hermanszoon waved a hand.  “However you like.  The appointment is yours.  I have served my five years and more.  I will leave for Batavia whenever the next ship is ready.”

He took a seat.

Knudsen returned to his, then said, “I will have questions for you first.  Many questions.  I’ve been told much by the Company before I left Amsterdam, but I’m sure there’s much still to know.”

“Indeed.”  The former governor tilted his head.  “Duguba jangganyu ngarru, wirri [1]?”

Knudsen said, “Warari.”  He repeated himself in Dutch: “Some.”

“Learn more,” Hermanszoon said.  “A few of these Atjuntja understand Dutch, but they will usually not deign to speak it.  Be careful, too.  A few of the craftier natives will listen when you speak with each other in Dutch, or have interpreters with them who do.  The better to help them trade.”

“Trading is hardly my role,” Knudsen said.  Apart from ensuring that he collected his rightful share of the profits, but that was another matter.  “The factors will handle that, surely.”

“The factors will be with you, of course, but the natives here have strange expectations.  Most of those who you will be trading with are nobles – the nobles are usually the merchants here, too, with a few exceptions.  Atjuntja nobles always expect to have what they think of as a man of substance present at any negotiations.  Factors won’t count, I’m afraid.  It has to be you, as the governor.  Even if the factors do most of the talking, the nobles will refuse to speak with them unless you’re nearby.”

Knudsen nodded.  No-one back in Amsterdam had seen fit to mention that to him.  Perhaps they didn’t know, or just assumed that he would learn it when he came out.  They had chosen him in part because he had a gift for learning languages, so maybe they did know a little.

“Still, if the factors are doing the bargaining, why do I need to know the language?”

“Anything you can do will help,” the former governor said.  “Some of the natives are sharp negotiators.”

“I’d heard that they were easy to bargain with.”

Hermanszoon frowned.  “At first, yes, but some of them have learned.  They have a pretty good idea of the value of our goods.  You will strike a good deal if you bring something exotic or unfamiliar, but if it’s something they recognise, then they will often bargain hard.”

“Anything else I should know about bargaining with them?”

“Yes.  Grow a beard.”  Hermanszoon saw the look which Knudsen directed at him, then said, “The nobles here respect beards, although they won’t allow the peasants to grow them.  Not full beards, anyway – the peasants have to trim theirs short.”

The former governor paused, then added, “Your black hair will be an advantage here, too.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why the Company sent you here.”

Knudsen raised an eyebrow.

“The Atjuntja equate black hair with being of their race, not their Yaora subjects.  Not all of their nobles have it, and a few non-Atjuntja do, but still, it is never far from their minds.  They will respect you more for it.”

Knudsen considered that.  It was not the most welcome of thoughts.  No-one back in Amsterdam had mentioned this, either.  He had believed that he had won appointment to the governorship because they had recognised his talents.  No doubt that was true, in part, but how much of a factor had been the simple fact of his black hair?

Something of his disappointment must have shown on his face, since Hermanszoon laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.  “Don’t worry about it.  When fortune deals you a card, you play it.”

“I suppose.  Apart from the trading, what are the biggest problems with governing this fort?”

“Obtaining native labourers to do much of anything.  You can’t just pay them wages to work for you.  The natives have no idea of coinage.  Payment of everything is in kind, and labour is usually commanded by their own governor, off to the east.  You can sometimes bid for workers by negotiating with the nearer holdings – they will use our goods to meet their tribute.  If not, you will have to work with the native governor for the use of their labour.  I’ve done both, but it can be difficult.  Sometimes they demand more valuable goods for their labour than I’d like to pay them – those are trade goods which could be put to better use.  Expect the Governor-General to write you some threatening letters from Batavia condemning your wastage of trade goods.  But it’s a price of doing business here.  What we earn in gold and sandalwood more than makes up for it.”

Knudsen nodded.  “What about local news?  Has anything important happened here?”

“Recently?”  The former governor shrugged.  “The native governor has gone back to the White City for some reason.  I don’t know why; it’s never happened before in all the time I’ve been here.  It makes things difficult, since whenever I need any workers the natives just look blank and say I have to wait for the governor to return.”

Hermanszoon drummed his fingers on his chair, then said, “Not much else worth mentioning.  A couple of sicknesses have afflicted the locals – mumps, I think – but nothing for us to worry about.  Oh, and two ships have recently gone missing along the coast of the South Land.  I’ve ordered other ships to search for them, and apparently Batavia has done the same, but without any success so far.”

“Ships sailing north, I presume,” Knudsen said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

“Yes.  Our treaty with the Atjuntja forbids us from trading further south.  We’ve sent a couple of ships south anyway and made contact with the Islanders further east, but no-one’s got around to establishing proper trade with them.”

Knudsen nodded, although he had in fact already known that.  One part of his instructions in Amsterdam – rather more secret than the rest – had been to do what he could to establish more regular contact with these Islanders and find out how to trade with them, bypassing the Atjuntja.  He knew that the explorer Thijssen had made contact with them back in 1626, but the disruptions of war and plagues had meant that the Company had not yet put proper resources into trading with the Islanders.  Now that things were stabilising, that would become more of a priority.

Hermanszoon said, “How about your voyage here?”

“Two ships scattered in storms, and the rest half a day behind us, we think.  Hopefully they’ll arrive soon.  Some sailors dead of scurvy, I hear, and many sick, as can only be expected.”

“That can be dealt with.”  The former governor rang the bell beside him.  A moment later, Janszoon reappeared.  “Send word to the new-come ship to have all of the sufferers of scurvy report to the hospice immediately.  Their captain may not know about it.”

The thin-faced man nodded and left.

Knudsen looked a question at the former governor.

Hermanszoon explained, “The natives have a very good remedy for scurvy.  A kind of sarsaparilla which can be turned into a drink that will relieve scurvy very quickly.  We give it to all of the ship captains who visit us here [2].”

“Useful,” Knudsen said.  “Many things for me still to learn about this place, then.”

He settled down to question Hermanszoon in much greater detail.

Knudsen had a week to familiarise himself with his new duties as governor.  In that time, four more ships from the fleet arrived in Fort Nassau, including one of those which had been scattered in the earlier storm.  He watched the native nobles begin to gather to trade with the fleet, although on the former governor’s advice, he did not let the trading begin yet.  Better to wait until there were as many nobles present as possible, so that the natives could compete with each other for Company goods.

Unfortunately, he also found that Piet Janszoon had the best command of the Atjuntja language of any European at this outpost.  Removing him from office would hinder the efficiency of operations at Fort Nassau.  Janszoon probably knew that, too; it would explain his attitude.  Knudsen decided that there was nothing he could do about Janszoon for now, but he would remember.

A week into his tenure, a native messenger came to Fort Nassau to tell him that the Atjuntja governor had returned to Archers Nest, and summoned him to attend.

He thought the demand sounded ominous.  Hermanszoon was of no real help, saying that the message could simply be because the Atjuntja governor wanted to meet the new fort governor, or it might mean something more dangerous, since the native commander had just come back from conferring with their Emperor.

In any case, Knudsen knew he had to attend.  He wanted to bring Hermanszoon with him, but the former governor declined, saying that would simply confuse the issue of who was the true governor of Fort Nassau.  “The Atjuntja don’t like ambiguity,” Hermanszoon said, as if that was sufficient answer.

Instead, Knudsen took Janszoon with him.  Insubordinate the man might be, but a fluent speaker of the Atjuntja language would be extremely helpful.  There were native interpreters available, both in Dutch employ and those which the Atjuntja used, but Knudsen did not trust them, and he was not yet completely confident in his command of the Atjuntja language.

A Dutch boat took them up the river, then they had to walk the remaining distance to Archers Nest.  A fortified city, of course.  With towering walls of grey stone, topped by crenellations.  The natives built fortifications, but they denied them to Fort Nassau.  He would have to see what could be done to change that, after he had met the Atjuntja governor.

Once at the gates, they were quickly ushered in to meet the Atjuntja governor.  Janszoon murmured, “This is unusual.  Normally he would make us wait for hours.”

Knudsen did not take much notice of the buildings or the people.  Time to think about them later.  For now, he had to prepare himself for meeting with the native governor – Namai, if he remembered the name properly.

Namai proved to look much like any of the Atjuntja: tall, skin almost as dark as an African, black beard growing far down his chest.  The shape of his clothes was similar too: cloth wrapped around his body and arms, leaving most of his legs clear.  But everything about him was much more ornate, from the intricately-dyed patterns of blue and scarlet on his clothes, to his gem-studded gold neck-ring and bracelets.

Namai spoke in Atjuntja.  Knudsen followed most of it, but he still turned to the thin-faced man for a translation.

Janszoon said, “He offers you greetings in the name of his Emperor, and calls the blessing of the Lady on your term as governor.”  The thin-faced man paused, then added, “The Atjuntja worship two gods: a good goddess and an evil god.  He is offering you his best wishes, in effect.”

“Return my best wishes in whatever manner is polite among these Atjuntja,” Knudsen said.  He could have done that himself, but he thought it would be better to let Janszoon do it.  That would let him hide his own knowledge of their language, for now.  Besides, the thin-faced man would have more understanding of the natives’ protocols.

Janszoon spoke, and then Namai looked directly at Knudsen.  His words came slower than before, enough that Knudsen could understand without translation.  “I have a request of you, on behalf of the King of Kings.”

Knudsen waited for Janszoon to murmur a translation, for the look of the thing, then said, “Tell him to ask.”

Namai’s next words sounded ritualised and formal, enough that Knudsen could not follow them entirely.  He did recognise the Atjuntja word for sacrifice, though, and that was enough to make his stomach start to knot.  He knew – all of the Dutch knew, by now – that the natives of the South Land were as bloodthirsty as the vanquished natives of the Americas.

Janszoon turned paler than usual while he offered the full translation.  “He says that, in the name of his Emperor, he asks you to send three Dutchmen to the White City to be sacrificed in their heathen rites.”

“No,” Knudsen said, automatically, and then realised that he had answered in the Atjuntja language.

Namai answered, “I did not hear you.”

Knudsen opened his mouth to repeat himself, but Janszoon touched his arm.  “He heard you just fine.  That is the polite Atjuntja form for showing that he does not accept your response, and gives you a chance to make another reply.”

“There’s only one answer to that heathen murderer,” Knudsen said.  Namai’s eyes narrowed at that, perhaps at the tone, or maybe he understood more Dutch than he showed, too.

“We need to give him a more diplomatic answer than that,” Janszoon said.

“Any suggestions?”

“These Atjuntja will only sacrifice volunteers.  You could say that you will ask, and then a few days later say that no-one volunteered.”

“That only puts off the problem,” Knudsen said.  “But it gives us some time, I suppose.  Tell him that I’ll ask.”

Through Janszoon, Namai replied, “You have thirteen days.  Leave me now, and return on the thirteenth day with volunteers.”

Knudsen hurried out, before the Atjuntja governor could add any more demands.

*

Namai of the Urdera watched the new Raw Man governor scuttle out like a rat when a quoll stepped into its sight.  Not for the first time, he was glad that he had troubled himself to learn the basics of their strange language.  So, they would simply play for time and then refuse the King of Kings’ wishes, would they?

“Attend me,” he said, and the three available scribes stepped forward.  “Orders to Fingerman Nagan: he is to move his Fist to Sea-Eagle Tree, and conduct manoeuvres outside the town for the next thirteen days.”

That town was the nearest to the Raw Men’s trading post.  It would mean that they would know that the warriors were nearby, but not so close that their presence would be threatening.  Let that be a warning to the Raw Men, if they were astute enough to understand it.  Hopefully, it would be enough to make them see reason.

It was not.

Thirteen days later, when the Raw Men returned, it was the same two men, the appropriately-bearded governor and the strangely pock-marked scribe-translator who accompanied him.  After the customary greetings, Namai said, “Where are the three men you have brought to be sacrificed to the Lord?”

The scribe said, “The honoured governor expresses his regrets, but no men offered themselves up for the Appeasers.”

Namai said, “Tell him that I did not hear his answer.”

The scribe said, “The honoured governor expresses his disappointment, but no men would volunteer for sacrifice to the death.”

Impertinent outlanders, who stand on the soil of the King of Kings but do not heed his will!  Still, however much it troubled him, Namai knew not to say that.  The Raw Men needed to be treated with care, for they had much knowledge, and many goods that the Middle Country needed.  “Tell him that your people have brought the Lord’s attention to this land, in plagues and famines.  It is up to you to appease this affliction.  Only blood can divert the Lord’s attention.  If men will not volunteer of their own will, persuade them to volunteer.”

The scribe translated that, then the two outlanders had a heated argument in their own language.  Namai followed only the gist: that the scribe wanted to make another delaying response, and the governor wanted to make an outright refusal.

Their argument ended when the governor, Nuddhin, asserted his authority.  He spoke in the true language: “It is against the law of our Lord to give up any man for sacrifice.”

The scribe added, “The honoured governor asks whether your King of Kings will refuse us trade because we refuse sacrifices.”

Namai said, “I do not speak for his exalted majesty.  The land-stone permitting trade still stands.  Unless he orders us to destroy it, trade is allowed.”

And if Namai understood the political situation in the White City correctly, then the King of Kings did not dare to close off trade entirely.  Perhaps he would subject it to restrictions, or perhaps not.

“Your short-sightedness disappointments me.  Death is part of the order of the world.  If you choose not to conduct it properly through sacrifices, you will find that it comes anyway.  Your inaction has brought affliction to the Middle Country, but it will come to your lands, too.”

The scribe started to translate, but Namai spoke over him.  “Nuddhin, I know you understand me.  Leave my presence now.  Your servant can interpret for you later, and may you consider my words and choose the path of wisdom instead.”

When they left, Namai released a sigh he had only barely known he was holding.  The Raw Men were great craftsmen, but it seemed that in their understanding of the divine order they were as ignorant as Islanders.  They would have to learn wisdom through more direct attention from the Lord.  He just had to hope that the lessons would not make the Middle Country suffer too greatly in the meantime.

The first lesson came much sooner than he had expected.

Five days later, an exhausted messenger arrived at Archers Nest.  He was one of the soldiers in Nagan’s Fist, and he had run all the way from Sea Eagle Tree.  He gave a confused tale of new outlander ships appearing in the sea, and using chained kuru to throw thunder at the Raw Men’s outpost, bringing fire and death.  Outlander soldiers had landed from these ships to attack; strange new raw men who were enemies of the more familiar Dutch.  Fingerman Nagan had responded with commendable urgency, leading his Fist to fight alongside the Raw Men, and sending the messenger back for reinforcements.

Namai sent out orders for every available soldier to gather for a march to battle, save for one Fist retained to defend the walls of Archers Nest in case those ships came up the Goanna [Swan] River.  The rest, five Fists strong, were at his command.  If they could reach the Raw Men’s outpost – Fort Naddu, they called it – in time to matter.

A column of smoke rose from the western horizon as the army set out.  Despite forced march pace, no enemies remained by the time Namai and his soldiers reached Fort Naddu.  Instead, he looked out over the ravaged ruins of what had been a thriving trading outpost only hours before.

One of the Raw Men’s ships still burned beside the docks.  The docks themselves had been badly damaged.  Many of the grand stone buildings had smoke rising from their interiors, too.  Some had walls collapsed, as if struck by some great force.  Maybe the invaders here truly could chain kuru to serve their needs; the power to smite stone so effortlessly certainly appeared divine.

The Djarwari peasants who had taken up residence outside the trading post proper had suffered even worse.  Many of their timber homes were aflame.  Without Namai needing to give any orders, the Fingermen ordered their Fists to help put out the fires and collect the dead – Atjuntja, Raw Men and peasants – whose bodies were scattered around.

Finding out the details of what had happened took longer.  Fingerman Nagan had survived, it turned out, along with many of the nobles who had been here waiting to trade.  From what he could gather, Atjuntja soldiers had fought alongside nobles retainers and Raw Men guards against the enemies from the sea, who were another kind of Raw Men.  They had come to raid and destroy, and carried away as much sun-kin [gold] and other goods as they could find.

Namai ordered that some of the soldiers be sent to patrol outside Fort Naddu while the rest contained the fires and collected the dead.  That done, he brought Fingerman Nagan with him and eventually found the Raw Man governor, Nuddhin, and his scribe-translator.

“Who were these raiders?”

“They are called Pannidj,” Nuddhin said.  “We have been at war with them for years, but I never expected that they would come here.”

“They were led here,” Namai said.

“How could that be?” Nuddhin said.  “We have been careful not to let the Pannidj or anyone else know exactly how to sail here.”

“As I warned you, violence will come with the Lord’s attention.  You have not turned His gaze away with sacrifices, or allowed us to do the same.  So He turned his gaze here, and He has called these Pannidj in to make sacrifices for Him.”

Nuddhin did not look convinced, but for now Namai did not care.  The warning had been delivered; it would take time for the Raw Men to understand it.  He had other things to worry about, such as how the King of Kings would respond to this latest affliction.  He could only hope that his exalted majesty’s decisions did not include compelling Namai to volunteer for sacrifice to the death.

--

[1] This is an Atjuntja phrase which means “Speak you the true tongue, honoured one?”

[2] As has happened in many other cultures around the world, the Atjuntja have identified plants with high levels of vitamin C which can be used to cure scurvy.  The particular plant which is being used here is sweet sarsaparilla (Smilax glyciphylla), native to the east coast of *Australia but easily cultivatable elsewhere.  While the native peoples mostly use it as a condiment, it is also helpful for relieving scurvy.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #29: Shards of Pangaea

“For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled,
Where God might write anew the story of the World.”
- Edward Everett Hale

--

From: “Three Worlds in Collision: The Globe in Upheaval”
By Shimon Grodensky

Step back in history for a millennium, and the blue-green globe we call Earth was not, in truth, one world.  Mankind had reached all of the habitable portions of the globe save for a few scattered islands, but the planet remained divided.  Not one world but three, each following separate paths.

The Old World, with the four united continents of Europe, Asia, India and Africa and outlying islands, contained the bulk of the world’s area and population, the earliest agriculture, the earliest civilizations, and the most advanced technology.  With their common geography, the fates of these four continents had been entwined since the emergence of the human species.

The New World, with the continents of North and South America joined at the Isthmus of Panama, accompanied by the isles of the Caribbean, reached from the tropics to both poles.  While smaller in area than the Old World, and only reached by mankind ten or so millennia before, it still provided a third of the world’s habitable land surface and supported substantial human civilizations.

The Third World, the island continent of Aururia and the then-uninhabited islands of Aotearoa, held only a small fraction of the world’s area and an even smaller fraction of its population.  In its flora and fauna, though, it had followed an independent path for so long that the first explorers who saw its plants and animals believed that it was the product of a separate creation.

One thousand years ago, these three worlds had developed largely according to their own destinies, with only occasional contact which did not significantly affect their isolation.  The Old World and the New saw limited crossings of peoples across Broch Strait [Bering Strait]; the Old World and the Third encountered each other in hesitant interactions across Torres Strait.

In the course of the last thousand years, these three separate worlds were forged into one globe with a unified destiny.  Still, the first efforts at fusion were abortive.  Pioneering Austronesians had anticipated the joining of the worlds, visiting Aururia long enough to leave behind dogs, and visiting South America to swap chickens for sweet potatoes.  Yet these landmark contacts were not sustained.  Norse settlers colonised Greenland and landed on North America, only to be driven out by the indigenous inhabitants.  The ancestors of the Maori colonised empty Aotearoa and then crossed the Tethys Sea [Tasman Sea] to encounter the Aururian peoples, but then lost contact with their relatives in Polynesia.

Sustained contact, and the global unification which this would produce, awaited the birth of more determined explorers.  Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Caribbean islands set in motion a course of events which would join the Old World to the New.  While Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas [1], his accomplishment was in making sure that this contact would endure.  A century and a quarter later, Frederik de Houtman created a place for himself in history when he achieved a similar feat in discovering Aururia.  Again, de Houtman was not the first discoverer of the island continent, but he was the first man to ensure that Aururia would not return to its isolation.

The three paths of human existence came together in a crossroads forged by two men.  The expeditions first of Columbus and de Houtman started to bring the three worlds together; two voyages which marked the first tremors of exchanges that would shake the globe.

The Columbian Exchange and the Houtmanian Exchange were the most significant events in human history.  They transformed the globe over the course of the last five centuries; no corner of the planet was untouched by the events set in motion by Columbus and de Houtman.  The modern world as we know it was in large part created by the consequences of these two exchanges.

The Exchanges marked an immense transfer of people, diseases, plants, animals, and ideas between the three previously separate worlds.  These exchanges had massive effects on every human society on the globe.  New diseases spread around the world, devastating many societies.  Large-scale migrations transformed or replaced many cultures.  The spread of new plants and animals marked a more beneficial aspect of the Exchanges; more productive or more resilient crops allowed increased human populations...

Of all the changes to human ways of life which the Exchanges brought, none were more profound than the spread of crops and livestock.  New staple crops transformed the diets of peoples on every continent, as much larger growing regions were opened up for cultivation.  The spread of domestic animals revolutionised transportation, farming practices, and entire ways of life of peoples around the globe.

Consider, for instance, that maize and cassava, when introduced into Africa, replaced the former dietary staples to become the premier food crops on much of the continent.  Red yams and cornnarts [wattles] became the highest-yielding crops around most of the Mediterranean.  South American potatoes had never been seen in Europe before 1492, but within three centuries they became so important in Ireland that potato blight threatened mass starvation on the island; the dire situation was only averted by expanding cultivation of another imported crop, this one from the other end of the globe: murnong.

Horses had never been seen in the New World before Columbus, but they spread throughout the North American prairies, leading entire cultures to abandon farming and turn to a nomadic lifestyle.  Coffee and sugar cane were native to the Old World, but the Columbian Exchange saw their cultivation expand to massive plantations in the New.  Rubber was native to the New World, but its greatest use has now become in plantations in the Old.  Kunduri was native to the Third World, but during the Houtmanian Exchange it became widely cultivated in plantations in both the Old and New Worlds, while cultures throughout the globe were transformed by the influence of kunduri...

Some crops and animals which spread during the Exchanges have become so iconic to distant regions that it is hard to imagine that five hundred years ago, the peoples of those regions had never seen or heard of them.  Who can imagine Tuscany without tomatoes, Ireland without potatoes, Sicily without red yams, Thijszenia [Tasmania] without apples, Tegesta [Florida] without oranges, West Africa without peanuts, Costa Rica without bananas, Maui [Hawaii] without pineapples, or Tuniza without quandongs?  What would Bavaria be without chocolate, South Africa without kunduri, or France without the klinsigars [cigarettes] produced from it?  Or who can picture Tejas without sheep, the Neeburra [Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia] without horses, or Argentina without wheat and cornnart and the immense herds of cattle they sustain?

Indeed, the list of exchanged plants and animals that have become naturalised in new regions could be expanded almost endlessly.  Before de Houtman, Ethiopia had no nooroons [emus] and no murnong, Brittany had no sweet peppers [2], Portugal had no lemon verbena [lemon myrtle], and Persia had no lutos [bush pears].  Before Columbus, there were no chilli peppers in Siam and India, no coffee in New Granada, no vanilla in Madagascar, no sunflowers in Daluming, no avocados in Ceylon, no rubber trees in Africa, and no oca in Aotearoa...

Nothing offers greater testament to the agricultural benefits of the Exchanges than a comparison of the origins of the modern world’s major crops.  The world’s agriculture is dominated by a mere twenty crops.  They are the titans of the plant kingdom, which between them contain the best-suited staple crops for all of the diverse climes around the globe.  Together, these crops account for around nine-tenths of the tonnage of all crops grown under human cultivation.

Six of these foremost crops come from the New World (potato, maize, cassava, sweet potato, tomato, chilli & bell pepper), eleven are from the Old World (rice, sugar cane, grape, wheat, soybean, barley, orange, onion, sorghum, banana, apple), and three are from the Third World (red & lesser yam, cornnart, and murnong).  Today their cultivation is global, but a millennium ago each of these crops was confined to one of the three worlds, and often had restricted range even within their native world...

The two Exchanges have much in common in their effects on the globe: they transformed agriculture and cuisine, and made each world’s resources available to a much larger area.  Still, the two Exchanges had distinctly different characters, particularly in their relative effects on the Old World, and in the fates of the peoples and cultures in the two smaller worlds.

In the Columbian Exchange, many major crops moved in both directions, and Eurasia swallowed many of the New World’s resources.  In most other aspects, however, the Columbian Exchange was in effect unidirectional.  In the movement of diseases, Old World epidemics devastated the populations of the New World, while not a single significant human disease made the reverse journey back across the Atlantic to Europe or elsewhere in the Old World.  The Americas did not provide a single major domestic animal that greatly transformed Old World societies – cavies, llamas, turkeys and muscovy ducks were only of minor importance – while Eurasia provided horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens which all transformed life in the New World.  The shifts of language and peoples in the Columbian Exchange were all cases of Old World peoples expanding at the expense of the native languages and peoples of the New World.  And while the resources of the New World would feed the burgeoning commerce and ultimately manufacturing of Europe, no significant changes to Old World religion or science came about as a result of Columbus’s contact...

In the Houtmanian Exchange, as in its Columbian predecessors, major crops were exchanged in both directions.  Yet the Third World did not provide as many resources to feed Europe’s growth, mostly because of the much smaller size of Aururia and Aotearoa.

De Houtman’s legacy saw a true exchange of diseases between the Old and Third Worlds, although the character of this interaction was markedly different from that which followed Columbus.  Aururian diseases were much swifter in their effects on the Old World (and the New), due to their individual nature and the facts of geography which made them easier to transmit around the globe.  The effects of Old World diseases on Aururia were slower, more insidious and ultimately much more destructive.

In the exchange of domestic animals, the Old World again provided many more kinds of livestock which would transform the societies of the Third World – horses, camels, donkeys, pigs and chickens.  Nonetheless, the Third World provided one domestic animal, the nooroon, whose arrival changed human ways of life in a substantial part of the Old World.

In the transfer of peoples and language, the Houtmanian Exchange was more complex than the Columbian, but ultimately bidirectional.  Likewise, while the flow of ideas was largely a tide flowing from the Old World, contact with Aururia did lead to significant developments in the history of religion and science...

--

From: “Europe’s Assault on the Globe”
By Hans van Leeuwen

Chapter 7: Drive to the East

Europe’s interest in the East began long before Columbus inadvertently began the European assault on the West; indeed, the misguided Genoan had intended to reach the East by sailing west.  The lure of spices had inspired the Portuguese to explore Africa and round the Cape before Columbus set foot on the isles of the Caribbean, and even those intrepid explorers were merely seeking to gain easier access to Eastern goods which had previously passed through Muslim and Venetian hands.

Vasco de Gama reached India a handful of years after Columbus’s wayward voyage led him to what he had fondly believed was the Spice Islands.  In this era, Spanish conquistadors followed in Columbus’s wake, pursuing gold and visions, and delivered the first blows in what would become Europe’s assault on the Americas.  With Spain thereby distracted from Eastern ambitions, it fell to Portugal to become the vanguard of Europe’s drive to the East...

While the East held and holds many diverse regions, the early aims of the Powers were focused on four prizes that held the greatest rewards to match Europe’s interests.  Cathay, then the most advanced nation on the globe, source of much silk and porcelain (and later tea), and an endless sink for bullion.  The East Indies, politically divided and often unwelcoming, but the source of many of the most valuable spices in the world.  India, dominated by the expanding might of the Great Mughals, had long been the emporium of the world, attracting many other goods even from the prizes of the East, and which offered cotton, dyes, silk, and saltpetre.  Aururia, isolated, divided and primitive, but with supplies of gold to rival the resources of the West, home to and at first the exclusive supplier of kunduri, and a source of new spices, some of which offered new markets, and others which would ruin the market for what had until then been the most valuable spice in the world.

These were the four prizes which lured the Powers to explore the vastness of the globe, and whose wealth drew individual Europeans to make long voyages even at the risks of privation, disease, and far too common death.  Unlike in the West, where military might was quickly aimed at the native inhabitants, in the East, the early Europeans came as traders more than as conquerors.  To be sure, European powers fought in the East where it suited their purposes, but their aims were not conquest, but access and ultimately control of trade markets.  Commerce was their aim, military force merely their tool.  In the East, when Europeans turned to force of arms, as often as not their targets would be other Europeans, not the Eastern peoples...

Chapter 10: In Pursuit of Gold and Spices

In Aururia, as elsewhere in the East, the early Powers who descended on the continent were the Dutch, Portuguese and English.  Unlike the other Eastern prizes, in the South Land the Dutch were the pioneers, and the other Powers were the ones seeking to unseat them.

As in the rest of the East, though, the Powers were competing for wealth.  There was not yet any thought of major settlement, even though parts of this island continent were as empty as much of the Americas.  Lucre drew them, not land, for the shipping distances were far longer and the diseases much more formidable, even in those parts of the continent where the natives were not yet any more advanced than the Red Indians.  For those Europeans who wanted land, the Americas were closer and more welcoming.  Those who were prepared to travel across half the world wanted something much more rewarding for their endeavours...

The Dutch, in the guise of their trading company, had little difficulty establishing the first European trading outposts in western Aururia.  Mutual trade suited both Dutch and natives, profitable enough to thrive despite the first ravages of Aururian plagues across the world and the first of many Eurasian epidemics in Aururia.

The problems which the Dutch faced would derive from their rival Powers, not the natives.  Rumours of gold spread even faster than the dying cough [Marnitja].  The Portuguese were the Power keenest to heed these rumours, and with the fortunate capture of a Dutch ship, received access to excellent charts, and were informed of the unprotected Fort Nassau.  The temptation was overwhelming, the lust for gold insatiable, and Portugal launched the first strike in the European struggle for control of Aururia.  There could hardly be a more telling omen of the fate that awaited the Land of Gold than that this blow had been delivered by one European power upon another...

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[1] Of course Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas; for a start, they had already been discovered by the Americans themselves.

[2] The plants which are here called sweet peppers are pepperbushes (Tasmannia spp) from *Australia.  They are not the OTL plants which are called sweet peppers, bell peppers or capsicum (which ATL are usually called bell peppers or pimentos).  Also unlike them, Tasmannia is very “hot”; the name “sweet pepper” came into use because the plant has an initially sweet taste, but an intense, hot aftertaste.

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Lands of Red and Gold #30: An Aururian Miscellany

This post is an assortment of disconnected parts which offer glimpses of some aspects of the LRGverse, but which aren’t large enough to form an entire post in themselves, so they’ve been included together here.

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October 1629
Crescent Bay, The Island [Kingscote, Kangaroo Island]

The last curve of the sun’s fire glowed above the western horizon as the day began its descent into night, while in the east the first stars were emerging to complete that transformation.  Almost directly overhead, the moon cast down its own incomplete light; this was the half-moon, perfectly balanced between the fading of the last new moon and emergence of the next full moon.

In short, a most auspicious time, a time of perfect balance in the endless cycles of the world.  This was a time when a man could hear the harmony of the world reflected within himself, if his mind and soul were properly ordered, and when he could use that wisdom to guide himself during difficult decisions.

Lalgatja, elder of the Wolalta bloodline, needed a time such as this.  Wisdom had always been the most valuable of commodities, and unlike anything else, he could not send out his trade captains to collect it.  Guidance he needed, in this time when the Nangu were divided amongst themselves worse than any other time in living memory, with troubles afflicting the Island and the nearer parts of its hegemony, while an unknown people moved around the world in a way which could bring great profit or great destruction.

The last light of the sun faded into the west while Lalgatja contemplated, and his three senior captains waited in fitting silence.  He had chosen this site at the western door of the Temple of the Five Winds, and the priests had wisely left them alone.  As they should; with the generous gifts which the Wolalta had given to this temple, time for private contemplation was the least they deserved.

The Raw Men, he realised.  It had all begun with them.  The consequences of their arrival had rippled across most of the world, as consequences always did, but everything had begun with the Raw Men.

Thanks to the Raw Men, the Nangu bloodlines had fallen back into the old ways of feud and rivalry.  The Raw Men had arrived at the western edge of the world, showed magnificent goods which drew the interest of every true-blooded Nangu... and then refused to trade with them!

Instead, the Raw Men had established trade with the Atjuntja, foolishly adhering to their pact with those bloodletting savages, and not sending their trade ships further east.  A few of the Raw Men’s goods had reached the Island after being traded on by the Atjuntja, but those few items which had come at great cost did nothing but arouse competitive passions amongst the bloodlines.

The Raw Men themselves had remained tantalisingly distant.  Some of the bolder Nangu captains had sailed into the far west in the hope of discovering the Raw Men’s homelands.  Those voyages had ended in disappointment for the fortunate and death for the rest.  The arguments over those voyages – particularly the bloodlines who suspected each other of destroying their ships – had begun the first of the feuds which now troubled the Island.

Other Nangu had sought to establish contact with the Raw Men via intermediaries, a course which risked arousing the anger of the King of Kings.  One attempt had succeeded, that Lalgatja knew of; one of the Tjula captains had invited the Raw Men at their trading outpost to send a ship to visit the Island.  That should have been a triumph for the Tjula, but once the other bloodlines had learned of this visit, the Manyilti had led a faction who blamed them for acting without the Council’s approval, and threatening all trade with Tiayal.  Another feud had been born out of that dispute, adding to the Island’s troubles.

The Raw Men had eventually heeded the Tjula’s call, sending a fleet of three ships to wander [ie explore] the seas, and visited the Island.  One fleet only, with small quantities of valuable goods and only limited interest in trading [1].  The result had been endless disagreements among the Nangu, as the bloodlines competed in a most undignified manner to secure some of the Raw Men’s goods.

That had been the first great warning, as far as Lalgatja had been concerned.  He had ordered his captains not to trade with the Raw Men at all.  His judgement had been that any price paid would be too expensive, and that being involved in the bargaining would only attract the hatred of other bloodlines.

Events had proved him right; more feuds had grown out of the Raw Men’s visit than any of the earlier troubles.  So far none of those feuds had turned into a full vendetta, but the risk remained.  Especially with almost three years passing, and no sign whether the Raw Men would ever return.  The bloodlines grew ever more fractious, with whispered rumours accusing others of warning off the Raw Men, or of concluding secret agreements for exclusive access.

Other troubles had followed in the wake of the Raw Men’s visit.  Disease had struck; a new malady called swelling-fever [mumps] which had first appeared amongst the Atjuntja, and then in time followed the trading ships back to the east.

Swelling-fever had struck first in the Seven Sisters [2], then on the Island.  Many men had died of this new affliction.  This had happened despite the best precautions of the Nangu, who had acted on the advice of Nakatta, elder of the Muwanna bloodline.  Nakatta had advised of the need to quarantine any ship whose crew showed symptoms of the swelling-fever.  That quarantine had been enforced, but the disease still spread to the Mutjing and then to the Nangu [3].

The failure of Nakatta’s advice had discredited the Muwanna bloodline, but that had only been the start of the problems.  The Lorekeeper, most senior elder in the Council, had been among the victims of the swelling-fever.  With his departure to join his kin, the bloodlines had lost their most respected adjudicator, which had only worsened the feuds.

Trade had suffered, too.  With the deaths of so many farmers amongst the Mutjing, the price of yams, wealth-grain [wattle seeds] and other foods had risen.  That always made the Nangu uneasy.  The Island depended on importing food from the Mutjing, and paying more for it cost trade goods which had to be obtained from elsewhere.  So far, prices had not risen unbearably, but the fact that they had increased at all had worsened the tension amongst the bloodlines.

Even lesser events seemed to conspire to bring misfortune to the Island.  From the mainland, word had come that the Yadji Regent [ie Emperor] was dead of the swelling-fever.  Privately, Lalgatja suspected that the priests had simply used a convenient excuse to rid themselves of a mad Regent.  Regardless of the reason, however, the Land of the Five Directions [ie Yadji lands] drifted leaderless while the priests squabbled among themselves.

Normally, chaos among the Yadji would have been a welcome sign that the security of the Island was being maintained.  Not now, though, when it let Tjibarr consolidate its decade-old conquest of Jugara and the Copper Coast.  The safety of the Island had always rested on the balance between the Yadji and Tjibarr, so that both of them were too busy looking at the other to threaten the Nangu, but it looked as if that might no longer hold.  Worse, in the short-term, the unrest in the Yadji lands meant that their rulers were disinclined to trade, which wove another thread into the tapestry of Nangu troubles.

On the Cider Isle, worse than unrest had come; the Tjunini and Kurnawal had started another cycle in their endless war.  Many times, such news would have had the trading captains flocking to their shores to profit from trading with both sides.  Alas, this war had been more destructive than most, with cider gums deliberately burned by both sides, and gold mining curtailed while both sides focused on mining tin to make bronze for weapons.  There was little worth trading for in the Cider Isle, until the war was done.

So, in the midst of this time of troubles, Lalgatja had come to seek wisdom, to chart a course for his bloodline through rough waters.  The Island afflicted by disease and riven by feuds, the world growing unsettled, and the Raw Men both mysterious and enticing beyond the fringes of the world.

As he considered matters, he realised that he had already been given the most important insight.  The Raw Men were the key.  Know them, understand them, and the path would become clear.  The other troubles would come and go, but they were merely ripples in the cosmos.

“We must reach the Raw Men properly,” Lalgatja said, the first time he had spoken aloud since he reached the temple.  “If they will not come to us, we must find a way to go to them.”

With that invitation, his captains now knew that they could speak.  If they had anything worth saying.

Werringi, the second-most senior captain, said, “We cannot reach the Raw Men if we sail west.  Most of the other bloodlines had tried and failed, even with captains and crews whose skills are not to be despised.”

Lalgatja said, “That truth we knew before coming here.”

“The truth we knew, but not what follows from it.  The Raw Men come from the west, but when they have traded with the Atjuntja, they do not sail west again.”

Now, that was a new thought.  If true.  “Are you sure?”

“They go north.  So agree those who have been to the White City,” Werringi said.  “And we all saw the ships which the Raw Men brought to the Island.  They cannot sail into the wind as well as our ships can, even if they are faster with the wind behind them.  If the western winds have defeated our captains, then the Raw Men must be sailing north.”

Kunyana, the most senior captain, said, “That will not let us sail after them.  To voyage along the western coast of Tiayal is difficult, since we cannot secure landfall without being asked very demanding questions.  Our ships would have even more troubles if they wander beyond Atjuntja lands.  Going north, it is easy to sail away but hard to sail back, which makes it very difficult to judge how far a ship can safely sail before turning back.”

Werringi said, “So we must sail east first.”

Lalgatja raised an eyebrow.  “You would reach the Raw Men by sailing further away from them?”

“It is the route which the Raw Men took after visiting here.  They would not have sailed there if they did not know that the voyage could be done.”

Werringi stood, his enthusiasm carried in his voice as he spoke.  “It would be a great voyage, but not an impossible one.  I have sailed to the Spice Coast, to the Patjimunra lands [Hunter Valley, New South Wales] and even once to Daluming [Coffs Harbour].  That is the way which the Raw Men must have gone, and they would only have sailed there if they knew that they could find their homeland again.  So I will take a ship east, then north, and sail west where I can, until I can find where the Raw Men go after they leave Tiayal.”

Kunyana said, “Boldness is good, but suicide is not.”

“It is the third path [ie decisiveness],” Werringi said.  “This is a time of great change; we will not succeed by taking half-measures.”

Lalgatja gestured for Werringi to sit again, then let them wait in silence while he thought.  After a time, he said, “Do as you will, Werringi.  I will not sanction your voyage, but neither will I oppose it.  If you can persuade your crew to sail with you, and perhaps find another captain willing to take his ship with yours, then I will pray to Eagle for your success.”

--

This section is a summary of the key domesticated Aururian plants and animals and what effects they might have on the rest of the world.  This is not a comprehensive list of all such plants and animals; it only includes those which have potential to be exported to the rest of the world and make a significant difference there.

In this list, the allohistorical name is given first, if it differs from the historical name.  Where there is more than one important allohistorical name, the name which is used is the one by which the plant or animal will be most widely known in English.

Staple Crops

Red yam (Dioscorea chelidonius) is a perennial vine which produces large, edible tubers, and for cooking purposes can be used much like a potato.  It grows well in semi-arid conditions between latitudes of 25 to 45 degrees.  Can grow in areas of higher rainfall, but does not tolerate waterlogged soils.  Widely-grown throughout subtropical and temperate Aururia, and has excellent potential to be exported to other parts of the world.  It will grow well in areas of Mediterranean climate and other mid-latitude regions, but will not grow in the tropics.  It has a reasonably high agricultural yield, although on fertile, well-watered soils, crops such as potatoes would be superior.

Lesser yam (Dioscorea chelidonius var inferior) is a hybrid of the red yam and the related long yam (D. transversa).  It has a lower yield than the red yam, and has higher water requirements, but unlike the red yam, it can grow in the tropics.  The plant is cultivated mostly in the northern fringes of Aururian farming [east-central Queensland], but if exported, could grow well in many drier areas of the tropics.

Cornnarts / wattles (Acacia spp) are fast-growing trees which produce large quantities of edible, high-protein seeds and can be tapped to yield gum aururic [wattle gum].  As legumes, they also replenish soil nitrates.  About ten species of cornnarts have been domesticated.  Cornnarts are mostly suited for low-rainfall climates in the middle latitudes, although some of the domesticated species can grow in the tropics or cooler climates, and some can also tolerate higher rainfall.

Murnong (Microseris lanceolata) is a perennial crop which produces edible tubers, which are used similarly to red yams or potatoes.  Murnong does not tolerate excessive heat, and in lowland regions it cannot be grown as close to the equator as the red yam.  However, it is more tolerant of cooler climates, poorer soils and shorter growing seasons, and can be grown at higher latitudes than the red yam.  It also does not have the red yam’s problems with tropical day length, and can be grown in cool highlands within the tropics.

Dutch flax / native flax (Linum marginale) is an Aururian relative of common flax (L. usitatissimum).  Like the Eurasian plant, it is used to make fibre (linen, textiles, rope), and its seeds are edible or can be used to create a form of linseed oil.  It does not grow as large as common flax, but if carefully harvested it will regrow from its roots for up to five years without needing reseeding.  If exported, it will need lower rainfall or need less irrigation than common flax, although it will not yield as much fibre per acre.  This will allow expansion of textile production by allowing linen to be grown in wider areas, although the Aururian fibre is still quite similar to common flax, and lacks the flexibility of some other plant fibres (such as cotton).

Quandong (Santalum acuminatum) is a desert tree which produces large, sweet fruit (including an edible nut at the centre of each fruit).  It has an odd habit of parasitising the roots of other trees, and so needs to be cultivated in mixed orchards with other trees.  Choosing different host species produces different fruit flavours (cornnarts are normally used in Aururia).  Grows well in hot, relatively arid regions, and would be suitable for cultivation around much of the world, particularly zones of Mediterranean climate.

Luto / bush pear (Marsdenia australis) is a desert vine where almost of the plant is edible.  The pear-shaped fruit has a sweet pulp and edible seeds.  The leaves and stems are edible and used for flavouring.  The vine also produces an edible root tuber.  A drought-hardy species, the luto will grow even in relatively poor soils and semiarid climates throughout much of the world.  In Aururia, it is nicknamed the “many vine” for the range of flavours which can be produced from its various parts, and some other countries will incorporate the luto into their cuisine when it is eventually exported.

Spices

Lemon verbena / lemon myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) is a tree whose leaves produce a sweet, strong lemony flavour.  While it tolerates low levels of some nutrients, overall it needs better soils, warmer weather and higher rainfall than most Aururian plants.  In pre-Houtmanian Aururia, lemon verbena’s cultivation was largely confined to the subtropical eastern seaboard, but it was traded across the continent.  Lemon verbena has considerable potential to be exported as a spice, and could be grown in areas of similar climate around much of the world.  The potential is similar for several other spice trees which grow on the subtropical east coast, aniseed myrtle (Syzygium anisatum), cinnamon myrtle (Backhousia myrtifolia) and curry myrtle (B. angustifolia).

Sweet peppers / pepperbushes (Tasmannia spp) are shrubs whose leaves and especially berries have an intense peppery taste.  The plant tolerates reasonably poor soils and frosts, and is grown across much of the southern half of Aururia, although it often needs some small-scale irrigation.  Widespread in pre-Houtmanian Aururia, sweet peppers also have considerable potential for export; they have, per weight, up to ten times the flavour of the more common black pepper (Piper nigrum).

Ovasecca / desert raisin (Solanum centrale) is a desert shrub related to the tomato, which produces a fruit with a taste reminiscent of tamarillo and caramel.  The fruit conveniently dries while still on the stalk, making for easy transport and storage.  The plant tolerates dry conditions and poor soils, but in the wild it only fruits after heavy rains; in cultivation this is mimicked by judicious irrigation.  Ovasecca is cultivated in the Five Rivers and nearby areas as a condiment, and has the potential to be cultivated in semiarid regions around the world where there is access to irrigation.

White ginger / native ginger (Alpinia caerulea) is a shrub whose fruit, new shoots and tubers have gingery flavours.  Native to the warmer areas of the eastern Aururian seaboard, it can be grown much more widely with irrigation.  It is cultivated widely in the Five Rivers, and less commonly elsewhere, as a spice.  White ginger can be cultivated in subtropical climates around the world with reasonable rainfall and/or irrigation, and has some potential as a spice for export.

Others

Kunduri / corkwood (Duboisia hopwoodii) is a shrub whose leaves contain high levels of nicotine and other alkaloids, and provide Aururia’s drug of choice.  The cultivated form of kunduri is grown in the Five Rivers, and is their most valuable export to the rest of the continent.  Although Eurasians who first encounter kunduri will often find it too strong a drug (due to the elevated nicotine levels), it has very strong long-term potential for export and will influence the world (in several senses of the word).  Kunduri could also be cultivated in subtropical arid or semiarid areas around the world (with irrigation).

Spanish indigo / native indigo (Indigofera australis) is a relative of true indigo (I. tinctoria), which produces a similar dye to the more familiar (to Eurasians) plant.  Spanish indigo is more versatile than true indigo, since by various treatments to the leaves, it can produce not just the true indigo colour, but a brilliant yellow and a useful green.  Spanish indigo was cultivated over most of the farming areas of Aururia in the pre-contact period [4].  The plant can grow in poorer soils and drier climes and further into subtropical latitudes than true indigo, and so has considerable potential both for export from Aururia and for cultivation around much of the world.

Jeeree / Lemon-scented teatree (Leptospermum petersonii) is a tree whose leaves produce an intense, lemony taste.  It can tolerate reasonably poor soils, but needs reasonable rainfall and is sensitive to frost.  In Aururia, it is grown almost exclusively on the eastern coast, where its leaves are used to make a lemon “tea” that is popular amongst all of the eastern cultures.  It is not well-regarded in the rest of the continent.  Jeeree has some potential for export as an exotic “tea”, and can be cultivated in most subtropical latitudes where there is reasonable rainfall or access to irrigation.

Nooroon / emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) is a large, flightless bird which is Aururia’s prime domestic animal.  A fast-growing bird, it is a useful source of meat, leather and feathers.  In comparison to big Eurasian domestic animals (such as cattle), the nooroon is less efficient as a grazer, but when grain fed, produces more usable meat in proportion to the amount of grain.  The nooroon has reasonable potential for export to subtropical and tropical latitudes, particularly since as a bird it is unaffected by some tropical diseases which afflict domesticated mammals.

Pole-cat / tiger quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) is a marsupial equivalent of the cat, domesticated to serve a similar rat-catching role.  Pole-cats are widely distributed among the farming peoples of Aururia, who find them an invaluable asset for controlling native rodents and other pests.  The pole-cat is not quite as efficient a rat-catcher as cats, but it still has some potential for export as an exotic pet, and it may also become an invasive species if introduced into some environments.

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In Europe, the course of what another history would call the Thirty Years War would be changed by the ravages of Marnitja in 1628.  At this time, the imperial forces under Albrecht von Wallenstein had made Christian IV of Denmark regret his intervention in the war, defeating the Danish allies and ultimately overrunning Jutland.  To threaten the Danish capital on Zealand, though, the imperial forces needed a Baltic fleet, and plans were made to besiege the port of Stralsund.

The effects of Marnitja changed that.  The preparations for besieging Stralsund were abandoned amidst the disruption.  While both sides suffered casualties from the epidemic, the Danish forces were in a better position to liberate much of Jutland, since they could draw on local support while the imperial forces were operating on hostile territory.

A year of manoeuvring on Jutland followed, with a number of engagements which saw imperial forces pushed out of part of the peninsula, but never decisively defeated.  By this point, both sides were inclined to seek peace.  Diplomatic manoeuvring replaced its military counterpart, and by April 1630 the two sides had agreed on terms.

By the terms of the Treaty of Lübeck, Jutland and Royal Holstein were restored to Denmark, while the Duchy of Holstein was granted joint overlordship of Hamburg.  Prince Ulric, a younger son of Christian IV, was named Prince-Bishop of Verden, and Bishop of Schwerin, and was designated as the heir of the Lutheran Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, when the current incumbent died.  The Dukes of Mecklenburg were restored, including the estates which Wallenstein had confiscated.  In exchange, Wallenstein was granted estates around Stettin in central Pomerania, which allowed him to collect tolls from trade along the River Oder.  As part of the treaty, Christian IV agreed to withdraw all Danish forces from elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire, and not to provide any further support to Protestants in Germany.

So, in April 1630, it appeared that the war which had begun eleven years earlier might finally come to an end.

Other events, though, changed that.

In Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus caught Marnitja in May 1630.  He survived the pink cough, but now faced the prospect of waiting to see whether he would be claimed by a fevered delirium.  Gustavus did not plan to wait passively for death to claim him, but decided that if he would die, he would leave a legacy behind.  He wanted to make sure that his name would be remembered.

The previous year, Sweden had ended its war with Poland by signing a seven-year truce, the Truce of Altmark [5], which gave Sweden control of Livonia and some Baltic ports.  Gustavus Adolphus was not inclined to break that truce in pursuit of further gains.

Instead, he looked south.  As he saw it, the Protestant cause in Germany had been betrayed by Denmark, but here was an opportunity to secure his legacy.  Germany was in chaos, the Protestants needed support, and glory beckoned.  Swedish forces landed near Stettin in June 1630, with Gustavus Adolphus at their head and conquest on his mind.  He knew that landing here would inevitably draw the forces of Wallenstein, the greatest surviving general of imperial forces, and hoped that defeating Wallenstein would rally Germany’s Protestants under his banner.

Gustavus Adolphus did not just hope to secure glory through victory in Germany, though.  By now, Europe was rife with rumours of the wealth to be found in colonies, with the Spanish long ago acquiring dominions in the Americas, and the Dutch finding a new fortune in the distant South Land.  Gustavus Adolphus chartered a new company, based in Gothenburg, with orders to explore North America and find a suitable place for founding a new colony there that would bear his name...

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[1] This was François Thijssen’s 1626-7 voyage to Aururia and Aotearoa.  He did not actually have limited interest in trading with the Nangu per se, but he had only limited samples of trade goods.  He did not want to exchange them all with the first people he met, preferring to keep most of them if he encountered other peoples further east.

[2] The Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia] is the name given to the Mutjing lands.

[3] The quarantine has failed because mumps produces a significant proportion of asymptomatic carriers, and some of them have carried the disease past the quarantine.

[4] Although, naturally, the pre-Houtmanian Aururians did not call the plant Spanish indigo.

[5] This truce was somewhat more generous to Sweden than the historical equivalent (which only lasted six years).  Under the treaty, Sweden has control of Livonia, some coastal cities in Prussia, and a substantial share of the tolls from trade passing through Poland’s Baltic ports.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #31: The Lord’s Will

“You are to proceed to the southward in order to make discovery of the continent abovementioned [Aururia] until you arrive in the latitude of 40 degrees, unless you sooner fall in with it.  But not having discovered it or any evident signs of it in that run, you are to proceed in search of it to the eastward between the latitude before mentioned and the latitude of 35 degrees until you discover it.”

- Instructions issued to William Baffin by the Directors of the East India Trading Company in July 1635, prior to his first expedition to Aururia

--

Summer, 29th Year of King of Kings Kepiuc Tjaanuc [December 1631-February 1632]
Milgawee (White City) [Albany, Western Australia]
Tiayal (the Middle Country) [western coast of Australia]

Water, water everywhere.  Not plunging uncontrollably from the sky, or bubbling from the secret places beneath the earth, but flowing according to the desires and for the pleasures of men.

Or were these bearded Atjuntja truly men?  Might they not be spirit beings who lived in the Dreamtime as much as in the present time?

Attapatta, chief of the Wurrukurr, could not decide the answer to those questions, much as he wondered.  Before he had come to Milgawee, he had been confident that these Atjuntja were men like any others, even if possessed of different Dreamings [1].

The Atjuntja knew different skills than the desert-dwelling Wurrukurr [2], but they still had their limits.  Or so it had seemed.  He had been invited to some of their smaller cities, earlier in his life, and seen that the Atjuntja had different knowledge.  The Atjuntja could work metals and make food grow from within the earth, but they did not know how to listen to the world around them and were almost incapable of hunting properly.

Now, though, he had seen Milgawee, the place of stone and water and boundless vegetation, and he could not decide whether these Atjuntja were truly men.  The first time he had seen an Atjuntja city, he had called it a big place, but the local Atjuntja had just laughed.  Now that he had seen the place they called the Centre of Time, he understood their reactions.

Here at Milgawee, it was as if the Dreamtime still endured, where the ancient spirit beings had never stopped their work of shaping the earth.  Here walked men – or perhaps more-than-men – who had the powers to call forth stone and water according to their desires.

And they had welcomed him!  The Wurrukurr came from a hotter and harsher land, where the sun burned brighter and water was life.  Attapatta had guided his people through the challenges of that life, but he had never expected to be welcomed by spirit beings.

Attapatta had been given rooms in their palace to live, and gifts of iron and clothes made of linen.  Those were marvellous enough.  The Atjuntja had even called him one of the blessed, who was permitted to hear the voice of their great ruler, the Many-King [3] who commanded all of the spirits of this place.

Still, for all of these wonders, nothing matched the Garden.  Here, the sounds of water were everywhere.  Here was a truly sacred place created by the most powerful of Dreaming.  Back in the hot lands of his home, the growth of plants was a rare, infrequent thing, in a land which had been baked red.  In the Garden, though, water flowed everywhere, and the growth of plants was commanded entirely at the wishes of the Atjuntja.

Here, too, was where Attapatta had been invited to meet with Lerunna Mundi, the voice of the Many-King, to discuss whatever reason they had for inviting him to travel so far.

Lerunna said, “Your Wurrukurr people follow your lead, I know.  How much do your neighbours heed your words?”

Attapatta frowned, trying to follow the import of the question.  He said, “I am chief, not a... king.  All of the Wurrukurr elders have a voice, and our people will listen to them.  As for our neighbours, we talk with them, but no-one can command another people.  They do as they wish in their country, as we do in ours.”

Lerunna said, “So long as you talk with them, that is enough for his exalted majesty’s wishes.”

“Of course we talk with them.  A people should always heed their neighbours.”

Lerunna smiled.  A normal expression if he was a man; perhaps the same held true for spirit beings.  “His exalted majesty offers you gifts – iron knives and tools, linen and kunduri.”

“What does the Many-King want from us, that he offers such gifts?” Attapatta said.  He knew that desire stirred in his voice; the gifts which he had already received were incredible.

“Your scouting, and your warning.  His exalted majesty knows that the Wurrukurr know how to move through the red lands [desert] without being seen, when you need.  He asks that you send word to our soldiers if you or your neighbours learn of ships coming from the sea.”

“Ships?” Attapatta said.

“The ships of the Raw Men, who come out of the sunset.”

“Ah,” Attapatta said.  He had heard word of this from the Atjuntja near his homeland, although he had never seen a ship himself.

“There are two kinds of Raw Men.  The Nedlandj [Dutch] are our sometimes friends.  Tell us if they come.  The other kind are called the Pannidj, and they are our enemies.  Do not threaten them, for their weapons are powerful.  But his exalted majesty wants to know if their ships come.  If they try to build outposts in your country, send word to us, and his exalted majesty’s soldiers will capture the Pannidj for you.” 

“If they are so powerful, we should be wary of their anger,” Attapatta said.

Lerunna said, “The Pannidj can be killed.  His exalted majesty’s soldiers killed them when they attacked our friends the Nedlandj.  But we will need your people to guide us.  You know the red lands better than anyone, and you can bring our soldiers close to the Pannidj without being seen.  If they come, we will defeat them.”

An easy proposition, as far as Attapatta was concerned.  The risks lay with the Atjuntja, not with his own people.  “It is agreed,” he said.

--

From: “The United East India Company [Dutch East India Company]: Reflections on the Golden Age”
By Alexander Boniface

The first decade of the Company’s deeds in Aururia was shaped by priorities set elsewhere in the world.  Company merchants acquired Atjuntja gold and sandalwood as an excellent source of wealth, but they spent the profits of that trade elsewhere.

During the tenure of Governor-General Coen, the Company’s efforts in the Far East were focused on building up an inter-Asian trading network whose profits would supply the spice trade to Europe.  Aururian gold provided the capital to finance this trading expansion, but for the first ten years, Aururia itself formed only an isolated outpost on that trading network.

In particular, under Coen’s leadership the Company did not seek to become deeply involved with the Atjuntja.  Despite the consternation caused in Europe by accounts of Atjuntja religious practices – often exaggerated, but the reality was bad enough – or the frustration of Atjuntja trading restrictions, Coen did not wish any disruption to such a valuable source of gold.

So for the first few years, the Company simply traded with the Atjuntja and complied with most of their restrictions.  Where convenience allowed and the risk was low, the Company did ignore their treaty obligations, such as by sending ships to explore further east in Aururia.  Blatant interference, however, remained forbidden...

A variety of factors combined to change the course of the Company’s involvement in Aururia.  With the passing of Jan Coen in July 1631, the prime focus was no longer building up inter-Asian shipping; a task which had in any case been largely completed by that time.  His successor Hendrik Brouwer had a much greater interest in exploration of new markets and trade goods.

Aururia offered an inviting temptation for renewed exploration.  François Thijssen’s voyage [in 1626-27] had offered tantalising hints of the potential new markets which could be found there.  Action on these hints had been delayed by Coen’s Asian focus, and the chaos caused in Europe by the first sweating sleep [Marnitja] epidemic meant that no-one in the Netherlands had overruled him.  With Coen gone and the situation in Europe stabilising, further exploration of Aururia became a much higher priority.

Concerns about the security of their Aururian outposts also became an increasing source of friction between the Company and the Atjuntja.  The Spanish raid on Fort Nassau in 1631 exacerbated these underlying tensions, since the Company now wished to fortify and garrison their outposts properly, but the Atjuntja administrators refused to allow fortifications.

The infamous demand of the Atjuntja governor Namaidera [Namai Urdera] for Dutch sacrificial victims has been much-cited as bringing about the collision between Company and Atjuntja interests, but in truth this was but one symptom of an underlying conflict.  Eurasian diseases and rats were causing increasing problems in Tiayal, and the flood of Old World trade goods caused economic disruption amongst the local aristocracy.

With such growing sources of friction, it was inevitable that the Company would need to take more active involvement in Aururia.  The critical moment came in 1632, in the aftermath of a new wave of disease, when the first epidemic of chickenpox swept across Tiayal...

--

The man called Nyumbin would become one of the most disputed figures in accounts of Aururian history, and indeed across the world.  Over the centuries, a plethora of writers, historians, social activists, nationalists, revolutionaries and other figures would depict their own views of Nyumbin.  Many would cite him as inspiration for their own deeds, many would condemn his actions, while a few offered a more nuanced view of his life and deeds.

To some, Nyumbin would be seen as the first great Aururian patriot, a cultural hero who offered the first resistance to foreign influence.  Others would see him merely as a nationalistic rebel, fighting for the Inayaki people against the Atjuntja, while being totally ignorant of the wider clash between Europeans and Aururians.  Still others would view him as simply an aristocratic opportunist, who sought to take advantage of the arrival of the Dutch to obtain greater personal wealth and power by replacing Atjuntja rule with his own.

In time, Nyumbin would be viewed by some as a bloodthirsty would-be tyrant who sought to oppress everyone.  Some would see him as a traitor whose rebellion allowed the Dutch to impose control over the Atjuntja.  Others would see him as an avatar of the Lord, sent to bring bloodshed and chaos into the mortal realms.  A few more controversial historians would see him as demonstrating the first stirring of class-consciousness in Aururia.

In the welter of accounts, the truth about Nyumbin is almost impossible to discern.  Still, some facts are relatively undisputed.  Nyumbin was born into one of the old Inayaki noble families.  As was so often the case, his family had been partially assimilated into the Atjuntja hierarchy, and were recognised as noble, but they preserved their own language and something of a separate sense of culture.

Of the man’s appearance and character, the tales naturally vary, but through all accounts, some features are often highlighted.  Nyumbin was a man of dark skin even by the standards of Tiayal, with the black hair that was so expected of Atjuntja nobility, but rarer amongst their subject peoples such as the Inayaki.  He is reliably reported as a man who kept himself in prime physical condition: tall, well-muscled, flexible, and an expert with sword or spear.

One seemingly minor point about his appearance will cause endless acrimony amongst scholars and in popular culture.  Some descriptions of Nyumbin assert that he never wore the full beard so heavily associated with Atjuntja nobility, that he had always kept himself clean-shaven to distinguish himself from the Atjuntja overlords.  Other descriptions claim that he had worn a full beard to fit with Atjuntja expectations – as did most of the other semi-assimilated nobility in the subject peoples – and that he only shaved his beard when he began his great rebellion.  The point matters greatly to those who view him as a lifelong patriot and nationalist, or to those who see him as a mere opportunist, but it will never be truly settled.

Whatever else Nyumbin may have been, he was certainly a gifted military tactician and a charismatic leader.  Even hostile accounts of his life usually agree that he was a man of immense personal presence and charm, with an extremely persuasive way of speaking.  His military talents were demonstrated first when he acted for the Atjuntja to lead raids against eastern desert peoples who had started to impinge into farming lands during times of drought [4].  In time, they would be demonstrated when he acted against the Atjuntja.

Nyumbin’s deeds were ostensibly triggered by the passage of the chickenpox epidemic which swept through Tiayal in 1632 and claimed the life of the King of Kings, Kepiuc Tjaanuc.  Certainly, he must have had some motivations which had been building for longer than that, but which of these reasons is seen as his true motivation depends on which later figure is offering an account of his life.

It is known that Nyumbin had some resentment of the main Atjuntja noble merchants who came from the White City to trade with the Dutch at Fort Nassau.  The Atjuntja aristocracy controlled the supply of gold which was the most valuable good to trade with the Dutch.  Nyumbin and the other non-Atjuntja nobles had to trade using lesser goods such as sandalwood and sweet peppers, and it was a source of offence that he was not treated as being as good as an Atjuntja noble.

Nyumbin may also have had a personal hatred of the local Atjuntja governor, Namai Urdera.  Many stories will describe quarrels between the two.  Some of those are undoubted later embellishments, but it is known that Nyumbin did not have a good opinion of the Atjuntja governor.

Nyumbin would certainly have been aware of the increasing discontent among the populace, due to inflexible Atjuntja tribute demands – or oppression, as some would later call it.  The Atjuntja had long maintained a system of tribute and labour drafts on their subjects, based on carefully-calculated census records.

The tribute payments were usually set at a level which farmers and workers could pay without too much difficulty.  Infestations of introduced rats consumed many farmers’ harvests, and the deaths from Eurasian diseases cut into the available labour both for farming and for meeting Atjuntja labour draft requirements.

Fearful of arousing the wrath of the King of Kings, Atjuntja governors did not lower their demands for tribute or labour.  As farming yields declined, the populace were increasingly hard-pressed to meet the Atjuntja requirements.  The farmers were placed under the greater pressure, but by some reports even the local nobility were feeling the strain.  Some later sources will conclude that Nyumbin wanted to lift the oppression of the people, some will assert that he feared for the loss of his own wealth, and some will claim that he cared nothing for the suffering of the people.

Whatever his reasons, Nyumbin would lead the greatest rebellion which had been seen in Tiayal since the earliest days of the Atjuntja empire.

Nyumbin launched his rebellion in May 1632.  He acted two weeks after word came of the death of the King of Kings, when the Atjuntja governors had gone to the capital to attend his funeral, and before the kings [5] in the White City could decide which of the many sons of Kepiuc Tjaanuc most deserved the imperial dignity.  Whether by intelligence or good fortune, his timing was impeccable.  Late May marked the start of the campaigning season, when workers had finished the harvests and would normally be called to serve on labour drafts for the next three months [6].

Nyumbin called on these workers to fight instead, in the name of the Inayaki and the Djarwari peoples.  He found plenty of volunteer militia to supplement his own personal troops.  He put his rebel troops to immediate use, gathering them around the garrison-city of Archers Nest and storming it using a combination of surprise and well-crafted ladders.  The captured Atjuntja, both soldiers and non-combatants, were massacred, except for a few of noble blood who were kept as hostages.  The Dutch at Fort Nassau maintained a wary neutrality, and he ignored them as posing no threat.

Following this success, Nyumbin marched east to capture the major garrison-city of Verdant Valley [7].  In the absence of the governor, who perhaps would have been more judicious, the local military commander decided to engage Nyumbin’s numerically superior forces outside the city’s walls, rather than settling into a defensive siege.

The Atjuntja commander trusted his troops’ discipline and superior armour to carry the day, but Nyumbin relied on a tactic he had learned when desert hunter-gatherers used against him: feigned retreat.  He used his best-trained personal troops to stage an apparent retreat, and then others hit the pursuing Atjuntja in the flank.  The Atjuntja army broke and fled the field, leaving Nyumbin’s forces to occupy Verdant Valley, where he conducted a similar massacre of all Atjuntja within its walls.

In the space of two weeks, Nyumbin had captured two Atjuntja garrison-cities, when even capturing one had been a rare feat in previous rebellions.  These triumphs attracted a flood of support for Nyumbin’s cause, both from peasants and other non-Atjuntja nobles.

Nyumbin sent some of his newly-raised troops east to capture the next major garrison-city of Spear Mountain, although that venture simply resulted in a long siege which would eventually be abandoned when word reached the besiegers of events elsewhere.  However, the presence of those troops meant that the Atjuntja dominions were now cut in half, since the rebels controlled all the major roads north.

Leaving his eastern forces to continue the siege of Spear Mountain, Nyumbin marched northwest to the next major northern garrison-city, Lobster Waters.  The commander here had the good sense to avoid battle too, with his troops defending the walls instead.  However, they were betrayed from within, thanks to some local Inayaki servants who opened one of the smaller gates during the night, allowing the rebels into the city.  This time, Nyumbin ordered only the soldiers killed, and spared the non-combatant Atjuntja to act as hostages, too.

Nyumbin’s triple success at capturing garrison-cities and victories in the open field naturally provoked terror in the White City.  No rebel leader before had been so successful.  However, the capture of Lobster Waters did not give the same boost to Nyumbin’s cause as his previous victories.  He had already attracted most of the available support from the Inayaki and Djarawari subject peoples.  The Binyin people who lived further north were much less inclined to support him, thanks to a legacy of old hatreds and fear that they would simply be replacing Atjuntja dominion with Inayaki overlordship.

Without additional support, Nyumbin was forced to return south to prepare for any Atjuntja counter-attacks.  While he had gained control of considerable territory, the bulk of the Atjuntja armies were further south and east, in their old heartland.  They did not march quickly to oppose him, but their threat remained significant.

With his return to Archers Nest, Nyumbin had three choices.  He could march south to try to capture the next coastal garrison-city of Corram Yibbal, although a siege risked becoming bogged down.  He could go east to Verdant Valley and then take the major road to the White City, which was sure to bring about battle with the main Atjuntja armies.  Or he could remain where he was, consolidate his control over his territory, and stage some meaningless negotiations with the Atjuntja while he tried to train and equip his soldiers up to Atjuntja standards.

In the end, Nyumbin chose a middle course, opening negotiations with the Atjuntja over the possibility of recognition of his conquests, while he sent a portion of his forces south to besiege Corram Yibbal.  The Atjuntja nobility sent representatives to conduct a pretence of discussing terms, but neither side treated these negotiations as anything other than a delaying tactic.  The Atjuntja rarely bargained with rebels – and then only when they could find religious justification – but they welcomed the chance for a truce while they settled their own arguments about who should become the next King of Kings.

The rebels and imperial forces clashed several times while these negotiations were taking place, but Nyumbin himself did not take the field until early in 1633, when he apparently felt confident enough to march on the White City.  There were Atjuntja forts along the way, each of which would take some time to capture.

Nyumbin never reached the White City.  While he was besieging the third Atjuntja fort on the road there, he received word of disaster in his rear.  Atjuntja troops had landed by sea, supported by men armed with strange thunder-weapons [ie cannon] that broke men and stone with equal ease.  Archers Nest and Verdant Valley were quickly recaptured by imperial troops, destroying his supply lines.

Nyumbin was forced to withdraw back toward Verdant Valley, only to be caught between imperial forces advancing from both directions.  He accepted battle against the odds, and his rebels were systematically cut to pieces by Atjuntja soldiers.  Nyumbin himself died in battle, preferring that fate to capture.  His last words, according to most accounts, were to curse the Raw Men whose ships and thunder had brought about his failure.

--

From: “The United East India Company: Reflections on the Golden Age”
By Alexander Boniface

In the aftermath of Nyumbin’s rebellion, the Company was quick to collect on the debt owed by the Atjuntja government.  They were granted permission to establish a third trading outpost, which would later become Coenstad [Esperance, Western Australia].  All restrictions on fortifying and garrisoning their outposts were lifted.  The Company obtained the right to sail east of Tiayal, although this was merely acknowledgement of a practice which had already begun.

Further concessions followed, inevitably.  Ostensibly little had changed after Nyumbin’s rebellion, since there was again an undisputed King of Kings ruling over Tiayal.  In truth, the Company had been handed a wedge which it was quick to apply.  The efficiency of Dutch shipping had been demonstrated, and the Atjuntja nobles continued to clamour for unrestricted trade.

With those advantages, it took only a handful of years for the Company to demand unrestricted trade access, with the right to visit any Atjuntja port and trade in any goods they desired.  For the Atjuntja monarchy, this had short-term benefits, since it placated an increasingly unruly aristocracy.  In the long-term, though, it would benefit only the Company, since it disrupted the previous land-based Atjuntja internal trade networks, and destroyed the careful control of resource production which had been maintained by the Kings of Kings...

--

Third Harvest Season, 1st Year of King of Kings Manyal Tjaanuc [April 1633]
Milgawee (White City) [Albany, Western Australia]
Tiayal (the Middle Country) [western coast of Australia]

Silence around him, at least as far as sounds carry to his ears.  Namai Urdera lies in the centre of the public arena of the House of Pain, with twenty thousand people watching him, but he hears no noise save for a faint whispering on the breeze.

He has been placed on a raised wooden platform, his wrists and ankles chained to four stakes.  There is not much spare movement in the chains; his arms and legs are both spread wide.  He has been left only a loincloth to wear, although he does his best to bear himself with dignity.  His beard and head have been shaved, silent testament to the fact that this is no ordinary sacrifice.

It is an execution.

Namai has been condemned for failing to secure sacrifices from the Nedlandj, and for failing to prevent the rebellion of that infuriating man Nyumbin.  He did volunteer to be sacrificed to the death, but that does not erase the condemnation.  The King of Kings’ blessing has been withdrawn; Namai is no longer permitted to hear his voice or speak directly to him.

Namai would not argue with the new King of Kings’ decision, even if he could.  The Lord has been greatly angered, with what He has inflicted on the Atjuntja; only blood can answer the call.  Namai does think, though, that his sacrifice will not be enough.  Given the magnitude of the disasters, only royal blood can appease the Lord.  The new King of Kings has about fifty surviving brothers.  One or more of them must be sacrificed to the death.

A shadow passes above him.  The Appeaser is ready.  No words are spoken, for none are needed.

Namai does not know exactly what is coming, since every Appeaser has his own methods.  He knows enough, though, after watching countless sacrifices, and now he will become one.

The first cut is faint, oh so faint.  Barely a touch of the knife.  The second is slightly deeper, on the other side.  The third cut is shallow, too, as far as he can tell.

Something burns against him, the feel of hot metal.  Air escapes his lips, but he does not scream.  He will hold out against that for as long as possible.  The more resilience he can show, the more that the Lord will be appeased.

The Appeaser continues his work, slowly increasing the intensity of his efforts.  Most of the cuts are shallow, and quickly burned afterward, to prevent too much blood loss.  Namai knows this technique, too; he has witnessed it often enough.

He blocks out the suffering as best he can, even when he feels the first of his fingers severed.  Worse follows, but he tries to find a place inside himself.  The pain becomes background to him, changing in form, slowly growing.

It seems to Namai that the sky is slowly turning from blue to white.  Intense white light, shining down on him.  He knows what the Appeaser is doing, but it is as if the knife is being thrust into someone else.  The white light grows, surrounding everything, replacing everything.

Namai’s last thought, as the whiteness embraces him, is that no matter that the King of Kings has withdrawn his blessing, he has still been blessed, for he has been shown the colour of eternity.

--

[1] The beliefs which the Wurrukurr people possess are similar in many respects to those held by historical Aboriginal peoples, but differ in many of their details and interpretation.  This is to represent the many changes which have arisen in *Australia.

[2] The Wurrukurr are a people who live north of the Atjuntja domains, along the coast near historical Carnarvon, Western Australia.

[3] This misinterpretation comes from the language of the Wurrukurr, who double many words to indicate plurals.  When Attapatta hears a reference to the King of Kings, he interprets this to mean Many-King.

[4] The desert peoples Nyumbin fought against were inland dwellers of the eastern desert, and only distantly related to the northern coastal dwellers such as the Wuurukurr depicted in the first section.

[5] The “kings” amongst the Atjuntja are the heads of the thirteen greatest noble families, and who are responsible for naming the new King of Kings.  Usually this is a formality, since the last monarch will have designated a successor, but Kepiuc Tjaanuc was better at encouraging competition amongst his sons than choosing one to be his heir.

[6] The military campaigning season in Aururia is usually in late autumn and winter (by southern hemisphere standards).  The weather then is usually cooler, and the harvests have just been collected.  This allows both the conscription of farmers as additional soldiers or labourers, and ensures the largest possible food supply to support the armies.

[7] Verdant Valley is the historical town of Northam, Western Australia.  The general progress of Nyumbin’s campaign may also be easier to follow using the map of Tiayal shown here: http://alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/Atjuntja.png

--

Lands of Red and Gold #32: The First Seeds

“Satisfaction comes from doing the proper works of a man.”
- Plirite maxim

“A man’s worth is no greater than the sum of his ambitions and his balance.”
- Nangu saying

--

Werringi, or so his parents named him.  One man among many born to the Wolalta bloodline, which itself was one bloodline among many which vied for wealth and pride in the endless struggle of the Nangu.

Werringi would make a name for himself, though, as a sailor and as a trading captain.  And, in time, much more.  Before he breathed his last on this mortal world, where by his devoutly held Plirite beliefs he would in time be reborn according to the balance of his own actions and the ripples in the wider cosmos, he had earned another epithet.

Kumgatu, he would later be called, a name which meant “the Bold”.  Awarded for the deeds he performed during his life – one in particular – it was the name by which he would be known in Aururia and, afterward, elsewhere.

--

April 1630
Inner Sea, Southeast of Quamba [Mackay, Queensland]

Stillness surrounded the Dawn Seeker; cloudless, almost windless sky above, and still, deep water below, so clear that it seemed as if the boat itself was floating in the sky.

“Perfect weather,” Ouraidai said, from his place beside the steering oar.  The same thing he usually said whenever he took the Dawn Seeker out to dive for coral.  Of course, if it had not been a perfect day, Ouraidai would not have brought the twin-hulled vessel out of Quamba.

Quailoi approved of that caution, naturally; Ouraidai had been his Elder Brother [1], and taught him so much of what it meant to be a man, including the need for prudence.  Even now that Quailoi had married, the two men remained firm friends, and worked the Inner Sea together.  Quailoi worked as the coral diver; Ouraidai now deemed himself too old for that kind of work, and steered the boat, watched the rope and helped from the surface.

Ouraidai had steered the Dawn Seeker to the right location; a place where the water was shallow enough to let them see down to the sea floor below, but still deep enough to yield a particularly prized kind of scarlet coral.  Any fool could harvest coral from the reefs which marked the boundary of the Inner Sea; finding a valuable sort in the depths was another matter entirely.

Quailoi took his position on the poles which joined the Dawn Seeker’s two hulls together, and secured the rope to the poles in preparation to dive.  Before he could enter the water, though, Ouraidai called out for him to wait.

Quailoi followed the other man’s outstretched finger.  Boats had appeared to the south.  Three boats with sails of a proper triangular shape but with sails dyed a most peculiar shade of teal that nearly blended into the sea and sky.  Doubtless that was why they had not noticed the boats before.

“Have you ever seen boats with sails like that ?” Quailoi asked.  It was a proper question to ask an Elder Brother; for a moment, it felt as if he was back in his youth, seeking guidance.

“No.  What proper Kiyungu would waste good dyes on a sail?” Ouraidai said.  “Especially such an inauspicious colour.”

Quailoi nodded.  Sometimes Kiyungu from the southern cities were strange, but surely not so foolish as that.  Still...  “Yet who else sails the Inner Sea?”

“None that I know of,” Ouraidai said.  “Head-taking Daluming raiding the League cities in the south, yes.  But I’ve never heard of them coming this far, and they prefer to strike by land anyway.”

Quailoi could only agree.  The Daluming could not be here, and no-one else could sail on the Inner Sea.  To the north lay only barbarians who knew not how to farm; better to look for wombats to fly than for them to build boats with sails, let alone ones touched by dyes.  But who did that leave?  “Is there anyone else who might sail so far?”

Ouraidai did not answer immediately; doubtless considering the question.

While the other man thought, Quailoi looked at the boats again, and realised that they had sailed noticeably closer.  Fast movement for ships in such a mild breeze; their sails must truly catch the wind.

Now that the ships were closer, he saw more about them.  They were double-hulled, like all decent boats, and large enough to carry several men.  The sails were not just dyed teal, either.  Each of them had a large hollow circle in the centre, dyed a brilliant yellow.

“That pattern is to identify the ship,” Quailoi said.  “It must be.  The colours are to announce who the ships belong to.  Like a banner, but without needing to attach it separately.”

“It could be,” Ouraidai said.  “Doesn’t tell us who they are though.  Maybe, just maybe, they’re Maori from Aotearoa.  They’d be from a long way away, but the Maori are said to sail to south of Daluming.  Maybe they’ve decided to come further north.”

Quailoi looked south again, to where the ships had come noticeably closer.  They were truly moving quickly, even with the poor wind.  “Well, we’ll soon find out.”

--

By 1629, Werringi had earned his path to the second-most senior trading captain of the Wolalta bloodline.  His main voyages were to the eastern seaboard of Aururia, to what the Nangu called the Spice Coast, for the much-valued lemon and cinnamon verbena and other spices grown there.  His main destination had been the caste-ridden, inward-looking Patjimunra city-states [Hunter Valley, New South Wales], but he had visited further north, too.

In 1629, he found a new inspiration: to discover the homeland of the Raw Men who had come to visit the Atjuntja in the west.  These Raw Men had made one brief visit to the Island in 1626, but now seemed to have spurned any further contact.

Werringi decided that if the Raw Men would not come to the Island, then he would go to them.  He had recognised that the Raw Men sailed north from Atjuntja lands, and knew that when they had visited the Island, they had continued east to visit the Cider Isle [Tasmania], and had then apparently turned north.  So he reached the somewhat incorrect conclusion that the best way to reach the Raw Men’s homeland was to sail north along the Spice Coast and then on to unknown regions northward, turning west at some undiscovered point to sail west to the Raw Men’s homeland.

Organising the voyage took several months, as Werringi sought to persuade other captains to join him, to find out what tales he could from people who had sailed north (or who claimed they had sailed north), gather provisions, and choose the most suitable ships.

While as a senior captain he had a great-ship to command, Werringi chose to yield that ship and use a smaller vessel.  Nangu great-ships could carry more cargo than any other ship, but they had a deeper draft and could not be pulled ashore on a beach at need, unlike the smaller Nangu trading ships.  Given the risks and hazards of exploring such completely unknown waters, Werringi preferred to use a vessel which could land without needing a port.

In time, Werringi persuaded two other Wolalta captains to join his voyage, and prevailed upon the Wolalta elder to promote another would-be captain to command of his own vessel.  So, on what another calendar would call 14 February 1630, he set out from the Island, leading an expedition of four ships.

The first part of the voyage was rapid, as Werringi guided his fleet through the familiar waters of the Narrow Sea [Bass Strait] and then north to the Spice Coast.  The fleet resupplied at the Patjimunra city-state of Torimi [Port Stephens, NSW], a destination which Werringi had visited many times before, and which usually represented the northernmost limit of Nangu voyages.

After leaving the Patjimunra, the expeditions proceeded north more cautiously.  Werringi intended not just to reach the Raw Men’s homeland, but also to obtain a very detailed knowledge of the journey.  After passing the Patjimunra lands, he started to chart the coastline, recording the general shape and key features, and keeping written records of the important events and what he and his crew had seen, including the shifts in the stars.

The expedition visited Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], the capital of Daluming.  Werringi had been to the kingdom before, but never as far north as the capital city.  Here, he hoped to find out what the Bungudjimay knew about the geography and peoples further north.

Instead, he experienced his first major misfortune.  Due to a misunderstanding over cultural expectations [2], the Nangu sailors were challenged by a group of Bungudjimay warriors, and fled for their lives.  Werringi himself narrowly escaped capture, but several of the sailors died, and Bungudjimay warriors boarded the last Nangu ship as it left shore.  With a fight raging, the Nangu sailors fired their ship and abandoned it for the waves, swimming to the other ships and leaving the armoured warriors the choice of burning to death or drowning.

After this escape, Werringi was careful not to land anywhere else in Daluming, although he maintained his careful charting of the coast.  When he reached the Kiyungu lands of the Coral Coast [3], though, he found a much warmer welcome.  Never any friends of Daluming, the southerly Kiyungu city-states had established a loose alliance to defend against raids from Daluming, and, in another form, proselytisation from the Yalatji people in the interior, who were increasingly strident advocates of the Tjarrling faith [4].

The southern Kiyungu gave Werringi’s expedition a friendly reception, particularly the Kiyungu women, and this delayed the voyage for several days while the two peoples interacted.  Werringi tolerated the delay because it served several purposes.  It boosted the morale of his sailors, it let them learn the basics of a language which some of the other peoples further north might also understand, and it let him and his fellow captains find out what the southern Kiyungu knew about the world further north.

After leaving the southern Kiyungu, the expedition passed west of Heaven of Sand [Fraser Island] and entered the Inner Sea.  Here, they faced a new danger: coral reefs.  They had been given sketchy descriptions of the region by the southern Kiyungu, and the reefs had been the feature which had most impressed Werringi.  He ordered that their ships sail only during daylight and near low tide, so that they had the best chance to see any reefs, and if they did strike one, they could be carried off it by the rising tide.

With these instructions, progress was slow within the Inner Sea, but much safer than could have been otherwise.  The expedition made contact with some of the northern Kiyungu towns, including their northernmost major city at Quamba.  These contacts were equally friendly, and led Werringi to recognise the value of sweet potato and lesser yams as tropical crops; the Nangu knew what they were, but had never seen them growing in the warmer climates to which those plants were most suited.  However, these contacts did not add much to the expedition’s knowledge of the world further north [5].

After leaving Quamba, the expedition reached truly unknown lands.  The peoples who dwelt along the shore were mostly hunter-gatherers who were only slowly acquiring crops and domesticated animals from further south, while the waters were warmer and more filled with corals.

Werringi ordered his ships to take even more care.  He also decided that for the rest of the expedition, his ships would need to make regular stops along the shore to identify potential resupply points and ports.  If possible, they should also establish relationships with the locals, and learn whether they would be amenable to ongoing contact.  For the distance his ships were sailing had started to give him some appreciation of how far it might be to the Raw Men’s homeland, and if this were to become a regular Nangu trade route, outposts would need to be established along the way.

The voyage amongst the reefs of the Inner Sea was arduous, but Werringi had never lacked for persistence, and kept his captains and crew motivated.  In time, they found the reefs fading into the depths beneath them, and felt winds and currents coming out of the west.  All of the seasoned Nangu sailors recognised this as a new sea, or at least a new strait, and Werringi ordered his ships to turn to the west, believing that at long last he was nearing the Raw Men’s homeland.

In fact, the distance he still had to travel was greater than that which his ships had covered.  After negotiating their way through several islands, the expedition found that the land now turned to the south, more than the west.  Disappointed, Werringi could only order that the ships continue to follow the coast, and make regular stops to ascertain the nature of the country and the people.

Discouragement followed disappointment as the great exploration continued.  Werringi’s ships explored what their maps eventually let them realise was a great gulf in the mainland [Gulf of Carpentaria], and then kept going west.  On one beach which he would name Blood Sands [on Melville Island, Northern Territory], his ships were attacked by the locals one night when they were beached, leading to a fight with several casualties on both sides, before the locals were driven off.

Enough Nangu sailors were killed in that battle that they did not have enough crew to operate all three ships properly.  Werringi made the reluctant decision to burn the third ship, and the surviving sailors crowded into the two remaining vessels.

After Blood Sands, the expedition faced an even more difficult choice.  The land started to turn southward again, and there was no indication whether it would ever continue northward.  Werringi had to decide whether to strike out to sea and hope that he could find the Raw Men’s homeland out over the open ocean, or continue following the coast toward what would, most likely, eventually lead them to the Atjuntja lands.

Had Werringi but known it, if he had sailed a few days across the open sea, he would have reached Timor and probably come into contact with the Portuguese.  After much discussion with his fellow captains, however, he decided to continue following the coastline.  The expedition had already lost half its ships, and losing another would mean that their sailors could not all make their way home even if they survived the ship’s destruction.  Even if the Raw Men’s homeland could not be discovered on the first voyage, what his expedition had discovered so far would be invaluable to allow further expeditions.  And if all else failed, the Raw Men had outposts in the Atjuntja lands; perhaps they could be visited there.

So Werringi’s ships followed the coastline west and south with their usual slow, methodical progress.  In time they reached peoples who had knowledge of the Raw Men; enough to recognise what ships were, even if not much more than that.  That did not make Werringi change his mind; he still believed that the best course was to follow the coast, rather than strike out to wherever these ships sailed.

And so, on 18 September 1631, Werringi’s two remaining ships anchored off the shore of the Middle Country, at a Raw Men outpost which its inhabitants called Fort Zeelandia...

--

18 September 1631
Fort Zeelandia [Geraldton, Western Australia]

Sails on the western horizon, or so the warning had come.  That had been enough for Governor De Vries to order every available man with a musket to the docks, in preparation for whatever raid might be coming.  Word had come by runner – Atjuntja runner; for once their roads brought word faster than ships.  The Spanish had raided Fort Nassau a few days before, bringing fire and blood with them.  If they planned to do the same here, then De Vries would make sure that they did not find easy pickings.

When the two ships came closer, though, he saw that they could not be Spanish.  Twin hulls, triangular sails dyed blue-green with a golden ring in the centre.  Smaller than he had expected, too.  Certainly not big enough to mount many cannon or carry a large group of sailors.  Even if this were somehow a Spanish ruse, so few men would not pose a danger.

“What sort of ships are they?” De Vries asked.  “The Atjuntja can’t build anything remotely like this.”

Pieter Willemszoon, next to him, said, “Can never be sure, but I think that they’re Islander ships.”

“Islanders?  Here?” De Vries said.  “The Atjuntja forbid them to come here.”  A great pity, that, and a greater shame that Governor-General Coen had not pushed more vigorously for trade with the Island.  From what De Vries had sampled of their kunduri, in particular, he thought that was a great loss.

Willemszoon shrugged.  “The Atjuntja forbid us to sail east of Cape Hasewint [Cape Leeuwin], too, but that hasn’t stopped us.”

“I suppose.  Still, I’d have expected them to go to Fort Nassau before coming here.”  He paused.  “Before the Spanish raided, at least.”

The two ships quickly neared the shore, even with the breeze blowing out to sea.  They tacked effortlessly, it seemed, and sailed closer to the wind than any ships which De Vries had ever seen.

When the two ships were almost to shore, the crew on one pulled down the sail and threw a rock over the side, with a rope tied to it.

“Anchoring off shore?” Willemszoon murmured.

“Only one,” the governor said.  The other ship kept on coming, straight to an open place on the dock.  As if it had every right to do so.

This close, he could make out the men easily enough.  Dark skins like the natives here, although all of them had dark hair, too.  That settled it.  Nothing the Spanish could have done would have let them send these men here in a ruse.  It had to be Islanders, and clearly coming to parley.  Prudent, too, to keep one ship out to sea so that it could run for home with word if the first ship were attacked or its crew imprisoned.

“When the Islanders land, send their leaders to my residence,” De Vries said.  “With an armed escort, of course.”

“Sir?”  Willemszoon was usually efficient, but he did not follow the governor’s train of thought this time.

“They want some sort of bargain, or they wouldn’t be coming.  Better to discuss that in comfort in my residence than at the docks when surrounded by armed men, don’t you think?”

Willemszoon nodded.

Some time later, with De Vries sitting comfortably in his favourite chair, Willemszoon re-appeared.  Along with three of these Islanders, dressed in a rather poor state, but then they had surely been sailing for a while.  And five Dutchmen, all with muskets and swords.  The Islanders did not carry anything more dangerous than knives, but better to take no chances.

One of the Islanders, obviously the leader from the way the others regarded him, spoke in heavily-accented Atjuntja.  “May this meeting bring harmony to both our peoples, with the guidance of the Good Man.”

The words sounded stylised and formal, even through the heavy accent.  It took De Vries a moment to realise that they were a blessing of sorts.  Well, he had already known that the Islanders were no proper Christians.  Hopefully their pagan gods weren’t as bloodthirsty as those of the Atjuntja.

“May God smile on us,” he said, also in the Atjuntja language.  Except that he used the proper Dutch word for God.  He would not deign to invoke the name of the heathen Atjuntja deity, even indirectly.

“My name is Werringi.  I am of the...”  He paused, and had a rapid exchange of words with one of his fellow captains.  “Your pardon, but this Atjuntja language does not have the right word.  I am a captain of the great family Wolalta.”

“I am De Vries, governor of Fort Zeelandia.”  He also noted that while this Werringi used the Atjuntja language, he was not very fluent in it.  In fact, De Vries thought that he spoke it better than the Islander captain.  A puzzle, perhaps, but one to be considered at another time.  “Be welcome here, although I am surprised that you have come.”

Werringi said, “Your people did not come back to our Island, so we decided to come to you.”  He had a sly smile as he spoke.

“I understand that the Atjuntja forbid you to sail past... Sunset Point,” he said, remembering the Atjuntja name for Cape Hasewint.

“Our agreement with the King of Kings forbids us to sail west past Sunset Point,” the Islander said.  “So I did not sail that way.  My ships came here from the north.”

“That’s impossible!” De Vries snapped.  In Dutch, he realised a moment later, but the other man clearly understood the tone if not the words.

“A bold feat, yes,” Werringi said.  That sly smile returned at the word bold.  “But we have mastered a feat of navigation to match that which you Raw Men have done.”

That smug overconfidence needed to be punctured.  If not, De Vries would not have revealed something he had always been ordered to conceal.  “Not by a tenth, I think.  Sailing to the Netherlands, our homeland, takes up to a year, most of it across the open ocean far out of sight of land.”

That news weakened the Islander’s confidence, sure enough.  “A year?” he asked, his smile falling into a frown.  Then he and the other two Islanders broke into a heated argument.

De Vries let them argue volubly for a time, as he considered his own position.  Orders against revealing anything to do with navigation existed for a reason, although he supposed that mentioning that the voyage took a year would not do any great harm.

Still, the Islanders would certainly have more questions.  Unless he could distract them with something more important.  He said, “You have truly sailed around all of this land?”

Werringi said, “I said it, and it is true.”

“What did you discover?  What lands did you find on this voyage?” he said.

Werringi said, “Offer me a cloak for a spar, or a spar for a cloak.”

“What the...  What do you mean?”

Werringi frowned.  “You Raw Men are traders.  You know that knowledge comes with a price.  You do not ask for a gift of knowledge.  Especially not something as valuable as our maps and tales.”

Charts?  De Vries had not even realised that these Islanders made charts.  He wondered, for a moment, what else they knew.  “You want to bargain for maps?”

Werringi shook his head.  Among that Atjuntja, that was a gesture of agreement.  Apparently the same held true for the Islanders, for he said, “I offer a copy of my maps and records of my voyage around the world.  In exchange for charts and tales of your own.  You will tell me about the land you Raw Men come from, and how you sail here.”

This time, De Vries needed to consider for even longer.  Charts were protected documents for very good reason; the Company hid its navigational knowledge to gain an advantage over rivals.  Still, the bargain was extremely tempting.  Learning about the geography of a whole new continent, and of the peoples who lived there, could be invaluable.

Worth trading for knowledge of our own charts and voyages?  Yes, he decided, after a while.  If he told these Islanders how to sail to the East Indies, that would be nothing which the English and the Spanish did not already know... and the Spanish knew how to sail to the South Land too, now.

In any case, he would not have to tell the Islander captain everything.  And no matter what he told them, he doubted that these pagans would traverse the world’s oceans and sail to Amsterdam.  To Batavia, perhaps, which might be a problem, but hardly any worse than the English who already sailed there.

“Let us discuss this further,” he said, and they settled down to bargain.

--

With his landing at Fort Zeelandia, Werringi became the first Nangu captain to seal a trade bargain with the Raw Men.  Or the Nedlandj, as he now knew that they were called.  He was fortunate, too, that the Atjuntja governor was far too concerned with manoeuvring his soldiers against a possible Pannidj threat to argue much over the presence of Islanders in forbidden country.  The Atjuntja governor simply informed him that what he had done was not forbidden this time, so he could visit provided that he did not attempt to trade, and that word would be sent to the King of Kings.  It might prove that the treaty with the Nangu would be revised to forbid any travel to the western shores of the Middle Country, regardless of the route.

Werringi quietly avoided mentioning the knowledge exchange, but simply resupplied his vessels with food, which was permitted under the treaty, then set out again.  He kept his ships well out to sea this time, rounded Sunset Point, and visited the White City long enough to leave another copy of his charts and journals with the Wolalta who lived there, in case of misfortune on the final leg of the voyage.  Then he took his remaining two ships into the seas of endless winds, and returned to the Island.  There, his voyage quickly won him a new name...

--

Taken from: “A History of the Dutch-Speaking Peoples”
By Hildebrandt van Rijn

The Cape marked a great landmark to the intrepid navigators who first explored the world’s oceans, but as a land for settlement, it would take much longer to gain notice.  The native Hottentots were not welcoming of outlanders, and the Portuguese who first explored the Cape had no interest in displacing them.  The Portuguese established supply stations further east, and left the Cape largely neglected.

As Dutch and English trade with the Orient expanded, the Cape became a useful stopping point for ships whose crews suffered from scurvy or other malnutritions.  It lay at a convenient midpoint between Europe and the Indies, and so by the turn of the seventeenth century, the Cape was regularly visited by European ships.

With the United [Dutch] East India Company’s trade with the Orient booming, by 1635 the Lords Seventeen approved the establishment of a permanent settlement at the Cape [6].  The original intent was not for large-scale colonisation, just for a suitable harbour for ships avoiding bad weather or needing repairs, and to allow sufficient provisions to resupply passing ships.

The first expedition reached Table Bay in 1637.  The early efforts proved to be a failure.  European crops and farming techniques were poorly suited to the lands around the Cape, and food had to be brought in to resupply the settlement [7].  The Lords Seventeen were not pleased to have a victualling station which in fact could not supply victuals to passing crews.

Plans were made to abandon the settlement, until a returning Councillor [of the Indies] who stopped at the Cape noted that the climate there was very similar to that in much of Aururia.  He suggested that perhaps crops from the northern hemisphere did not grow as well in the southern, but that Aururian crops would provide a useful alternative.

Given that this particular Councillor [8] was about to join the Lords Seventeen, his idea was well-heeded.  The only difficulty was that the Dutch-speaking peoples at this time had very little knowledge of how to farm Aururian crops.  There had been previous sketchy attempts to introduce various crops to both Amsterdam and Batavia, which had until then been unsuccessful except for some small success in growing murnong in the Netherlands.

So the Company decided to procure both crops and workers from Aururia.  Two hundred Mutjing men and women from Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia] were persuaded [9] to settle in the Cape in 1640, and ample supplies of seed for their preferred crops were brought with them.

In line with the Councillor’s expectations, the new crops thrived in the Cape.  The first red yams were supplied to ships in the first year, and bountiful harvests of cornnarts [wattle seeds] from 1642.  Harvests of their variety of flax were also plentiful, which laid the foundations for a weaving industry to supply new ropes and sails to damaged ships.

The endeavour was successful enough, even after some conflicts with the Hottentots, that in 1643 another forty Mutjing families were invited to abandon their struggling homeland and move to the growing settlement at the Cape...

The first significant problems arose in 1645.  An outbreak of measles killed nearly a quarter of the Mutjing farmers.  The distraught people turned to a religious explanation; they blamed the epidemic on the lack of guidance in how to avoid bringing disharmony.  They demanded that the Company bring in a Plirite priest and allow them to build a small temple for him.

The Company officials at the Cape knew that allowing the establishment of a heathen temple in a Dutch colony would not be viewed favourably in Europe.  However, to a Company pragmatic enough to maintain trade with the Atjuntja, overlooking the presence of a Plirite priest or two in one of their distant outposts would be no difficult task.  Keeping the Cape settlement functioning properly was deemed to be the greater priority, and a Plirite priest was duly invited from Valk Land.  They expected, with some justification, that in time the Mutjing farmers would convert to Christianity.

So the first Plirite temple was founded at the Cape in 1647...

--

[1] Elder Brother (or, more rarely, Elder Sister) is a social institution amongst the Kiyungu which involves an older man (or woman) assuming a role as a mentor and lover of a younger person.  The mentor is always of the same gender as the younger, and it is considered a valuable way of teaching about love, life, proper values, the social order, and often a craft skill, too.  The formal relationship is ended when the younger gets married, although usually the elder party will still be available to provide advice to the younger for the rest of their lives.

[2] That is, the Nangu sailors thought that the best place for their heads would be attached to their bodies, while the priests of Daluming thought that those same heads would be of more use in niches in the Mound of Memory, ie the great pyramid where the heads of certain notables are kept behind glass.

[3] Coral Coast is the name which the Kiyungu give to the historical Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast in south-eastern Queensland.  This area does not actually produce coral; from here, the Kiyungu would sail north to the Inner Sea (ie the waters bounded by the Great Barrier Reef) to collect it.

[4] The Yalatji people live in the Neeburra [Darling Downs], among the headwaters of the Anedeli [Darling River].  They have gradually converted to the Tjarrling faith, a related belief to the more orthodox Plirite faith, which treats the Good Man as a semi-divine figure.

[5] At this time, the northern Kiyungu are slowly expanding their areas of settlement along the coast, thanks to the new crops of sweet potato, taro and lesser yams which let them farm the tropics.  The process is relatively slow, though, since the Kiyungu don’t have much cultural drive for exploration or expansion.

[6] This decision has been taken about fifteen years ahead of when the VOC would historically decide to approve a settlement on the Cape.  The earlier settlement is because the VOC’s trade is both more profitable and higher volume than it was at the same point in OTL.  Even with the casualties from the plagues, the Aururian gold, silver, sandalwood, sweet peppers, and first shipments of kunduri have significantly boosted revenues.

[7] The historical settlement of Cape Town experienced similar early problems, although they were eventually resolved by better strains of European crops.

[8] Van Rijn is being coy about naming the Councillor because the person in question happens to be one of his ancestors, and he considers it immodest to name him.

[9] Persuaded in a manner of speaking, that is.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #33: Sprouting Stalks

“The Nedlandj are covetous and cunning, loud and quickly-spoken, and sail to the uttermost reaches of the world.  Of balance they know nothing, for they proclaim for one god yet ignore his rules in pursuit of gold.”
- Anonymous Nangu sailor, describing the Dutch after visiting Batavia

--

Azure Day, Cycle of Water, 392nd Year of Harmony (3.13.392) / 30 November 1631
Crescent Bay, The Island [Kingscote, Kangaroo Island]

“This place is no longer what it once was,” Yuma Tjula murmured.

He needed only to feel the extra weight on his shoulders to know that, or glance at the men escorting him.  Once, Yuma had walked alone anywhere on the Island wearing whatever sumptuous clothes he liked, armed with nothing but the common Nangu dagger which was as much tool as weapon.

Now, he did not dare.  Whenever he set foot on the streets of Crescent Bay, or almost anywhere outside of the lands of his own bloodline, at least four men came with him.  Four men armed not with the usual knife but with swords and maces.  Four bodyguards.  It seemed surreal, even now, like something out of the old days of vendettas.

Those old days had returned, though.  Yuma no longer wore a gem-studded headwreath to proclaim his wealth.  Instead, he protected himself with a bronze helmet of Tjunini manufacture, traded despite the war which consumed the Cider Isle.  To protect his body, he wore an iron skin: Gunnagal mail, obtained in Jugara at a greater cost in dyes and spices than he cared to think about.

Security had replaced ostentation.  Oh, not entirely.  He had still found time to have the helmet adorned with a few black and fire opals around the rim, and he still pondered what could be done to improve the appearance of the mail.  But the fundamental problem remained: with the Island consumed by feuds, he had to protect himself, or the only adornment he wore would be blood.

He guided his bodyguards past the docks, warily watching if any people in the crowd tried to press too close and slip in a knife.  That was how the Beard, the elder of the Kalendi, had been hastened to his next life.

Given the rumours of how the Beard had behaved in life, Yuma thought that his fate was an inevitable consequence, but the Kalendi did not see the outcome that way.  They had declared a vendetta on the Nyumatta bloodline, the first called on the Island for many years.  Inevitably, further death had followed in the wake of that call.

As they neared the shipyards beyond the docks, Yuma saw that two ships were being built.  Great-ships, from the size of the timber that had been assembled for the construction.  Strange, indeed.  Most ship-building had moved to the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] or the Cider Isle [Tasmania], since wood on the Island was more valuable for other purposes.

Yuma almost stopped to see what purpose these new great-ships were meant to serve.  Until he saw the banner hung between the ships, a scarlet triangle with stylised bone-white forked lightning in its centre.  The symbol of the Manyilti bloodline.  Who had declared a feud with his own Tjula bloodline, over Yuma’s actions in inviting the Raw Men to visit the Island.  No, he did not dare go there.  He was not yet ready to reach his next life, and the Island did not need another vendetta such as would follow from his death.

Instead, he directed his bodyguards to step away from the docks and the water, into a street which ran between two warehouses.  He wanted to keep well away from the Manyilti and their knives.

In any case, he could guess why they were building new ships, if not why construction was taking place on the Island.  Word of Werringi’s return was spreading, and the Manyilti must expect more trade as a result.  They might even be right; the Raw Men were said to love kunduri, as their first visit had confirmed.  The Manyilti were well-represented in the trade with Tjibarr, which would let them obtain it to trade to the Raw Men.

Yuma stopped at an unremarkable stone building a short walk beyond the warehouses.  Four more armed men stood at the front door, another reminder of how times had changed on the Island.  This building was the official town residence of the elder of the Tjula, and served as the town headquarters for the bloodline.

The residence was built of undecorated stone.  The lack of ostentation suited its purpose.  Almost all of the bloodlines, including the Tjula, maintained grand buildings and estates out in the country.  A legacy of the old times when most of the Islanders lived in country holdings, not in the new cities.  Those days had long passed, but most bloodlines chose to spend their wealth in country dwellings, not in the crowded environs of Crescent Bay.

Inside waited Wirnugal, elder of the Tjula, and a half-dozen other trading captains.  Wirnugal half-rose from his seat to acknowledge Yuma’s entrance.  “Be welcome in my house, most senior of my captains.”

Yuma returned the greeting with equally polite forms, but those words still brought a twist to his heart.  Once, not so long before, Yuma had been only the third most senior of the Tjula captains.  That had been before the swelling fever [mumps] and the red breath [tuberculosis] swept through the Island.  Now the bloodline had been deprived of the knowledge and skills of those former two most senior captains, at a time of great troubles.

For that matter, Wirnugal himself bore the marks of struggle; his face had more lines, his hair was white, and his voice lacked its former power.  He had survived the red breath, but his days in this turn of life grew few.  Which left Yuma feeling even more uncertain.  He had always wanted to lead the Tjula, given time, but not so soon, and not this way.

Wirnugal said, “You have all heard, by now, of what Werringi claims to have done.”

“A very bold move, to sail around the world,” one of the captains said.

“If he speaks truth,” another captain answered.

“If what he says is true, he has not sailed around the world at all,” Yuma said.  “He has only sailed across a small part of the world.”

Werringi had been coy about many of the things which he had discovered on his voyage.  Doubtless he had carefully prepared charts, and those would be shared only amongst his bloodline’s friends.  He had met with the Raw Men, and maybe he had established private bargains and obtained other secret knowledge.

But what Werringi had revealed had been amazing enough.  Yuma was still trying to fit his head around the idea of how big the world might be.  A year to sail to the homeland of the Raw Men?  Twice that, or more, to sail around the world?

Oh, he had always known that the world was round, as did any learned captain or other great man.  To see that, a man only needed to stand on the hill of the Temple of the Five Winds and watch distant ships disappear below the horizon, their hulls vanishing first and only afterward their sails and mast.  The scale, though...

“Can that be true?” said Njirubal, now the second-most senior Tjula captain, and a man who Yuma thought had reached that rank too soon.

Wirnugal provided the answer, though.  “It can be.  The world curves beneath our feet; this we have always known.  Perhaps the Raw Men have told only half the truth, and they exaggerate the size of the world to dishearten us from sailing to their homeland.  But this much my heart knows to be true: the world is much larger than we have ever known, and there are peoples whose wealth and power dwarfs that of the Yadji or Atjuntja.”

The pause which followed was long.  Each man filled it with his own thoughts.  Yuma wondered how the Raw Men had so much decisiveness, that they could sail so far.  The others, no doubt, had other things in mind.

Sure enough, one of the captains said, “If we find them, the trade which would follow would surpass anything which the Atjuntja have, too.”

“Or it may bring us nothing but torment instead,” Njirubal said.  “Witness how the Island seethes with feuds since the Raw Men first visited.”

That was a thought more worthy of the second-most senior trading captain.  Yuma added, “And what if some kinds of Raw Men would bring war to the Island?  The White City is full of stories of the war-making brought by some new group of Raw Men.”

Wirnugal said, “My heart tells me that the Raw Men will come to us again, no matter what.  Better that we find them, too, no matter what else may happen.  To act otherwise would bring only discord from their visits, without any counterbalance to bring harmony.”

Yuma nodded.  As always, Wirnugal saw clearly.  But then, what else was an elder expected to do?  He said, “We need only decide, then, how best to contact the Raw Men.”  Remembering Wirnugal’s words about balance, he added, “And whether to do it alone or in alliance with other bloodlines.”

Wirnugal frowned.  “Truth indeed.  Feuds bring disharmony.  Perhaps only through joint action can we bring back balance on the Island.”

The Tjula settled down to discuss how best to reach the Raw Men.

--

For the first decade after de Houtman landed on the western shores of what they now called the South Land, the Dutch had only limited contact with the eastern inhabitants of the Third World.  Failures of early exploration, the intransigence of Governor-General Coen and the disruption of the plagues combined to delay any regular contact with the east.

Motivation for more extensive contact came from several sources: the shock of the Spanish raid on Fort Nassau in 1631, obtaining copies of the charts of the first Islanders to circumnavigate the continent later that same year, and a growing appreciation of the native drug called kunduri.  Rumours of more gold and spices to the east only added to the growing desire.

Lars Knudsen, the governor of Fort Nassau who had taken office in 1631, had been instructed as part of his orders to establish trade links with the Islanders and any other peoples of commercial interest in the east.  While he spent most of his time rebuilding the damaged outpost, he also discreetly gathered what intelligence he could obtain about the eastern peoples, their languages, and their habits.

By a stroke of good fortune, one of the labourers obtained to help rebuild Fort Nassau had previously been drafted to work in the Foreign Quarter of the White City, and had gained a basic knowledge of the Islander language.  With the help of generous gifts of steel, Knudsen arranged for the labourer to work permanently for the Company.

With this, copies of charts obtained from the Islanders, and other information garnered from Atjuntja sources, Knudsen decided that he knew enough to organise another expedition to the east.  Using authority which was not formally his, he redirected two of the next group of ships to visit Fort Nassau, the Fortuin and the Zuytdorp.

The two ships were loaded with a variety of trade goods, particularly steel swords and other metal goods, textiles, and two rather expensive clocks procured by Knudsen after their original owners failed to interest Atjuntja merchants in trading for them.  Knudsen had a hunch (correctly, as it turned out), the eastern peoples might find them of more value.

Knudsen gave command to Willem Cornelis, a young man [1] who showed talent, and gave him the services of several interpreters, most of whom spoke only the Atjuntja language, but including the one Nangu speaker available.  The governor issued only broad orders.  Renew contact with the Islanders and their neighbouring peoples.  Validate the charts which the Company has received.  Explore the potential for extending the Netherlands’ protection to any of the eastern peoples you may visit.  Obtain a good price for the trade goods which you have been provided, and gather information about what goods are in most demand and of highest value in the east.  Establish trade agreements or at least ongoing trade relationships, particularly for kunduri.

The two ships left Fort Nassau in February 1632, just as a chickenpox epidemic was sweeping through the Middle Country, brought either by those ships or others in the same fleet.  After a quick voyage in strong winds, they reached the coast of what the Dutch knew as Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula], a shoreline dominated by bleak cliffs but with occasional openings.  Venturing into one of those openings, they discovered a sheltered bay [Venus Bay] with tidal flats, islands and lagoons, but enough deep channels to let them sail further in.

On the shore, they discovered a city and port nestled among flat expanses of yam and cornnart [wattle] fields.  The city’s inhabitants proved friendly enough, and through the Nangu-speaking interpreter, explained that this was the city-state of Luyandi [Port Kenny, South Australia].  Its elected ruler was named Maralinga, and he offered warm greetings to the newcomers, along with an invitation to trade food for any goods they might have to offer.

Luyandi was a Mutjing city-state, and like all of those cities it was under the economic hegemony of the Islanders, although it took some time for the Dutch to discover this fact.  Islander hegemony had never been exercised through direct rule, only through trade contacts, religious pressure where required, and through mediating disputes between the Mutjing cities.

Always a man with an eye for opportunity, Cornelis extended a tempting offer to Maralinga: gifts of steel and textiles in exchange not just for food, but for a trade agreement with the Company.  The Lords Seventeen are powerful, he explained, and their influence reaches across the world.  They offer you their friendship, and more besides.  Exclusive access to these trade goods, the only Mutjing city which would be granted that privilege.  And protection from your enemies, if needed.

To cement his offer, Cornelis provided a demonstration of what sort of protection the Company could offer: first muskets, then cannon.  Maralinga was most impressed, and indicated that he would welcome a trade agreement.  With one codicil: Luyandi would not fight against the Island, and if the Dutch attacked the Island, the trade agreement would be void.

The Company offers only friendship and trade with the Island, Cornelis assured Maralinga.  Wars are nothing but trouble and interrupt peaceful trade.

So Willem Cornelis became the second Company officer to strike a trade agreement with a South Land people, and started what would become a very long period of Company presence in Luyandi.

After sailing on from Luyandi, the expedition charted the coast of Valk Land, making brief contact with other Mutjing ports, but making no attempts to engage in further trade.  Cornelis steered his ships along the eastern side of Valk Land, in the gulf which opened before him [Spencer Gulf], and thus he and his crew became the first Europeans to discover Dogport [Port Augusta] at the head of the gulf.  This ancient port linked to the opal mines inland, and while under nominal Tjibarr rule, in practice it was controlled by the local Nangu port captain.  Here, Cornelis traded for opals and other goods, and found that textiles and steel were again profitable goods, but he received only evasions when he tried to set up any more lasting trade agreements.

Sailing down the eastern shore of the gulf, which he named Brouwer Gulf after the new head of the Company in Asia, he had more contact with areas which were genuinely ruled by Tjibarr, but had no more fortune in securing trade agreements.  Whenever he tried to find out who ruled any particular city, he would provoke an argument amongst the inhabitants, which would usually never be resolved.

He only had more success when he worked far enough along the coast to reach Jugara [Victor Harbor], a port which had previously been visited by François Thijssen in 1626, and where the Nangu port captain was only too eager to allow trade.  The local Gunnagal factions quickly bid against each other to obtain European goods, and most particularly the two clocks.  The holds of the Fortuin and Zuytdorp were nearly emptied and refilled with a large weight of kunduri, and smaller amounts of Gunnagal jewellery, perfumes, dyes, new flavours of sweet peppers unlike those grown in the west, and a new spice somewhat reminiscent of ginger [native ginger].

With his trading triumph, Cornelis deemed this an auspicious time to visit the Island, where he planned only to renew contact before sailing west for home.  His reception on the Island was much less welcoming than he had expected; the Islanders had heard of his visits to Valk Land and Jugara, and expressed opinions varying between puzzlement and resentment about why he had not reserved his best goods to trade on the Island.  Cornelis had held a few goods back, but they were the least valued of his ships’ contents, and the astute Islander captains recognised it.  He secured some vague agreements from some of the bloodlines to consider his goods next time, but for the immediate moment, most of them refused to take trade goods which they viewed as leftovers.

Worse was to follow.  Cornelis wanted to sail directly home from the Island, but to do that, he needed a favourable wind.  The prevailing winds blew out of the west, and his ships could not sail effectively into those winds.  He waited for what he hoped would be a brief time, but week after week passed, with no sign of a change in the winds.  His ships remained effectively trapped in Crescent Bay, unable to return to Fort Nassau.

The Islanders’ reactions changed from resentment to amusement, and in time to mockery.  Cornelis and his crew were held on the Island while Nangu trading ships set out, week after week, including the departure of the main trading fleet to the Atjuntja lands.  One less than tactful captain asked Cornelis how he expected to trade if he had only ships which were at the mercy of the winds [2].

Still, the time his expedition spent in Crescent Bay was not wasted.  Cornelis was not idle; he learned much of the Nangu language, and studied their customs and beliefs.  He evinced a polite interest in the Plirite faith, enough to visit several of their temples, and established friendly relations with some of the priests.  He built his knowledge of the bloodlines and the commercial rivalries which dominated Nangu society, and he kept detailed descriptions of what he had seen.

After four months on the Island, Cornelis in increasing desperation began to consider even sailing east around the South Land and returning to Batavia that way.  He was spared that decision when, a few days later, the winds changed to blow steadily out of the northeast, and he launched the Fortuin and Zuytdorp back into the west.  He returned to Fort Nassau after a total of eight months voyage, much longer than he had originally planned, and with a much greater appreciation for Islander seamanship.

--

[1] The Company has a lot of young men in its service at this time, since many of its more experienced employees have died of the plagues.

[2] The Nangu ships use a variation of the Polynesian crab claw sail (adopted from the Maori) which allows them to tack easily even into strong winds.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #34: Intermission

17th year of Regent Boringa Yadji [June 1629]
Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Drums beat, voices chant.  Sunlight spills over feather-bedecked, thread-of-gold wearing priests and singers.  Leather shoes click on tiles; the floor awaits its mistress.

Lenawirra glides into the centre, her movements sinuous, her limbs moving in patterns shaped in memory and in song, never resting.  One step flows into the next, arms and shoulders matching in counterpoint.  Stillness cannot prosper, jerkiness would be betrayal.  All must be continuous, her body as fluid as the water which drives history.  Only the ears can distinguish the separation of her movements, her shoes falling in a staccato of their own, the tap of leather on ceramic.

In the centre she halts, the pattern suspended to await command.  Before her rests a cushion, in the hands of one she dares not name, even in the sanctity of her own thoughts.  He is the...  No, think not of him.  Look instead at the object that awaits.

A shape of gold and feathers, a mask that conceals the face and will reveal the soul.  Two golden rings to surround her eyes, with a leather strap at their sides to fasten around her head, while the shape of the mask below the eyes first expands slightly, then closes in a wedge that will fit just below her chin, with delicate feathers carved into its shape.  She has been honoured beyond words with this gift; no-one else in the court is permitted to wear the shape of the eagle [1].

Gleaming is the mask, polished of gold, a mirror of power.  Visions are blurred, in feathers and shapes, but herself she sees, imperfectly yet fittingly.  Her skin dark of nature, her hair green of artifice, her clothes woven of determination.

“Wear what calls to you, fear it not,” he says, the man before her.  Look at him now she must, for all that she would declaim that privilege.  His name she still will not think, for to speak it while he yet lives is to bring misfortune or worse upon oneself.

The Lord of All is he, the Regent of the Neverborn, the supreme ruler of the Land of the Five Directions, the first above the earth.  His name belongs to himself alone, and it will not be spoken by another living being until he goes to fight his Last Battle [ie dies], where if he is victorious he will hear a voice calling to him: “Truly fought, my noble Regent, but now seek rest; your Emperor awaits you now.”

That voice has not yet called him, but another voice calls to her.  It is the Regent, speaking not according to the forms, but outside of them.  “Take up the mask, Lenawirra.  It belongs to you, if it belongs to anyone.”

With such a command, she cannot refuse, even if it brings her pain.  Coherent now, the Regent sounds.  Such a division it brings, the two sides of her heart beating against each other.  Better if he were consumed entirely by madness.  A fully insane Regent would have forced the priests to resolve the situation.  Where sanity flits like a banner caught in the wind, how can anyone know whether to honour the Regent or mourn him?

Take the mask, she would prefer not, yet.  Right yet, the time is not.  The sun shines on the floor, but not yet on her.

Commands the Regent, though, and obey she must.  Rhythm returns, hands moving in the pattern that has become part of her soul.  Don the mask she does, the drums beat again, and the chanters raise their cries.  The music dictates her movements, Lenawirra steps outside of herself, and the Mask Dance consumes her.

Woe is unto the night, or so comes the chant, and her limbs move in accord.  Flowing, outstretched arms circling her, above and below, banishing the darkness.

Goanna steps into the sun.  The dance shapes into a new rhythm, balancing her as she leans back, as if she were poised on two legs and tail.

Owl lands on the tree.  Arms outstretched again, swooping down this time, coming into what would be a perfect landing and then stillness, except that the dance calls her into the next steps.

Sun glints off the waves.  Undulating patterns of arms, legs, chest and head, dipping and raising, circling slowly around the motionless figure of the Regent.

Whirlwind calls to the dust.  Arms upraised above her, still for the first time in the dance, her body twirling in not-quite-circles as she mimics the unpredictable shifting of the eddies of the call of the Lord of Night.

Duck takes to flight.  A gliding crouch she shapes, rhythmic and sensuous, with arms calling to the wind in ever-increasing flaps.

Dingo calls the hunt.  Circles again, she does, with arms folded and mask uplifted, evoking the cries of the wild dogs now more memory than presence.

Echidna protects itself.  With practiced sweeps of her feet she suggests the exploring snout of the spiny totem, and curls her head down into a roll which brings her body briefly into the shape of a ball, as the echidna protects itself.  The roll brings her to the feet of the Regent, where she stands with secreted knife now clasped in hand, and plunges it into the Regent’s chest.

Move she will not, as agonised cry comes from the Regent’s throat, overwhelmed at first the chants.  Soon those fade as witnesses observe, the criers falling silent, the drums ceasing their beat.

Confusion and shouts, anger and despair, all beyond her.  Lenawirra removes the mask, and she returns to herself.  The rhythm has fled, the pattern broken, the Regent gone to a contest he must face alone.

“It had to be done,” she says, words that he can no longer hear, and which no-one else cares to know.  Where sanity is an occasional refuge, the Land of the Five Directions leaderless, no man dares to take up the knife, to her it has fallen.

It is a crime beyond redemption, they will say.  The Lord of the Night has taken on womanly form, they will declare.  She cares not.  Blame her they will, but praise the outcome they must.  Where lunacy ruled, now a new Regent must be named to reign.

The dance of her life has ended, but may the rhythm of the Land of Five Directions resume, moving always until the end of time when the Neverborn breaks free from the earth to claim His own.

--

[1] The largest Australian eagle, the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax) has an extremely distinctive wedge-shaped tail which is easily recognised in flight.  The wedge-tailed eagle is associated with royalty and power amongst eastern Aururian peoples, including the iconic representation of a wedge to show its tail.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #35: Blooming Flowers

“The Nangu fear neither God nor danger.  They care for naught but lucre and glory.”
- Vasily Mikhailovich Stolypin

--

The 1632 voyage of Willem Cornelis to Valk Land, the Copper Coast and the Island marked a watershed in the history of eastern Aururia.  Its long isolation from the rest of the world had been broken; from this time forward, it would remain in contact with the wider world, and in particular with Europe.

For the investors of the United East India Company, the promise of new wealth in the Orient appealed, particularly given their unstable situation at home.  Europe still reeled from the aftermath of a wave of epidemics whose combined death toll was exceeded only by the Black Death as the greatest plague in history [1].  The shock of those plagues had destabilised a continent already in upheaval, and set it aflame with religious and trade wars.  The situation had grown unfortunate enough that one English statesman saw fit to remark: “it is as if a ring of fire has encircled the Continent”.

Still, for all of Europe’s troubles, markets remained for Oriental goods.  Cargoes of silk, porcelain, peppers, cloves, nutmeg, and other spices continued to command high prices.  The Company had to pay higher wages to attract employees from Europe to make the voyage to the East, but it remained a highly profitable enterprise.

Into this volatile environment, Cornelis’s voyage offered new opportunities, such as dyes, opals, new spices, and an additional source of gold.  Above all, though, ranked kunduri.  The natives chewed the drug with wood ash, but the Dutch sailors quickly discovered that it could be smoked, to most pleasing effect.  Its effects were both like and unlike tobacco; more intense per weight, usually with a calming effect, but in large doses, it acted as a hallucinogen.

Kunduri created a new market for the Company, in the Indies, in India, and potentially in Amsterdam and Europe.  Unfortunately, obtaining a reliable supply of the drug initially proved to be a difficult enterprise.  Sailing to eastern Aururia was easy enough, with Dutch ships driven by the seemingly endless winds of the Roaring Forties.  Sailing back to Batavia from eastern Aururia, though, posed more problems.  It required waiting a long time for a change in the winds, or a long voyage around the east of the Great South Land.  These difficulties were particularly galling when the Islanders were effortlessly able to sail west from their homeland to the Dutch trading posts on the western edge of the continent.

In time, these problems were resolved, and trade in kunduri boomed.  With the booming trade, however, came competition...

--

Taken from: “People of the Seas: The Nangu Diaspora”
By Accord Anderson
New London, Alleghania: 1985

Chapter 2: Early Ventures

Venturesome yet restricted, the Nangu had been.  Confined by a horizon of misknowledge, their voyages had been begotten of the possible, not the unknowable.  Where rumours or faint existing knowledge preceded them, the Island’s trading captains had ventured in search of profit.  Yet restrained they were by falsity of belief, by unwholesome fondness for the notion that all the tradeworthy civilizations were confined to the southeast and southwest of the continent.  Beyond those confines, the Nangu ventured not.

Kumgatu [Werringi the Bold] shattered those old limits with his first great feat.  Circumnavigation of Aururia beguiled the Island, yet his true accomplishment lay in the relocation of the horizons of knowledge.  The Nangu learned of the great expanse of the globe.  With the barriers of the mind now lifted, the trading captains could venture forth.

Truly great voyages could not yet be made, until sufficient Nangu acted in dandiri [bringing harmony].  From first knowledge of the Dutch and their goods, disharmony had been the reaction, with feud and vendetta the consequences.  Bereft of balance and committed to waal [bringing discord] were too many, Nangu both high and low, those who listened not to better counsel, and those who followed where the imbalanced led.

Mistrust fed among the bloodlines in the early years, a poison on the Island.  Rivalry had been ancient, competition and striving for achievement a mark of men of decisiveness, yet most Nangu had forgotten the need for balance with cooperation.  Bloodline had always sought to undercut bloodline, but not where this meant weakening the Island against the world.

With the wealth and diseases of the wider world, too many Nangu forgot the old lessons.  Feuds ruled the bloodlines, knives ruled the cities, and desperation ruled trade.  Waal became the norm, the Council an argument rather than a mediator, and bloodlines sought to outbid each other at the expense of the Nangu.

Bought at unreasonable prices were Dutch goods, captains most astute at bargaining with Atjuntja or Yadji or Tjunini slavered over steel and silks.  Marked the purchases were in unrealistic hope, that an excessively-priced commodity bought now could be resold at a price truly exorbitant to a greater fool.  While plentiful the world supply of fools has been, it is not truly limitless; the overbidders found in time that they ran out of greater fools to resell to.

Contest and discord at home made for inaction abroad.  Long had the Mutjing looked to the Island.  Now they started to turn away.  The Dutch called, found the Mutjing willing.  Help did not come enough to those Mutjing who resisted Dutch influence.  Decisiveness could have restored the drifting Seven Sisters to the Nangu orbit, yet hesitation and squabbling marked the Island’s response.

Inevitable were the consequences, in an Island where struggle predominated.  Disharmony ruled too many, bringing them to ruin; time would bring an extinction to many ancient bloodlines.

Yet as each man’s fate is a balance between his own actions and the ripples of the cosmos, so the Island itself shook on waves born on another shore.  Calamities afflicted the Island, many consequences of the Dutch.  While misguided reactions to doom consigned many bloodlines, gravely troubled even the most harmonious still would have been.

Outlander goods, ships and merchants gravely weakened the old Nangu trade monopolies; Atjuntja gold and sandalwood increasingly sold north to Batavia, not east to the Island.  Dutch ships ventured east in numbers ever greater; even if inferior in sailing technology, superior still in armaments and in cargo capacity.  Kunduri, the greatest trade good of all, lost its exclusivity, Jugara [Victor Harbor] witnessing Dutch merchants bidding, often with Atjuntja goods brought east on Dutch not Nangu ships.

Superior westward-sailing ships preserved much Nangu advantage, granting them some wealth still, buoyed by the foresight of Gunnagal who refused to sell all of their greatest harvest to the Dutch.  Bold Nangu captains brought kunduri and spices to the White City, although the fading authority of the King of Kings still stretched far enough to forbid the Nangu to sail around Cape Sunset to Fort Nassau.  Yet still the old trading roads [2] were gravely weakened.

Plague and illness marked Dutch contact; death stalked ahead of them.  Mumps, tuberculosis and chickenpox were scourges early and heavily felt; worse than one in ten Nangu died on the Island from the marks of the Dutch.  Knowledge faded, labour grew scarce, markets grew smaller; scarcity brought its own consequences.

Discord reigned, yet not all bloodlines let feud consume them.  The more aligned sought return to the old, better ways; competition between bloodlines, but cooperation between Nangu.  Desperation and astuteness combined purposes to shape alliances.

Most determined, and most astute, was Kumgatu and his Wolalta bloodline.  Negotiations opened with Yuma, elder of the Tjula, with bargaining most astute leading to pact.  Old knowledge of cooperation forged with new concepts acquired from the Dutch.  The outcome a syndicate, with proportional sharing of profit from all trading voyages that ventured further afield than Cape Sunset in the west or east of the River Gunawan [3].  The benefits obvious to anyone who heeded the counsel of the priests and sought harmony, two other bloodlines swiftly joined the syndicate.

Under the aegis of cooperation, the Nangu became venturers again...

--

The first sustained contact between Nangu and Nedlandj influenced both peoples.  The Nedlandj were influenced by what they found – particularly kunduri – and were quick to report back on the wealth which could be found in what Cornelis’s report called “a land of gold, and more than gold”.

What the Nedlandj were slower to grasp was that in the Nangu, they had found a people unlike any they had met before.  A people who were not content merely to trade with the Nedlandj, but prepared to sail out in search of new trade markets, and to seek to control trade on their own terms.  A people of an alien faith whose priests sought, politely but persistently, to persuade all Nedlandj visitors to adopt their creed.

A people, in short, who would be influenced by the Nedlandj, but on their own terms.

The early Nangu reactions to the Nedlandj activities were a combination of concern, bemusement, and desire for the new opportunities.  Concern, because the Nedlandj had started to displace Nangu influence in the Seven Sisters [Mutjing lands], with the potential to interfere with the food imports which sustained the Island.  And because the Nedlandj trading directly at Jugara threatened to cut the Nangu entirely out of the kunduri trade.

Bemusement, because for all of the apparent wisdom of the Nedlandj, their ships could not manage as simple a task as sailing into the wind.  And because of some of the prices the Nedlandj were willing to pay for commonplace goods, such as indigo and (especially) sweet peppers.

Desire, because for all of the factionalism and disease-induced strife which troubled the Island, the Nangu had never been a people to pass up on an opportunity.  The sight and tales of European ships inspired the Island’s shipbuilders, and several bloodlines started to build bigger ships even before Cornelis’s visit.

Those efforts were intensified in the months after Nedlandj contact.  Most of the bloodlines intended only to move larger volumes of cargo west to Atjuntja lands to trade with the Nedlandj.  One group, though, had more ambitious ideas.

During the Nedlandj visit to the Island, many curious Nangu asked questions about the nature of this “Company” that the Nedlandj all obeyed – or was it worshipped?  The answers were puzzling and misinterpreted in part by the Nangu; joint-stock companies were not a concept which mapped easily onto their worldview.  Collaborative trade and profit-sharing, though, they understood easily enough, even if to most of the bloodlines, three centuries of rivalry prevented them putting it into practice.

Some, though, applied the new lessons.

Werringi the Bold wanted to build on his first circumnavigation of Aururia, while Yuma, the new elder of the Tjula bloodline, knew that his bloodline’s experience trading with the Atjuntja was obsolete with the new rush for direct trade with the Nedlandj.  The Tjula had wealth and ships, the Wolalta had the knowledge and contacts with the eastern peoples to make truly long-range voyages possible.

A pact of cooperation and profit-sharing suited both of the bloodlines, and the terms were quickly and discreetly negotiated in 1633.  Over the next year, two further bloodlines were quietly recruited to join the syndicate.  The Muwanna bloodline were discredited politically within the Island, but preserved excellent contacts with the kingdom of Tjibarr, which promised access to large yields of kunduri.  The Nyugal bloodline had voyaged to the Spice Coast [eastern Aururian seaboard] almost as much as the Wolalta, and were willing to bring their own ships and wealth to the new syndicate.

The syndicate had one major goal: to establish direct trade with the Raw Men in their trading posts in the Indies.  They knew of the Nedlandj at Batabya [Batavia], and their rivals the Pannidj who had an outpost somewhere east of that land [Timor].  Werringi argued – and his collaborators agreed – that despite the risks, such voyages would allow much better terms for trading kunduri than bidding against other bloodlines to bring the drug to the White City.

Werringi first negotiated a treaty with the Patjimunra city-state of Torimi [Port Stephens, NSW], which was ideally placed to serve as a safe harbour and resupply point on voyages north.  With the support of the Nyugal bloodline, he established a broader treaty with the Kiyungu city-states further north.  The pact with the Kiyungu involved supplying iron weapons and armour, in exchange for spices and for farmers who would serve for several years at the more northerly resupply port which the syndicate planned to establish.

With Kiyungu support secured, the syndicate set up a new victualling and repair station in the northernmost reaches of Aururia, at a place which Werringi called Wujal [Cooktown, Queensland].  Here, on his first voyage north, he had found a natural harbour with suitable land for farming, and whose river offered easy inland access for any timber required to build or repair ships.  The new outpost had a Wolalta port captain, a handful of permanent Nangu residents who were mostly carpenters and loggers, and a larger number of Kiyungu recruits sworn to serve five-year terms as farmers of kumara [sweet potato], taro, lesser yams, and wattles.

By 1635, Werringi was confident enough in his ships and knowledge of the sea routes to undertake a new long-range voyage.  With four great-ships – one from each bloodline – and a few smaller vessels, his second great voyage set out from the Island with a cargo of previously-acquired kunduri.  They sailed east and then north along the Spice Coast, including a visit to the Kiyungu to trade for additional cargo of eastern spices: lemon verbena, cinnamon verbena, aniseed verbena, and strawberry gum.

After visiting Wujal, they passed through the strait which Werringi had named the Coral Strait [Torres Strait], and sailed west and north toward the islands which they knew only as the Indies.  Astute interpretation of the Nedlandj charts, combined with traditional Nangu stellar navigation, let them recognise the larger islands.  Werringi led his ships through the Lombok Strait and then west along the north coast of Bali and Java until he arrived at Batabya.

The presence of Nangu traders in Batabya itself caused consternation, both amongst the Nedlandj and the native Javanese who lived around the port.  The Governor-General of the Indies, Hendrik Brouwer, wondered for some time about how best to respond to these audacious Nangu.

Profit won in the end, though; the first shipments of kunduri to Europe were already earning marvellous prices, and having the Nangu ship them to Batabya would avoid the complication of sending ships to the eastern reaches of the South Land and having to deal with the difficulties of coming back [4].  The new spices which the Nangu brought offered intriguing potential too, especially since the Javanese had experimented with lemon verbena and were effusive in its praise.

So the Nedlandj and Nangu concluded their first trade deal outside of Aururia, and Werringi the Bold led his ships back east laden with wealth.  They sailed from Batabya via the Coral Strait and the Inner Sea, south against the prevailing winds, until they arrived at Torimi to resupply.

Other strange ships waited in that harbour: large multi-masted vessels which were recognisably ships of the Raw Men, but flying an unfamiliar flag.  These were the ships of William Baffin, sailing for the English East India Company...

--

12 April 1636
Amsterdam, United Netherlands

A dimly-lit room, with comfortable but widely-spaced chairs whose occupants can make out only outlines of each other.  This is not a place for men to know who speaks to each other.  What they discuss here is not treason, precisely, but it will gravely anger powerful men when it is revealed.  If it is known too soon, the endeavour will fail.

Pieter Nuyts stands in the middle of the circle of chairs; he, at least, does not fear if his identity is known.  Those same powerful men have already judged him and cast him out; he no longer fears their displeasure [5].

“A new world beckons,” he says.  “A new people in a land of gold.  Yadji, they are called.  A people with more gold and silver than the Atjuntja, or the Aztecs before them.”

“Trading for gold would violate the Company’s monopoly,” someone says.

“The Company has ignored the Yadji and their gold,” another speaker says.

“Even so, to trade for gold would invite their retribution,” the first speaker answers.

“Let the Company keep their trading licence,” Nuyts says.  “What I plan is more direct.”

Several of the occupants make polite inquiries.

Nuyts says, “The Company scratches around for gold, and for goods they can trade for it.  They find some... but there is so much more to be had in the South Land.  Why pay for eggs when you can own the chicken?”

That brings about a rustling of bodies on chairs, and quiet mutterings.  At length, one speaker ventures, “You want to conquer the Yadji?”

Nuyts nods.  “Indeed.  Bring them to their knees, and their gold will be ours for the taking.”

“You think you can conquer their Empire?”

“It can be done,” Nuyts says, every word dripping with confidence.  “Cortes broke the Aztecs.  Pizzaro conquered the Inca.  Both with only a handful of men.”

That produces a long, thoughtful silence.  He knows what must be filling their thoughts: visions of gold.  Is it time to make those visions more real?  No, not yet.  Let them consider for longer first.

A speaker says, “The Indians fought with stones.  These South-Landers have iron.”

“Iron, yes, but not steel,” another speaker says.

Nuyts says, “The Yadji are a pagan rabble.  They know not gunpowder; they lack both cannon and muskets.  They have no cavalry.  Given me a thousand good men, armed and trained, and I will have the Yadji bowing to me, and their wealth will give you recompense a hundredfold.”

“Bold, if it works.  Foolhardy, perhaps, to strike at a land so far away,” says one speaker.

Another says, “The Company has allies nearby... Valk Land, is it called?  Perhaps we could operate from there.  If not, there is the Island.  They will do anything for lucre.”

The first speaker says, “Even if so, how can a thousand men overrun an Empire?  Cortes did not fight alone.  We must have local allies, if this is to work.”

Nuyts smiles.  “The Yadji rule over alien subjects.  A people called the... Yadili on their border, who embrace the same pagan faith as the Island.  They yearn to be free of the Yadji, and will surely help us.  Better yet, the Yadji fight among themselves.  Their last emperor was assassinated.  His sons contest over his legacy.”

“Are you sure about this?” the first speaker asks.

“Quite.  The one who slew their emperor wore this.”

He pulls the cloth from a podium beside him.  This is the one place where there is bright light in the room, the better to reveal the golden eagle mask.  Feathers delicately traced, fitting over a shape of gold, gleaming in the light.  A worthy treasure in itself, but an auspicious omen of what can be found among the Yadji.

“They see this mask as damned, now; it was traded to the Yadji’s enemies the Tjibarr, who sold it to the Island, and then to us.  But the Yadji still fight among themselves.  They are weak, and ripe for conquest.  Who wants to be part of this endeavour?”

This time, there is no pause, just enthusiastic acclamation.

--

[1] Across the world as a whole, the Aururian plagues have inflicted a higher absolute death toll than any previous epidemic in history, although the Black Death and some earlier plagues were worse in proportional terms.

[2] The Nangu word translated as “road” has a much broader meaning than the modern historical English equivalent.

[3] The River Gunawan is the Snowy River in historical eastern Victoria.  In allohistorical Aururia, this marks the eastern border of the Yadji Empire.  The Wolalta and Tjula have made, in effect, a trading company which will share profits anywhere outside of the core areas of Nangu trade.

[4] That is, the Dutch ships would need either to wait an interminable length of time for the prevailing winds to change, or sail all the way around eastern Aururia and New Guinea (or the Torres Strait) to come back to Batavia.

[5] Pieter Nuyts (senior) in actual history was a Dutch diplomat, explorer and politician.  He was on the first Dutch expedition to visit southern Australia in 1626-7, where several geographical features are named after him today.  After that expedition, he became a Dutch emissary to Japan, and governor of Formosa (Taiwan).  He proved to be a failure both as diplomat and governor, angering the Japanese when he was there, causing resentment amongst the Taiwanese, and eventually taking some Japanese merchants hostage.  Nuyts’s eldest son Laurens was one of the Dutchmen taken hostage by the Japanese in retaliation; Laurens died of dysentery in 1630 while still in Japanese imprisonment.  Nuyts was so despised that he was extradited to Japan in 1632 to be punished there for his actions, and was imprisoned there for four years before his release was negotiated.  When he returned to Batavia, he was given a large fine for his part in the whole mess with Japan, and sent back home.

In allohistory, Nuyts’s 1626 voyage never makes it to southern Aururia, since like most VOC expeditions by this time, it stops off at Fort Nassau instead to resupply.  Here, Nuyts keenly noticed the wealth of gold in this new, barbaric land.  (In both real history and allohistory, Nuyts had a low opinion of ‘natives’.)  He still went to Formosa to serve as governor, where while the details were a bit different, he bungled relations with Japan badly enough that he was still packed off to Japan for punishment.  The disruptions of the Marnitja and blue-sleep plagues, and a wealthier VOC being better able to negotiate, meant that Nuyts was released two years earlier (1634), and he was also fortunate that Laurens survived with him.  Nuyts was still fined heavily and sent home to the Netherlands.  In allohistory, though, he has found a suitable way to take revenge on the Company.  (And thanks to Ran Exilis for suggesting the allohistorical potential of Pieter Nuyts).

--

Lands of Red and Gold #36: Breeze Ruffles The Petals

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.”
- Matthew 24:21

--

Year of the Twisted Serpent [June 1629]
Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Without any false modesty, Gunya Yadji knew that he looked splendid today.  Of course, he had no modesty in him, false or otherwise.  But then, today of all days, he had to appear in his finest attire.

Gunya wore his most splendid tunic, woven from a base of dog-wool collected from the packs of hair-dogs maintained on the royal estates to the east of Kirunmara.  The dog-wool had been carefully dyed into a pattern of azure and scarlet.  Around his chest, golden thread had been woven into the pattern, and four small silver plates studded with freshwater pearls.  The weight of his anjumi [headband] spoke of the gold thread which had been used in that, too.  Fortunately, the lorikeet feathers which decorated his anjumi were as light as they were spectacular.

He strode out of his private chambers, where his scale-armour-clad bodyguards awaited him.  The four bodyguards went down on one knee and ritually pressed their lips against the cold floor tiles.

“Obey me,” he said, using the ritual words, and they rose to stand around him.

“To my cousin’s chambers,” Gunya added.  The first bodyguard led the way toward the private chambers of the Regent, who was after all the only cousin whom Gunya would never refer to by name.

They never reached the Regent’s chambers, of course.  All as Gunya had known, or rather, hoped.  If Gunya’s mad cousin who called himself the Regent could still be found in his chambers, or even found breathing at all, then events had gone terribly wrong.

Jirandali, Third Watcher of the Dreams [a senior priest], intercepted him about halfway to the Regent’s chambers.  Jirandali wore finery almost a match for Gunya’s own: a single gold plate adorned with polished rubies and diamonds covered his chest, and his anjumi was decorated with tanned goanna-skin leather.  An unusually splendid outfit, which meant that the priest must have been attending the Mask Dance.

Sure enough, Jirandali said, “I bear the gravest of news.”

The man used the neutral version of the pronoun when referring to Gunya [1]!  Either he was distressed enough to commit a major social blunder, or he presumed far above his station.  Gunya was a prince of the royal family, who even his worst foes admitted was second in line to the succession – and in his own opinion, first in line.  No priest could claim him as an equal!

Gunya did not answer, waiting for Jirandali to admit the gravity of his error.

The priest did not appear to notice.  He looked instead to the bodyguards.  “This news should not be overheard.”

After such an insult, Gunya was not of a mind to make even minor concessions.  He inclined his head to his bodyguards and said, “Speak of this to no-one without my permission.”

Jirandali fixed him with a level stare.  Gunya matched it.

After a moment, the priest relented.  “Your cousin, the Regent, has been hastened on his journey to join your royal ancestors.”

“That is an abomination,” Gunya said.  He carefully did not pretend to show shock at the news.  Astonishment would be expected, in one sense, since this was a crime which had not happened since far beyond living memory.  In the more important sense, though, showing surprise would also show weakness.  “Which man has served the Lord of Night with such a deed?”

“Not a man.  A woman.  Lenawirra, who was to perform the Mask Dance, stabbed the Regent.”

“This will not be publicly announced,” Gunya said, using the commanding form of the verb [2].

“Quite.  Let it be said that the swelling-fever [mumps] has claimed him,” the priest said.

“Well-chosen.  The sickness caused by these strange Raw Men is believable,” Gunya said.

Such a good answer, in fact, that suspicion stirred in Gunya’s heart.  How did Jirandali have such a plausible excuse so ready to bring out?  Perhaps the priests had been making plans of their own.

Well, I’ll have to see about that.  “No matter how the truth is concealed from the world, we must find it.  How convenient it is that the... now-departed?  Yes, good, the now-departed Lenawirra was able to conceal a knife?  Who was responsible for searching her before she came into the presence of my cousin?”

“I do not know,” Jirandali said, using the commanding form of the verb.  Interesting.

“Find out, then, and quickly,” Gunya said.

In truth, he neither knew nor cared exactly how Lenawirra had concealed the knife.  It may well have been that respect for the dignity of the woman chosen to dance the tribute to the Regent [ie perform the Mask Dance] had kept anyone from searching her.  But asking the question would make the priests uncomfortable until they had an answer.  Anything which gave discomfort to the priests was valuable, and doubly-so at a time when he would need them distracted.

All that Gunya cared about was that he knew that the trail would not lead back to him.  He had nothing to do with the means Lenawirra had used, only her motivation.  It had taken considerable effort to bring her to think of the need to commit this deed.  No doubt she even thought to her dying moment that it was her own idea.  Her own inception.

Gunya knew better, of course.  His departed, unlamented cousin Boringa had been only an occasional guest in the halls of sanity.  That had suited the priests well – far too well, since they could claim to speak for him, and ignore the wishes of those who knew better how to renew the vigour of the realm.

The Land of the Five Directions had drifted leaderless for too long, weakened inside its borders.  While outside the treacherous Tjibarr had seized the wealth of the Copper Coast, and the mercurial Gutjanal had seized the northern gold mines of Djawrit [Bendigo, Victoria].  A firm hand was needed, one which could slap down the priests and then strike the enemies abroad.

“I will ensure that an investigation is undertaken,” Jirandali said.  “Questions will be asked, as vigorously as needed.  In the meantime, who will oversee the rites for the Regent?”

A dangerous question, that one, and another reminder that the priests must be playing games of their own.

“I will do that,” Gunya said, as he had long been planning.

“Then I leave it to you to inform Bailgu Yadji,” Jirandali said, then turned smoothly on one heel and withdrew.

Gunya decided, then, that Jirandali would have to suffer the same fate as his recently-departed cousin.  Such a barb, such insolence, could not be tolerated.  Well, there were many ways that a man could die.

Bailgu!  How dare that turbulent priest speak of him now?  Bailgu had far too much ambition – everyone knew it – and would surely bid to follow Boringa into the Regency.  He would have to be dealt with, one way or another, but Gunya did not need the priests interfering.

“To the Eagle Tiles [3],” he said.  “Much must be done.”

--

The Yadji Empire had long been ruled by the family of the same name, but in the centuries of its existence, it had never solved two fundamental questions: how the royal succession should be determined, and what the relationship should be between royal princes and senior priests.

The royal succession was complex since there had never been any formal system of primogeniture.  Any close male relative of the current Regent could be chosen as successor.  Yadji stability relied on the authority of the current Regent to name a preferred heir, which would usually be honoured after his death.  Occasionally the succession had been challenged, but the only serious bloodbaths had been fought when the succession was unclear.

The relationship and lines of authority between senior priests and the royal princes was equally complex.  Priests in the outlying towns were little more than extensions of the Regent’s will, and relocated regularly to prevent them establishing a local power base.  Senior priests were another matter entirely; their tenure in the capital was usually for life.

During times of a strong Regent, senior priests in Kirunmara were often given considerable de facto authority, since they were perceived as more reliable than often quarrelsome princes.  In times of a weak Regent, the senior priests sometimes had even more authority, since they were able to persuade a Regent to follow their lead.  When the Regent was gone, the senior priests often had some influence over his successor.

Nevertheless, no matter how much unofficial power the priests had, no priest could ever formally rule the Land of the Five Directions.  All authority ultimately derived from the Yadji family, from the descendants of Narryani.  The royal princes might seek the support of the priests, or the priests might find a means to use a royal prince as a figurehead, but the princes could never be ignored entirely.

With the assassination of Boringa Yadji, and an investigation into his murder which would ultimately prove fruitless, the worst aspects of the Yadji power structure were now brought to the fore.

No clear successor existed.  Boringa had never fathered a legitimate child.  Nor had he named a chosen successor.  Given that he had been known to speak as the interpreter for his pet rock, any designation of a successor would likely have been ignored anyway.

Without a son, the most likely candidates for the succession were the two oldest cousins, Gunya and Bailgu Yadji.  Neither had a clear advantage over the other.  Gunya was elder, but was the son of Boringa’s youngest aunt.  Bailgu was younger, but the son of Boringa’s elder aunt.  Both believed that they had the strongest claim, and both were prepared to fight to back their claims.

Worse, the senior priests were bitterly divided about which prince to support.  The arguments turned into recriminations, which turned into rows.  Ultimately, the Yadji succession would be determined on the battlefield...

--

“In battle, never a step backward.”
- Yadji saying

--

[1] All Junditmara pronouns and personal titles come in six versions: dominant, submissive, masculine, feminine, neutral, and familiar.  A complex set of social codes dictates which form should be used in which circumstances.  (See post #16 for more information).  In this instance, Gunya is concerned because the priest used the neutral form, which suggests either that he does not know whether Gunya is a superior or not, or that they are of equal rank.

[2] In the Junditmara language, most verbs have two flavours, which can be roughly categorised as “directive” or “suggestive”.  Directive implies command that something must be done, or in other circumstances, indicates that a person is certain that something was done.  Suggestive describes a request or a preference, or in some cases, indicates that a person is uncertain whether something happened in a particular way.

[3] ie the room where the Mask Dance is performed.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #37: The Time of Troubles

“Nothing is stronger than the bond between brothers, except the hatred between brothers who have fallen out.”
- Batjiri of Jurundit [Koroit, Victoria]

--

Year of the Twisted Serpent [August 1629]
Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Around him, the familiar stone of the House of the Dawn [1].  Much less splendid than his own chambers in the great palace, but much safer.  Gunya Yadji did not risk setting foot inside the palace these days, unless surrounded by a host of bodyguards.

“I welcome you,” Gunya Yadji said, using the masculine form of the pronoun [2].

“You are generous [3],” said Bidwadjari, his guest, shaking his head [4].

Gunya raised a palm, acknowledging the statement, then picked up a ceramic flagon and filled two goblets with a ganyu [yam wine] spiced with cinnamon myrtle and limes.  He raised his goblet and announced, “To the memory of my departed cousin Boringa.  Whatever his faults in life, may he find rest after fighting his final battle.”

Bidwadjari held up his goblet in turn, repeated the invocation, and they both drank.

After a moment, Bidwadjari said, “And with your cousin now consigned to memory, you” – he used the masculine form of the pronoun, too – “want to secure his legacy.  With my aid.”

“You are direct,” Gunya said, with what he hoped was a convincing imitation of surprise.  He knew how Bidwadjari conducted himself; the general’s reputation preceded him.  “But largely correct.”

Bidwadjari frowned.  “Soldiers have a saying: Safer to step barefoot into a pit of tiger snakes [5] than play in the politics of princes.”

“With what is coming, all men must choose where they stand,” Gunya said.

Bidwadjari said, “I would stand apart.  I will lead the Fronds [his army group] wherever the chosen Regent commands, but I would not become involved in the choosing.”

“These are not usual times,” Gunya said.  “Omens stir, new plagues come out of the uttermost west, and a Regent has been slain.  What would in ordinary times be most proper deference will in this time become impossible, for now there may not be a chosen Regent.”

Bidwadjari stirred in his seat, then.  Not standing, exactly, but flexing the heavily-muscled shoulders which had borne armour for longer than most men had lived.  His hair – or what was left of it – had gone white, but he remained a most formidable figure of a man.  Not to mention the most experienced army commander in the Empire; a man of such reputation that he could speak his mind to anyone he wished, without fear of retribution.

At length, the soldier said, “It is for princes to decide which of them believe they should be the most worthy Regent.”  He paused, then added, “Which, in your opinion, would be you.”

“Of course I believe I would make the best Regent, or I would not have invited you here,” Gunya said.  “Unfortunately, the first of your statements is incorrect.”

Bidwadjari raised an eyebrow.

“If it were princes who decided who will be Regent, I would not need to ask where you stand,” Gunya said.  “But now priests interfere in the business of princes.”

“Do you doubt their wisdom?”

Gunya felt his lip curl.  “Too many of our priests grew used to speaking for the Regent.”

“Someone needed to rule while a mad Regent reigned,” Bidwadjari answered, his tone cool.

“If they had ruled properly, I would not be concerned,” Gunya said.  “Look at what happened while Boringa whispered and the priests claimed to interpret his words!  Tjibarr seized the Copper Coast, Gutjanal took the gold of Djawrit [Bendigo, Victoria], and the savages grew restless on our eastern frontier [6].  All this happened, and the priests cared not.”

“Our armies were not idle during those defeats, nor lacking in courage,” Bidwadjari said.

“No man could ever doubt your valour, or that of our soldiers,” Gunya said.  “What you lacked was support.  The priests cared for nothing outside of Kirunmara’s walls, and did not send you what was needed.”

Bidwadjari had met Gunya’s eyes only briefly during the whole of the conversation, as was proper.  Now, he turned his gaze squarely on Gunya.  “You believe that if you become Regent, our armies will be victorious?”

The old soldier had a truly penetrating gaze, when he chose to use it.  Gunya did not hesitate before it, though.  “I cannot promise that.  What I do know is that they will not lack the support they need.”

“And you think that your cousin will not do the same?”

Gunya snorted.  “Bailgu listens too much to the priests, and cares for naught but pleasure.  He will not attend to the defence of the Empire.  Oh, he can command armies – do not underestimate him – but he is lazy.  A wastrel.  He will be happy to sit in Kirunmara eating fish, drinking gum cider, and surrounded by concubines, while the priests rule and the Empire’s glory rots.”

“I will consider this,” Bidwadjari said, his tone as neutral as the form of the pronoun he used.  He rose to leave, and Gunya made no move to stop him.  The great commander would decide alone which way he moved; no further persuasion would be effective.

*

Silence.  Far too much silence.

Immense though the royal palace might be, it had always seemed too small to contain the sounds of the people who filled it.  Regents, princes, priests, cooks, soldiers, scribes, cleaners, and an endless stream of others moved in and out as duty demanded, and were rarely silent when doing so.

Now, though, Bailgu Yadji found himself overwhelmed with silence.  Many people had abandoned the palace, with no Regent to steer the Empire on its proper course.  Those who remained trod lightly and carried out their duties as quietly as they could, as if fearing that someone would notice them and order them to depart.  When they had to speak, it was usually with lowered voices and brief sentences, as if every surplus word would become a fresh weapon raised against them when they went to fight their final battle.

For himself, Bailgu Yadji cared nothing for the silence.  He spoke as loudly as he always did.  Louder, if anything.  Let the fools and cowards mutter in their meanderings.  He had a Regency to win; an Empire to put to rights.  He strode the corridors of the palace, speaking to people whenever he could, reminding them of his existence while his foolish cousin had fled under the excuse of conducting a long vigil for the fallen Regent.

This morning, he had one of the more devout priests awaiting him, so he kept his conversations briefer than usual.  He did not want to keep one of the Neverborn’s more pious followers waiting too long.

Still, one of the men he passed made him pause longer than usual.  A man busily writing at a table hardly made for an unusual sight in the royal palace.  Until Bailgu noticed the checked pink and gray pattern on the man’s anjumi [headband] which proclaimed him as a death warrior.

There’s an incongruous sight.  Rarely would a literate man be one who embraced the frenzied glory of the death cult.  Nor was it common to see a death warrior without the white dye [7].

Intrigued, Bailgu coughed to indicate his presence.  The death warrior looked up, and said, “A moment please.”

The death warrior wrote rapidly until the ink on his pen was exhausted, then rose.

Bailgu said, “What is your name, sworn one?”  He used the neutral form of the pronoun [8].

“Batjiri of Jurundit,” he said.  “Of the Fearless.”

“Did you learn to write before you took the oath?”

“Afterward,” Batjiri said.  “So I could read the Nine Classics [9].”

“Oh.”  Strange.  A man who waited calmly for battle and a frenzied death did not strike him as a man who should trouble himself to know the Nine Classics.  Bailgu nodded at the writing table.  “Are you preparing a new copy?”

“No, I am writing a new text.  I hope that someday it may be considered the Tenth Classic.”

“Ah...  Ah, that is... not what I would have expected from a man whose oath means that at any time he may be called to battle to chant his name until he is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

Batjiri shrugged.  “Every man will go to fight his Last Battle sooner or later.  They know not when it is, but act as if it will be far into the future.  For me, the difference is that I accept that I could die at any time, if I am called.  Even if my classic is unfinished, what I have written will still be worthy.”

“A commendable ambition,” Bailgu said, carefully keeping his face blank.  He understood what drove most death warriors, but this man...?  He gestured to the writing desk.  “If you want to resume your writing...”

Batjiri’s lips twisted into a smile, one which did not touch his eyes.  “If the oath has taught me one thing, it is the value of time.”  The death warrior sat back down again, and Bailgu hurried on.

Soon enough, he reached the chamber where Jirandali, Third Watcher of the Dreams [10] awaited him.  Polite greetings took up some time, with mutual invocations of good health, long life, and listening to the voice of the Neverborn.

After that, Jirandali said, “It is certain: your cousin met with the Head of the Fronds this morning.”

If he had not been in the presence of a priest, Bailgu would have muttered a curse.  Clenching his fists made for a poor compromise.  “Bad enough that he meets with other Yadji [ie members of the royal family].  If he is trying to sway soldiers...  Do you know if they reached any agreement?”

“No-one is certain.  If so, neither of them has said anything about it where our listeners can hear.”

“Do you think that Bidwadjari would side with Gunya?”

The Watcher looked thoughtful.  “I think that he would prefer that a Regent is chosen quickly, without bloodshed.”

“Which won’t happen,” Bailgu said.  “I will not stand by and let that man lead the Land.  He thinks only of this world, and cares nothing for preparing the Land for the world to come.”

“All truth, and truth which you have said before,” Jirandali said.  “Yet will it convince enough of your family?”

Bailgu said, “I fear that too many of them share his obsession.  Gunya thinks only of recapturing the Copper Coast.”  He waved a hand in dismissal.  “A folly believed only by those who cannot see clearly.  We have fought Tjibarr for centuries, and never defeated them badly enough to hold onto the Coast for more than a generation.   The blood and treasure we pay to take it are greater than the province is worth.  Better to let Tjibarr have it, and the joy of holding it.”

Alas, despite the self-evident truth, too many princes refused to see it.  Gunya and his ilk cared more for glory than for reality.  Perhaps the Empire should fight more for Djawrit and its gold, but the Copper Coast was worth nothing.  Better secure borders for the Empire than endlessly trying to extend them.  Then he could concentrate on holding the peoples already within the Empire, and preparing for the Cleansing [11].

“If so, we must prepare for war,” the Watcher said.

“Perhaps it can still be avoided, but yes, preparations are essential,” Bailgu said.  And, my dear cousin Gunya, there you will be defeated.

--

Civil war: almost an impossible proposition to consider for the Yadji, a royal family who had prided themselves on their ability to present a united front to their subject peoples.  Rebellions against the Yadji were common enough, but rarely was there a Yadji at their head.

Disputed successions were reasonably common, but were usually resolved by politicking or the intervention of the senior priests.  Only in a few instances had this led to combat between princes.  Even then, on most of those occasions, the conflict had ended quickly when it became clear that one prince had much more support than the other, or was a better general.

When it was clear that one prince was superior in support or in martial skills, the traditional solution was for the other prince to swear the oath of a death warrior.  Taking this oath meant that the defeated prince was dead in law, no longer considered part of the Yadji family, and could not inherit the Regency.  Depending on the generosity of the new Regent, the new death warrior sometimes found himself fighting in every battle on the Tjibarr frontier until he had fulfilled his oath, or sometimes was allowed to live out his life in reasonably comfortable exile in a distant city.

The Time of Troubles (1629-1638), known to the Yadji of the time as the Year of the Twisted Serpent [12], was an unfortunate exception to the usual practice.  Gunya and Bailgu, the two main princes involved in the struggle, were bitterly opposed both in pride and in policy.  Both could draw on considerable support from their fellow princes, from the priests, and from the generals.  Politicking failed to resolve the impasse, and the outcome was civil war.

For a war fought at least nominally for ten years, the destruction was not as severe as might have been expected, particularly in comparison to European wars of the time.  Wanton destruction was uncommon; both sides exercised restraint since they wanted to have a well-populated, prosperous empire to rule afterward.

Gunya’s forces won the first great battle, near Jerang [Lorne], and after that, Bailgu’s main force retreated into fortified positions.  For most of the war, the focus was on sieges of key enemy cities.  These typically involved long periods of boredom followed by brief periods of intense interest.

The death toll for sieges was usually low.  The Yadji had large food stores available [13] – one reason the sieges lasted so long – and their siege weaponry was not particularly advanced.  In a disease environment less hostile than the Old World, great disease outbreaks during sieges were also relatively unknown [14].  Even when sieges were successful, the civilian population of the captured town was usually spared; after a couple of early massacres failed to intimidate other besieged towns into surrender, both Bailgu and Gunya largely abandoned the practice, except on a couple of occasions when attacking troops got out of control.

This practice of restraint during sieges was only consistently violated during another odd example of the conventions of Yadji politics: the response to the Kurnawal uprising early in the Troubles.

In 1631-1632, the Kurnawal [inhabitants of the easternmost Yadji provinces] tried to take advantage of the civil war to assert their independence [15].  Regardless of how much the two imperial pretenders despised each other, there were family dictates to be honoured.  The two quarrelling princes negotiated a temporary truce, assumed joint command of their armies, and marched east to subdue the Kurnawal.

Here, they ended sieges with fire and blood, the better to force the rebels back under imperial control.  When the Kurnawal were reconquered, as per the terms of the truce, the two princes’ armies returned to their former positions [16] and resumed their civil war with mostly the same restraint as before.

Of course, for all that the two princes tried not to undermine the foundations of the Empire, the effects of so many years of warfare were considerable.  A significant portion of the Empire’s soldiery died, and many of the valuable food stores were exhausted.  While both sides did not directly interfere with the harvests, and famines were rare except inside besieged cities, disruptions were inevitable with soldiers called to war.

For most of the Time of Troubles, the course of the war still hung in the balance.  Gunya’s forces were generally more successful in open battle, but that led in turn to them conducting more of the sieges and losing relatively more men in assaults.  The outcome of the war was still in doubt in April 1636, when William Baffin’s ships sailed into the harbour of Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria] and became the first Europeans to make direct contact with the Yadji Empire...

--

[1] The House of the Dawn (several exist in most Yadji cities, despite the singularity of the name) is a place where people go to hold vigils for fallen comrades.  It is considered the utmost in sacred ground, even more than a temple.  Staying there serves Gunya two purposes: implying he is still holding a vigil for his assassinated cousin, and means that not even the most determined of enemies would send someone to assassinate him.

[2] All Junditmara pronouns and personal titles come in six versions: dominant, submissive, masculine, feminine, neutral, and familiar.  A complex set of social codes dictates which form should be used in which circumstances.  (See post #16 for more information).

[3] Because Gunya used the masculine form to imply informality and near-equality for the purposes of the meeting, rather than the dominant form which would have showed clear superiority.

[4] In most Aururian cultures, including the Yadji, shaking the head is a form of emphasis or agreement, not denial.

[5] The Australian tiger snake (Notechis scutatus), usually considered the fourth most venomous land snake in the world [17].  It is abundant in southern Aururia.  Its preferred habitats include wetlands and small creeks, including the extensive Yadji artificial wetlands.  Tiger snake bite is a frequent cause of death among the Yadji.

[6] ie the Nguril and Kaoma of the Monaro plateau, who sometimes raid into the *Murray basin, and sometimes into the Yadji’s eastern provinces.

[7] Death warriors who are going into battle dye their face with white dye in a pattern which makes it look like a skull.  Most death warriors keep that dye on all the time.

[8] All death warriors are referred to using the neutral form of the pronoun, except among themselves.  This is because death warriors are treated as being outside of the social order, with neither dominance nor subordination to others.  Those who swear the oath of a death warrior are treated as dead in law for most purposes, with their worldly goods handed over to their kin.  The death warriors are then supported by the temples and the royal family.

[9] Nine venerated texts among the Yadji, regarded as the epitome of literature, both for the quality of their written language, and the virtues espoused within them.  Most of the Nine Classics date back to the days of the feudal Empire of the Lake, and were written by or about (sometimes both) briyuna, the sworn warriors of the feudal lords.

[10] The rank of Third Watcher of the Dreams originally meant a priest who was charged with interpreting the omens contained in the Regent’s dreams.  There were four such priests, each serving for one month in four, in succession.  (The priests were equal in rank; the number simply indicates which months each priest would serve).  The role of Watcher has gradually evolved into a more general spiritual counsellor and adviser for the Regent.  While there are several priests whose formal rank is higher than the Watchers, the direct access to the Regent gives the Watchers significant informal authority.

[11] In Yadji eschatology, the Cleansing is when the Neverborn will break free from the earth, defeat the Lord of Night, and remake the world.

[12] The Yadji traditionally name their years by that of the current Regent.  When there is no Regent, another name is used for the period in question.  The Year of the Twisted Serpent was thus rather a long year.

[13] The Yadji traditionally store enough food to cope with four years of famine; enough time to wait for a new planting of wattle trees to produce large amounts of seed.  Having such large food stores allows them to minimise the effects of long-term droughts or severe bushfires burning out their crops.

[14] The Aururian disease environment is more hostile than that of the New World, but considerably less so than that of Eurasia (or worse yet tropical Africa).  There are diseases and waterborne parasites around which can cause problems for besieging armies, such as Marnitja, but the overall effects of these is less than in comparable sieges in the Old World, where the disease toll in sieges could be horrific.  The Yadji are also fortunate in that the main sieges in the Time of Troubles were in the central and eastern provinces.  This meant that that they were spared a heavy toll from the worst siege-related disease in Aururia, swamp rash [18].

[15] Or, more precisely, to assert their independence from Yadji tribute-collectors, particularly those seeking to pay for the civil war.

[16] More or less.  Both sides resumed control of the same ground as before the truce.  They still took advantage of the truce to resupply and move troops into better positions within their current territory.

[17] The top ten most venomous land snakes in the world are all Australian.  So is the world’s deadliest spider (funnel-web).  Australia’s coastal waters are also visited by the world’s deadliest octopus (blue-ringed octopus), deadliest jellyfish (box jellyfish) and deadliest shark (great white shark).  Oddly enough, people who know that still visit Australia.

[18] Swamp rash (an allohistorical descendant of Barmah Forest virus) is a mosquito-borne disease which for centuries has been endemic in the artificial wetlands along the *Murray.  It has recently spread to the western wetlands of the Yadji Empire, and is slowly expanding east.  Swamp rash does not usually cause epidemics, being more of an endemic disease afflicting people who are exposed to mosquito bites.  However, it does have the potential to cause epidemics if besieging armies are encamped near wetlands.

Swamp rash is also one Aururian disease where the mortality rates vary considerably between Aururian peoples.  The Gunnagal and other peoples who live along the Middle and Upper *Murray have had centuries of exposure to the virus, and have evolved some natural immunity.  The Yadji (and other non-*Murray peoples) have no such resistance, and their mortality rates from the disease are roughly twice those of the Gunnagal.  The endemic nature of swamp rash also means that most Gunnagal will have been exposed to the disease in their childhood, and thus (if they survived) will be immune to an outbreak as adults.  This means that when Tjibarr and Yadji armies fight, an outbreak of swamp rash will take a significant toll of the Yadji armies but have little effect on Tjibarr.  (This is one factor which has helped Tjibarr defend its core territories from Yadji invasion.)

--

Lands of Red and Gold #38: The Portuguese Yam

Taken from Intellipedia.

Red Yam

The red yam is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Dioscorea chelidonius of the Dioscoreaceae family (also known as the bread vines) [1].  The name red yam can refer to the plant itself, as well as the edible tuber.  The name is also sometimes misleadingly used to refer to the related crop Dioscorea angustus, properly known as the lesser yam.  However, in Portuguese, no such ambiguity arises, since the same name, inhame vermelho, is used to refer to both species. [citation needed]

In southern and eastern Aururia, there are other closely-related wild yam species, none of which are cultivated.  However, the warran yam (Dioscorea hastifolia), native to the south-west of the Third World [this phrase has been reported as offensive: discuss] has been cultivated [2].  Despite having first been introduced outside of Aururia four centuries ago [dubious: Aotearoa is not in Aururia!], red yams have today become a fundamental component of much of the world’s cuisine.  Today, the red yam is the world’s fifth-largest food crop, after rice, wheat, potato and maize [3].

Related Dioscorea (yam) species are distributed through tropics of the globe, and a few extend into temperate latitudes.  However, domesticated yams are derived only from the Old World and Aururia; no yam crops have been domesticated from the Americas. [citation needed]  The red yam (and lesser yam) is by far the most widespread and commercially significant domesticated Dioscorea crop.  However, other yam crops are equally important to the peoples who cultivate them, particularly white and yellow yams in West Africa [irrelevant addition: discuss].

Based on historical records, local tradition, and genetic analysis, the red yam is known to have been first domesticated in the Nyalananga basin.  Although the precise location has not been identified.  Archaeological evidence has clearly demonstrated that domesticated red yams were grown by 2500 BC [4].  However, the red yam was cultivated as long ago as 10,000 years ago [5] [unreliable source].

Introduced to the world by the Netherlands after 1619, the red yam was then distributed by European and Nangu mariners to territories and ports throughout the globe.  Hundreds of varieties remain in Aururia, where a single agricultural household may grow half a dozen cultivars.  Once established across the globe, the red yam soon became an important staple crop, particularly in the Mediterranean littoral and the subtropical Americas.

Characteristics

Red yam plants are herbaceous perennial vines that grow up to 6 m long (depending on variety), with the yam stems dying back in late autumn.  They bear purple, white, pink or yellow flowers [1].  Red yams are cross-pollinated mostly by insects, including bees and moths, which carry pollen from other red yam plants, although a few cultivars are capable of self-fertilisation.  Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although a few commercial cultivars start forming their tuber earlier than the summer solstice.

After red yam plants flower, some cultivars produce small fruits, although these are toxic.  All new red yam cultivars are grown from seed.  Any domesticated red yam variety can also be propagated vegetatively by planting the tuber, or the uppermost portion (called the head) [citation needed].  Red yams can also be bred from cuttings, which are most commonly used in greenhouses.  A few commercial cultivars cannot produce seeds, and are cultivated only from cuttings or tuber heads [1].  However, the “Sombra” cultivars of red yams, bred in Portugal, are grown for ornamental purposes.  Sombra yam vine stalks grow year-round, and are much-favoured for decorating buildings in Lisbon and the Algarve, but do not form viable tubers.

Genetics

The major species grown worldwide is Dioscorea chelidonius (a tetraploid with 160 chromosomes), and modern varieties of this species are the most widely-cultivated worldwide.  There are also three hexaploid species, most notably the lesser yam D. hastifolia, and the less widespread D. stenotomum and D. siliqua [6].

Including the hexaploid subspecies, there are about a thousand genetically distinct varieties of red yams globewide [7].  Seven hundred or so are confined to Aururia and Aotearoa, and about six hundred of those are exclusively found within the Nyalananga basin.  No truly wild form of Dioscorea chelidonius survives today; genetic pollution and habitat destruction has meant that all surviving wild varieties of red yam contain some introgression of domesticated genes.  Archaeological digs have recovered the genome of apparently wild forms, and Hani Tarun, a genetic pioneer, is actively leading research into identifying genes from preserved varieties of wild red yams which can be used to enhance cultivated forms for better growth or resistance to disease and pests [this appears to be a personal advertisement: flagged for removal: discuss].

History

Red yams yield abundantly with little effort, and with appropriate care and replanting after harvest an individual plant can be made to yield tubers for up to a decade.  They are best suited to moderately dry climates, and together with cornnarts are the most water-efficient of staple food crops.  Red yams are vulnerable to moulds and rotting if stored in damp or humid conditions, although their thick skins mean that they are less vulnerable than other major root crops such as potatoes or sweet potatoes.  Red yams can rarely be stored for more than a year except in specialised conditions, in contrast to cereal crops which can be safely stored for several years.

Aururia

The red yam originated in south-eastern Aururia, somewhere on or near the Nyalananga, although the precise location remains disputed.  Red yams were first domesticated sometime between 3500 and 2500 BC, and spread over the southern half of the continent before 1 AD.  They formed the basis of native Aururian agriculture, providing the principal energy source for the Atjuntja, Yadji and Tjibarr states, and their predecessors and successors.  Even today, red yams provide the single largest source of food energy for Aururia [1].

Aotearoa

Red yams spread to Aotearoa, together with other Aururian crops, sometime before 1350 AD.  Its properties were so respected by Maori farmers, and its cultivation so widespread, that it completely displaced the Polynesian crop package which the Maori had brought with them.  Sweet potatoes, taro and Asian yams were cultivated during the early days of Maori settlement, but were abandoned before first European contact in 1627.  They survived only in archaeology and where they were imported into Aururia.  However, some have argued [who?] that without the Maori bringing sweet potatoes to Aururia, the northern half of the continent would have been largely empty until European invasion [this term has been flagged as offensive: discuss].

Africa

Red yams were introduced to southern Africa in 1640, with the first Cape Maddirs who were forcibly deported from their homelands [citation needed].  Plirite missionaries carried red yams along with their faith beyond the borders of Dutch control, until the missionaries reached the Tropic of Capricorn.  The missionaries progressed further, but the red yam did not [1].  However, the D. chelidonius ssp. hastifolia varieties of red yam spread along the eastern coast of Africa, until by the mid-eighteenth century they were being grown as far north as the Habeshan highlands...

Europe

Dutch East India Company sailors brought red yams with them back to the Netherlands in the 1620s, but the crop did not grow well at such northerly latitudes [8].  The red yam was first introduced into Europe in 1648 by the Portuguese sailor Miguel Ferreira do Amaral, who successfully replanted red yam tubers which he had taken on as food at the Cape.  Mastering the cultivation of this native Aururian crop would have been impossible without the help of Yadilli farmers who willingly shared their knowledge with the Portuguese despite being forcibly brought to Europe.

The red yam spread to Spain and then to Spain’s dominions in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy, and from there to Venice and the Turks.  During the later seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century, the red yam became integrated into Mediterranean farming, particularly given its ability to give good yields even on poor, parched soils in southern Italy.  Sicily grew so many red yams that even today, many Mediterranean countries call the plant the Sicilian yam.  Historians believe (Kant, 1987) that the red yam-fed population boom in Sicily led to social tension over land tenure and inheritance, and ultimately to the Advent Revolt which replaced Spanish rule with the native Piazzi dynasty...

Elsewhere

Historical records of red yams in South America date to the late seventeenth century.  Contact is presumed to have been via the Cape, where some Portuguese ships resupplied, or Spanish ships during times of peace with the Dutch.  Buenos Aires is noted as an early centre of New World red yam cultivation, and from there the red yam spread throughout the Spanish Americas [citation needed].

Role in World Food Supply

The Food and Agricultural Bureau reports that the red yam plays a vital role in maintaining and expanding the global food supply in subsistence economies.  Although mechanised farming of the red yam remains problematic, its qualities as a perennial, low water demand crop mean that is suitable for low-capital agriculture and intensive dryland farming...

[1] “Red Yams: Notes”.  Jessup University Department of Landscape Architecture.

[2] Tjula, D.S.  “100 Recipes for Warrans”.

[3] FABSTAT.

[4] Hylla S.A., Dusel F (eds). “Aururia in Prehistory”

[5] Meyer, J.B., personal communication.

[6] Burani, K. “Molecular description and similarity relationships among native yams”

[7] Schultz, K.G., Thiele, A.M. et al “Dioscorea Taxonomy Reconsidered: Insights from Genetic Similarity Testing”

[8] Boniface, A.E. “The United East India Company: Reflections on the Golden Age”

--

Lands of Red and Gold #39: Ripening Pods

“No matter what their course in life, all men will fight one battle at their death.”
- Batjiri of Jurundit [Koroit, Victoria]

--

London, 1635.  A city less crowded with people than ten years before, but it seems that it has become more crowded with rumours to make up the difference.  Tales and gossip abound in the English capital; accounts factual and fanciful of the intent of their rulers, and of the world beyond the shores of their island.

Stories abound of the grand designs which the Duke Regent [1] has whispered into the ears of the infant monarch.  Of plans for intervention on the Continent, in Germany or France or Spain.  Rumours are rife of the inexorable fate that Sweden faces after its royal lion finally succumbed to the Waiting Death.  Some gossipmongers claim that France itself will finally join the war on the Continent.

The wildest and most oft-repeated tales, though, are of a far more exotic locale.  They feature the newer new world that the Dutch have discovered.  Ten thousand rumours fill the streets, it seems, each one stranger than the last.  The recently translated account “My Life in the South Land”, written by a Dutch sailor [2], has only added to the gossip.

The South Land.  The Great Spice Island.  Teegal.  A land of strange crops, strange people, and stranger animals.  A land of wealth and mystery, where even the most commonplace thing becomes part of the bizarre.  A place where the trees keep their leaves on their branches all year round, while their bark falls off every winter.  Or peppers which are first sweet to the tongue, then burn hotter than the most intense peppers ever known before.

A place of exotic mystery, a blend of promise and terror.  Trees which smell like they come from another world, maybe hell, for they fuel fires that can consume the landscape in a heartbeat, while the trees themselves then regrow within weeks.  A land inhabited by beasts of mystery.  A race of half-men, half-rabbit creatures who can hop like rabbits but stand upright like men.  A duck-otter with fur, a duck’s beak and which lays eggs.

Tales most of all about wealth for the taking, of spices and sandalwood and bullion.  A drug so fine that it makes tobacco seem like sawdust.  A land where the people have battled so intensely over the centuries that their blood has stained the dust red.  But gold, above all there is gold.  Gold so common that the natives use its dust to dye their hair blonde.

The directors of the English East India Trading Company have heard all of these rumours.  Indeed, they have started a few of their own over the years, judiciously calculated to add to the interest in London for foreign ventures.  Yet for all of their knowledge, they have not been in a position to act.

Ever since a truce signed in this very city in 1619, the English East India Company has been officially at peace with its Dutch counterpart, and claims a share of the trade from the Spice Islands.  The peace has been strained at times, but not yet formally broken [3].  Alienating the Dutch risks losing a guaranteed share of the sure wealth of the Spice Islands, particularly for a company which needs to rebuild after the strains on manpower and finances caused by the plagues.  So the directors have never acted, especially since the rumours seem so fantastic that they must be more myth than truth.

That peace, though, grows ever more precarious.  The directors have heard, through sources much more reliable than the word on the street, that the new Duke Regent shares their frustration with the Dutch.  That there has been discussion of alliance with Spain against them.

Word has come, of course, of what Spain achieved in their raid on the Dutch outpost in the South Land.  Of what wealth it brought them.  Now the Dutch grow ever more protective of their self-asserted monopoly... but thanks to the belligerence of the Regent, the directors wonder whether it is time to challenge the Dutch.

After much discussion, they decide to take the crucial first step.  Commission a fleet to explore where the Dutch do not wish other Europeans to be.  If they are discovered by the Dutch, well, they will have to deal with that problem then.  It is time to find out how much truth lurks within these rumours.

The captain they choose for their fleet is named William Baffin.

--

Year of the Twisted Serpent [April 1636]
Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria]
Durigal - Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

“We draw near to Gurndjit,” the Islander said, in his passable Dutch.

William Baffin glanced port-side, following the Islander’s gaze, and saw nothing but waves and high clouds to the north.  “How can you be sure?”

The Islander nodded, a gesture which Baffin had come to learn meant disbelief to these strange men.  “How can you Inglidj sail so far around the world, and yet be blind to something so plain?”

Baffin shrugged.  The Islander, who answered to the name of Jerimbee Manyilti, had an often-frustrating manner.  In the voyage from the Island, he had been sometimes impressed by what he saw, but often contemptuous.  His views of navigation were only the most recent example.  Jerimbee had been effusive in his praise of the compass, but dismissive of the English charts as lacking details such as currents, and openly mocking of the English lack of knowledge of the stars.

Still, after all that, how could he be so sure that the Intrepid and the other Company ships were nearing the Yadji port?  “What should I see?”

“Watch the waves,” Jerimbee said.  “Can’t you see how they change when they pass the...”  He paused, as if his Dutch had run out.  “The shallowing shore?”

Baffin looked, but he could not see what the Islander meant.  The waves were not breaking at all, and he could make out no pattern in the swells.  Of course, this Islander had led ships along this route for years, according to his claims.  Perhaps he knew the route better.  “So should I turn the ship north?”

“Not yet,” Jerimbee said.  “This is a dangerous shore.  The winds and waves will drive your ship into the cliffs if you draw too near, and your Raw Men ships cannot sail properly into the wind.”

“When should we turn?”

“Soon,” replied Jerimbee.  “I will tell you.”

Baffin shrugged again; it was something he found himself doing often around the Islander.  Jerimbee asked many questions, and sometimes dismissed the answers, but remained endlessly curious.  Still, he was worth tolerating, since he revealed a wealth of knowledge about this Great Spice Island.  He could also serve as an interpreter; his Dutch was if anything better than Baffin’s own, and other Dutch-speaking sailors were on hand to clarify words, if needed.

This time, though, Jerimbee stayed silent, watching the waves, and sometimes glancing up at the sun.  Judging its height, if Baffin understood that gaze properly.

“We near the cape,” Jerimbee said.  “Turn north.”

Baffin snapped out orders, and the Intrepid started to turn to port.  Trailing behind, the other ships of his fleet – Godspeed, Lady Harrington and Delight – did the same.

The breeze blew steadily off the port quarter, driving the ships easily before it, toward the north shore.  Where the greatest empire in this South Land awaited them.  The Yadji.  A people both capricious and wealthy, according to all reports.

Back on the Island, most of its people had told him he was a fool for sailing there without invitation.  Fortunately, one of their captains had thought otherwise.  And been willing to join his voyage, in exchange for a rather heavy price.  Still, some prices were worth paying.

Land appeared to the northwest, a rugged, cliff-lined shore.  “Steer around the cape,” Jerimbee said, waving vaguely to starboard.  “Gurndjit is in the bay behind.”

Sure enough, the rocky faces of the cliffs gave way to sandy beaches, then, as the ships steered further to port, to where a natural headland had been extended by a stone breakwater.  The sheltered bay beyond it looked to offer protection against even the fiercest storms.

“A safe haven,” he murmured, and then realised he had spoken in English.

The Islander recognised the word haven, though; it was close enough to the Dutch word for port.  “The Yadji built that sea wall because we asked them to,” he said.  “It makes this a safe port; something they would not care about otherwise.”

“They build a port like this and then do not sail from it themselves?” Baffin asked.  As the Intrepid tacked into the bay, he saw a few ships tied up at quays, but they looked to be tiny, primitive boats.  Nothing like the relatively elegant Islander ships.

“Oh, a little here and there, but they know nothing of navigation,” Jerimbee said.  “They fish, and move a few things along the coast, but they fear to sail at night.”  He nodded.  “The Yadji are a peculiar people.  There is nothing they do not know about building with water, or in water, but they fear to sail into deep water.  They think they will be separated from their god within the earth.”

“So this port is for you Islanders?” Baffin asked.  It looked to be an impressive construction for a people who would not use it themselves.

Jerimbee laughed, as if he had discerned the intent behind Baffin’s words.  “Yes, built for us.  The Yadji are master builders; what they can accomplish with stone and water is without equal.”

Baffin held up a hand, and gave quick orders for the helmsman to anchor the Intrepid within the bay, but away from the docks.  He did not want to be trapped here, not yet, and boats could take them to shore.  Then he turned back to the Islander.  “It still seems... strange.”

The other man just smiled.  “Trade matters to all men, does it not?  Strange though the Yadji can be, they still know its value.  So they built Gurndjit into a better port for us.”

“How many more ports have they built?” Baffin said.

“None quite like this,” the Islander answered.  “There are two ports in all the Yadji lands which can safely harbour a great-ship.  Or your Raw Men fluyts [4].  Other ports can hold smaller vessels, safely up on a beach or in sheltered coves.”

Baffin briefly wondered which other Yadji port offered such a safe haven, but filed the question for later.  “We are safe from storms here, but are you sure that the blue flag will keep us safe from the Yadji themselves, when we seek to land?”

Jerimbee shook his head.  “Simple as getting a Gunnagal to argue.  So long as it is dark blue, as you would say, you will be greeted with words, not swords.”

“That guarantees safety?” Baffin asked.  The Islander had assured him of that point before they left port, but he still wondered, given how many of the man’s compatriots had warned him against coming here.

“It will keep you from being attacked simply for landing on Yadji soil.”  Jerimbee chuckled.  “Nothing is a complete guarantee of safety when you visit the Water People.”

“And you can do nothing more to keep us safe amongst the Yadji?” Baffin said.

The Islander raised an eyebrow.  “Reward comes hand in hand with danger.  A man who risks nothing earns nothing.”

Baffin kept his voice as calm as he could, telling himself that the Islander brought benefits, too.  “What should we do when we land, then?”

“Be careful.  These Yadji are strange.  Even stranger than you Inglidj, in many ways.  They expect everyone to think as they do, and will not hesitate to call you out for not agreeing with them.”

Beside them, the first boat was being prepared.  Baffin gestured for the Islander to walk ahead of him to the boat.  Perhaps being on a boat might make him more useful.  “Warn me if I am about to offend them, then.”

“I will, as much as I can,” Jerimbee said.

Two boats full of sailors rowed toward the nearest quay, both with blue flags held aloft, and with Baffin and Jerimbee in the leading boat.  Anchoring on the quay was simple enough.  They could have landed directly on the beach, since the bay had wide stretches of sand to choose from, but the quays would be better with no other foreign ships likely to visit now.

A party of men awaited them at the quay’s end.  With slightly darker skin than the Islanders, unless he missed his guess.  The men wore a diverse mixture of garments, in a multitude of hues, but one and all they bore elaborately-patterned headbands.  About half of the men had spears, too, but they were held aloft.  So far as he could tell – which probably wasn’t far, given what the Islander claimed – they did not look hostile.

“Greet them in whatever manner is polite amongst the Yadji,” Baffin said.

Jerimbee talked with the Yadji at some length, with words going back and forth a few times.  It seemed too long for a simple greeting, but perhaps these Yadji were as strange as the Islander claimed.

Eventually, Jerimbee said, “It is strange.  We are not being greeted in the name of their priests.”

“What about their priests?”

Jerimbee said, “The Yadji priests command their people, not guide them as proper priests should.”

That helped not at all.  The Islander said something similar at every opportunity.  Then Baffin recalled that among the many long diatribes which Jerimbee had made about the priests, had been one about the ritual of offering the twelfth after being greeted in the name of their head priest, and then attending the temple.

The twelfth he had prepared for as best he could.  Before leaving the Island, Jerimbee had warned him that the Yadji temples demanded a twelfth of all trade goods from a ship as tribute to the temple and their king, before they would deign to trade at all.

Trying to refocus the conversation, he said, “Who is greeting us, then?”

“A man of... stature, would you say?  The... most prominent man of good birth.”

Baffin shrugged.  “The headman.”

“Headman, yes, thank you.  He gives commands to these Yadji as if he were their royally appointed priest.  Most unusual.”

Baffin said, “Offer their headman my greetings, then, if you haven’t already done so.  And ask if he invites me to meet him.”  After a moment’s thought, he added, “Without offering the twelfth, unless they ask for it.”

Jerimbee spoke again to the Yadji.  The exchange was quicker this time, but long enough for Baffin to notice that the language which Jerimbee used with the Yadji – and which they answered – sounded exactly like the Islander tongue.

“Is the Yadji language close to your Islander speech?” he asked.  Better for English traders if it was; easier to learn one new language than two.

“No, the Yadji language is nothing like ours.  Alien, alien.  Even the Atjuntja tongue is easier to learn than theirs [6].”

Baffin said, “Why not use their language?  You said you could speak to the Yadji.”

Jerimbee shook his head.  “I can.  I have traded with the Yadji for years.  I know how to speak with them.”

“No, why...”  Baffin paused, wondering whether the problem was translating his question into Dutch, or just Islander deviousness.  “Why don’t you know the Yadji language, if you have traded with them for years?”

“Only a fool tries to speak to the Yadji in their tongue,” Jerimbee said.  “They are capricious, their language intricate, and to use it incorrectly can be taken as a mortal insult.  Better to use another language which does not offer the same risks.  The Yadji understand Nangu, usually.  Or Gunnagal, sometimes.”

The Islander turned back to the Yadji, who appeared not at all worried about the lengthy delay.  After a brief exchange, he said, “Their headman invites you to meet him, if you wish.  And they have not mentioned the twelfth.”

“Lead on, then.”

Striding through the roads of Gurndjit, Baffin was struck by a sense of orderliness.  Of careful organisation.  Both of the city itself, and the people who inhabited it.  The streets were wide and paved with black basalt fitted together in regular patterns.  The inhabitants moved quietly on those streets, rarely obstructing each other, and with none of the arguments or tempers he would have expected to see in an English city.

It took him longer to realise what else was strange about Gurndjit: the smell.  Or, rather, the lack of stench.  Oh, the city had odours – the smell of salt wafting up from the bay, of bread or something like it being baked in a couple of buildings which they passed.  But none of the smell of refuse or excrement which would have been normal in an English city.  The people here did not empty chamber pots into the streets.  He wondered, briefly, what they did with them [7].

The Yadji led them to a building complex surrounded by a low wall constructed from some pale yellow stone.  The wall looked to be more ceremonial than functional; it was only about three feet tall.  About half a dozen buildings stood within the complex, and beyond that was a lagoon.

The Islander muttered something in what sounded like his own language, although it was too quiet for Baffin to be sure.  The Islander continued in Dutch, “Very strange.  This is their main temple... but with no sign of any priests.”

“Where could they have gone?”

Jerimbee said, “To await rebirth, probably.  I know nothing else that would remove all the priests.”

“Won’t they tell you?” Baffin asked.  It would help to know just who he was negotiating with.

“Do not ask!  Never risk that kind of question with the Yadji.  That is true at any time, and doubly so in a civil war.  That’s why I haven’t asked which prince they back for the throne.”

“The winning one, surely,” Baffin said.

Jerimbee said, “Gunya, probably – he is said to mistrust priests.  But for now, simply talk to their headman as if he is the ruler, and you should do well.”

Inside the temple, he found it easy to believe that anyone who lived here was a ruler.  It seemed as if gold glinted everywhere.  Gilt lining to the shutters on their glassless windows.  Gold ornamentation on vases, columns and statues.  Most of all, gold as personal decoration – most of the people they passed wore some form of gold, either as jewellery or woven into the threads of their clothing or headbands.

The headman himself outdid his fellows, naturally.  Gold and silver armbands, gold and pearl-studded tunic, a single thread of gold in his headband, and some staff in his hand which had a golden orb at the top.

The headman sat on a chair, but there was nowhere else to sit in the chamber.  Did that make the chair a throne?  Baffin considered asking that question, but the headman started talking, and then Jerimbee translated.

“He bids you welcome to Gurndjit, but does not offer his name,” the Islander said.

“Why does no name matter?” Baffin asked.

Jerimbee muttered something in his own language again, then went on in Dutch.  “The Yadji do not speak the name of their king while he lives.  It is as if this headman claims the royal privilege.”

Baffin shrugged.  While he wanted to know who he was negotiating with, he cared little for the intricacies of Yadji customs.  “Tell him that I am Commander William Baffin, sailing for the East India Trading Company.”

The Islander relayed that, then said, “He asks if you are of the same people he has heard tales of from the far west.  The Nedlandj, he says.”

“Tell him no, we are Inglidj.  We know of the Nedlandj, but we are not of their kind.”

Through Jerimbee, the question came back, “Are you friends of theirs?”

A good question, Baffin thought.  Part of his orders were to do what he could to loosen the Dutch grip on the South Land, but he did not know if there were already relations between these Yadji and the Dutch.  If they were already established friends, then denying Anglo-Dutch friendship would annoy the Yadji.  If the two were enemies, then he would be missing out on an opportunity.

In the end, he said, “Tell him we and the Nedlandj have been both friends and enemies in the past.”

“A good answer,” the Islander said, before he translated it.  “The headman says that he would like to hear more about the Inglidj, and invites you to eat with him.”

“Tell him yes, of course,” Baffin said.

The headman barked what were clearly commands, even though Baffin understood not a word.  Two men at either side of him hurried out.  More plain-clad men and women entered the chamber, carrying linen-lined cushions which they handed to Baffin, Jerimbee, and the dozen sailors with them.

The cushions were surprisingly soft; Baffin could not guess what filled them.  The two dozen attendants around the headman sat, too, leaving only a handful of guards and servants standing.

Food arrived soon thereafter, carried on wooden plates, and accompanied by knives as the only utensils.  The centrepiece of the meal was some sort of fish, cut into long fillets, baked dark, and covered with some sort of thick, peppery sauce.  It was accompanied by some odd long, black, thin creations of dough [egg noodles], and what looked for all the world like chopped celery.

After the headman invited them to eat, the Islander cut one slice of the fish, and his eyes widened.  “This is an honour!”

“We are honoured by being served fish in a port?” Baffin said.  Personally, he would have considered a fine cut of beef a greater honour, but the South Land had no cattle that he had heard of.

Jerimbee made a dismissive gesture.  “This is not sea-born fish.  The fishing is very poor in Yadji waters, anyway [8].  The Yadji grow their fish in lakes and ponds which they build for themselves.  Fish here is under noble control.  And this fish is eel, the most prized of all.”

During the meal, the headman asked a variety of questions about England, about its people, and about why Baffin had come.  He gave general answers as best he could, not wanting to reveal too much.  He explained that he was here to explore, not to trade, and offered gifts as a sign of gratitude for the welcome he had received.  He explained that he sailed on behalf of a company, not a king.  The headman did not seem to grasp this concept at all – although Baffin noted that the Islander looked much more interested when translating it – and Baffin ended up by saying that he sailed in the service of a group of powerful men.

In time, the headman asked what else Baffin planned to do among the Yadji.  Jerimbee took the opportunity to add a few words of his own as advice.  “Make it plain that you are not going to interfere in their civil war.  Not in any way.”

“Why not?”  Baffin had been contemplating the idea, although his four ships did not carry much in the way of cannon or anything else which might help.  These South Landers knew nothing of guns, though; perhaps something could be made of that.

“Yadji are mistrustful of outsiders, always.  Prince Bailgu has already turned down offers of assistance from Gutjanal [9].  Even if you are offered a pact, that will likely alienate many of the other... royal men, who will turn to the other prince.”

That sounded strange, to Baffin’s way of thinking, but this was why he had the Islander here.  “What do you suggest, then?”

“Stay out, as we of the Island have done.”  Jerimbee’s eyes narrowed for a moment.  “Most of us on the Island.  But let one prince win, then negotiate for terms.”

Sound advice, but Baffin doubted he would still be here whenever the Yadji princes finally settled their differences with pact or with blood.  Or perhaps when Tjibarr invaded from the northwest.  That was one other idea which he had considered; much talk back on the Island had been about whether Tjibarr would take advantage of the confusion to invade the Yadji.  He had considered contacting Tjibarr instead of sailing here, but had decided that there were more advantages here.

Wait.  Perhaps there is a way.  “Do not mention it to him yet, but do you think that this headman would agree to let some of my men wait here – in peace – until I return?”

Jerimbee looked surprised.  “Perhaps, for the right gifts.  And if you offered the right reason.”

“If I explain that I would like to leave men behind... while my ships return home to discuss possible trade.  That I do not offer trade now, just friendship, but trade can follow in time, if he is willing, and after I have carried his words to my powerful men.”

The Islander looked unconvinced.  Baffin wondered, for a moment, if Jerimbee had planned to throw in some trade negotiations of his own with the Yadji; he still did not fully trust the Islander, and he knew that all of that man’s people had a lust for profit.

“How long would your men need to say here?” Jerimbee said.

“Until my ship returns to my homeland, and another comes in its place.”  Well, perhaps his ships would only need to return as far as India before the Company sent out another ship.  No need to reveal just how far away England was, either.  “A year, perhaps two.  It depends on the winds and God.”

The Islander frowned.  “That I could never translate.  Best not to mention to the Yadji that you fear interference from a god.”

“There is but one God,” Baffin said.  He was far from the most pious of men, but still, some things could not be denied.

Jerimbee did not reply directly to the statement, but looked thoughtful for a long moment.  “You would need another interpreter here, if I am to sail on east with you to the Cider Isle.”

“Could you bargain for one of your kinsmen to come here and translate for us, if the headman accepts?”

The Islander frowned.  “Perhaps one would be willing to take the risk.  For the right price.”

Baffin recognised the opening for another trade negotiation, and it was one he would be willing to pay.  The more he thought on the idea, the more he liked the opportunity to have some men dwell here among the Yadji.  With another interpreter, they could manage.  They would learn the Islander tongue, at least, if not the Yadji one.

More, this place offered so many opportunities.  What the headman and other people wore here made it plain that wealth was here for the offering.  Gold in abundance here, just as the Dutch had already found in the west.

“A land of gold,” he murmured.  A fitting name for this place, perhaps.  No, it would be best in Latin, so that all men understood it.

“Aururia,” William Baffin said.

--

[1] The Duke Regent is William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  Historically, he was an accomplished soldier, equestrian, diplomat and politician, whose close relationship with the Stuarts saw him awarded a series of titles, including Earl of Newcastle in 1628, and he was named a Duke after the Restoration in 1660.

In allohistorical Britain, the first wave of the Aururian plagues swept through Britain in 1628, causing considerable deaths among British notables, although ironically enough sparing George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who would have been assassinated by a rogue soldier in August.  In the nobility-deprived days after the first plague, Cavendish rose quickly in the favour of Charles I, along with Thomas Wentworth, although Buckingham remained the most prominent favourite.  Cavendish was promoted to Duke of Newcastle in October 1630, and Thomas Wentworth was named Earl of Strafford in February 1631.

Charles I died in November 1631 during the second wave of Aururian plagues.  This left an uncertain regency, since the infant Charles II did not have any of the close male relatives who would have been a natural choice as regent.  Buckingham intrigued to be awarded the position, but by this time he was despised enough in Britain that Wentworth and Cavendish were able to defeat his manoeuvres.  Cavendish was named Duke Regent, although Wentworth retains a powerful influence.

[2] Written by Pieter Stins, a Dutch sailor on de Houtman’s first and second voyages to Aururia.  See post #23.

[3] Historically, the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Defence in 1619 was irrevocably strained by the Amboyna massacre in 1623.  Allohistorically, the different circumstances of Dutch discovery of Aururia meant that they were more focused on this new prize, and not quite as suspicious of English involvement in Ambon Island.  There has been no equivalent to the Amboyna massacre.  While the Dutch and English are still trading rivals and frequently accuse each other of bad faith, there has been no formal breach as of 1635.

[4] Fluyts is a Dutch kind of sailing vessel designed for maximum cargo volume in trans-oceanic voyages.  The Nangu have adopted this name as a generic name for any large European ship.

[5] To Gunnagalic-speaking peoples, including the Nangu, blue and azure (light blue) are separate colours, similarly to how red and pink are treated by English-speakers.

[6] When the Nangu think of how close languages are, they mean more than whether languages are closely-related.  They also think in terms of ease of learning.  In that sense, Atjuntja is easier to learn than Junditmara (the Yadji language), since it does not have the same intricate social customs which govern its usage.

In a linguistic sense, the Atjuntja language is also nearer to Nangu than Junditmara, although the relationship is not a close one.  The Atjuntja language, along with the related Yaora languages of the south-west, and many of the languages of the desert peoples, are distantly related to Gunnagalic languages.  The Junditmara language is a linguistic isolate; while it did formerly have related languages nearby, those were all extinguished during the Gunnagalic migrations of 900 BC – 200 AD.  (Refer to post #6.)

[7] At this time, sanitation was not an advanced concept in England.  (Or indeed anywhere much in Europe, with some slight exceptions such as Paris, and even then the main purpose of Paris’s sewer system was to remove stormwater).  London’s sewers were open ditches designed to carry waste into the Thames.  The unhygienic consequences were inevitable.

In comparison, the Yadji and their predecessors have used covered sewers for centuries.  In the upper class houses, they even have flush toilets (something which the English do know of, but are not so effective at putting into practice).

[8] Fishing in Australian waters is poor at the best of times.  It is even poorer off Yadji waters since their various kinds of dams and artificial wetlands mean that most sediment gets deposited again before it reaches the sea.  This means that Yadji coastal waters are relatively nutrient-deprived, and even more barren of fishing than they were historically.

[9] Gutjanal is a kingdom in the Upper *Murray, which is sometimes allied with Tjibarr on the Lower *Murray, and sometimes fights against them.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #40: The Christmas Spirit

A slightly more light-hearted look at the future of the LRG-verse.  Originally posted in time for the festive season.

--

Taken from a discussion thread posted on the allohistory.com message board.
Note: all dates are in the Gregorian calendar.  All message times are listed in what would be the equivalent of North American Eastern Standard Time.

Thread Title: AH Challange: Dual state North America

*

Original Post

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 24 December, 9:35 PM

Got a new challenge for you folks.  This is a challange inspired buy a novella I’m working on.

The basic sceanrio is that North America must be wholly divided into two great powers: an Anglophone power in the north and east, and a Hispanophone power in the south and west.

These too great states must be the recognised sovereign states for the entirety of North America.  There can be small autonomous regions and formal dependencies if you like, but de jure sovereignty has two reside with the two great powers.  No protectorates, satellite states, or corporate states allowed.

More, the two states must be predominately English and Spanish speaking, respectively.  The sole official language for the nations as a whole must be English or Spanish.  It is acceptable to have relatively small minorities who speak other languages – Dutch, French, Swedish, Nahuatl, Congxie, whatever – and those languages can even be official languages of subnational regions.  But no single linguistic minority can from more than 10% of the population of either nation.  At least 80% of the people in each nation much speak the majority language as their sole native language.

The border between the dual states can be flexible depending on your chosen divergence, but it must includ the Rockies for much of their length.  The north-south portion of the border should be somewhere around the southern extremities of the Rockies, or a bit further south than that.  Maybe a river border, say the Red River [1], maybe the Rio Neuces, or at a pinch the Rio Bravo [Rio Grande].  Or you can use a border determined by settlement or military division, but it shouldn’t be any further south than the Rio Bravo.

In tems of population, industrial capacity, political structure or other demographics, you can pick pretty much whatever you want.  But thw two great powers need to be both stable enough and wealthy enough to be effective geopolitical rivals – one can’t dominate the other.

The divergence date must be no earlier than 23 April 1529, ie after the Treaty of Saragossa ratified the division of the globe into Spanish and Portuguese zones.  Ideally the diveregence should be after 1753 – the later the better, as far as I’m concerned.

Have at it, folks!

*

From: Hasta la Vista
Time: 24 December, 9:42 PM

What are the borders of North America?

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From: Patrician
Time: 24 December, 9:44 PM

What about Greenland?

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 24 December, 9:54 PM

@ Hasta La Vista and Patrician

Good call, folks!

For these purposes, North America includes all of the mainland of the continent from the Arctic to as far south as, well, I’d prefer it to stretch as far as the Isthmus of Panama.  I suppose a lesser challenge would be to have North America defined as ending somewhere no further north than the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

I don’t care what happens to Greenland or the Caribbean islands.  They can be part of either of the dual states, still colonies or dependencies of European powers, or even independent micro-nations.  It doesn’t matter.  (Althgouh I’d love to hear how Greenland could be part of the Spanish great power!)

*

From: Christo Columbo
Time: 24 December, 10:12 PM

@ TLG

Is this novella going to be part of a series? It'd be great to see this setting as part of a broader literary universe like R.R. Floyd's "Hammer of Gold" novels - both series, and the follow-ons. I loooove those books. Favourite moment: when the Atjuntja armies bring Shah Jahan himself for appeasement at the House of Pain. Allohistory needs more writers like him!

*

From: Patrician
Time: 24 December, 10:17 PM

Erm, Floyd is a woman. Ruth Roxanne, I believe her initials stand for.

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From: Christo Columbo
Time: 24 December, 10:22 PM

Patrician, are you serious? That doesn't get mentioned in the "about the author" section.

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From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 24 December, 10:24 PM

@Columbine

Have to get the novella finished and sold first before I can think about a whole series.

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From: Patrician
Time: 24 December, 10:27 PM

Deadly serious. She just uses her initials since male readers are less likely to buy from authors with female first names.

*
From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 7:06 AM

Come on, doesn’t anyone have any ideas?

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From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 7:21AM

In two words: im-possible.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 7:26 AM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> The basic sceanrio is that North America must be wholly divided into two great
> powers: an Anglophone power in the north and east, and a Hispanophone power in
> the south and west.

Partner, not going to happen.  Even as few as four sovereign nations in North America is major-implausible territory.  Three is space-cuckoo land or wish-fulfillment, take your pick.  Two is who rolled the dream grass [cannabis] into your klinsigar?

*

From: Hasta la Vista
Time: 25 December, 7:28 AM

Whether North America is defined as ending in Tehuantepec or Panama won't really change things much. Holding that part together is reasonably straightforward. Its the western coast further north which you need to worry about.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 7:41 PM

@ Hasta La Vista

So hwo woudl you keep that part of the Hispanophone great power?

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From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 7:46 AM

@ Hats and Boldie

Try to be more constructive, folks!  This is a challange.  It’s not meant to be easy, but help me find a way.

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 7:53AM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> Try to be more constructive, folks!  This is a challange.  It’s not meant to 
> be easy, but help me find a way.

Partner, threads on two- or three- or even one-nation North America come up a lot.  They get shot down just as quickly as they deserve.  Look them up in the search engine; that’s what it’s there for.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 8:01 AM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> Try to be more constructive, folks!  This is a challange.  It’s not meant to 
> be easy, but help me find a way.

Not my job to make the impossible happen, partner.  You want to make it work, you find a way.  Just don’t be surprised if you’re shot down in flames when you try.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 8:09 AM

@ Hats and Boldie

If you cant say something helpful, just stay out of this thread, hey?

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 8:18 AM

TLG, since you’re clearly too illiterate to work out how to use the search engine, let me give you a quick-and-dirty summary of why it wouldn’t happen.

During colonial times, everyone wanted a piece of North America.  No single European power could defeat all of the others without provoking a general European war.  Everyone was too concerned with the balance of power to allow one nation to come out on top in Europe.  That always applied to divisions of colonial territory after European wars, too.  Colonial borders could get adjusted, and even the odd colony fully handed over, but not on the scale required to divide all North America in half.

And by the time independence came, separate identities were too well-established in North America for the nations to unite.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 8:28 AM

Originally written by Hats:
> And by the time independence came, separate identities were too 
> well-established in North America for the nations to unite.

Truth, Hats.

Just to add to that, even colonies by the one power would find it quite difficult to unite when they had been administered separately for so long.  To pick the most obvious example, England had lots of colonies in North America, but they didn’t all join together.

Some did unite, of course, both before and after independence, and maybe a few more could in an allohistory.  But only if they weren’t too far apart or too disparate in their culture and governance.  For instance, can you imagine Alleghania and New England uniting even if Tigeria wasn’t in the way?

Of course, The Last Goober can’t seem to figure that out.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 8:29 AM

@ Hats

Just because your lingo is Hats doesn’t mean that you should talk through it!

This is allohistory, not fixed history.  Just because something turned out one way in our history doesnt mean that ith as to work out the same way if the wheel of time was given another spin.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 8:36 AM

@ Boldie

Stop thinking so fixed-historically!  Given who you picked your lingo from, I’d have thought you would be more courageous about thinking in new ways.

Don’t you think that if, say, Tigeria fell to the English early enough, that there would be more commonality among the northern and southern English colonies?

*

From: Guido the Guide
Time: 25 December, 8:48 AM

Be nice, everyone.  This is Christmas.  Save your fights for your family, not fellow AH.commers.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 8:59 AM

Originally written by Guido the Guide:
> Be nice, everyone.  This is Christmas.

I’m a Plirite, partner.  I don’t care about Christmas.

If Goober is going to make stupid pronouncements or ask for space-cuckoo scenarios, I’m going to call him on it, regardless of which day it is.

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 9:04 AM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> Just because your lingo is Hats doesn’t mean that you should talk through it!

In the spirit of the season, and given that a guide has already warned you about it, I’ll ignore this comment for now.

> This is allohistory, not fixed history.  Just because something turned out
> one way in our history doesnt mean that ith as to work out the same way 
> if the wheel of time was given another spin.

Allohistory does not mean anything goes.  It means picking an event which might have gone differently, and then extrapolating what might plausibly have happened from there.  Some things may have changed if history had gone differently, but you can’t just ignore the causes of why particular historical events or trends happened.

There’s nothing wrong with the principle of picking an outcome you want and see if there’s a plausible way for it to happen.  But you’re ignoring that there are reasons why North America ended up as we know it today.  Flapping your arms won’t change that.

Go back far enough, and you might be able to create a two-power NA scenario, but 1753 is far too late.  1529 is too late.  Even 1492 is probably too late, although you might be able to make a case for a post-Columbus scenario where things change.  (Maybe, just maybe, if John Cabot survives for longer and is much more successful.)

*

From: Guido the Guide
Time: 25 December, 9:05 AM

Kumgatu, just cool it.  Speak civilly of other members.  Take the argument to individual messages, if you really must, but even then, remember that good conduct is still in effect.  I don’t want the Admin to come back tomorrow and have to start evicting people for things they wrote on Christmas day, of all days.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 9:17 AM

Originally written by Guido the Guide:
> I don’t want the Admin to come back tomorrow and have to 
> start evicting people for things they wrote on Christmas day, 
> of all days.

Partner, how many times?  I’m a Plirite.  I’m not a Christian.  I DON’T CARE ABOUT CHRISTMAS.

You worshippers of a dead god can believe what you want, but don’t try to impose it on me or the world.

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> Stop thinking so fixed-historically!  Given who you picked your
> lingo from, I’d have thought you would be more courageous about 
> thinking in new ways.

Stop being such a patronising piece of donkey’s vomit.

> Don’t you think that if, say, Tigeria fell to the English early enough, 
> that there would be more commonality among the northern and 
> southern English colonies?

A few more things in common, maybe, but not enough to matter.  It was hard enough getting Virginia and Cavendia to unite.  Wine, hemp and tobacco growing free farmers didn’t get on that well with rice and tea growing, slave-owning planters.  How well do you think it’s going to work if you throw in whatever mercantilists you have in ex-Tigeria and puritans in New England?

*

From: Emerald
Time: 25 December, 9:26 AM

Originally written by Kumgatu the Bold:
> You worshippers of a dead god can believe what you want, but 
> don’t try to impose it on me or the world.

So you want balance instead of Christmas peace?  Just don’t give us the harmony which comes through self-detonation.

*

From: Kumgatu the Bold
Time: 25 December, 9:32 AM

Fuck you, Emerald.  Fuck you with a 200-metre redwood up the arse.

The worst part of it is, you can’t even be creative with your baiting.  You could at least have come up with something smarter like “partner, you have a really explosive personality”.

Instead, it was just a boring insult.  The only thing you left out was calling me a black-heart or nigger or something equally puerile.  It’s as bad as if I called you a ritual cannibal, which I won’t, because it would be predictable.

*

From: Guido the Guide
Time: 25 December, 9:47 AM

@ Emerald, that was disgraceful.  I’ve deleted your second message, since it was even worse.  Consider yourself locked for a week.  It would be longer, but that’s the maximum I have the authority for.  Whenever the Admin checks back in, I’m sure he’ll evict you permanently.

@ Kumgatu, what Emerald wrote was reprehensible, but you were steaming even before that.  You’re locked for seventy-two hours to give you a chance to calm down.

@ TLG, you’re still pretty new around here, so I’ll settle for a warning in your case: be more civil to people.  This isn’t a playground, and you’re not Mighty Mouse.

As for the rest of you, anyone who tries to keep any baiting going will get the same punishment as Emerald.  Anyone else who tries to derail the thread some other way will be summarily locked for twenty-four hours.

*

From: Jason Markham
Time: 25 December, 10:51 AM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> The basic sceanrio is that North America must be wholly divided into two great
> powers: an Anglophone power in the north and east, and a Hispanophone power in
> the south and west.

Very difficult one, TLG.  Maybe not space-cuckoo difficult as some have suggested upthread, but still a very hard thing to pull off.

You’d certainly need an early divergence.  1753 is right out.  I think that you’d need to have New Amsterdam fall to the English before it gets properly established.  I’m not up on the military and naval history enough to work out the latest date when that would be possible, but once the whole New Netherlands are in place, it’s too late.  Even if they fall to the English later, there’s still too much of a sense of separation among England’s disparate colonies.

*

From: The Profound Wanderer
Time: 25 December, 11:11 AM

Maybe have New Amsterdam fall to someone else first.  Sweden maybe, or France?  Having one set of foreign overlords might mean that the people there have a weakened sense of identity, then if the English take over later, its less of an issue.

* 

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 11:21 AM

@ PWanda

Yeah, that mihgt work.  Doesn’t help that much with the Spanish half, though.  Can you think of a divergence which would help with that?

*

From: Neville Maximum
Time: 25 December, 11:24 AM

Keeping California part of the Spanish great power is going to be a bitch!

*

From: Cuchulainn
Time: 25 December, 11:32 AM

You've set yourself quite a task here, TLG. I'm afraid I do not see any way to help with the scenario as a whole, but I recommend that you read everything that Stayman has written on the history of Virginia and Alleghania to give yourself some idea of the requirements for unification.

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 11:39 AM

Keeping the French out of North America entirely is going to be hard.  New France is easy enough to have them lose pretty much any time, even Canada, but Louisiana is a ’hole other story.

* 

From: The Profound Wanderer
Time: 25 December, 11:55 AM

Originally written by Patrician:
> Keeping the French out of North America entirely is going to be hard.
> New France is easy enough to have them lose pretty much any time, even
> Canada, but Louisiana is a ’hole other story.

There can still be significant numbers of French speakers, remember.  Just a 10% minority of the whole population.  If you can hold the rest of North America east of the Rockies into one nation – I know, I know, but finding a divergence for that is the challenge – then Louisiana won’t be that big a proportion of the people.

It would have to fall to the English eventually, or even the new sovereign nation after it wins independence.

*

From: Alex 1001
Time: 25 December, 12:03 PM

Originally written by The Profound Wanderer:
> It would have to fall to the English eventually, or even the new 
> independent nation after it wins independence.

Or after the English grant them independence.

*

From: The Profound Wanderer
Time: 25 December, 12:09 PM

Originally written by Alex 1001:
> Or after they win independence.

Yeah, I suppose. Given what’s already happened in this thread, though, I don’t want to derail things by getting into the ever-contentious arguments about whether independence was better granted by the pen or the gun barrel.

From a macro-level it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway.  You have go figure out how to make the English colonies the only ones north of the Spanish great power.  Once you’ve worked that out, the details of how independence is achieved will be relatively minor.

*

From: Lopidya
Time: 25 December, 12:14 PM

Everyone’s forgetting about the Spanish half of the challenge.  How to create a super-Mexico or preserved New Spain which stretches from Alaska to Panama?  That’s a major undertaking in itself, never mind combining the anglophone half of the continent too!

*

From: The Profound Wanderer
Time: 25 December, 12:21 PM

Originally written by Lopidya:
> Everyone’s forgetting about the Spanish half of the challenge.  How to 
> create a super-Mexico or preserved New Spain which stretches from 
> Alaska to Panama?

Personally, I’d see the English-speaking half as the greater challenge.  Find a divergence which can accomplish that, and the Spanish unification might follow from that – if only as a response to the threat posed by this English great power.

*

From: Neville Maximum
Time: 25 December, 12:28 PM

No-one’s answered how any Super-Mexico is going to hold onto California as a single country!

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 12:41 PM

Originally written by Neville Maximum:
> No-one’s answered how any Super-Mexico is going to hold onto 
> California as a single country!

Oh, please.  No Californian Migration scenarios are commonplace around here.  Learn how to use the search engine.

*

From: Neville Maximum
Time: 25 December, 12:45 PM

@ Hats

California is a problem coming and going, partner.  If there’s no migration, then there’s not enough people to make it worth Spain’s trouble to hold onto it, either!

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 12:52 PM

@ Hats and Maxxie

Actually, for the scenario I have in mnd, I’d prefer it if California does have a large population.

*

From: Neville Maximum
Time: 25 December, 12:59 PM

Then you’re stuck, partner.  If California has the migration, then it won’t be part of any super-Mexico.  If California doesn’t have the migration, then how can it have so many people?

*

From: AlyssaBabe
Time: 25 December, 1:01 PM

Originally written by Neville Maximum:
> If California doesn’t have the migration, then how can it have so 
> many people?

Cali-fornication... :)

*

From: Tin Man
Time: 25 December, 1:06 PM

Gunfighter, do you have a map of the borders you have in mind?

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 1:10 PM

So, would a fall of Tigeria – when still the New Netherlands – to Sweden or France be possible?

*

From: Special Jimmy
Time: 25 December, 1:14 PM

@ Patrician
Not bloody likely.  Sweden had too much else to worry about in Europe during the seventeenth century to pick a fight over Tigeria.  France didn’t have the navy to hold it until it was too well-established to be conquered and bargained away at the diplomatic table.

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 1:19 PM

So it’s down to England conquering it directly, if anyone does?

*

From: Special Jimmy
Time: 25 December, 1:21 PM

@ Patrician
Hard to see who else could do it.  Spain couldn’t even beat the Dutch in the Netherlands, not like they’re going to bother taking New Amsterdam.

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 1:26 PM

Originally written by Neville Maximum:
> California is a problem coming and going, partner.  If there’s
> no migration, then there’s not enough people to make it worth 
> Spain’s trouble to hold onto it, either!

That’s oversimplifying to the point of absurdity.  It would be worth less, not worthless.  A near-empty California give less motivation to keep it, but it’s easier to hold with fewer rebellious locals around, too.

This has come up before.  Many times.  Check out Red Dawn’s excellent “When We Were Young” timeline, which is based on a variant of the No California Migration premise, or Orb’s seminal “Night and Steel” timeline, which has a near-empty California as a flow-on.

Or, failing that, use the search engine to find the dozens of discussion threads on this topic.  You’re not discussing anything new here.

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 1:28 PM

So basically we need a specific divergence which gives the English early control of Tigeria.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 1:36 PM

Everyone, this thread is drifting.  Does anyon have any ideas for how to solve both halfs of the challenge?

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 1:38 PM

@Tin Man

No, don't have a map. Would you mind drawing one based on what I've described?

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 1:41 PM

Originally written by The Last Gunfighter:
> Everyone, this thread is drifting.  Does anyon have any ideas for 
> how to solve both halfs of the challenge?

No, because it can’t be done, as you’ve already been told.  We’ve moved on to discussing whether one half or the other of your challenge can be accomplished.  That might be possible, and more interesting to boot.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 1:47 PM

@ Hats
Stop being a spoilsport.  If you can’t think of a way to make it work, don’t disencourage everyone else from trying.

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 1:49 PM

TLG, stop being a jackanape.  If you’re so precious about your scenario, tell us exactly what you have in mind and we’ll see if we can help.

*

From: Hats
Time: 25 December, 1:54 PM

Wow, TLG, you are a piece of work.  Since Guido has already had to drop a warning over conduct in this thread, I won’t say anything else except welcome to my eyes shut list.  Population: you.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 1:56 PM

@ Patrician
Dont want to give too much away, but it’s mostly set in Africa.

*

From: Patrician
Time: 25 December, 1:59 PM

If that’s the best you can do, goodbye.  I have better things to do on Christmas than help someone who refuses to be helped.

*

From: Neville Maximum
Time: 25 December, 2:16 PM

Those timelines are much too long.  You can’t expect me to read all of them!

*

From: Pierre Dubois
Time: 25 December, 2:53 PM

Much as it pains me to agree with Hats about anything, he’s right in this case.  TLG, you might as well be farting into the wind.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 3:48 PM

Is there anyone left who actually feels up to meeting an AH challange?

*

From: Tuar'e'mont Tua'ru'il
Time: 25 December, 4:02 PM

Love to read a scenario based on this, but don't know enough about it to suggest how you could achieve it.

*

From: Lopidya
Time: 25 December, 4:14 PM

Does it matter for your scenario if there’s still Plirites in North America?

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 4:33 PM

@ Lopidya
It would be fine if there’s still religious Plirite influence.  Mkes no difference for my scenario.  The only things I nede are that there are only two states, and that linguistically they must be Anglophone and Hispanophone.  But the later the divergence the better, since it could flow-on to what I have in mind elsewhere in the world.

*

From: HistoryMinor
Time: 25 December, 6:11 PM

You’re all going about this challenge wrong.  A later divergence date is perfectly plausible, if you think about the essential requirements.

The original poster wants a dual state North America where English and Spanish are the dominant languages today.  Not in 1900.  Not in 1800.  Today.

That’s plenty of time for linguistic change, and for military conquest, too.

Why couldn’t two military great powers emerge in North America, even after independence?  Wars are complex things.  Given the right circumstances, I could easily see a post-independence state conquering most of its neighbours.  And holding them, too.  Sure, they might be unhappy subjects, but subjects they could remain.

New England has the potential on the eastern seaboard, I think, and Mexico in the south.  Not easy, of course, but not impossible either.  (Not even im-possible.)

If conquest can be achieved in the right timeframe, then linguistic change would follow.  Consider: languages, even well-established languages, can decline over time.  Particularly in the era of modern communications.

If New England launches a successful program of military expansion, say sometime after 1870 when its industrial advantage will really be at its height, then it might take over much of North America.

If New England can hold its conquests, then English will be a clear majority language over the whole eastern half of the continent.  Of course, there will be significant linguistic minorities, but they will be as islands in an English sea.  Most official communications will be in English; so will most education, especially higher education.

Given that sort of linguistic pressure, I’d expect substantial declines in the proportion of minority language speakers.  Sure, French or Dutch will never disappear entirely, but they will gradually attrite speakers, particularly in smaller communities.  Before too long, the majority of their speakers will be bilingual; in a few generations, many of them will speak English as their first language.

*

From: Broken Drum
Time: 25 December, 6:38 PM

Originally written by HistoryMinor:
> If New England launches a successful program of military 
> expansion, say sometime after 1870 when its industrial advantage 
> will really be at its height, then it might take over much of North 
> America.

That’s some impressive space-cuckoos you have singing there, partner.  New England launching a continent-wide military expansion program after 1870?  Using what, genetically enhanced super dolphins?

Sure, they’ve got more population and manufacturing capacity than any other individual nation in North America, but not all of them together.  New England might get away with conquest once, maybe even twice.  But don’t you think that after that, the rest of the continent would form a defensive alliance to stop them?  Especially if New England is annexing whole nations.

And don’t even get me started on the possibility of foreign intervention from Europe, Argentina, or Brazil.

*

From: HistoryMinor
Time: 25 December, 6:48 PM

@ Broken Drum
Guess it’s easier to bitch than to create, hey?

I didn’t say it was likely.  Just that it was possible.  Mistrust can stop nations allying together; foreign wars can keep the European and South American powers busy elsewhere.  Don’t write off a whole scenario as impossible just because there’s circumstances where it might not happen.

*

From: The Last Gunfighter
Time: 25 December, 6:54 PM

@ HistoryMinor
Lov you’re style, man!  Can you develop that scenario a bit more?

*

From: Broken Drum
Time: 25 December, 7:14 PM

Originally written by HistoryMinor:

> I didn’t say it was likely.  Just that it was possible.  Mistrust can stop 
> nations allying together; foreign wars can keep the European and South 
> American powers busy elsewhere.  Don’t write off a whole scenario as 
> impossible just because there’s circumstances where it might not happen.

There’s mistrust, and there’s bloody insanity.

Mistrust is: Alleghania and Louisiana stand aside while New England invades Tigeria over some trumped-up pretext.

Bloody insanity is: Alleghania, Louisiana, California, Mexico, and everyone else in North America don’t notice when New England cunningly invades and annexes them one by one, and they just stand around smoking kunduri and do nothing about it, because, well, they think that New England’s armies have flashy uniforms or something.

Spot the difference?

* 

From: HistoryMinor
Time: 25 December, 7:16 PM

@ The Last Gunfighter:
Glad you like my suggestions, but I can’t help noticing that this is about the fifth thread you’ve started where you ask other people to come up with ideas for you, but you’re never willing to put any time or thought into developing them yourself.  I think that this time you should flesh things out on your own.

*

From: Sword of Allah
Time: 25 December, 7:21 PM

Originally written by Broken Drum:
> Bloody insanity is: Alleghania, Louisiana, California, Mexico, and everyone
> else in North America don’t notice when New England cunningly invades and
> annexes them one by one, and they just stand around smoking kunduri and
> do nothing about it, because, well, they think that New England’s armies
> have flashy uniforms or something.

If Alleghania, Louisiana, and the rest are involved in a lengthy war; they might not be able to do something about it when New England starts the attack. And they probably won't be a very good shape to do much after they stop fighting each other. After all, there is historical precedence for that (multiple occasions, for that matter). War-weary Persia and Byzantium getting largely swallowed by the Caliphate, for one.

*

From: HistoryMinor
Time: 25 December, 7:23 PM

@ Broken Drum

There’s constructive criticism, and there’s unhelpful pedantic nitpicking.

Constructive criticism is: pointing out the problems with someone else’s allohistorical scenario and suggesting alternatives to make it work.

Unhelpful pedantic nitpicking is: carping and quibbling and refusing to change your position or keep an open mind, and never actually coming up with any scenarios or ideas of your own.

Spot the difference?

*

From: Dozy
Time: 25 December, 7:31 PM

I think that the best time to create an English-speaking great power in North America is in later colonial times.  Maybe do something to muck about with the Nine Years War.  You’d have to change the alliance structure or diplomatic priorities a fair bit – maybe have Sweden intervene, for instance – but it might be possible for England to make some major colonial acquisitions as a result of that war (or a close allohistorical analogue).

That wouldn’t be enough in itself to create a single English nation in North America, but it would be a good start.

*

From: Mark Antony the Guide
Time: 25 December, 7:39 PM

Right.  There’s far too much hostility in this thread.  I’m closing it now before things get even worse.  The Admin can sort out any necessary punishments in the morning.

Compliments of the season to everyone who celebrates it, and good luck to everyone else.

--

[1] This refers to the Red River which forms the OTL Texas-Oklahoma state border, not one of the at least six other Red Rivers in OTL USA or Canada.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #41: Shaking the Branches

“Hope is the delusion of fools.  Acceptance is the choice of wisdom.”
- Batjiri of Jurundit [Koroit, Victoria]

--

Picture, if you will, a plain outside a city, leading down to a gently sloping beach.  The city is one which its inhabitants call Coonrura, and which another history will call Kingston [Kingston SE, South Australia].  At this time, the city is inhabited mostly by a people who call themselves the Yadilli and who follow the wisdom of the Good Man [ie Plirites], but it is ruled by the Yadji.  Or it would be, if the divided Yadji could ever end their seemingly endless civil war and decide on a single Regent.

On the plain outside, an army is encamped, watched over by strange ships anchored offshore in the bay.  An army unlike any which has ever been seen before in the Land of the Five Directions.  A force composed mostly of men with strange, half-coloured skin as if they had been pulled out of the oven too early.

Under the command of Pieter Nuyts and his son Lauren, they have come in the name of gold.  Thirteen hundred foot soldiers with arquebus and pike.  Three hundred cavalry, all veterans of the long war which is slowly grinding to a halt in Europe.  Not all of their horses survived the voyage here, and some of those which did are in a poor state, but still, these strange four-legged giant beasts have both impressed and terrified the Yadilli.  Two dozen cannon of varying calibre, brought most astutely by the elder Nuyts, who had heard of the impression which those weapons have made among the Aururian peoples further west.

With these Raw Men march allies.  Five hundred mercenaries of the Mutjing, survivors of their own people’s endless squabbling.  None of the Yadilli have taken up arms yet, but Nuyts is making most valiant efforts to persuade them to join him.

The Nedlandj invasion has begun.

--

Founded by the teachings of the Good Man, the Plirite faith is both united and divided.  United in its acknowledgement of the wisdom of its founder, divided in both polity and its interpretation of how that wisdom should be applied.

The Nangu branch of the Plirites is the most widely-known of those interpretations, thanks to being carried afar by the Island’s merchant venturers, but it is not universal, and not even the eldest interpretation.  Another, older interpretation is cherished by the people who call themselves the Yadilli.

The Yadilli are among the most ancient of Gunnagalic-speaking peoples.  Their ancestors settled on the lower reaches of the Nyalananga [River Murray] in the earliest days of Aururian agriculture.  Their ancestors were quick to adopt copper-working, and were the first to learn the art of working arsenical bronze.  It was the vigorous pursuit for mining that metal which led to uprising, and indirectly to the collapse of the Formative Gunnagal culture which will so puzzle future archaeologists [1].

The ancestors of the Yadilli were among those who had burned the ancient great city, triggering the Interregnum.  They fled across the mighty river to the south.  There they found that for days and days of travel, they were cut off from the sea by a series of long, bittersweet lakes with sand dunes beyond [2].  The water there promised fishing and waterbirds for food, but it did not offer safety for people who still feared being forced to work in mines and out of the sun.

They fled further, until they arrived at a region where the lakes disappeared, to be replaced by a wide sheltered bay with glistening white beaches, and where the shape of the coastline protected it from the worst weather of the southern ocean [3].  Here, they felt safe.  Here, they settled, and would remain for a very long time.

The Yadilli have long believed themselves to be a people apart.  They did not expand much further from their ancestral lands, and they have lost even legends of that far-off time when they migrated from across the Nyalananga.  But they maintain a strong sense of their own identity.

The Yadilli have preserved their language and culture through more than two millennia of local and foreign rule.  They survived the chaos of the Great Migrations.  They endured the rule of the First Speakers.  They had a short time of independence where they adopted the faith of the Good Man before being conquered by the growing might of the Yadji.  For some brief periods, their lands have been claimed by the kingdom of Tjibarr, although the Yadji have ruled them for the last half-century.

Now, in the year which another continent’s calendar calls 1637, they face a new challenge...

--

A small scroll of wattle-bark paper is carefully unrolled.  The ink markings on it [4] are clumsily-drawn, as if the writer had only rarely used a quill.  Which is indeed the case, as the reader knows.

This scroll has come from a listener [spy] assigned to Coonrurua.  That listener knows only the basics of writing, and indeed has used far more pictographs in his message than should be properly used, including a few employed incorrectly.

Still, the gist of the message is clear enough:

“Strangers have come on ships.  Not Islanders or Tjibarr.  Men uncooked.  Led by One True Egg [5].  Some ride giant dogs.  Summon thunder and throw iron balls like the breath of the Rainbow Serpent.  One True Egg urges Yadilli to rise against the Neverborn.  Their elders have not announced yes or no.”

With a muttered curse against the Lord of the Night, the reader rises.  He wonders whether he can find another to bring this news to the prince.

--

The Time of Troubles, as it will later be known, or the Year of the Twisted Serpent, as the Yadji call it.  Either way, it is finally nearing its end.  The first full-scale civil war in the history of the Yadji Empire has been traumatic, bloody, and lengthy, but now, in the year which the visiting Raw Men call 1637, the end is in sight.

Or so it should be.

Gunya Yadji and his commanding general Bidwadjari have fought a long war.  Despite superiority of numbers and force of arms, his great rival Bailgu Yadji has refused to submit under any terms.  It has taken siege after long siege to bring Bailgu’s supporters into submission.

The core of the Land of the Five Directions has been cleansed of Bailgu’s taint.  The greatest province, the Lake Country, is entirely cleared, while in the western province of the Red Country, two cities have recently fallen, and only one last holdout remains at Balam Buandik [Beachport, South Australia].  Only in the farther reaches of the Golden Country and the even more distant White Country does Bailgu have any strong remaining presence, and even then his remaining outposts in the Golden Country are under siege [6].

Bidawdjari has judged that, barring the intervention of the Lord of Night [ie misfortune], most of the remaining enemy strongholds should have fallen within another year.  Capturing the rest would take longer, but it is possible that seeing Bailgu facing annihilation will make his remaining royal supporters abandon him.  Particularly if they can secure a pardon if they change sides; Gunya has already begun to make some efforts along those lines.

If only all of those plans had not been halted by the news out of the west.

--

Taken from:
The Tenth Classic
A novel by Duarte Tomás

“Report,” Lauren Nuyts said crisply.

The scout dismounted, passed the reins to a waiting attendant, and then nodded.  “All as expected.  The kuros [7] are encamped for the night.  A few scouts for warning, but they’re not wandering far.”

“Numbers?”

“Maybe five thousand,” the scout said.

“Good work,” Lauren said, then turned on his heel and walked back into the camp.

Finding the command tent was a matter of moments, even with the gathering darkness.  His father waited inside, looking composed as ever.  Madjri was still beside him; Lauren thought he had never seen the local headman anywhere else since they had struck the alliance to bring down these heathen Yadji.

Not that the Yadilli creed is any better, Lauren mused.  But they will be our subjects soon.  Time enough after to bring them to Christ.

The head of the mercenaries was there, too, along with a few of the senior Dutch soldiers.

“Scouts are back,” he said.  “Yadji army is bedded down for the night.  About eight or ten thousand of them.  They’ll attack tomorrow.”

“Of course they attack,” Madjiri said in his broken Dutch.  “They say leave or die, you stay, they attack.”

“I’d rather know how they will attack,” his father said.  “We know so little of Yadji tactics.”

“With straightforward courage,” observed Dandal – at least, that was the closest Lauren could come to pronouncing the name of the Mutjing mercenary leader.  “Not all Yadji soldiers seek death, but none of them fear it.  They will see that they outnumber us, and they will aim for our centre and seek to crush us.”

“Good thing they not know we have thunder, eh,” Madjiri said, the whiteness of his teeth amazingly bright against his black skin.

His father shrugged.  “We have steel and horses.  I would fight even without cannon.”

“But how best to use the weapons we have?” asked Colonel Michel.  “Bombard them with cannon balls as they march on us, or give them a volley of muskets when they are near?”

“Your thunder will break the Yadji armies either way,” Dandal said.

“Panic is good, but with cannon, they will flee before we can close with them,” his father said.  “I think that we should keep our cannon for another time.  Let them feel the weight of shot and musket.”

The conversation grew intricately involved with battle plans and deployment after that.  Lauren listened with only half an ear.  He needed to hear these things, but he did not pretend to be a master tactician.  That was why they had recruited the German and Dutch soldiers in the first place.

No, what intrigued him more was how the Yadji would react after they were defeated.  They were here to conquer an empire, after all, as Cortes and Pizzaro had done before them.  Winning the battles was important, but more would need to be done afterward.

In time, the soldiers settled on a battle plan which would require the Dutch troops to hold a solid centre and face the main Yadji charge.  The Mutjing mercenaries would protect the left flank, while the cavalry would be on the right flank with the most open ground and the chance to pursue the enemy when they broke.  The Yadilli militia were to be held in reserve.  His father explained that this would be for pursuit, too, but the unspoken message was that the Yadilli would not yet be trusted.

Once the battle plans were settled, Lauren asked Dandal to translate his words into a form which the Yadilli would understand; he did not trust Madjiri’s broken Dutch for these questions.

Via Dandal, he asked, “With the Yadji defeated here, what will they do next?  Will their emperor submit?”

Madjiri laughed.  “Were you not listening?  Yadji will not fear death, but welcome it.  To them, this invasion will be part of the end of the world, when they must fight utterly until their over-powered god is released.”

Of his own initiative, Dandal added, “Prince Gunya is a man of great drive.  He has fought his brother for ten years and more.  He will not stop until he has no armies left.”

Not the most cheering of thoughts, Lauren mused.

*

Smoke still hung over the field of battle.  The air hung still and hot, with no waft of breeze to clear the haze or mask the noises.  Lauren’s ears still brought him the sound of screams, and more distant shots and shouts as the cavalry and Dutch infantry pursued the remaining kuros.

Before him, though, was a more urgent problem.

A couple of hundred Yadji had surrendered, whether through lack of courage or injury.  Some of the Yadilli militia had been assigned to guard them while his father oversaw the pursuit.

Madjiri said, “What good keep Yadji alive?  No need prisoners.  That not...”  He went back and forth with a Mutjing mercenary who was assigned as an interpreter.  “Lack decisiveness.”

“You can’t just kill prisoners,” Lauren said.  Well, it could be done sometimes, depending on the bitterness of the fighting.  Such a wholesale bloodlust struck him as excessive, though.

“Not kill all of them,” Madjiri said.  “Spare... one in hundred, send back to tell of their defeat.  Rest must die – only way to bring balance.”

Lauren started to argue, then stopped.  These Yadilli had been only half-hearted supporters until now.  Some had agreed to join to fight, yes, but many more had stood aside.  Victory now would inspire the rest.  No need to antagonise them over this when the Dutch needed local allies.

“So be it,” he said.

--

[1] See post #6.

[2] This is a series of lakes along the coast of modern south-eastern South Australia, which are an extension of the Murray Mouth, and separated from the sea by a long series of sand dunes created by silt deposited by the Murray.  They are a mixture of fresh and salt water, depending on the balance of rainfall and river flow.  The nature of the coastline makes settlement by the sea itself difficult, although it makes for very good fishing.

[3] This is Lacepede Bay, which is not a completely sheltered harbour, but whose geography protects it from most weather except when the wind is blowing directly out of the west.

[4] Mostly irrelevant aside which didn’t fit into any earlier post: the ink which the Aururians use is made from a combination of soot (from burnt wattle wood) mixed with wattle gum (as a binding agent – much as gum arabic was used elsewhere in the world).  The Yadji take this one step further by writing on a kind of paper made from the boiled inner bark of wattles.  Wattles: The Trees with One Thousand and One Uses.

[5] By one of those coincidences of allohistorical linguistics, the name Pieter Nuyts, to Junditmara speakers, sounds like the words for “one true egg”, and hence his name has been rendered that way.

[6] See post #16 for a description of the Yadji provinces, or see the map here: http://alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/EasternAustralia(1618).png

[7] Kuro, an allohistorical Dutch term for Aururian peoples, was first used by Pieter Nuyts and his son Lauren.  It is derived from the Japanese word for black; the two Nuyts learned that term during their imprisonment in Japan, and use it to distinguish dark-skinned Aururians from even darker-skinned Africans.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #42: The First Pods Fall

“The wars of mankind today are not limited to a trial of natural strength, like a bull-fight, nor even mere battles.  Rather they depend on losing or gaining friends and allies, and it is to this end that good statesmen must turn all their attention and energy.”
- Count Gondomar, ambassador to London, to Philip III of Spain, 28 March 1619

--

Darkness outside, kept at bay by flickering of lanterns and tallow.  Coolness in the air, not the harshness of a Dutch or Japanese winter, but a welcome relief from the heat of the day.

“They not give us food, then they will have no food,” Madjiri said.  As always, the Yadilli commander had a disconcertingly bright smile, thanks to teeth polished God only knew how.

Lauren Nuyts shrugged.  The Yadilli rebels had a way of warfare which made even the most long-serving veterans of the German war uneasy.  Massacre of prisoners with not even the possibility of ransom or exchange.  Now this, too.

“Why antagonise the locals needlessly?”  He took in their confused expressions, and said, “I mean, why upset them.”

“I understood,” said Dandal, the Mutjing mercenary commander.  Madjiri shook his head, suggesting that he also followed.

“Not your words that puzzle me, but your meaning,” Dandal added.  Which made sense; these kuros had proven to be extremely quick in picking up the gist of Dutch.  “These villagers have food, but they will not open their storehouses to us.  If they will not open their storehouses, then they should have no houses.”

Lauren absently swatted a mosquito that had been buzzing around his ears, then said, “Destroying this entire village would get us food here, but it would make enemies of everyone else who hears of it.”

Madjiri chuckled; it was not a pleasant sound.  “It will make them think that maybe they should obey us.”

Dandal said, “If we let this village refuse us, we will never receive food or aid from any others.  We must show them what we are.  War is not a time for half-measures.”

Lauren looked to his father, who had been conspicuously silent throughout this discussion.  He ventured a question in Japanese, a language which they had both perforce learnt during their exile [ie imprisonment] there.  “I know we need to make an example of these natives, but wouldn’t that go too far?”

The elder Nuyts said, “Heathens know heathens best.”  He switched back to Dutch.  “Let them know our anger.”

--

Year of the Twisted Serpent [1629-1638 AD]
Balam Buandik [Beachport, South Australia]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Balam Buandik: a place with nothing to recommend it now.

In happier times, it would have been a place to treasure.  A town on an isolated neck of land beside a rich, teeming lake [Lake George].  The lake had been one of the most prized of waters, a mix of true and bitter water, where waterfood could be found in abundance [1].

The lake was useless, now.  The besieging army had blocked the channels which brought true water into the lake.  Now it was a drying wastewater with more salt than the sea.  Useless for food, useless for transport, leaving only glistening salt plains behind as the waters receded.

The town of Balam Buandik remained, despite the best efforts of Gunya’s besiegers.  Its location on the narrow lands meant that it could be protected by one short wall on the main landward approach, and a longer wall across the dunes on the western side.  With enough canoes bringing in fish from the sea, and enough land within the walls to allow gardens for yams and wealth-trees [wattles], it could never be starved into submission, no matter how poor the fare [2].

The valuable location meant that Balam Buandik had held out for Bailgu Yadji even while the other western strongholds had fallen, one by one.  So far as Warmaster Reewa knew, Balam Buandik was the last stronghold to remain west of the White Country.

How much longer he could keep this town intact, though, he wondered.  Food was not the problem.  Water was abundant enough from wells, too.

No, the problem was piling up almost beneath his feet.

The walls of Balam Buandik had withstood all attempts to storm them, so far, but his opposing commander had been doggedly persistent.  Rather than continue with futile efforts of ladders and ropes, he had resorted to a more long-term solution.

Every night, enemy soldiers came under cover of emu-hide shields and dropped loads of earth and rock beside the wall.  There were too many of them standing with bows ready to permit the defenders to dislodge the growing pile during the day.  Every night, the mound of earth and rock grew larger.  It was slow work, but the enemy commander proved to have the patience to carry it out.

The mound almost reached the top of the walls, now.  It would not take many more nights before the enemy soldiers could climb directly onto the wall.  When that happened, everyone inside would fight a last battle, and then their Last Battle.

“Warmaster, see!”

The voice broke Reewa from his reverie.  Outside of bow range, one of the besieging armies held up a banner of unmarked blue.

They want to parley now? he thought.  Strange, so very strange.  Now that they held an inexorable advantage, why would they bother with that?  They knew full well that Reewa would never surrender unless ordered to by Bailgu Yadji himself.

“How should we answer?” the nearest soldier asked.

“Colour a blue flag with one white dot,” the Warmaster said.  Whatever words needed to be said would be between him and the enemy commander alone.  No-one else should overhear.

After his orders had been carried out, the enemy forces replied by pulling their banner down and raising it with a single white dot, too.

“Find a rope to lower me onto their mound,” he said.  “May as well get some use out of their work, yes?  And make sure that archers are ready to kill the enemy commander if I am attacked out there.”

When he had started to descend, one man stepped out from the enemy lines.  Even at a distance, the shine on his armour was obvious.

They met roughly in the middle, of course, as custom and honour required.  The man was indeed the enemy commander, with armour which must have been specially polished for this purpose.  No sign of gold anywhere, though.

“I am Illalong,” the enemy commander said, using the neutral form.  No mention of his rank, either.  Clever fellow, if that meant he was trying to avoid sounding either of higher or lower status.

“I am Reewa,” he replied.  “Have you invited me out here to gloat, now that your mound is nearly finished?”

“No, I invited you to parley because I have been so ordered by Gunya Yadji himself.”

Reewa managed a slight chuckle.  “Nice to hear that your prince cares so much about capturing Balam Buandik.”

“To be honest, I think that he would be content to let you rot inside your walls until he has taken the crown,” Illalong said.

“Why bother me, then?”

The other commander frowned.  “News from the north.  The Yadilli rise up in revolt, aided by Islander mercenaries and strange men from the uttermost west, beyond the seas.”

News indeed, if it was true.  Reewa suspected it was; Balam Buandik was hardly such a prize that Gunya Yadji would resort to a ruse to capture it.  “Does your prince propose a truce to defeat them, as was done with the Kurnawal?”

“Not that he has told me,” Illalong said.  “Only that your prince needs to hear this news.  And to believe it.  Gunya Yadji thinks that he will be more likely to accept it if is delivered by your troops being given safe passage to one of the fortresses he still holds.”

“You ask me to abandon my duty to hold this place?”

“I ask you to make your prince fully advised of this new threat,” Illalong said.  He shrugged.  “It is I who am deprived, anyway.  Without this order, I would have taken Balam Buandik within a week.”

Reewa thought he heard exaggeration there; the mound would not be completed that quickly.  Still, the words held enough truth for him to shake his head.  “And if I refuse?”

“If you have not accepted by tomorrow’s dawn, I will attack as soon as I can.  There must be no secondary threat when Gunya Yadji marches to defeat these rebels.”

“The decision will not take that long,” Reewa said.  In truth, he was already minded to accept.  He had been offered an honourable course to preserve his soldiers.  Still, it would not do to appear too hasty.  “If I accept, I will raise a black banner above the walls before sundown.  And if so, my soldiers will be ready to march at first light tomorrow.”

“So be it.”  Illalong sketched a slight bow, then turned and strode away.

--

September 1637
Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Another day with no sign of cloud or ship.

For over a year and a half, Maurice Redman had been the commander of this most isolated of Company outposts.  So isolated, in fact, that the directors of the East India Company might not yet know that they possessed this foothold in a new world.

By now, he hoped, Baffin had brought his ships back to a Company outpost in India, or perhaps even back to England itself.  He had four ships; surely at least some of them should have survived.  When the Company knew what it had here in Aururia, it would send a relief ship, or perhaps even a trade ship or two.

If all of Baffin’s ships had been wrecked during the voyage, well... there would be time to deal with that later.  Perhaps they could build a ship; they should have sufficient tools, if the Yadji would supply the iron and timber required.

If not, perhaps he could bargain with their Islander interpreter about hiring an Islander ship to sail to Surat [3].  The Islander ships were capable of the voyage, he was sure; smaller than most English ships, but sturdy enough.  The Company would not be happy that the Islanders had been shown the way to India, but the news of Aururia should make up for that.

In the meantime, though, he needed to wait.  And wait.  Depending on what else happened on his voyage, Baffin’s ships might be delayed for quite a long time, and the voyage from England to Aururia could take a year in itself.  He would have to allow at least another year from now before he sought other ways of getting word back to the Company.

“At least there are things to learn here,” he murmured.  Both about the Yadji and the Islanders.

He had already acquired a good grasp of the Islander language; he had passed some of the waiting by writing a book of comparative words and grammar.

No-one tried to learn the Yadji language anymore.  Not after the Yadji headman ordered Charles executed for using the wrong word when attempting to speak to him.  That had only been the most unpleasant of the incidents which confirmed that the Islanders had not been joking about Yadji touchiness.

Redman shook his head, realising he had been letting himself grow mental cobwebs, and returned his attention to the latest entry in his word list.  Dandiri was a multifarious Islander word; trying to understand all of the shades of meaning which the Islanders imparted to it could give a man nightmares [4].

Before he could find another equivalent to that annoying word, he found another, more genuine distraction.  One of the other Englishmen came in to report that Redman had been summoned to attend the local headman.

“What does that bloody devil want with us?” Redman muttered, but he hurried outside, anyway.

Eighteen months in Gurndjit, and he still couldn’t find anyone who would say the headman’s name.  That was meant to be a sign of royalty around here, but this headman definitely reported to Gunya Yadji, who claimed their capital even if the civil war still continued.  The Yadji were beyond strange, sometimes.

After he entered the former priestly temple, the headman gave him his usual greeting.  Superior to inferior, from what he understood of Yadji ways, but he could live with that.

The headman said, “Gunya Yadji summons you to Kirunmara.  You will attend with all haste.”

A dozen questions came to Redman’s lips, but he swallowed most of them again.  Questions could be dangerous with the Yadji, as he and his countrymen had discovered.  “I will attend.  Does the prince require just me, or my countrymen also?”

The headman smiled; a question which sought further instruction was the least likely to anger a Yadji.  “You, and any of your men who know about war.  Especially anything about your cannon.”

Redman shook his head; knowing that meant agreement among the Yadji.

“You will follow the Royal Road.  You are expected, and will find succour in any town you pass.”

Redman bowed, wondering to himself what the devil had brought this about, after so long being ignored by the Yadji rulers.

--

Darkness, or so it seems.  He can feel heat on his skin, and worse than heat beneath his skin, but no light.

Are his eyes not working?  The question takes a long time to come to his mind, and longer to answer.  Something is blocking them.  Whether it is swelling – his face feels light and puffy – or something placed over his eyes, he cannot work out.

Voices sound in his ears, faint as if they are floating through cloud.  Sometimes the meaning registers, sometimes it does not.

“This is my son you’re talking about,” a voice says.  He knows that voice.  It is his father, although right now he cannot picture a face to match the voice.  He lacks the concentration required.

“We talk about, but not to,” another voice says.  One of the natives, he thinks, but cannot place which one.  “No point talking to him.  Swamp rash reach that stage, only thing a man can do is bring his mind into balance.”

“A doctor could...”  His father’s voice trails off.

“No doctor here.  Gunnagal doctors not come among Yadji.”

“Could they do something?” his father asks, an edge of something in his voice.  “Not just for Lauren.  “A quarter of our men – yours and mine both – lie abed with this affliction, and many of them will die.  Can these... Gunnagal doctors save them?”

“Some can, or so it is said,” the native says.  “No help now.  Too far away, even if they would come among Yadji.”

“God help me, there must be something we can do,” his father’s voice says, but it seems to come from even further away.

The voices keep talking, but he is no longer able to understand them.

--

[1] Lake George is one of a series of coastal lakes created through the accumulation of sand dunes on their seaward side.  Most of these lakes (including Lake George) have no natural outlet to the sea, and are hypersaline due to the accumulation of salts and with water lost only to evaporation.  Historically, Lake George had a drainage channel dug to the sea early in the twentieth century, which reduced the salinity and turned it into a useful fishing area.  Allohistorically, Yadji engineers have developed a much more complex series of water inflow channels and a dammed exit which maintains the water level, and have stocked the lake with their favourite fish to encourage its productivity.

[2] While Yadji will eat seafood if nothing else is on offer, they consider it much inferior to the fish and other waterfood which they grow through aquaculture in fresh or brackish water.

[3] Then the site of the largest English trading outpost in India.

[4] This is because dandiri is a word used in the Plirite faith to mean bringing order or harmony.  Given how the faith intertwines with their lives, the Islanders use it in many different senses, although its most common non-religious meanings are to indicate approval or to describe prosperity or good fortune.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #43: Drumming the Pods

“I stood on the royal road to Kirunmara
And saw a pillar of fire, even as a wheel
Of flame descending from the abyss [heavens].
It spun from west to east, the sun turned backward
Consuming land, tree and beast alike in fury untamed
As abyss and earth prepared for the Last Battle.”
- Yadji verse describing the coming of the Nedlandj [Dutch] under Pieter Nuyts, and comparing it to their religion’s view of the apocalypse.  Attributed to Prince Gunya Yadji, just before the battle of Kirunmara (1638)

--

Water falling from the abyss; the steady dripping that fed the Land and its waterworks, but made for bad listening.

Usually, Bidwadjari, senior commander of the armies of Prince Gunya Yadji, had little use for rain.  It mattered to farmers, but its infrequent visits made battle manoeuvres far more difficult, and interfered with transportation anywhere off the royal roads.

This evening, though, with the news from the west, he welcomed the rain.  It would delay the invaders.  The seemingly invincible Raw Men.  The pink men who had chained the thunder of the abyss into weapons.

At first, Bidwadjari had thought that these Nedlandj were just trouble-makers, foreign mercenaries who had been come to support the Yadilli in rebellion – and claim some of the gold of the Land.  His prince had thought the same.

Now, he knew better.  These Nedlandj and their leader One True Egg [1] were the true drivers.  They brought their thunder and their beasts with them, and they stirred up revolution.  Whether for gold or for some other reason, they brought war to the Land.  A new and terrible form of war, about which he had to learn.

“You tell me not enough of how the battle fared,” Bidwadjari said, to the handful of men he had gathered to him.

They were all survivors of the second great battle with the Nedlandj.  It had gone no better than the first.  Thunder, fire, giant beasts, unknown manoeuvres, defeat, and massacre of the survivors.  The Nedlandj were emboldened, and had found more allies.  The Yadilli, the Mutjing and now the Tiwarang [2] joined them.  For plunder, surely, with the Tiwarang, not the Plirite bleating which had lured the earlier allies.

“I must know,” Bidwadjari added.  It could not be due to incompetent commanders.  Not twice.  Illalong was a good warmaster, and he had certainly led more men than the Nedlandj and their rebel allies, but he had found only defeat.

“Their soldiers know no fear,” one said.

“They bring thunder and hard iron where they march,” another said.

“Not their character.  Speak of how they deployed in battle,” Bidwadjari said.

“In a wall of smoke,” one said.  Another added, “Riding giant dogs down one flank, and a wall of hard iron along the other.”

Piecing the details together took too long.  There were too few survivors, and it sounded as if they had seen little of the battle anyway.  The Nedlandj on their strange big dogs could run too fast, and cut down too many as they fled.  These survivors had only escaped because there were so few Nedlandj on dogs and so many men fleeing in panic that not all of them could be caught.

Still, after much going back and forth, Bidwadjari began to understand something of the battle.  The Nedlandj had formed a line of battle with a core of their own men on a low hill.  Their raw soldiers wore hard iron and wielded weapons which belched smoke and spit thunderbolts that could kill at a hundred paces or more.  On the hilltop, they had strange carts [3] that used chained thunder to hurl balls of solid iron fast enough to dismember men.

On the flat ground, they used their Mutjing and Yadilli allies to form a defensive line.  That Plirite rabble were not soldiers to match proper Yadji warriors, but they were good enough that they did not break instantly.  That let the Nedlandj use their iron-hurlers to hit the back Yadji ranks – and then their dog-riders to hit the flanks of the engaged soldiers, breaking them.  Illalong had been ridden down somewhere in that mass of men, and most of the survivors were those who had been held in reserve, then fled.

As to what the Nedlandj had done after their victory... there, he did not need to hear from the survivors.  His own scouts – those that had returned – had reported that the Nedlandj had turned off the royal road before Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria].  The rain would slow them down, there, but it made him wonder what they wanted.

The royal road was paved against the worst of weather, but following it would also mean that the Nedlandj had to capture or bypass town after fortified town.  So did they fear the fortifications, did they manoeuvre to receive reinforcements from the Tiwarang, or were they just contemptuous enough of Yadji arms that they thought that a march straight on Kirunmara would bring them conquest?

“Did anyone hear tale of the parley before the battle?” he asked.  If there was one, of course.

That produced another round of argument.  No-one had witnessed the parley, but rumours about what was discussed had spread.  The soldiers talked about how the Raw Men had admitted to being part of the Cleansing.  That this time of blood and fire marked the first blow fought by the servants of the Lord of Night, as time marched to its end.

All meaningless speculation, as far as Bidwadjari could tell.  None of the soldiers had heard, so they gossiped.  He doubted that this involved the end of time.  For all that Gunya Yadji had ordered priests killed for spreading rumours, for all that this was a time of strangers and strange weapons, he doubted that this marked anything supernatural.  These Nedlandj had the feel of men to him, more alien than the Tjibarr or the folk of the Cider Isle, but men in search of plunder and conquest.  That much, he understood.

He just wished he could think how to stop them.

--

Maurice Redman thought that he should have been more impressed by the Yadji royal palace.

The Yadji could build wonders.  He had expected that from his first glimpses of the temple at Gurndjit.  It had been confirmed by his journey to the royal city, with the endless dams, canals, lakes and swamps which the Yadji maintained for no good reason.  Fish was a decent enough meal, if hardly worth so much effort, but it bespoke the Yadji construction talents.  Even their royal road was an impressive highway: wide, well-paved, and well-maintained.

The Yadji ruler – Gunya, although no-one uttered that name in his presence – offered an impressive sight, too.  Some sort of woollen tunic dyed into a bright pattern of blue and scarlet, with gold, silver and pearls decorating his chest, and a headband of gold decorated with brilliant feathers.

So why in the name of all that was good and holy did he rule from so plain a building?

A palace should have been larger, especially for a people so wealthy as the Yadji.  It should have been filled with gold and ornamentation and all the other splendour which he had witnessed on a smaller scale in the temple in Gurndjit.  It should not be a small place of largely plain stone, apart from a few tapestries [4] hung from the walls.

Why would the Yadji royal residence show such a lack of magnificence [5]?

Redman knew not to ask that question aloud, but he doubted anyone would have answered him anyway.  This was supposed to be an audience with the Yadji emperor, but some old soldier in front of him just asked a lot of questions, while Gunya listened in the background.

The old soldier – nameless, like his ruler – wanted to know much about European weapons and tactics.  He asked about horses, about steel, but most of all about gunpowder.

“What drives the thunder of your stringless bows?” the old soldier asked.

After some back and forth, Redman realised that he meant the gunpowder in muskets.  “A black powder that burns,” he said.

“You make thunder from fire?” the old soldier said, a sharp edge to his voice.

“From this special powder, yes,” he answered.  “It burns fast enough to push out objects.  Small pellets in muskets, or large balls in cannon.”

That produced an even longer exchange where Redman had to explain that muskets and cannon both fired solid objects.

After that, the old soldier said, “Where do you find this special powder?”

“It is not found, it is made,” Redman said.  He did not want to reveal much more.  Knowledge like that should not be given away for nothing.  It sounded as if selling guns and powder would be a major market with these Yadji, if the Dutch raiders could be driven off.  In any case, he did not know the exact formula of gunpowder, only that it involved some mixture of brimstone, saltpetre and charcoal.

“How is it made?”

Inevitable question, Redman supposed.  “I am not entirely sure.  I know how to use muskets, not how to make powder.”

The old soldier gave him a long stare.  He had a most penetrating gaze, firm and full of suspicion.

Redman offered, “I know that it involves charcoal” – a word which needed further explanation – “but not what else is required.”

The questions kept coming, but eventually the soldier accepted that Redman knew nothing useful.  The questions moved on to more general military tactics, of which he knew less, but where he was more willing to answer.

The old soldier said, “Can spears be used to hold off... horses?”

Redman nodded, then remembered himself and changed it to a shake of his head.  “They can, if used properly.”  Pike was not a word he knew how to say in the Islander language.  “Only if their lines remain unbreached.  If the horsemen break into the line, then spears do not work much.”

“Or if cannon break our soldiers’ lines apart,” the old man said.  “Or fire from a line of your muskets.”

This soldier is no fool, Redman realised.  Of course, this man commanded the side which was apparently winning the Yadji civil war.  Perhaps he was much of the reason for that.

“How do your armies fight against foes with cannon, muskets and horses?” the old soldier asked.

“Mostly, by having cannons and muskets of our own,” he said, which got him another sharp look.  “I am not a soldier, so I do not know for certain, but I know that weight of numbers can account for much.”

“Truth,” the old soldier said.  After a few moments, he added, “This black powder burns, you say?  How does it fare in rain?”

“It will not burn if it is too wet,” Redman said.  “Fighting battles is much harder in damp conditions.”

The old soldier smiled.  “That gives me much to think about.”

Only then did Gunya Yadji speak.  “Your words have been heard, man of the Inglidj.”  He clapped his hands, and a servant stepped forward, carrying some form of cloth.  “Give this to the masters of your Company to mark my gratitude.”

The cloth was a long rectangle of white and gold background, with a dark bird woven into the centre.  The bird looked like an eagle, he thought.  When he took the cloth, Redman felt the weight, and he realised that the golden colour in the cloth came from woven gold thread.  God preserve me!

He bowed his head.  “I will give this to them, along with your words.”  Unless he could figure out a way to use this gift to escape on his own.  No.  Baffin would be back, and the Yadji ruler would be sure to ask what happened to his gift.

Gunya said, “I will not send you or your countrymen back to Gurndjit yet.  For your safety, you must remain here in Kirunmara.”

The old soldier said, “We have not heard that these rebels are on the royal road, but they may move quickly.  Once these Nedlandj have been defeated, you can return to await your ships.”

--

When the Inglidj soldier had departed, Gunya gestured for the other servants and soldiers to depart, too.  Only Bidwadjari remained.

“Will his words help you prepare for the great battle?” he asked.

The old general said, “I will consider them.  Fortune may favour us.  Particularly if rain comes on the right day.”

Gunya’s lip curled.  “The Neverborn has other things on his mind to organising that, I expect.  Or so his priests would assure me.  Those who still remain.”

“Bailgu brought too many priests with him,” Bidwadjari said.  “Even if all of the others had fought their last battles, we would not be spared the bleating of these newcomers.”

“Let them talk, for now,” Gunya said.  He risked much on this one gamble.  A great battle here, if won, would end the civil war.  Bailgu’s position was already weakened, and a victory here would ensure that the other princes abandoned him.  Even if Bidwadjari could not arrange for Bailgu to be among those who died in the battle.

Gunya added, “What the priests say will matter for naught if you can bring victory against these Raw Men.”

Bidwadjari said, “Much I have to consider.  Numbers may be the answer, but if your soldiers stand too close together, more will die from this black powder.  If they stand further apart, less will die from this black powder, but they will not do well when they reach the Nedlandj lines if they are too far apart.  If we attack them from the flanks, we risk having their horsemen grind us from front and rear.”

Gunya said, “I would not complain if you deployed Bailgu’s troops to the front line, in merit of their courage.”

Bidwadjari said, “Alas, he has so little trust as it is.  He would recognise it as a ploy to get them killed.”

“Truth,” Gunya said, although he hated to admit it.  “But I am sure of one thing: there is no better commander in the Land than you.  If you do not discern how to defeat these Nedlandj, none of us will.”

--

[1] Pieter Nuyts, would-be Dutch conquistador.  His name, to Junditmara speakers, sounds similar to the phrase “one true egg”.

[2] The Tiwarang are a Gunnagalic people who live in the north-westernmost reaches of Yadji territory, around historical Naracoorte and Penola in South Australia.

[3] The Yadji have invented the wheel, although with no real beasts of burden larger than dogs, they do not have that many uses for it.  “Cart” is the best approximation of a Yadji word which describes almost any wheeled vehicle; their most common forms are carts drawn by hand or by teams of dogs.

[4] What Redman thinks of as tapestries are not actually much like European tapestries, being made of linen rather than wool.  They are also a sign of great wealth in Yadji culture; the effort required to create them means that only the most wealthy can afford to use them, and then only in the most valued locations.  The Yadji tapestries here are actually more valued than most other forms of ornamentation.

[5] This is because Gunya chooses not to occupy the royal palace, but the House of the Dawn – the most sacred ground in Yadji religion, and usually only occupied to hold a vigil for a departed comrade.  Gunya claims that he rules from here in honour of his departed cousin.  This is a break with tradition, but one which he has so far got away with because of his claim that his cousin is not truly laid to rest until his successor has been named.  Of course, no-one among the Yadji would bother explaining this to an outlander such as Redman.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #44: Seeds of the Wealth-Trees

“Any weapon you hold at your death will still be in your grip when you step beyond the grave.”
- Batjiri of Jurundit [Koroit, Victoria]

--

25 January 1638
Near Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Durigal [Land of the Five Directions]

Evening drew near its end, with the first stars appearing in the fading light.  Proof that even the too-long summer days in this land of upside-down seasons did not last forever.  The moon had not yet risen, but it was drawing near to the three-quarter mark which their Yadilli and Mutjing allies insisted was a sacred time of danger balanced with opportunity.

Hans Scheer sat holding a cup of the sweet lemony tea which the Yadilli had given to him [1].  He would have preferred ale or wine, but these South-Landers knew nothing of those beverages, and he could not stomach their spiced ganyu [yam wine].  The lemony tea was an acceptable compromise.

Eight other soldiers sat nearby, clustered around the very small fire which they had made for light and to brew the tea.  The ground had been carefully cleared around the fire to make sure that the flames did not spread.  They had witnessed only one of the wildfires which came to this land in summer, but it was not an experience he would ever want to repeat.

Someone strode up to the fire, and Hans stiffed when he recognised Colonel Michel.

“Easy, boys,” Michel said, holding up a hand.  “No need for ceremony here.  Just here to hear if you want to say anything before the morning.”

“Everyone’s ready, sir,” Hans said.  He still missed Johan and Ludwig, one dead of swamp rash after the first battle, and the other dead in the second, but everyone else kept their courage.

“Excellent,” Michel answered.  “It’s time to give these pagan kuros another dose.  We’ve beaten them twice already, but it seems that they don’t learn their lessons easily.”

“We’ll teach them,” Hans said.  “No better teachers than musket, pike, cannon and cold steel.”

The men laughed.

The colonel clapped him on the shoulder.  “Too true.  Rest well, men, and tomorrow we’ll kill thousands more of these pagans.”

He rose and strode off to the next fire.

Hans took another sip of the tea, and grinned to himself.

*

An assemblage of men, six hundred or so all told.  Two banners worth of death warriors.  Men who were dead in law, men who for one reason or another had taken the oath that could never be unsworn.  Men whose faces were dyed white in a pattern which resembled a skull.  Men whose ornamentation proclaimed them death warriors on the eve of a battle.

Batjiri of Jurundit stood among them, toward the front.  He was one of the most senior death warriors, who had held to the oath for more than ten years.  Much longer than he had expected, but then no man could second-guess fate.

Now, their prince addressed them for the first time in years.  “My friends, I have erred,” Bailgu Yadji said.

Cries of denial rose from the throats of the assembled death warriors.  Batjiri’s voice sounded loud among them.

Bailgu held up a hand.  “Not in my choice of soldiers.  I could have asked for none finer.”

This time, the death warriors cheered.

“For so long I have held your banners in reserve, awaiting the time of a final battle when you would be called to fulfill your oaths.  This much of my anticipation was true: the final battle would be fought.”

Bailgu smiled.  “My mistake was that I thought it would be against my cousin.  That the final battle would be of prince against prince.”

The prince held up both hands.  “It is not so.  The final battle comes, but this is not a war between Yadji.  The Cleansing is at hand.  Time marches toward its end.  The final battle will be of Yadji against the allies of the Lord of Night.  In tomorrow’s battle, your deaths will prepare the way for the rise of the Neverborn.”

Shouts of acclamation answered him.

--

26 January 1638
Near Kirunmara, Durigal

Darkness still hung over the encampment when Hans Scheer rose.  Dawn must be a ways off – he had no clock to be sure – but they would need to be prepared to move at short notice.

Dressing could be done in the dark, fortunately.  Pants, shirts, boots, belt, blood-red tabard – Nuyts’s suggestion, to quickly tell their own side in the battlefield – and hat.  The hat was perhaps what he valued most, save his musket itself.  The sun in this land burned far too hot, especially in midsummer.

He had powder and musket ready where he had left them last night, but Hans did not move to pick them up yet.  When it came time to move, that would be soon enough.  This was his third battle on the soil of the South Land, and the eighth in his life, not counting minor skirmishes.  He had learned the value of patience.

Raised voices carried to him, and he emerged from his tent.  “What’s happened?”

A sergeant stood outside, surrounded by several of Hans’s campmates.  “Water on the battlefield.”

“Rain?” Hans asked, before realising how foolish that sounded.  The ground here was still dry.

“The God-damned Yadji have released one of their dams.  That flooded the ground we need to fight on.”

“Those pig-faced eel-fuckers!”  Hans paused a moment while he recovered his cool.  “How bad is it?”

“Water’s gone down, but it destroyed some of the powder we had in place for the cannon.  Ground’s still muddy, too, and it’s ruined the trench we had ready to protect us.”

“Christ.  Does that change the battle plan?”

The sergeant shrugged.  “Yes, but not sure how yet.  Except that we need to be there first, in case the pagans try something clever.  Grab your equipment; we’ll be marching soon.”

*

Night drew near to an end.  Probably the last night Batjiri would ever see, unless he lost his Last Battle after death and was called to the minions of the Lord of Night.

He sifted a few ashes from the wealth-tree [wattle] ash in front of him, and rolled it into a ball with the crushed leaves of alertness-weed [2].  Soon it was ready to chew; he popped the ball into his mouth to start working on it.

The effects were quick: a slight deadening of his body, as the world became more distant.  He still knew where he was and what he was, but he felt lighter, more alive.  While it was not obvious yet, he knew that pain would we weakened if he felt it, and fatigue banished from him.

He rose, picked up the pages of his manuscript, and went to look for his fellow death warriors.

*

Mud underfoot in the blue hour [morning twilight] was not Hans’s idea of the best way to prepare for a battle, but it would have to do.  They were almost in place at the low rise which the commanders had picked out to defend.  Fortunately, the mounted scouts had reported that there were no other Yadji dams nearby which could be broken to flood the field again.

He had his musket in place beside him.  His lovingly-treasured flintlock.  All of the men in his ten-strong front rank of musketeers had these new, wonderfully fast muskets.  Some of the musketeers still fought using the older snaphances, which was why they were deployed to the flanks and rear of the formation.

The pikemen were in the centre, twenty wide, with another rank of musketeers on the other side.  More pikemen were on his left, and another group of musketeers further past that.  The same pattern would be duplicated on the other side.  He could not see that far, even with the higher ground, but he knew the deployment.  It was the same that the Colonel had ordered in the last two battles, with the cannon on the even higher ground behind them, and the cavalry off doing whatever Nuyts deemed best.

Now all they had to do was wait for their allies to arrive – they would be delayed by their morning prayers – and then for the enemy to attack.

*

Raw mushrooms were being passed around.  Batjiri took two of them, and sent the platter on to the next warrior.  He popped the first in his mouth, chewing it quickly, and swallowed.  Then he consumed the second.

His armour was laid out before him, as standard for a death warrior in preparation for fulfilling his oath.  The writing table and pen beside it were not standard, but Batjiri wanted to write whatever inspiration came to him before his departure.

Chanting started up around him as the death warriors started to dress.  He joined in with the familiar chants, the ancient words coming to his lips almost without conscious thought.  Recited so slowly, oh so slowly.

“The path opens, the path opens...”

He put on the padded undershirt first, left sleeve first, then the right.

“The journey begins, the journey begins...”

He tightened and tied the strings at the front, those designed so that the wearer could fit them himself.

“The first step is the hardest...”

He picked up his armour, with fish-shaped scales fastened to a jacket of emu-leather hide.  A weight of metal in his arms, his last great burden to be fastened to him in this life.

“To make your oath true...”

He fitted the left sleeve first again, feeling the weight on his arm and shoulder as the jacket settled into place.

“Once on the road, once on the road...”

He closed the right sleeve around his arm, and pulled the jacket tight as the armour fitted around him.

“You will walk ever onward, ever onward...”

He signalled for his neighbour to tighten the straps for his jacket now, to bring the armour into maximum protection.

“To the end that lies beyond...”

He closed his neighbour’s armour too, fixing it so that the straps closed at his back where they would be best defended.

“Go armed, go armed into the mist of decision...”

He pulled on the leather leggings, reinforced with only light scales which offered lesser protection, but which allowed freedom of movement and reduced weight.

“Battle to the death, battle to the death...”

He finished tying the leggings at his waist, and reached for his helmet.

“So that you can fight on after it!”

He placed the helmet on his head, his final protection, as the chant started again, the pace quickening slightly this time.

“The path opens, the path opens...”

He checked his shield, running his finger around the edge for flaws.

“The journey begins, the journey begins...”

He started to feel more detached now, as the mushrooms began to take effect inside him.

“The first step is the hardest, the hardest, to make your oath true...”

He strapped his shield onto his back, where it would be ready to carry into the battle.

“Once on the road, once on the road...”

He reached for the dagger and belt, and fixed them around his waist.

“You will walk ever onward, ever onward...”

He checked his sword too, blade and hilt, but did not move to put this on, not until he marched out.

“To the end that lies beyond...”

Words were being shaped by his lips, but others now brewing inside his head.  Now, he knew how to finish his classic.

“Go armed, go armed into the mist of decision...”

He inked the pen and crouched over the table.  Writing was awkward in armour, but he had written so many words during the long wait that he was sure he would manage now.

“Battle to the death, battle to the death, so that you can fight on after it!”

He wrote the words that concluded his work: Care not how you die.  Care how you live.

The writing finished, Batjiri joined fully in the chanting, as the words were repeated again and again, gaining slightly in tempo each time.

*

The sun rose gradually higher in the sky as Hans waited with his compatriots.  He silently blessed his hat.  Back in Germany that would often have been merely decoration, but here it would be a stone-cold blessing as the day heatened.

Movement on either side showed him that the Mutjing and Yadilli allies were moving into place.  Slower than he liked, on a day like this.  The Yadilli in particular had always put him ill at ease, with their murderous ways and their persistent attempts to convert him and his fellows to their pagan faith.  But he supposed it did not matter too much today.  The Yadji were even slower to deploy, and no-one could doubt the Yadilli courage.

There would be no parley today.  Perhaps demands had been heard discreetly over the last couple of days, but by now every man knew that the Yadji would never surrender until they had been utterly defeated.  Today would have to be one more lesson.

As the sun rose higher, the Yadji eventually came.  Units of the enemy marched across the open ground in front of them.  Many units of men, seeming to stretch from horizon to horizon.  As they neared, he could pick out the distinctive two-part Yadji banners, with a square section hanging from the top and a smaller downward-pointing triangle below.  He had no idea what the different banner designs meant, but noticed how many of them were being carried.

“So it begins,” he murmured.

*

Drums beat to his left and his right, as Batjiri marched on according to the demands of their rhythm.  He was in the front rank of the Spurned, his banner of death warriors.

But not in the front rank of the whole army, as he might have expected.  Units marched in front of the death warriors.  Not in the usual tight formations that prepared for a charge.  Small columns of men, two or three wide, with gaps between each column.  The units had been separated, as if to weaken them.  Or to make space.  Who knew why Gunya Yadji had given his orders?

The ground beneath his feet held some mud.  But not enough that it troubled him.  This part of the battle was one he understood.  The order had gone forth that the muddy ground would weaken the Raw Men.  That their thunder balls would be harder to fire, that their dog-riders would find manoeuvre more difficult, and that the eggs from their thunder-carts would be less effective in the mud.

The drums continued their slow beat, and the death warriors marched on toward the enemy.

*

Cannon belched somewhere behind and above him, their balls landing among the approaching Yadji.  Faint words carried across the narrowing gap; the Yadji seemed to be singing as they charged.  He had never heard that before.

Regardless of the enemy actions, Hans knew what he had to do.  A discipline born of long practice consumed him.  He bit down on his first paper cartridge, ripping it open with his teeth.  He pushed the frissen [striker] forward and tipped a small dose of powder into the revealed flash pan.

The singing grew slightly louder as he pushed the frissen back to close the flash pan.  He tipped the musket vertically, the barrel held upward, and emptied the main dose of powder into the barrel.  The ball went in next, before he pushed in the wadding formed from the cartridge paper.  He took the ramrod from its position beneath the barrel, and pushed it into the barrel to compact the wadding, powder and ball into a mass ready for firing.

Ignoring the sounds of the approaching enemy, he replaced the ramrod and raised the musket ready for firing.  The butt fitted against his shoulder as he pulled back the hammer.

The mass of enemy soldiers were close enough now, despite the strange gaps in their ranks.  He aimed as best he could, readying himself for the order.

“Fire!” came the cry, somewhere behind him.

Smoke belched from the musket as he and his fellow musketeers fired.  The thunder of the powder firing was followed by some screams that carried across the gap from the charging pagans.  He ignored that as best he could, kneeling down to let the second rank fire, and tried to keep the powder cartridges dry and clear of the mud while he repeated the process to reload.

When he stood to fire again, he vaguely glimpsed many of the front rank of Yadji down, but more of them kept coming.  The gap closed, and he fired again.

A third volley followed, then a fourth.  The Yadji died in numbers, but they kept coming.  It was as if they cared nothing for whether they died.

“Pikemen forward!” came the order.

Pikes were lowered as the men stepped forward, around Hans and his fellows.  The approaching Yadji were close, so close now, and breaking out of their columns now that the musket fire ceased.

With the first two ranks of pikemen in front of him, Hans reloaded at a less frantic pace, waiting to fire over their shoulders when an opportunity presented itself.

*

Soldiers ahead fought and died.  Smoke rose like mist from the battlefield, obscuring the enemy ranks and those who had come closest to them.

A few regular soldiers broke and ran, but the death warriors paid them no heed.  Batjiri and his fellows cared nothing for those who fled death.  An ending came to all men.  All that mattered was how they faced it.

The beat of the drums quickened, and Batjiri shifted from a walk to a jog.

Ahead, a few more of the thunder-sticks belched lead and smoke.  More of the enemy seemed to be fighting in hand to hand, or at least as far as he could tell through the smoke.

The drum beat quickened again, and Batjiri shifted into a run.  Thunder sounded, and somewhere off to his left, he heard screams as a large ball struck the ground.  He focused more ahead than anything else, as between the smoke, he could see some of the enemy soldiers thrusting their very long spears to keep the regular soldiers at bay.  Others fired more of their thunder-sticks.

The drum beat intensified, and Batjiri broke into a sprint.  For now, he could concentrate only on frenzy and the charge.

*

Hans stood, waiting for a gap in the pikes, and fired.  A Yadji soldier dropped to the ground.  Whether dead, injured, or just out of fear, it mattered little.  All that was important was keeping the enemy far enough away to keep the pikes intact.

So far, it remained unbreached, at least in front of him.  He could not see or hear other parts of the battle, but since they were not being pressed from either side, events could not be going too badly.

As he crouched for yet another reload, he heard a sound which carried over the immediate clash of battle.  Drums, growing louder and faster, and then a mighty shout that overcame even that sound.

When he rose again, he saw a fresh round of enemy soldiers drawing close.  They carried two banners that he could see, and they moved at an incredible pace.  He fired again, along with some other musketeers around him, but those two banners kept coming closer, and the drums kept sounding.

[[See an image of these banners here: http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff379/username_not_found/HereCometheDrums.png]]

*

Nothing matters now, nothing except the charge.  Other warriors march beside him, crying out fragments of one chant or another.  He hears them not, his focus is on what lies ahead.

Many enemy long-spears, but not an unbroken wall.  Enough of the regular soldiers have reached the enemy ranks that there are gaps here and there.  That is all he needs, as he runs into one of those openings, right up to the spear-wielders.

The nearest soldier wears scale armour, but Batjiri hardly notices.  He runs right up, with a thrust of his sword that brings down the scale-armoured man.  The one behind him wears brighter colours, though that barely registers too.  He has a sword, but still in position to fight the soldier who just died.  Batjiri’s thrust catches the man in the shoulder, and the enemy falls.  Batjiri’s boots land on the man’s jaw as he steps forward, to face another brightly-coloured enemy.

*

Hans drops his musket hurriedly, and reaches for his rapier.  “God preserve me!” he says.

The second wave of Yadji soldiers have devastated the front ranks.  He knows he shot at least one, and others within his sight fell from other muskets or impaled themselves on pikes.  Even those gruesome deaths has served the enemy’s purposes, since others pushed into the gaps left when their fellows fell to the ground and carried the pike heads with them.

No matter how many of them died before they came close, once they reached the lines, the rest have fought with the fury of dragons.  Nothing is left of the front two ranks of pikeman before him, and he has only been saved by other pikemen who pressed forward after dropping their pikes and drawing their swords.

Now, it is his turn.  One of those frenzied maniacs is clashing with another German, sword on sword.  Hans steps forward when he sees an opening, and strikes the maniac in the side.  It does not kill him, or even pierce his armour, but the distraction lets the other German strike a deadlier blow.

“They die!” Hans shouts.

He never sees the blow that comes from his left.  Or anything again after that.

*

Batjiri strikes again and again, sword on sword or armour or shield.  He does not hear anything.  Noise is naught but background in his frenzy.  All that matters is what he sees, and what he sees, he attacks.

He is not capable of counting how many of the enemy have fallen.  Or even of distinguishing between friends and enemies, except for those who wear the white dye.  Anyone else is a foe to be cut down.

And cut them down he does, until a pistol shot he never sees blasts through his armour, and he falls to the ground.  Even then, prone on the ground, he manages to draw his dagger and thrust it at the nearest foe, though he will never know if it causes any damage.

Behind him, as he the world fades around him, sounds register again.  A fresh sound of drums.

Batjiri has gone to fight his Last Battle before a third wave of regular Yadji soldiers charges in.  The embattled Raw Men are too busily engaged in melee to use their pikes or muskets to hold off this wave.

After that arrival, only one fate remains open.

--

27 January 1638
Kirunmara, Durigal

Row after row of soldiers, lined up for Gunya Yadji to inspect.  His soldiers, now, one and all.  Far too many have died in subduing the Raw Men and their allies and rebels.  So many widows will weep tonight.

Yet for all of the cost, this is a victory he will treasure for ever more.  The seemingly-invincible Nedlandj have been defeated, by the courage of the death warriors and by Bidwadjari’s cunning, and ultimately by weight of iron and blood.  His cousin Bailgu is most lamentably not among the dead, too, but even the best of battle plans do not accomplish everything.

He completes his inspection of the soldiers, walking past the front rank of each unit, to cheers and acclamation.  This is his victory.

Bidwadjari and his other senior commanders await him in the centre of the field.  The other princes stand behind them, too, except for now-departed Bailgu.

After a moment, he shouts, “Bidwadjari, my right arm, and all of my soldiers: praise be unto you for the glory you have won.”

He waits, for the soldiers to shout on the message in relay until it has been carried to all units.

Before he can go on with his speech, Bidwadjari drops onto one knee.  “The glory is yours, my Regent.  Command me and I shall obey, in all things, until the Neverborn breaks free of the earth and reclaims his dominion.”

The ritual announcement leaves Gunya momentarily lost for words.  The throne belongs to him, of course, but it is not something he has expected to claim just yet.

The commanders around Bidwadjari match the announcement, and then the soldiers behind.  Making the most of the unplanned moment, Gunya turns to the princes, to await their response.  One by one, they do the same.  The slowest are those who had been backing Bailgu, but even they submit.

Such an acclamation expects that he will now give commands worthy of a new Regent.  Fortunately, he already knows what he wants to order.  One part had already been planned whenever he declared victory in this battle, while the other simply awaited his assumption of the Regency to say what has long been in his heart.

Gunya says, “Hear my commands.  Prisoners we have seized from the Nedlandj and the rebels.  When they captured honourable Yadji soldiers in their uprising, they slaughtered them.  It is only fitting that our response be the same.  Death for death, sword for sword.  Kill all of the prisoners, sparing only those drove the thunder-carts [cannon].”

“It shall be done,” Bidwadjari says.

“For those few who escaped on their giant dogs, do not kill them all, so long as they flee,” Gunya says.  “Harry them, chase them, kill a few, but do not destroy them.  Drive them from the Land, and let them carry word of their defeat.  Let them carry word of the might of the Yadji.”

That draws forth cheers, as the words are relayed to the soldiers.

After the orders have been relayed, Gunya speaks again.  This time, he adopts his most formal tone.  “Hear the words of your Regent: the Nedlandj are enemies of the Neverborn.  They are not to be harboured.  They must not be welcomed.  The Nedlandj are to be killed on sight, by any man or woman who holds to honour.  The Land of the Five Directions must be free of their taint.  Never can they be permitted to set foot here, until the Neverborn comes and Cleanses all the world.”

--

Riding, endless riding, punctuated by moments of too-short sleep.

Twenty horses trail behind Pieter Nuyts.  Only fifteen carry riders.  The other horses are there as remounts and carriers of the few remaining provisions and other supplies which the escapees have managed to bring with them.

Worse, this small band of sixteen men are less than half of those who fled from the battlefield beside the Yadji capital.  They had still numbered twenty-four when they reached Coonrura [Kingston SE, South Australia], only to find that their ships had fled before their arrival, giving up the promise of gold out of fear of the Yadilli who had turned on their former allies.  Now, they number only sixteen men fleeing north-west out of the Yadji lands, with the fear that every skirmish with their pursuers will cost them more blood.

Another hill, another declining slope, as they urge their horses on, with Nuyts still at the lead.  Strength has failed them in the Yadji empire, but for now, he will run.  After that... he will have to see.

On the downslope, the grass gives way to a scattering of these strange, sharp-smelling, fire-loving trees which are so characteristic of this land.  The trees gradually grow closer together, but there is a trail through here, too.  Not a well-used one, by the looks of it, but wide enough for two horses to ride side by side.

Further down, the ground flattens out, and the trees open up into one of those wide swathes of open, slowly-regrowing land which mark the passage of one of their wildfires.  Nuyts signals for the horsemen to ride four abreast.  Not that he expects much danger ahead, since the Yadji have been trying to pursue them on foot, but it will be safer nonetheless.

Or so he thinks.

When they are nearly across the open ground, men emerge from the trees beyond.  Sunlight glints off metal as they emerge.  Not scaled armour like the Yadji prefer, but something else.  It looks like mail, with rings reflecting the light of the sun.

He almost signals for an attack, since there are only about two dozen men who have stepped out from the trees.  Then he notices that more men are standing at the edge of the trees.  Many more men, at least twice as many as the mail-clad warriors.  Men who carry some sort of bows.  Why didn’t he notice them earlier?

Nuyts has drawn his horse to a halt, as have those with him.  The mail-clad warriors make no move to attack them, either, although the ones behind have their bows out where they can nock arrows quickly.

One of the mail-clad men steps forward slightly.  His gaze lands on Nuyts.

“Pieter Nuyts, I presume,” the man says, his Dutch accented but understandable.

“So I am called,” he says.  “Who are you, to ask that of me?”

“I am Wemba of the Whites,” the other man says, and sketches a bow with left arm across his stomach and right arm extended, for all the world as if he is a Dutch gentleman.

Nuyts wonders, almost abstractly, why the man calls himself a White.  His skin is a few shades lighter than that of a typical Yadji, but still dark in comparison to any man not born in Africa [3].  “You are a... Gunnagal?”

The man nods.  “Of course.”

It takes Nuyts a moment to realise that Wemba has nodded to mean the affirmative, something which no other kuro has ever done.  And there is the bow, too.  Just how much does this man know of Dutch ways?

Wemba says, “But the archers behind me are not Gunnagal.  They are Palawa.  One Palawa with a greatbow can hit a duck at two hundred paces.  I have fifty Palawa behind me.  Consider this carefully as you listen to my next words.”

A shiver passes through Nuyts, despite the heat.  “I’m listening.”

“Pieter Nuyts, you are summoned to Tjibarr,” Wemba says.  He holds up a hand, and the archers behind him move as one to seize arrows and nock them into the bowstrings.

Will those arrows pierce steel armour?  If they are anything like the longbows which the English are said to have used in the past, they may well.  Anyway, the horses have no protection.

Despite the danger, though, Nuyts still does not want to agree.  Being ordered around so arrogantly grates at him.  “And if I refuse to come?” he asks.

Wemba grins, or at least his mouth is open and his teeth are showing.  “If you are summoned to Tjibarr, you will come.”  His grin widens.  “As to whether you are dead or alive when you arrive – that is your choice.”

--

[1] This is a “tea” made from the leaves from the lemon-scented tea tree (Leptospermum petersonii), which in historical Australia was used by early colonial settlers to make a substitute for tea.  The flavour is reminiscent of lemon, though lacking some of the tartness.  In allohistorical Aururia, this plant was cultivated by the peoples of the eastern seaboard (where it is native), and its use has spread to some of the Yadji lands.  The ruling class and most of the dominant ethnic Junditmara do not care for it, but some of their subject peoples do, including the Yadilli in the west and the Kurnawal in the east.

[2] Alertness-weed is what the Yadji call a couple of the native Aururian species of tobacco (Nicotiana suaveolens and N. velutina) that the death warriors chew as part of their preparation for entering their battle trance.  These are close relatives of domesticated tobacco, and have stimulant properties.

[3] Strictly speaking, there are other non-African peoples whose skin tone could be considered as dark as the Gunnagal (eg some Melanesian peoples).  Nuyts is not really aware of those, though; at this point New Guinea and the Solomon Islands had only limited contact with Europeans.

--

Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #0

This instalment was originally written for an online contest (at www.counter-factual.net).

Continuity note: The gist of this essay fits into the Lands of Red and Gold timeline, including the references to modern authors, cities, nations etc.  What should not be considered canon is the absolute dates given to the publication of the various ATL sources.  I’ve still not determined the general rate of cultural, scientific and cultural progress in this timeline.  There are factors that pull both ways, such as reduced world population and economy thanks to *Australian plagues, but increased world population thanks to the spread of *Australian crops. There are also some consequences of *Australian contact which may contribute to the spread of the scientific world-view.  Until I’ve determined those, the absolute dates listed here should not be taken as canon.  (The relative dates between the various works are still more or less right.)

Stylistic note: The main essay text is written in normal text.  Any brief notations about OTL places, cultures etc are marked in square brackets []. The essay marker’s comments are in double square brackets with blue italics [[]].

Anyway, on with the essay...

--

Q: Describe and evaluate the roles which geography, climate and native agriculture performed in the comparative cultural development of any two of the “cradles of civilization”.

Essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Fundamentals of Cultural History at Marlborough University, Suffolk [Alexandria, Virginia], Commonwealth of Virginia, Alleghania

1. Introduction

In its fundamentals, human culture is as old as the evolution of language, if not the evolution of the human species. For the purposes of historical analysis, however, the study of cultural history begins with the first cultures to develop writing, supplemented by what archaeology can reveal of their pre-literate development [1]. These cultures are traditionally referred to as cradles of civilization; while the value and connotations of this term have been disputed, it remains the most widely accepted name within cross-cultural studies [2]. [[Redundant: this paragraph was unnecessary as the next one gives a useful introduction.]]

While the number of cradles of civilization is debated, the main consensus is seven: the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Yellow River in Cathay, the Nyalananga Valley [River Murray, Australia], the Tamochan [Olmecs], and Caral [Norte Chico civilization, in OTL modern Peru] [3]. Each of these centres had an independent origin of culture; the fundamentals of their worldviews developed without significant contributions from other cultures. This essay will examine two of these independent centres: Egypt along the Nile, and the Gunnagalic cultures that developed on the Nyalananga and its tributaries.

The concept of a cradle of civilization includes the inherent assumption that civilization largely develops alone [4]. Meaningful historical analysis of their development can only be conducted when there is limited fusion with other cultures. As such, this essay focuses mainly on the development of Egyptian culture until the Nubian invasion of 732 BC [5], and of the Gunnagalic cultures until the European irruption in 1619 AD.

After these dates, the cultural development of these two civilizations became part of the global cultural matrix, and separate analysis becomes much more difficult. Nevertheless, later I will briefly assess some of the major influences which Egypt and Gunnagalia had on the wider world.

[1] Baxter (1978), pp iv-vii
[2] Hubbard (1999), p496
[3] Ibid., pp501-503
[4] Didomede (1992), pp16-18
[5] It is true that Egypt reverted intermittently to native rule for some periods after this date, such as during the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.  Nevertheless, the Nubian intrusion and other foreign influences (Assyrian and Persian) meant that Egyptian culture had already been pulled out of its independent course.  Refer also to al-Azm (2004), pp270-276.

2.1 Geography and Climate of Egypt

Egyptian culture has long been recognised for its remarkable features, notably its stability and impressive public works [6]. Its native religion endured nearly unchanged for over three millennia. Even in its early development it produced massive constructions which would survive until the present day. The geography and climate of Egypt played a determining role in shaping this distinctive culture.

Ancient Egyptian civilization was built on a single geographical anomaly: the River Nile. This river, the world’s longest, has a lower course which runs through one of the harshest deserts in the world. Such an arid climate would normally not sustain human life. Only the life-giving waters of the Nile allowed Egypt to support any meaningful human habitation, let alone become one of the cradles of civilization. The Nile and its desert surroundings shaped the development of the Egyptian civilization in its religion, in its political structure and stability, in its cultural outlook, and its entire society [7].

The Nile flows through a natural channel in the Sahara, forming a narrow band of arable land in otherwise overwhelming emptiness, culminating in the broad expanse of the Nile Delta. Ancient Egypt traces its cultural origins to this limited region, bound by the First Cataract and the Delta; a verdant but confined land.

[6] Trevitt (1982), pp24-27
[7] Ibid., pp29-33

2.2 Geography and Climate of Gunnagalia

Gunnagalia [8] is most recognised in modern popular culture for what its inhabitants were at the end of their independent development: a people of factions and football, of secretive physicians and many-spiced food, chewers of kunduri [a native nicotine-containing drug reminiscent of tobacco], and chain-mail clad armies marching to war. In reality, this popular impression marked merely the most recent phase in a long history of culture and technology which had progressed through many stages of development since the first proto-farmers started to cultivate red yams along the middle course of the Nyalananga’s journey to the sea.

As in Egypt, Gunnagalia’s culture was shaped by the geography and climate that bore it. Rising in the driest inhabitant continent, the Nyalananga is a much lower-volume river than most other rivers of its length. It drains about one-seventh of the Aururian [*Australian] land mass, over 400,000 square miles, forming the 17th largest drainage basin in the world, but in terms of average discharge volume, it is only the 44th largest river [9].

The Nyalananga basin is mostly extremely flat; rivers take a meandering, slow-flowing course through most of their length. Unlike Egypt, climate in the basin is not as unforgiving as that of the Nile. For most of the river’s length, there is moderate precipitation. Water-efficient plants can be sustained by rainfall alone, including the crops which started native agriculture. The river provides transportation, water for drinking and artificial wetlands, and floods which renew the soil, but is not the conditio sine qua non for human agriculture and life as is the Nile [10].

The geography and climate in the Nyalananga basin are distinctive for their unpredictability, and this contributed to Gunnagalia’s cultural development. The climate in south-eastern Aururia does not follow an annual cycle, but is instead dominated by longer-term variations of drought and intense rains. Rain cannot be relied on to fall at a particular time of year, or even in a given year. Severe droughts can endure for years, or be broken unpredictably by rainfall so heavy that it results in extensive flooding. In the flat topography of the Nyalananga basin, these floods can spread over fifty miles wide, and take months to subside [11]. In dry years, the native flora supports cataclysmic wildfires which bring devastation to wide areas. These chaotic, unpredictable extremes of climate shaped the Gunnagalic culture that developed in the cradle of the Nyalananga.

[8] Gunnagalia is the term which is used in this essay for the cultures that developed in the Nyalananga basin. It is also referred to as the Nyalananga Valley Civilization. Some scholars, including most historians, prefer to reserve the term Nyalananga Valley Civilization for the prehistoric phase of this cradle (ie the Archaic and Formative Eras before the Late Formative collapse), and use Gunnagalia when referring to the entire pre-1619 period. Other scholars, including most archaeologists, use the term Nyalananga Valley Civilization for all of the peoples who dwelt along the Nyalananga until the European irruption. Note that in linguistic scholarship, the term Gunnagalia has a different meaning, being used to refer to all of the speakers of Gunnagalic languages throughout eastern Aururia.
[9] Fletcher-Brown (1975), pp103-105.
[10] Ibid., pp108-115.
[11] Lawson (1959), p6.

2.3 Comparative Geography and Climate

In both Egypt and Gunnagalia, the developing civilizations centred on their respective rivers. The rivers provided the main form of transportation [12], and their waters sustained the people who lived along their banks.

The critical difference lay in the nature of flooding and general water flow, and the broader weather patterns which drove them. Egypt’s desert latitudes meant it was usually baked in year-round sun broken by occasional sandstorms. The Nile floods were a regular annual cycle which brought life-giving water and soil-replenishing silt to a land which otherwise had virtually no rainfall. Drought and flood failure formed a rare departure from these regular patterns. The rhythm and order of the Nile shaped the culture that developed along its banks [13].

The Nyalananga had no such regularity. Its flow was highly variable, dominated by irregular patterns of drought alternating with abundant rainfall, and some floods so extensive they were scourges, not blessings. Like the Nile floods, the floods on the Nyalananga could be triggered by unseen rainfall, especially tropical storms in the distant headwaters of the Anedeli [River Darling]. In some cases the cause of floods was unknown, while in other cases the floods were known to originate from more southerly rainfalls. This combination of knowledge and uncertainty contributed to a sense of irregularity for the peoples who dwelt along the Nyalananga and its tributaries [14].

The sudden and destructive presence of bushfires added to a sense of a landscape which could be full of hostility, but much less predictably than the relentless heat of the desert around the Nile. In short, the key feature of the geography and climate of the Nyalananga was unpredictability. The culture which it supported faced chaos, and developed a dramatically different worldview.

The other major difference in geography between Egypt and Gunnagalia was in their relative constraints and avenues to expansion. Egypt was largely confined to the Nile corridor and the Delta, with only narrow regions for potential expansion along the Mediterranean coast or further up the river. Gunnagalia had broader opportunities for expansion, with inhabitable lands to the south, east and north of its riverine heartland.

On the other hand, Egypt was geographically much closer to other cradles of civilization, particularly Mesopotamia, and other agricultural peoples. It also had access to the sea via the Nile Delta. In contrast, Gunnagalia was isolated from other agricultural peoples by deserts and oceans. The Nyalananga is also not navigable to the sea. These factors would also considerably affect the development of these two cradles of civilization.

[12] While the Nyalananga was a much less useful river for shipping than the Nile, due to variable water flow and frequent natural hazards, it still provided a viable transportation route.
[13] McDonnell & Hibbert (2003), pp348-351
[14] Fletcher-Brown (1975), pp110-111.

3. Cultural Consequence

3.1 Order and Unpredictability

As with all the cradles of civilization, there are myriad differences between the geography and climates of Egypt and Gunnagalia. From the perspective of cultural history, the most significant of these is the sense of order and predictability which the Nile brought to Egypt, and the sense of chaos and unpredictability which the Nyalananga brought to Gunnagalia. [[Lacks justification. Why is this more important than, for example, the geographical isolation which prevented contact with non-Aururian cultures for nearly 4000 years?]]

In both cases, the inhabitants did not know the true cause of this order or unpredictability. No-one in Egypt knew about the summer rains in the Ethiopian highlands that drove the annual floods; no-one in Aururia knew about the irregular temperature shifts in ocean temperatures in the Pacific and Indian oceans which drove their own patterns of flood and drought.

Without accurate knowledge, both peoples speculated on causes, and developed beliefs and outlooks which best fit the nature of the climate and geography they inhabited. The Egyptians saw the world as permanent and predictable, and developed a knowledge base, religion and social structure which emphasised this sense of permanence and hierarchy [15]. The Gunnagalic peoples viewed the world as essentially unpredictable, and focused their knowledge on practical effects, preparing for contingencies, and creating long-term plans that sought to create permanence where none could be found in nature [16].

This sense of stability and order is demonstrated in the architectural preferences of both civilizations. Egyptian architecture was built to endure; Gunnagalic architecture was built to be “good enough”. Notably, Egyptians built with stone at a much earlier stage of their development than Gunnagalia; most early buildings along the Nyalananga were made of rammed earth rather than stone. Egyptian architecture functioned in a climate where it needed little active maintenance, while Gunnagalic buildings were designed to be easily repairable or replaced [17].

These outlooks are typified by the public works popularly associated with the two civilizations. The Pyramids and Great Sphinx in Egypt have been weathered from their original forms, but remain largely intact. The artificial wetlands along the Nyalananga needed to be repaired every flood. The only pre-Houtmanian [ie before Dutch contact] waterworks which remain today are those which have been maintained more or less continuously since the European irruption.

[15] Harrison (1986), pp99-106
[16] Iverson (1992), pp211-217
[17] Agrippa (2006), pp380-382

3.2 Religion and Astronomy

The consequences of predictability and disorder are equally reflected in the religions and astronomy which developed in both civilizations [18]. Egyptian religion was shaped by the harshness of the desert, and the perception that the social order created in this world would be perpetuated in the world to come. While this is most popularly associated with the practice of mummification, in practice most aspects of Egyptian religion followed the same sense of order and stability, such as the explanations for the regular flooding of the Nile. This practice extended to their view of astronomy, such as with the alignment of the Pyramids to celestial events [19].

Gunnagalic cultures developed a complex set of complementary and sometimes contradictory belief systems to explain the irregular nature of their world. These religious beliefs varied over time and amongst the different cultures, since unlike Egypt, Gunnagalia did not develop a centralised belief structure [20]. [[Dubious. The complexity and syncreticism of Gunnagalic beliefs could be equally explained by lack of political unity as by consequences of irregular climate.]]

Nonetheless, Gunnagalic beliefs had some common elements, such as their view of time as a non-linear, ongoing process, and their belief in a variety of powerful spiritual beings who had influence over the world [21]. In Gunnagalia, religion became a search for permanence, a struggle for continuity. In time, this evolved into Plirism, a faith whose central tenet was the need to bring balance to the competing and often irregular forces of the world [22].

The connexion between order and disorder is further reflected in their respective systems of astronomy and astrology. Egypt, like most early civilizations, viewed astronomy based on a largely predictable annual cycle [23]. Egyptian astronomy began as a series of observations that predicted regular events, such as the heliacal rising of stars to foretell the Nile flood, and developed the required mathematics to predict other events such as eclipses. In common with most civilizations, Egypt also developed a form of astrology based on regular cycles (Decanic astrology), based on their underlying assumption of order [24].

With no meaningful basis for an annual cycle, Gunnagalic astronomy focussed on transient phenomena such as novas, comets, and meteors. Such irregular events might give some forewarning to the vicissitudes of drought, flood and bushfire. Gunnagalic astronomers gave little regard to regular astronomical events beyond the minimum of maintaining a calendar, but developed detailed records of transient phenomena [25]. Unlike other early civilizations, Gunnagalic astronomers did not even predict eclipses, treating them as merely another class of transient phenomena. Most tellingly, Gunnagalia was the only cradle of civilization which did not develop some form of cyclical astrology to predict the lives and times of people based on their dates of birth [26]. In their worldview, such predictability did not exist.

[18] As with most early civilizations, religion and astronomy were usually intertwined both in Egypt and Gunnagalia.
[19] While many of the more extreme claims of astronomical alignments for the Pyramids are rejected by mainstream scholarly consensus, some aspects such as its alignment with the cardinal directions are not disputed. See al-Azm (2004), pp398-412.
[20] Except for the state religion of the Watjubaga Empire (556-1124), and even this was largely imposed by the ruling elite and does not appear to have had popular belief, since its cult never endured after the withdrawal of imperial control from any given region. Refer also to Fletcher-Brown (1975), ch. 6.
[21] Baldock (2001), pp252-258.
[22] Plirism was a minority religion in most of Gunnagalia during the period under consideration, but its distinctive character was shaped by the geography and climate of the Nyalananga basin.
[23] Although Egypt’s annual cycle was that of the Nile flooding, rather than the passage of the seasons as in most other early civilizations.
[24] McDonnell & Hibbert (2003), pp505-509
[25] This development was epitomised in the non-Gunnagalic peoples of south-western Aururia (the Atjuntja and their predecessors), whose records of transient astral phenomena were unmatched in the pre-telescopic world. Their records of meteor showers, comets and novas are a valuable source of astronomical knowledge even in the present day. Indeed, the Atjuntja were the only pre-telescopic people to discover Caelus [Uranus].
[26] In so far as it can be determined. Insufficient evidence remains to determine whether the Indus Valley and Caral civilizations had forms of astrology, although their descendant civilizations did. See also Fletcher-Brown (1975), pp187-191.

3.3 Political Conditions

Another distinctive feature of Egyptian civilization was its early political unification, due to the ease of transport on the Nile, and the geographical confinement to the Nile corridor and the Delta. In comparison to other cradles of civilization, Egypt united much earlier and remained politically united for most of its history, with only brief interruptions from foreign dynasties or local divisions. Most comparable early civilizations united much later, and had ongoing and much longer-lasting periods of division [27].

In comparison, the Nyalananga basin was politically disunited for most of its pre-Houtmanian history. Sources disagree as to whether this was a function of the rivers’ more limited transport capacity and erratic flow, a consequence of its perennial agriculture allowing more per worker productivity and thus supporting greater armed forces, or simply a quirk of history [28]. Regardless of the reason, Gunnagalia is the only cradle of civilization which was politically disunited for most of its history, with only a brief interval of unification under the Watjubaga Empire.

These differences extended to the nature of political rule. Absolute monarchs were common in Egypt, since the geography fostered strong central control. Absolute monarchy was a rare concept in Gunnagalia, practiced only during the Imperial period, and even then abandoned well before that period ended.

[27] Consider, for example, Cathay, which did not politically unify until comparatively later, and which experienced much longer periods of political division (eg Three Kingdoms and Southern & Northern Dynasties periods). See Murray et al (1879), vol. 1, Chapters 6-10.
[28] Knight (1988), pp176-182; Sanford (1993), chs 4 &5; Munro (1996), pp88-90.

3.4 Role of Native Agriculture

Unlike other cradles of civilization, Egypt did not develop native agriculture, relying instead on plants domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. Nevertheless, its agricultural wealth was remarkable by ancient standards. With the endless fertility replenishments of Nile silt, and abundant water for irrigation, Egyptian farmers could produce two plentiful harvests each year [29]. The productive capacity of this land far exceeded any of the other cradles of civilization [30]. The time of the Nile flood, when the fields were inundated, also meant that there was a time when the labour of farmers could be utilised for other purposes.

Uniquely among agricultural systems, Gunnagalic agriculture used perennial plants as staple crops. Perennial red yams, cornnarts [wattles] and murnong required relatively less labour to plant and harvest. In turn, this meant that per worker productivity was higher than in most other agricultural systems, and permitted a larger percentage of the population to be supported in non-farming roles [31]. The requirements of perennial agriculture also encouraged a longer-term attitude to land management.

Thus, for different reasons, both civilizations’ agricultural methods produced a larger labour surplus than other cradles of civilization. In both cases, this labour was applied to suit the elite’s preferences; preferences which were themselves shaped by the climate and geography of the respective regions. Egyptian labour was used for monuments and other public works; Gunnagalic labour was applied to produce artificial wetlands and waterworks whose produce benefitted everyone, although the elite more than others. [[Good!]]

[29] McDonnell & Hibbert (2003), pp364-5.
[30] Hopkins (2008), p694
[31] Sanford (1993), ch 5.

3.5 Influence of Other Civilizations

Egypt remained geographically constrained in its avenues for direct expansion, due to desert barriers and other equally advanced peoples with a history of agriculture. Its proximity to other cradles of civilization and their descendants (Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley) meant that it did not develop in complete isolation. Egypt remained culturally conservative for most of its history; understandably, given the rhythms of climate and geography which encouraged a sense of stability. Nevertheless, the geographical proximity opened it to more influences, most notably the invasion of the Hyksos, who introduced chariots and composite bows to Egypt [32], and thus contributed both to technological progress and cultural contamination [33].

In contrast, Gunnagalia developed in isolation, separated both by distance and geographical barriers (deserts and oceans) from the nearest agricultural peoples. However, the local barriers were not so severe as they were in Egypt. This allowed Gunnagalia to expand its cultural influence over vast parts of Aururia during the Great Migrations (900 BC – 200 AD), with no significant competition except the minor Junditmara eel-farmers [34]. [[No! You’re neglecting the major Junditmara contribution to early Nyalananga civilization: artificial wetlands were one of the earliest functions of civilization there, requiring social organisation and hierarchies, and were imported whole-scale from the Junditmara. You should be aware of this since Fletcher-Brown herself explains this – refer to Chapter 8, which describes aquaculture in detail.]]

The other facet of geography which affected contact with other civilizations was the difference in the Nile and Nyalananga river mouths. In common with all cradles of civilization which developed on river systems, Egypt and Gunnagalia had the convenience of an internal transportation network which allowed for rapid communication and commerce within their own borders. However, the Nyalananga had one important facet of riverine geography which distinguished it from the Nile and other major river systems: the Nyalananga is not navigable from the sea.

Without a clear outlet to the sea, Gunnagalia was inhibited in its development of oceanic shipping or commerce beyond the confines of their founding river system. This lead to a cultural predilection for land-based and riverine commerce to the neglect of open-water navigation, which persisted even when the Gunnagalic peoples expanded beyond the Nyalananga.

In comparison, Egypt had overseas commerce by the time of contact with the Minoans by 2000 BC, if not earlier, and also sent ships along the Red Sea. The Gunnagalic peoples remained largely land-based for centuries after the Great Migrations. Even when they did venture into the seas, they did so hesitantly. While a few Gunnagalic peoples developed some experience in navigating the open seas, principally the Nangu and Kiyungu, they were much more limited than comparative peoples in their commerce. It took the arrival of the external influence of Polynesian navigational techniques after 1310 to produce meaningful deep-water commerce amongst the Gunnagalic peoples [35]. [[You’re neglecting another important facet of geography: the hostility of the open seas near Aururia. The Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea have much better weather and prevailing wind conditions than most of Aururia’s coastal waters, which favoured the development of oceanic commerce in Egypt but hindered it in Aururia.]]

[32] McDonnell & Hibbert (2003), pp442-444.
[33] Using this word in a morally neutral sense, since the Hyksos invasion meant that their culture had spread into a different cell in the global cultural matrix.
[34] Fletcher-Brown (1975), pp188-196.
[35] Ngahui (1987), pp213-218.

3.6 Global Cultural Contributions

The modern cultural influence of Egypt is often difficult to discern once their culture had fused with the broader West Eurasian matrix, except in directly Egyptian-inspired art and architecture. This is because Egypt had indirect influence through its transmission of ideas and technology into Greek and Arabic cultures, and thence to broader European and Middle Eastern cultures. Many technologies and fields of knowledge of Egyptian origin became widespread in other cultures, such as papyrus, mathematics, glass-working and astronomy [36], although these influences have been shaped and reshaped by the other cultures which transmitted them.

Gunnagalic culture was more limited in its fields of influence, due to its development as a distinctive culture for millennia, but that same isolation means that even after its culture fused into the broader global matrix, its influence is easier to trace. The Gunnagalic preoccupation with finding meaningful outcomes during uncertainty led to a field of practical inquiry in medicine, and to physicians who were in many respects more advanced than those of their contemporaries elsewhere in the world, such as the first effective antiseptic [37]. Gunnagalic physicians also compared each other’s success in treating medical cases, which in time led to the concept of peer review, and which generalised to the comparison and evaluation of modern science. [[No! These comparison methods were not exclusive to Gunnagalic doctors. Medieval Islam had a similar practice, and it didn’t lead to a scientific revolution there. The practices of the Gunnagal may have led to modern peer review (an arguable case), but they were not exclusive to the Nyalananga Valley civilizations, so you haven’t built a case that this is due to any of their features of geography and climate.]] Gunnagalic long-term land management, a derivation of their perennial agriculture, has also inspired much of the modern conservation movement [38].

The field of religion is one of the most significant contributors to cultural development [39]. In this aspect, Gunnagalia made a much greater contribution to the modern cultural matrix than Egypt. Native Egyptian religion, due to its particular development in an ordered geography, became much more bound to its particular land. It did not naturally adapt to other regions, and did not develop into a form which made religious expansion suitable. Egyptian religion did not have much influence on broader culture, with the minor exception of some individual and short-lived cults such as that of Isis in Greco-Roman society [40].

In comparison, Gunnagalic religion, in the form of Plirism, proved to be more versatile in adapting to the wider world, since it first needed to adapt to the changing geography and unpredictable climate of its own region, and the competing political entities of a region which was geographically harder to unify. This led to a faith which became one of the world’s few evangelical religions, and which after European irruption spread far beyond its original geographical confines to become one of the world’s major religions [41].

[36] Harrison (1986), pp156-161.
[37] Iverson (1992), pp282-284.
[38] Blunt (2004), pp8-10.
[39] Didomede (1992), pp45-48.
[40] Egyptian religious influence was limited unless Hartwood’s thesis is correct, namely that Atenism was an influence for the founding of Judaism, and thus indirectly all of the Abrahamic religions. Mainstream scholars reject this interpretation, however. Refer to al-Azm (2004), ch. 12, for a review.
[41] Plirism is either the fourth or the fifth-largest religion in the modern world, depending on how adherents of Buddhism are calculated. [[A source or two would be nice here.]]

4. Conclusion

The Nile and the Nyalananga centre on two regions with vastly different climates and geography, and which shaped two of the cradles of civilization. The combined influence of order and chaos, of regularly and unpredictability, of geographical isolation or proximity, produced two distinctive civilizations which both contributed to the modern cultural matrix.

5. Bibliography

Agrippa, H. (2006). Under Gundabingee: Excavating the Middle Formative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

al-Azm, Youssef Pasha (2004). New Perspectives in Egyptology. Cairo: Basirah

Baldock, Y.B. (2001). “Religious Iconography and Beliefs in Classical Gundabingee”. Journal of Gunnagalic Studies 44(2): 242–268.

Baxter, Martin (1978). Progression and Purpose: Understanding Modern Society Through Its Cultural Antecedents. New London [Charleston, South Carolina]: Unwin & Allen.

Blunt, R. (2004). Seeds of Conservation: Managing our Future. London: Sinclair & Blackford.

Didomede, Juno (1992). One Out of Many: The Development of the Global Cultural Synthesis. London: Hoover House.

Fletcher-Brown, Miranda (1975). Understanding Aururia. Cumberland [Geelong, Victoria]: Chelsea Todd.

Harrison, J.G. (1986). Of Pharaohs and Goat-Headed Gods. Kesteven [Boston]: Heron.

Hopkins, Verity (2008). New Learnings on Early Origins: What Archaeology Tells Us. Cumberland: Moths Head Press.

Hubbard, Douglas R. (1999). Toward Explaining Human Culture: Findings From the Fusion of Disciplines. Oxford: University of Oxford Press.

Iverson, Courage (1992). Finding the Balance. Cumberland: Cosmic Hand.

Knight, W. (1988). The Classical Gunnagal. Libra [San Francisco]: Monte Verde.

Lawson, Concord (1959). Surviving the ’52 Floods. Jugara [Victor Harbor, South Australia]: Black Dawn.

McDonnell, Jamis & Hibbert, E. E. (2003). Social Atlas of Ancient Egypt. Horeb [Providence, Rhode Island]: Benedict Clayton.

Munro, B. (1996). Crossing Over. Acevedo [Albuquerque, New Mexico]: Winterhome.

Murray, Peter; Crawford, Hannibal; & Boyd, John (1879). An historical and descriptive account of Cathay. London & Edinburgh: Gordon & Porter. 3 volumes.

Ngahui, Gloire (1987). Ancient Navigators in Polynesia. Maunga [Auckland, New Zealand]: Duchesne.

Sanford, Julius (1993). Cannon, Clocks and Crops: The Destinies of Human Societies. Newport [New Haven, Connecticut]: Winthrop & Jessup.

Trevitt, Christobel (1982). Ancient Egypt: Dissecting a Civilisation. Cologne: Weisspferd.

--

Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #1: In The Balance

This is a brief glimpse of one part of the future, set in Africa in a period which socially and politically is closest to the era of decolonisation during the mid-twentieth century.

--

The Huntsman’s Club
Providence [Mwanza, Tanzania]

A cool evening breeze blew off Lake Fons [Lake Victoria], swirling through the columns that formed the outer wall of the Club.  Wonderfully cooling, wonderfully soothing.

“This is the life,” Peter muttered to himself.  He held a glass of duranj [1] in his hand, and took another slow sip of the sweet beverage.

No need to hurry.  Nothing at the Club needed to be rushed.  A relict of a former age, that.  A time of culture and pleasure now fading.  The Club stood as one of the last bastions of that elder time.

A few other men shared the lower dining level with him, clustered in groups of two or three or four.  All had tables shaded beneath the columns, but with enough room that they kept at least one table between them.

The Club had higher levels; the columns supported private balconies on the floors immediately above, and the rooftop level – the Lodge – was reserved for the most distinguished guests.  Or wealthiest, at least; in the elder age which the Club preserved, those two were usually synonymous.

Peter had never been as high as the Lodge.  No mere commander of mercenaries would be so considered, according to the ancient traditions of the Club, except by invitation only.  He did not really care, in truth.  Being admitted to the Club was welcome enough, and even the common dining room here was exquisite.

He took another measured sip of the duranj.  Perfect in its flavour, of course.  The Club would not serve anything of lesser quality, whether drink or food.

A discreet cough made him turn to the immaculately dressed black waiter who stood behind him.

The waiter said, “The Colonel presents his compliments, sir, and asked me to give you this.”  He handed over a note.

Peter took it with a murmured word of thanks.  He knew more than a few colonels, but only one who would use the unadorned title as his name.

Sure enough, when he opened the note, it read: “Please join me for dinner up at the Lodge.”  It bore a simple signature: Hans.

A welcome invitation, as far as Peter was concerned.  The note was sufficient to gain him entry up the three flights of stairs that led up to the Lodge.

Here, he found that the main part of the Lodge consisted of a large dining room, with widely-spaced oak tables – a valuable import in itself – and comfortable leather lounge chairs arranged around them.  A piano played softly in the corner; the white musician had picked a tune which Peter did not recognise, but which sounded suitably soothing.

“Peter!” the Colonel exclaimed, and rose from his seat to clap the other man around the shoulder.

“Good to see you again,” Hans said.

“Likewise,” Peter said.  “You’re looking well.”

The phrase was more than just polite chit-chat.  Hans wore his full dress uniform, mainly cobalt blue with scarlet trimmings, and scarlet and gold epaulettes that bore two diamonds and stylised eagle’s wings.  That appearance suited him better than he had looked when in the field, although even then the Colonel had always maintained a sense of quiet dignity.

Hans signalled for a waiter.  “What are you drinking?”

“Duranj.”

“Ah, a good choice, here,” the Colonel said.  “Not my own preference, though.”  

When the black waiter arrived, Hans ordered duranj for Peter but sake for himself.  “Won’t drink anything else while I’m in the Club,” the Colonel explained.  “Would even have it in the field, if we could get it.”

“While they’re coming, can I offer you a cigar?” Hans said.  “Habana gold.”

“Thank you, no,” Peter said.  A very odd choice, even in the Club.  “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you smoke tobacco before.”  He produced a pack of klinsigars [cigarettes] and said, “Kunduri has always been my choice; much more soothing.”

Hans shrugged.  “Quality tobacco suits me, when I can find it.  Not many places can make a decent cigar, but Habanas are always worthwhile.”

Peter had his own views on that, but no point to disagreeing openly with so eminent a man as the Colonel.  He just lit a klinsigar of his own, and let the sweet relaxation fill him.

The drinks arrived, but Hans did not touch his until he had his cigar lit, inhaled, and blew a near-perfect smoke ring.  “This is what we’re here for: a place of peace.”

“A peace too long in coming,” Peter said.

“I’ll drink to that, by God!” the Colonel said.  True to his word, he held up his glass, tapped it against Peter’s, and said, “To peace.  Long in coming, and long may it last.”

Peter matched the toast, then drank.  He added, “Good not to worry about skinnies charging out of unknown shadows and shouting danadiri [2].”

“Aye, we both saw too much of that,” the Colonel said.  He inhaled from the cigar and blew another smoke ring, this one more deformed than the first.  “So many memories... but the skinnies will long remember us, too.”

Peter nodded, and turned his attention to finishing his klinsigar.  Feeling much more comfortable, he said, “Maybe we could have done some things better, but my boys – and your regulars – taught the skinnies that we won’t give up.”

“Do you think-” Hans said, then paused as the waiter returned.  “Another duranj and sake.  Then all three courses, please.”

The black man nodded and effortlessly vanished into whatever space waiters occupied when they weren’t needed.

The order at the Lodge was another reminder of that fading elder age.  The Club had no menus for food.  If you wanted food, you ate whatever the chef had prepared for each meal.  Your only choice was ever how many courses you wanted.

Over more drinks and inhalants, they reminisced about the uprisings, and their careers in them.  They spoke of good times and bad times, of fallen comrades, of setbacks and victories.

The food arrived one course at a time, and they ate while they talked.  The first course was creamed mushrooms in barley soup, with toasted sticks of cheese fingerbread on the side.  High quality, of course.  If anything, even better here at the Lodge than downstairs in the Club’s ordinary dining room – and what was served down there was magnificent.

The main course was black noodles with beef and diced tomatoes, seasoned with peanut sauce and crushed sweet peppers, with roasted murnong sprinkled with garlic on the side.  “Superb, as always,” the Colonel said, after they had worked most of their way through their portions of mains.

Peter wondered, vaguely, what dessert would be.

He would never get to find out.

They finished their mains, and the waiters were unexpectedly slow in clearing away their used plates.  Most unlike the service at the Lodge; enough to make the Colonel signal for a waiter again.

One came quickly enough when summoned.  “We’re ready for dessert,” the Colonel said.

The waiter cleared the table and disappeared into the kitchen.

Apparently satisfied, the Colonel went back to discussing the Battle of the Gorge, where it seemed that his regulars had played a more successful part than Peter recalled.

Another waiter appeared from the kitchen, moving rather slowly, and stood in the middle of the dining room.  An odd location to wait, that, since waiters were usually against the walls.  Peter turned enough to look at the water, and realised that the man was talking to himself.  After several field interrogations, Peter knew enough to read the waiter’s lips and recognise the words for what they were: a prayer for final harmony.

Instinct took over.  Peter pulled the Colonel to the ground, tipped the table to its side, and crouched behind it, hoping that the solid weight of oak would offer enough protection.  He just had time to cover his ears to protect against the worst of the noise when he heard a great shout of “Danadiri!”  Followed by an explosion, then screams.

Peter held the Colonel down until it was clear that the explosion had passed, then stood to look out over a scene of carnage.  Nothing much was left of the waiter who had immolated himself.  Around that lay wrecked men and wrecked furnishings; men dismembered or otherwise grievously injured.

“Merciful God,” the Colonel said.  “That man just...”

“Those heathen skinnies have just started a new kind of war,” Peter said.  “One I’m not sure I know how to fight.”

--

[1] Duranj is gum cider, brewed from the sweet sap of trees native to *Tasmania, but now grown elsewhere, and popular around much of the world.

[2] Danadiri is the Bantu-ized equivalent of dandiri, a Nangu (and other Plirite) word which means roughly “bringing order” or “bringing harmony”.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #45: Content To Lie In the Sun

“I do believe I would like another cup.”
- Reported words of William Baffin, English navigator, explorer and eventual plutocrat, when first tasting jeeree [Aururian lemon tea] in Torimi [Port Stephens, Australia], 1636

--

Imagine, if you would, that you can step into a machine unparalleled in the history of the world.  One which can travel not only back in time, but into worlds that history has sidestepped, where the river of time has followed a new course.  The worlds of if.

If you could step through such a machine, you would find a place which the history you know calls south-eastern Queensland, but in allohistory is called the Coral Coast [1].  This is a narrow band of coastal lands east of the continental divide [the Great Dividing Ranges], fringed by warm seas.  With a subtropical climate, the Coral Coast is a land of frequent sun, lush plant growth, more fertile soils and heavier rainfall than most parts of this driest of inhabited continents.  Sometimes the rains fall so heavily that the coastal rivers rise in quick, devastating floods.

While long inhabited by hunter-gather peoples, the first Gunnagalic-speaking farmers arrived here during the Great Migrations, around 500 BC, and began to gradually dominate this land.  The process of displacing the earlier peoples was slower and less complete than in most other areas touched by the Great Migrations; there were still hunter-gatherers living in parts of the Coral Coast over four hundred years after the first Gunnagalic farmers arrived.

The land which these ancient farmers established was in some ways welcoming, in others restricted.  The mountains to the west were both a barrier to exploration and a defence against other newcomers; beyond them lay the sweeping, thinly-populated region called the Neeburra [Darling Downs].  To the east lay the sea, at this time untouched by any other people.  Further south along the coast dwelt the Bungudjimay, a people who would later develop into head-hunting raiders, but who at this time were largely inward-looking.  Further south inland were the highlands which formed ancient Aururia’s key source of tin for bronze-working.  To the north lay warmer lands where their ancient staple crops of red yams and murnong could not grow [2].

These early farmers gradually evolved into the people who called themselves the Kiyungu.  Located at the northernmost extremity of Gunnagalic farming, they were for a long time largely insulated from developments further south; one later scholar of the Kiyungu famously remarked, “History mostly passed them by.”

The Kiyungu were never completely isolated, of course.  Long ago, they learned to sail the coast further north to places where they could dive for corals, which served as a valuable trade good both within Kiyungu society and when trading further south.  Their proximity to the sources of tin meant that they had abundant bronze tools for their purposes.  From their hunter-gatherer predecessors, they acquired a belief in the veneration of the bunya tree, and both the belief and the tree itself would spread south along the trade routes [3].

Still, for so long the Kiyungu were a people content mostly to live under the subtropical sun, divided into city-states which squabbled amongst themselves.  With mountains to the west and only hunter-gatherers to the north, they did not have any major external enemies, and they were not very warlike.  In their distant location, they were protected from the biggest changes that affected the south; the Empire never reached this far, and the ancient Kiyungu were only barely aware of its existence.

Change first came to the Kiyungu through political and religious developments among their neighbours.  The Bungudjimay to the south gradually consolidated into the kingdom of Daluming, and began to expand their head-hunting raids, which started to touch the Coral Coast around 1300 AD.  Soon after, the Tjarrling faith [related to Plirism] spread to the Yalatji who lived beyond the western mountains, and some of those peoples made religiously-inspired visits further east, including some missionaries-in-force.

Fresh inspiration came to the Kiyungu around this time, too, with the first visits from Maori explorers around 1350 AD.  These contacts were few and did not endure, since the Kiyungu lands were distant even by Maori navigators’ standards, and the two peoples had no goods which the other valued enough to sustain long-term trade.

Still, they had one important effect.  Of all the Aururian peoples, the Kiyungu were the keenest sailors apart from the Nangu, and had a keen interest in the Maori vessels.  Like the Nangu before them, the Kiyungu adopted lateen sails, twin-hulled ships and some knowledge of navigational techniques.  Unlike the Islanders, the Kiyungu did not develop these techniques much further, since their interest was initially limited to better ships for reaching the coral reefs to the north, and for more reliable fishing.

The greatest change which came to the Kiyungu was not from politics or religion, but from the appearance of new, tropically-viable staple crops.  The initial contact with the Maori was limited enough that the two peoples did not exchange crops, but the Maori’s crops of kumara [sweet potato] and taro were adopted by peoples further south, and these crops gradually spread north along the coast, reaching the Kiyungu around 1450.

About half a century before that, a new crop had appeared of its own accord in Kiyungu fields: a new form of yam.  It was smaller than the common yams, and needed to be cultivated through cuttings, since at first it did not develop seeds.  The Kiyungu never noticed that it needed more rainfall, too; that was not a problem in the lands along the Coral Coast.

What mattered to the Kiyungu was that they found that these new yams were easy to grow without the stunting problem that sometimes troubled their common yams.  That gave them reason to grow it, and this motivation only increased when they realised that the lesser yam could be grown further north, too.  There was, in fact, no apparent limit to where it could be cultivated.

The first lesser yams were planted further north in small fields adjacent to ports, to provide food for the ships of coral-divers.  But it would not take long for the Kiyungu to find motivation to plant them even further north.  This motivation, too, would only increase when kumara and taro reached the Kiyungu...

--

When it comes time for future linguists, anthropologists and other -ists to study the Kiyungu, they will note that these are in many ways the most distinctive of all the Gunnagalic peoples, in their language, their religion, and their broader culture.

Linguists will note that the Kiyungu still speak a language related to the other members of the Gunnagalic language family.  Nevertheless, its grammar, vocabulary and even phonology differs notably from its linguistic cousins.  While the majority of its words and grammatical features have equivalents elsewhere, a significant minority of its basic words have no equivalent in other Gunnagalic languages.  Most notably, most word roots relating to water, boats and fishing are unique to the Kiyungu, as are many words related to hunting.  Even the names of many of familiar animals have changed; most Gunnagalic languages have related words for animals such as kangaroos and wombats, but the Kiyungu words are distinct.

This shift in vocabulary will be inferred (correctly) by future linguists to be the result of a substratum of word roots which have been borrowed from a now extinct language; the peoples who lived along the Coral Coast before the ancestors of the Kiyungu reached there.

Most Gunnagalic peoples displaced their predecessors during the Great Migrations, but the less effective agriculture in the north meant that the early Kiyungu mingled much more considerably with the previous inhabitants.  This included a considerable portion of their vocabulary, particularly that related to hunting and fishing.

The intermingling of peoples influenced the Kiyungu in other notable ways, particularly religion and social structures.  Later scholars of Gunnagalic studies would note that the Gunnagalic peoples share more than just a common ancestral language; they have also inherited some significant common social structures and, in many cases, common religious beliefs.  The ancient social divisions into kitjigal were represented in one form or another in most later Gunnagalic peoples.  The Kiyungu, however, preserved no trace of those ancient institutions; a sign that their social system had been influenced by other cultures.  Likewise, their own tradition of mentorship with Elder Brothers and Elder Sisters [4] found no comparison amongst other Gunnagalic peoples.

For religious beliefs, students of comparative mythology would later note the common deities and common myths believed by many of the Gunnagalic peoples.  Many scholars could compare equivalent gods (including similar forms of their names), identify the ancestral forms, and recognise the places were earlier myths were adapted into later structures.

The Kiyungu mythology would be amongst those which later scholars would identify as having many points of comparison with other Gunnagalic peoples.  However, they would also note one significant feature which is unique to the Kiyungu, and which they will again assume (correctly) to be the result of non-Gunnagalic influence.

While most of the Kiyungu deities were recognisably derived from ancient Gunnagalic beliefs, none of them had related names to their Gunnagalic counterparts.  Most of the deities had common attributes and myths, but their names were distinct.  Instead of related names, Kiyungu deities have titles which sound as if they were originally used as euphemisms or praise-names, with the original names for the deities later being lost.  To the Kiyungu, the Rainbow Serpent is called the Curved One, the Twins (or Fire Brothers) are called Firstborn and Secondborn, while the Green Lady is called the Wanderer.  By comparing the changes in the Kiyungu language, scholars are able to identify the original Kiyungu names for these deities, but the names themselves are not attested in the Kiyungu mythology.

Still, despite the best efforts of later scholars, for one important Kiyungu deity, they cannot find a counterpart in other Gunnagalic cultures.  This is a deity who is considered a troublemaker, a negative influence, a source of much discomfort in the world.  This is also a deity who is apparently alien to the common Gunnagalic religious heritage; it must have been a pre-Gunnagalic deity who was believed in fervently enough to be absorbed into Kiyungu religious beliefs.

Unfortunately, where the names of the other Kiyungu deities can be deduced by comparison to other Gunnagalic languages, the name of this deity is lost to history.  Without the Kiyungu preserving the name, it can never be known.  All that remains is the euphemism for this deity; the Kiyungu title translates literally as He Who Must Be Blamed.

--

By 1618, the Kiyungu have put to good use the new crops which they acquired over the last few centuries.  They now inhabit over one thousand kilometres of the Aururian coastline, stretching from their northernmost major city of Quamba [Mackay, QLD] to Woginee [Tweed Heads, NSW] in the south.  This expanse marks the greatest geographical distance inhabited by any one people in Aururia.  Yet the Kiyungu are scattered, without any true political unity, and only the vaguest sense of common identity.

Kiyungu-inhabited territory is not contiguous.  Their northward expansion has been largely by sea, and so even in 1618, Kiyungu farmers have not entirely displaced hunter-gatherers along the coast.  They have established outposts at all of the convenient ports, but in the more rugged coastal areas, some non-farming peoples still occupy the land.

The Kiyungu are also confined in their landward advances, since the continental divide is never too far inland.  Kiyungu do not venture west of the mountains in any significant numbers, since there is little to interest them inland.  They prefer to fish for their meat, rather than farm emus or hunt wild animals.  The sea provides both their most convenient transportation and their best source of wealth; while the Kiyungu harvest a variety of spices which more distant peoples would value, to the Kiyungu themselves, these are commonplace.

Most of the Kiyungu live in or near city-states along the Coral Coast or the more northerly cities.  In the northern Kiyungu outposts, political organisation is confined to this level, as indeed it was amongst all Kiyungu cities until relatively recently.  The Kiyungu are ruled by monarchs who come from the same (very extended) family, and who were usually able to maintain order in their own cities, but never really capable of building larger states.  The perpetual problem was one of control; collecting tribute from another city-state was easy enough, but conquest required appointing a viceroy, who in time would be likely to declare independence on his own.

Recently, this trend has been partly altered amongst the southern Kiyungu.  The need for common defence against Daluming raids and Yalatji proselytisation has led to the development of the League, a loose alliance which exists to resolve disputes amongst member states and encourage mutual defence against enemies.  The League is not a solid alliance, but the threat of ostracisation or joint attack from its neighbours is usually enough to bring member cities into line when there are disagreements.

The Kiyungu population density, even in the south, remains reasonably low.  Their overall population is growing rapidly thanks to the potential of sweet potato and lesser yams to secure their food supply, but northward expansion offers a population growth outlet.  Most of the more adventuresome or simply down-on-their-luck types amongst the Kiyungu choose to strike it north to acquire land, potentially new wealth, or just a fresh start.  The northward march continues even in 1618; some pioneering farmers are pushing north past Quamba.  There is no geographic barrier to stop them until they reach what another history would name Torres Strait.

For those Kiyungu who are settled, though, both in north and south, they still have much of the old laidback attitude of their forebears.  They fish, they dive for coral, they eat spicy food, and they do, in fact, like to lie in the sun.  Life usually finds its own pace amongst the Kiyungu.  Like most Aururian farming peoples who use perennial crops, they have a labour surplus, but as often as not they are content to use the time simply to relax rather than find some industrious pursuit.

The Kiyungu are not completely isolated from other farming peoples, but virtually all of their contacts are with the often-unfriendly Yalatji to the west, or the less organised peoples to the south who are also victims of Daluming raids.  They live close enough to the ancient sources of tin that they can still import as much of that metal as they need to make bronze, an alloy which suits all of their metalworking needs.  In 1618, they have had only the most sporadic contact with the Islanders, and none of their immediate neighbours use iron to any meaningful degree, so the Kiyungu remain firmly in the Bronze Age.

Collecting coral has been a Kiyungu habit for nearly two millennia, and their taste for it has not diminished.  Their sailors still search the Inner Sea [ie the waters inside the Great Barrier Reef] for some of the more valued and colourful types.  It is the basis of much of their own jewellery and ornamentation, and the main trade good which they exchange further south for tin.  Most of their other main ornamentation comes from gold.  The Kiyungu no longer have any active gold mines, but their ancestors discovered and exploited several small alluvial gold fields in earlier times [5].  Much of that gold remains in Kiyungu jewellery, although some has also been traded further south.

Thus, in 1618, the Kiyungu were a people who had lived on their own nearly independent path for a long time, and no inclination of the storms gathering beyond their mental horizons.  Unlike most Aururian peoples, though, great change would first come to the Kiyungu not from Raw Men, but from other Aururians.

In 1630, the first Nangu sailed to the Coral Coast under the command of Werringi, later called the Bold.  This was a visit of exploration, like occasional Islander visits before.  Unlike those earlier visits, though, Werringi had the determination to make sure that this time, contact would be sustained...

--

[1] The Coral Coast corresponds roughly to the historical regions of Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast in south-eastern Queensland, although it stretches slightly further north and south.

[2] Red yams do not grow in tropical latitudes due to insufficient shortening of days to trigger their tuber formation.  Murnong is too heat-sensitive to grow so far north, except in highland regions (which this region mostly lacks).

[3] The bunya tree (Araucaria bidwillii) is a kind of conifer which produces erratic but large yields of edible seeds.  Its veneration is an ancient phenomenon, and the occasions when it produces seeds are times for celebration among the Kiyungu.

[4] This institution of mentorship in the Kiyungu involves an older man (or more rarely, woman) taking on responsibility as the guardian, guide and lover of a younger person of the same gender.  The Kiyungu view this as the best way for a person to learn about love, life, proper values, and social order.  It also usually involves teaching a valuable craft skill, too.  The formal role as Elder Brother or Elder Sister ends when the younger is deemed ready for marriage, although the elder party will usually still provide advice to the younger throughout their lives.

[5] The largest of these was in historical Gympie, Queensland, which was the site of a gold rush in early colonial Queensland.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #46: Children of a Failed Continent

“Te amorangi ki mua, te hapai o ki muri.”  (The leader at the front and the workers behind the scenes.)
- Maori proverb

--

Seven continents provide the large majority of the land surface of the globe.  Or six continents, or five, or four, or even eight, depending on who provides the definitions.  Regardless of their number, all of the continents have one thing in common: they are composed of masses of ancient rock which are light enough to float above the rest of the earth’s crust and provide land above the waves.

One continent, though, is a failure.  It is heavy enough and unstable enough that most of its surface does not provide a continental land mass above the ocean, but has sunk into the depths below it.

A few fragments of that failed continent still project above the surface of the ocean blue.  The two largest of these fragments form islands that preserve relicts of ancient times, carrying on their soil plants and animals whose relatives have vanished from most of the rest of the globe.

For this failed continent was, like the other continents of the southern hemisphere, once part of the supercontinent of Gondwana, and some of that ancient landmass’s survivors found a new home within these more limited confines.  The forests that cover these islands have relatives that persist in other southerly landmasses.  The animals that live on these islands are likewise distinctive.  None more so than the tuatara, an innocuous three-eyed creature that appears to be a kind of lizard but is in truth the last survivor of an ancient lineage.

The two islands are dominated by mountains that have been raised up recently in geological time, as forces beneath the crust move in new patterns, thrusting up a range of high peaks.  Erosion has done much to wear down these new mountains, creating some fertile plains, but much of the geography of these two islands is still marked by these high peaks or other rugged, hilly terrain.

Distant from any neighbouring landmasses, these two main islands and myriad smaller offshore islands were inaccessible for most of human history and prehistory.  Reaching them required mastery of shipbuilding and oceanic navigation, to say nothing of determination.

The first visitors to these islands were the Polynesians, a people who sailed from island to island and explored a third of globe using nothing but stone and wood, their wits, and a lot of coconut fibre.  To this people of explorers, the smallest of islands was worth fighting over and settling, even tiny outcrops of limestone and coral sand which could not hold permanent fresh water.  History does not record, but imagination can supply, their delight at finding the two massive, forest-clad, well-watered main islands of Aotearoa which appeared to be more wealth than should be contained anywhere in the world.

Such a wealth of land must certainly have drawn quick Polynesian settlement, once they were aware of it.  The first Polynesians to come here called themselves by various names, but in time they would come to think of themselves as the Maori.

The first settlers built villages which clung to the coast.  Their own tropical-suited crops barely grew in these temperate lands, but the early Maori still found food in abundance.  Amidst the dark, ancient forests of the interior dwelt the moa, massive flightless birds which provided an abundance of meat for any hunters who sought them.  When not hunting moas inland, the early Maori hunted seals – another valued meat resource – and gathered food from the sea, as their forefathers had done since time immemorial.

Acclimatising to this new land of Aotearoa still presented some challenges to the early Maori.  The sea voyages to their old islands were long indeed, enough that most domesticated animals could not survive the trip.  Their Polynesian forefathers had raised pigs, chickens and dogs, but only the dogs survived the journey to Aotearoa.  The kiore [Polynesian rat] came with the first voyagers, too, and quickly established itself on the main islands of Aotearoa, but that provided only a nuisance to the Maori.  With only dogs for animals, the Maori were dependent on the moa and seafood for their protein, which would present problems if the moa were ever hunted out.

In their cultivation of fibre crops, the early Maori were more fortunate.  Their traditional fibre crops were coconuts and pandanus, used for ropes and sails among much else, but neither of these plants grew in cooler Aotearoa.  This new land offered a more than adequate replacement, however.  The plants which they called harakeke and wharariki [New Zealand flax] could be harvested wild, and their leaves yielded a fibre which was superior to anything that the Maori had seen before [1].

With the vast expanse of their new islands, the early Maori did not truly need to keep exploring for new lands; Aotearoa held more wealth than any other land the Maori or their ancestors had found for millennia.  Such a tradition of exploration, however, would not fade so quickly.  A few Maori kept voyaging back and forth to their ancient islands, while more explored in other directions.  Their early explorations were largely unsuccessful, finding only other small islands which were of little use to a people who knew the land of Aotearoa [2].

In 1310, the first Maori explorers sailed far enough west to find a land which made Aotearoa seem small, albeit also a land rather dry and fire-prone.  Its inhabitants called this land by many names, but the Maori who learned of its seemingly endless expanse called it Toka Moana [3].

In Toka Moana, the early Maori came into contact with people who possessed many arts which their ancestors had lost over the long migrations which brought them to Aotearoa, and had other things which no peoples outside of that island continent  had even seen.  The Maori kept sailing back and forth between Aotearoa and Toka Moana, gradually exploring more of the country and learning of its peoples, and beginning a process of cultural exchanges which would transform the lives of peoples on both sides of the Gray Sea [Tasman Sea].

To their western neighbours, the early Maori gave some of their own crops, most notably kumara [sweet potato] and taro.  They shared, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, some of their knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation.  From their western neighbours, Maori explorers and traders acquired crops which were much more suited to their temperate lands, most notably red yams, wattles, murnong, scrub nettles, purslane, and fruits such as muntries and apple berries.  They acquired domesticated birds – ducks, emus and geese – to provide a protein source to replace the dwindling moa.  In time, they acquired many new skills from the westerners, such as knowledge of pottery, bronze working and, in time writing.

After this, the Maori would never be the same again.

--

1618: the eve of the first tentative Dutch contact with the western extremities of Toka Moana.  On the eastern coast, the Maori of Aotearoa have been visiting Aururia for centuries.  The voyage across the Gray Sea is a long one, but shorter than the journeys which brought their ancestors to Aotearoa from distant Hawaiki.  What can be found in Toka Moana is certainly worth the travel.

From early in their contact with Toka Moana, the Maori explored much of the eastern coast.  They still visit parts of that occasionally, but their main sustained contact has been with the Cider Isle [Tasmania] in the south.  Here, they can find the commodity which they prize above all: tin ore.  Their own islands lack any meaningful native source of tin, and the arts of iron working have not yet spread far enough east for the Maori to learn to work that metal.  Bronze is the metal they know and treasure most; while they have native copper sources, they must import all of their tin from the Cider Isle, or sometimes trade for bronze in its finished form.

To the Cider Isle, then, the Maori come to trade for tin ore, and sometimes for duranj [gum cider] and gold, too.  In exchange they provide jade, textiles of harakeke and wharariki, and sometimes other goods such as kauri gum or finished crafts.  When the Maori visit north, they mainly trade for spices such as myrtles or peppers, or occasionally for finished bronze goods.

In Aotearoa itself, the demand for all of these goods is high.  For there are a great many Maori now; numbers which their ancestors could barely have imagined when they landed their first canoes on Te Ika a Maui [North Island, New Zealand].  Food is abundant, thanks to the crops from Toka Moana.  Red yams grow well in Aotearoa, except in the uttermost south, and even then wattles and murnong can be cultivated.  The new crops have flourished so well, in fact, that the Maori have abandoned their original crops from Polynesia.  What need to grow a kumara through laborious construction of north-facing gardens and end up with a tiny tuber the size of a man’s thumb, when a handful of buried red yam seeds will yield tubers the size of a man’s forearm?

Likewise, domesticated birds from Toka Moana have become an integral part of Maori life.  Emus, ducks and geese graze their fields, supplying fertiliser and providing a welcome source of meat and eggs.  Domesticated quolls were originally brought across to control the pesky kiore [Polynesian rat].  While good at that task, they are also excellent at surviving on their own; quolls have turned feral and destroyed much of the native bird life.  Nor are quolls the only species from Toka Moana to cause an ecological catastrophe.  Domesticated wattles have spread wild, too; the rapidly growing trees crowd out much of the native flora and transform the landscape into one where many of the native birds can find nothing to eat.

Perhaps the greatest ecological catastrophe came from the Maori themselves, though.  Human hunting ravaged many of the native birds, particularly the giant moa.  Slow-growing, lacking any familiarity with mammalian predators, the moa made easy targets; the process had been well advanced even before the first Maori visited Toka Moana.  At least ten species of the flightless birds dwelt on Aotearoa before human arrival; barely a century later, they had all been hunted to extinction.

In Aotearoa, at least.

For while the Maori exterminated the moa in its native country, they were not the only people to glimpse these massive birds before they vanished from the fragments of the failed continent.  In the early days of contact with Toka Moana, some of the westerners took passage on Maori ships and came to visit Aotearoa.  Among those visitors was Burrinjuck, the High Chief of the Jerrewa people [who live around Batemans Bay, NSW].

Like most of those visitors, Burrinjuck found the giant moa to be hugely impressive.  Also like many of the people of Toka Moana, Burrinjuck had a great passion for hunting; his people preserved large rangelands around their home country which were open for kangaroos to graze and, in turn, be hunted.  In common with most visitors, Burrinjuck thought that moa would be excellent for hunting back in Toka Moana.

Unlike most of those visitors, though, Burrinjuck had the authority to do something about his desires.  He asked to have stocks of the largest moa [Dinornis novaezealandiae] established in his home country, where they might be preserved for hunting.  His hosts were willing to accommodate this fancy, in exchange for certain understandings of a bronzed nature, and arranged to capture some young moa chicks and ship them back to Toka Moana.

There, in the Jerrewa lands, Burrinjuck established the moa in his private hunting preserve.  A very special preserve, where only the High Chief’s kin were permitted to enter, and only the highest class of chiefs were permitted to hunt.  Protecting the moa has taken vigorous effort over the generations, but the chiefs of the Jerrewa like their privileges, and enforce the death penalty on any commoner who kills a moa within their hunting grounds.  Any moa who wander further away from these lands will usually be killed, but within these lands they are well-protected.  So a few moa still survive in 1618, one last fragment of Aotearoa preserved across the sea.

--

Unlike the true continent which forms its western neighbour, the failed continent of Aotearoa is a well-watered, fertile land.  Toka Moana is geologically ancient, with poor, eroded soils and no high peaks; Aotearoa is rugged and often mountainous, and the mountains thrust up by tectonic forces are being continually weathered and their rocks washed down to the plains to enrich the soil.  Toka Moana sits firmly in the desert latitude and is the driest inhabited continent; Aotearoa lies in temperate latitudes with regular chilling winds that bring abundant moisture with them.

The relative benefits of climate and geology can best be summed up this: in 1618, Aotearoa sustains nearly half the population of Toka Moana in a land surface barely 3.5% of its size.  The population density is higher on Aotearoa than virtually anywhere on Toka Moana, except the heartland of the Yadji realm.

Crowded into such a relatively confined land, the Maori have developed what are in many ways more elaborate and more organised social systems than most of the Tauiwi, their counterparts on Toka Moana [4].  With higher population density has come more intense competition for resources; when combined with their ancient traditions inherited from Polynesia, the Maori are in most respects more warlike and hostile to foreigners and each other than the peoples across the Gray Sea.  It also allows them to support some social institutions to a much greater degree; among other things, the Maori make much more use of slavery than the Tauiwi [5].

The heart of Maori social organisation has developed around three levels of relationships which define all Maori’s interaction with each other.  These are ancient classifications which dated back to the earliest days of settlement in Aotearoa, and which were originally methods of tracing kinship, but which have become more general forms of social structure.

All Maori are first of all members of their local whanau, which originally meant extended family, but now generally refers to all of the people who were born or married into a particular locality.  Members of the same whanau still consider themselves as relatives of a kind, and intermarriage amongst people of the same whanau is considered to be incest.  All of the warriors who defend a particular region and serve its leader are drawn from the local whanau, or sometimes adopted into it.

Every whanau is part of a hapu, a word which can be variously translated as clan or subtribe.  Like the whanau, a hapu was originally a genealogical term, in this case indicating a more distant but still significant relationship amongst the various whanau that it included.

Time and social construction has changed the nature of a hapu, though.  Now it simply serves as a term for the fundamental political unit of Maori society.  All hapu are ruled by a prominent leader, usually an accomplished warleader (or sometimes a priest) with his own sworn warriors, and who acts as a protector of all the whanau who have sworn to him.

Usually the member whanau of a hapu are close together geographically, since the main function of the hapu is to provide mutual defence and cooperation against enemies.  They are not always contiguous, however.  This is particularly important since individual whanau can choose to change their allegiance to the leader of a rival hapu within the same iwi [tribe or kingdom].

The process of changing hapu is part of the broader political and military struggles within Maori society.  If the leader of a different hapu is deemed to have greater mana [standing, reputation, charisma, psychic power], or is a more accomplished warleader, then other whanau may choose to transfer their allegiance to his service, and thus gain his protection and hopefully some of the benefit of his mana.  With raids a common part of Maori life, a warleader who can offer protection is something to be treasured.

The largest political unit in Maori society is the iwi.  The word can be variously translated as clan or people, but in practice it refers to what amount to Maori kingdoms.  An iwi is comprised of multiple hapu who reside in a given region, and who are a people who can trace their descent to named ancestors who reached Aotearoa on one of the ancient canoes.  All members of the same iwi are thus theoretically related, although in effect they are citizens of the same kingdom.  An iwi controls a recognised territory, although given the more or less continual warfare of Maori society, the borders of an iwi often shift in line with the tides of war.

Leadership at all three levels of Maori society is in theory elective, based on the mana of the leader and the acclamation of the people in the next rank.  Ariki (leaders) are normally chosen for life, although particularly egregious deeds or failure in warfare (those often being synonymous) may see a leader abandoned by his followers; his name cast out and forgotten.  A son may succeed a father, but in most kingdoms, this is not guaranteed.

The basic customs and traditions which surround Maori leaders do not vary significantly at each rank.  The same word, ariki, is used for all leaders, distinguished only by the name of the particular social unit they lead.  An ariki whanau leads an extended family, an ariki hapu leads his group of whanau, and an ariki iwi is more or less the king.  All ariki are expected to conduct themselves according to the same social mores and to maintain and build their mana.

Each ariki draws their power from the same symbolic source, their marae or meeting hall, the ritual centre of their leadership.  The Maori use the same word to refer to the dwellings of all three ranks of leaders, although naturally the form of the marae depends on a leader’s power.  An ariki whanau may simply have a hall at the centre of his pa [stockade, fortification], while the ariki iwi may have a marae which is a palace or a virtual town unto itself.

Regardless of its outward form, each marae has one room which always serves the same function: the room which contains the heart stone, the toka atua [literally, god stone].  The toka atua is the most sacred symbol of a leader’s mana and power.  Traditionally carved from granite or some other hard stone, it will be inscribed with a symbol chosen by the leader’s ancestors, and passed down through the generations.  All warriors who swear service to a leader do so to this stone, ritually binding themselves to the leader’s mana and to that of all of his ancestors.

The toka atua must be defended above all else; to lose it to an open raid is the greatest possible blow to a leader’s mana, and one from which few can recover.  To have the stone stolen by stealth is shameful, but not an irreparable blow to a leader’s prestige, and it may be recovered in kind.

Besides their marae, all leaders also maintain one or more pa [fortifications].  These defensive structures are essential given the warlike nature of Maori society.  All leaders maintain a warband of sworn warriors, and most adult Maori males can use weapons at need, if only a staff, or sometimes a taiaha [6].  Lesser leaders will call out their warriors if a greater leader calls, or often go raiding of their own accord.  Raids are commonplace, sometimes even within the same iwi, although it is rare for leaders of the same hapu to raid each other.

Indeed, warfare is an integral part of Maori life, and it is intertwined with their conception of mana.  That word has many nuances in Maori life: authority, reputation, conduct, prestige, influence, honour, charisma, psychic force.  All warriors, and to a lesser degree all Maori males and higher-class females, seek to gain mana, and to avoid activities which would weaken their mana.

For warriors, demonstration of their mana includes a formal list of the deeds which they have accomplished.  All sworn Maori warriors have an account of their deeds which is recited on formal occasions during their lives, and ultimately at their funerals.  Their mana is also represented in the moko which all warriors have carved onto their faces [7].  These designs mark a warrior’s mana, and particularly accomplished warriors will often have additional moko marked on their faces or bodies.  Among men, only sworn warriors are permitted to wear moko, although some higher-status women are also permitted to use it.

Whether a warrior or not, all Maori acknowledge the central role of utu, of reciprocation and balance, in maintaining mana.  All actions, whether friendly or unfriendly, demand an appropriate response.  A kind deed should be repaid, in one way or another, and revenge should be sought for hostile actions.  This principle brings both benefits and problems for Maori society; kindness is encouraged, but it also brings about a near-endless cycle of revenge between some groups.

In such an often hostile society, various rituals and customs have developed to help maintain some order.  Leaders have an essential role to play in maintaining these customs, particularly those involving hospitality rituals.  People who first visit the marae of a particular leader will usually be invited to go through one of a variety of forms of hospitality rituals, involving exchanges of gifts and stylised challenges from warriors.  After going through such a ritual, the participants will be under the protection of the local ariki.  This means that they cannot be killed without cause, although in some cases the definition of just cause can be very broad.

The hospitality rituals are usually mandatory for the first visit to a new region, but the protection usually holds for further visits, unless the leader explicitly revokes the protection.  For leaders of whanau and some of the less influential hapu, the challenges and other rituals are generally carried out in person by the local ariki.  For leaders of iwi and more prominent hapu, the ceremonies will usually be carried out by a relative on behalf of the ariki, except for particularly high-status guests.

Of course, no amount of rituals can prevent all forms of hostility, not with warfare a fundamental component of Maori life.  The nature of war varies immensely, from minor raids for mana or revenge, to larger campaigns to secure prisoners, to major wars to capture resources or territory.  Early Maori warfare often involved cannibalism of the fallen, both as a source of protein and to gain some of the mana of the defeated enemy.  While the practice is much rarer in modern Maori society, ritual cannibalism is still sometimes part of contemporary warfare, traditionally involving consumption of the heart and arms of defeated warriors.

--

In 1618, while centuries of warfare have led to some political consolidation, the Maori are still divided into a number of competing iwi.  They are often hostile to strangers even within their own iwi, and extremely wary of visitors from other iwi.  Their default attitude to foreign visitors is similarly hostile.  The only people who visit them with any regularity are the Islanders, some of whom have succeeded in gaining protection.  The Maori still have a few sporadic visitors from Polynesia, and the occasional very lost ship from westerners who had been meaning to sail up or down their own east coast.

The Maori themselves still keep up their own trading contacts with the Cider Isle, and some Islanders have occasionally found it profitable to bring tin, bronze or kunduri to Aotearoa [8].  Bronze is by far the good most in demand in this trade, since the Maori supply of the metal is ultimately dependent on imported sources.

Fortunately for the Maori, bronze is an alloy which can be almost endlessly recycled and reforged for new purposes.  The Maori are assiduous in their pursuit of collecting abandoned or damaged bronze objects for reforging; the metal is too valuable to be allowed to go to waste.  One of the privileges of controlling a battlefield in victory is to scavenge for abandoned or damaged arrowheads, spearheads, shields or armour and reclaim it.  So while the Maori do not import much tin in any given year – the sea lanes are long, after all – they have accumulated a significant amount of bronze over the centuries.

So determined are they in their recycling, in fact, that future archaeologists will find precious little evidence of bronzeworking amongst the Maori, finding mostly abandoned tools of copper or stone.  This will lead to vigorous scholarly debate about how extensive the Maori use of bronze was during the precontact period.

The same Islanders who occasionally export bronze to Aotearoa have also sometimes tried to export their Plirite faith to the Maori.  This has met with only modest success.  Only two of the western iwi, the Te Arawa [in Westland, South Island] and Ngati Apa [in Taranaki, North Island] [9] have significant numbers of Plirite converts, and even then not a majority.  No Maori ariki iwi [king] has yet accepted the faith, although a few ariki hapu have done so.

The Maori’s own religion is derived from that of their eastern Polynesian ancestors, centring around their belief in the interrelatedness and common descent (whakapapa) of all life, and its links to the gods and heroes of legend.  This link to the past is part of what gives a Maori his or her mana, and any Maori of status can recite their genealogy back to one or more ancestors who sailed from Hawaiki [10], or from other great figures.  Some of these figures include: Tangaroa, who personifies the seas and is the origin of all fish; Tane, who embodies the forest and is the origin of all birds; Kupe, who in some traditions first explored Aotearoa; and Kawiti, who in most traditions was the discoverer of Toka Moana [11].  With this link to the past an essential part of their mana, relatively few high-status Maori have been willing to adopt the new Plirite faith, for fear of angering their ancestors and breaking the sacred connection.

For all their hostility to outsiders and ambivalent views of foreign religion, the Maori in 1618 did not know that they would soon be exposed both to more outsiders and another religion.  In 1627, the Dutch explorer François Thijssen sailed up the west coast of Aotearoa, becoming the first European to visit the Land of the Long White Cloud.  At the first kingdom he visited, the ariki iwi of the Te Arawa gave him a very cool reception and ordered him to depart.  Thijssen left as commanded, but Europeans would not be dissuaded from again visiting Aotearoa’s shores...

--

[1] Harakeke (Phormium tenax) and wharariki (P. cookianum), usually known in English as New Zealand flax, provide some of the best natural fibres in the world.  The fibres from their leaves can be readily worked into a wide variety of textiles, ropes, sails, and other products, and were a major part of the traditional Maori economy.  After European contact, the plants would also find willing international customers; the Royal Navy, for instance, traded muskets and other products for ropes of New Zealand flax since it was stronger by weight than their other customary fibres such as hemp.

[2] It is not known how long the Maori historically kept up their tradition of exploration and long-range navigation, but it’s likely to have been until at least 1500 AD, when the Chatham Islands were first settled.  The Maori also likely discovered and settled other island groups such as Norfolk Island and the Kermadecs, although those settlements eventually failed.

[3] Originally, toka moana meant a rock which stood firm in the wildest seas, but its meaning evolved to mean a rock so big (ie land) that it took longer to cross than the ocean.  To later Maori, the name will usually if somewhat inaccurately be translated as the Land Ocean.

[4] Tauiwi, originally tau iwi (roughly translated, strangers), is the generic Maori name for the people of Toka Moana.  It can be used either as a catch-all for all of the westerners, or simply in cases when the Maori don’t know the names of the individual peoples across the Gray Sea.  The Maori are quite familiar with the distinction between the three peoples of the Cider Isle, know the Islanders, and are broadly familiar with a lot of the peoples on the eastern coast of Toka Moana, but do not know a lot of the rest.

[5] Slavery does exist in Toka Moana, but it is not a major component of their social systems.  Most Tauiwi peoples rely on corvees or other forms of drafted labour for part of the year.  Permanent slavery on Toka Moana is generally confined to household domestics and for unpleasant tasks such as mining.  Amongst the Maori, who are much more warlike (and thus obtain prisoners) and have a much higher population density (and thus uses for forced labour), slavery is much more common.  One of its principal uses is in the harvesting of fibre crops and weaving of textiles, which is a labour-intensive but vital task.

[6] A taiaha is a traditional Maori weapon shaped from hard wood, usually with one end decorated, and the other with a flat, smooth blade.  Sometimes this blade will be made from wood, although better-equipped Maori will often use a bronze blade instead.  Although visually it is similar to a spear, a taiaha is a close-quarters weapon designed to be held with two hands and using short, calculated blocks, thrusts and strikes.

[7] Moko is a traditional Maori form of tattooing, where grooves are cut into the skin with chisels and then marked with pigments, rather than the punctures of standard tattooing.

[8] Islander visits are uncommon both because of the distance, and because the Nangu trading network is centred on the Island itself.  Most of their goods are brought back to the Island to be exchanged there, except for short-distance trips such as between the Cider Isle and the Yadji realm.

[9] The names of the various iwi listed here are historical, being peoples who still existed at the time of historical European contact.  The changed patterns of warfare and migration, though, mean that they inhabit different areas than they did historically.

[10] Although whether these genealogies are accurate is far from certain.  Even where there have been no creative interpolations, literacy did not spread immediately to the Maori.  While modern Maori have written records of their genealogy, in written form these usually do not go back much over a century.

[11] Whether Kupe and Kawiti are genuine historical figures will be the source of much scholarly argument.  The Maori lacked writing when settling Aotearoa, and neither the Maori nor the Raduru (the people they first contacted in Toka Moana) had writing at the time of contact.  Regardless of their historicity or non-historicity, Kupe and Kawiti remain important cultural figures among the Maori.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #47: Vines and Shoots

Note: This instalment gives a glimpse much further into the future of LRG.  Be warned, though, that all of the usual caveats about biased and potentially unreliable sources apply in spades here.

--

“We are about to attack a mountain of gold; the Dutch are about to attack a mountain of iron.”
- Sir Thomas Chambers, Director of the English East India Company, 1642

--

Taken from: “Children of Three Worlds”
By Diligence Ledda
Kagana [Tuscaloosa, Alabama]: 1989

The Congxie are the only people on the globe who can trace their heritage to all three worlds: Old, New and Third.  Shaped though they were in the New World, their birthright is broader; the mingled blood of many peoples was reformed into the harmony of a new race...

The history of the Congxie begins in what was then the English colony of Cavendia [1], during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  Cavendia was founded in 1672 as a private wealth extraction colony by a group of English aristocrats, and named in honour of their patron Charles Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle [2].

From its earliest days, Cavendia was a colony built on the back of forced labour.  At first this meant Amerinds [Native Americans/First Nations], captured in war and conscripted into local servitude, or trafficked to European colonies elsewhere in the New World [3].  More and more of the Amerinds died or fled out of the reach of the slave raiders, leading the aristocrats to turn to indentured labour from the Old World.

A few Englishmen and Scotsmen willingly accepted indentured labour for a period of years in exchange for passage to the New World, but most of the labour that worked the plantations of Cavendia did so involuntarily.  Some Gaels were bound to servitude for the crime of seeking freedom, but most of Cavendia’s new indentured workers were captured in Africa and subjected to the horrors of the Middle Passage.

The exploitative society created in early Cavendia became one of plantations and indentured labour, forced to work in difficult, disease-ridden conditions for the benefit of mostly absentee landlords.  The planters and aristocrats lived in better conditions in New London [Charleston, South Carolina] or in England, while their so-called servants laboured and died for them...

In early Cavendia, rice became by far the most successful crop.  Rice plantations were confined to the worst areas: low-lying, marshy and infested by hookworm and malaria-bearing mosquitos.  The indentured labourers endured these miserable conditions with some hope of eventual release, for they were yet classed as servants, not slaves.  While the servants laboured in the low country, planters lived in the towns, while in the uplands, the Amerinds still survived, resentful of the newcomers but dependent on them for weapons.

To this brewing cauldron, a new ingredient was added in the dying years of the seventeenth century.  Rice had provided a bountiful yield, but from the earliest days the planters still sought other crops to add to their already excessive wealth.  Entrepreneurs from across the three worlds were keen to bring potential new crops to them, for word of the luxury of Cavendia’s privileged few was already widespread.

Among those venturers who sought to bring new crops to the attention of Cavendia’s aristocrats, the boldest were a few Nuttana merchants who circled the globe in pursuit of profit.  The first Nuttana trader visited New London in 1697 with a cargo of eastern spices and seeds to sell, and returned home with a valuable bounty.  Inspired by his success, others followed over the next couple of decades...

Among the Nuttana merchant captains who ventured to Cavendia was Barcoo Nyugal.  He came to New London in 1704 with a valuable cargo of silk and silkworms, tea leaves and seeds, and lemon verbena leaves and seeds, which like his predecessors he intended to sell for profit.  Barcoo never completed the sale of tea, which would be left to later traders to establish as another source of Cavendia’s wealth.  Yet he accomplished something far greater: as much as any man, he was responsible for the shaping of the Congxie.

For during Barcoo’s visit to New London, he witnessed an event which would be a defining moment both for the history of the Congxie, and of Cavendia.  An indentured African-born woman named Wednesday (believed to be of Soninke descent, although this is uncertain) had appealed to the Cavendia assembly and governor.  She had complained that her servitude was unending, and that her new-born son Jonathon would share the same fate.  Wednesday asked for a determination that her indenture should have a defined end-date, or at least that her son should be considered to be born free.

On 4 March 1704, a day that would live in infamy, the governor and assembly issued a joint proclamation that declared that African servitude was life-long, and that the condition could be inherited.  The institution of slavery, if not yet the name, had been brought to Cavendia.

Barcoo and his crew witnessed this proclamation, and were greatly angered by it.  The transformation of the Africans’ fate from servitude to slavery was in gross violation of the laws of harmony, and the institution of multi-generational slavery utterly abhorrent.  Barcoo decided that the discord which this would create could not be tolerated, and decided to take proper action...

The risings in New London itself were largely unsuccessful; the aristocrats there were exploiters, not fools, and defended themselves accordingly.  In the rice plantations along the Tidewater, however, the indentured workers were numerous and their supervisors few.  Around the Santee River delta and the Sea Islands, many indentured workers rose and fled inland, to the relative safety of the uplands.  Even here, the majority remained, trapped by fear or by the weapons of the supervisors and planters, but a large number escaped to the hills...

Here, in the sanctuary of the Cavendia upcountry, a new people were born.  A people with many forebears, who in their new lives among the hills were merged into a new race.  The majority of their ancestors were of African descent, mostly Soninke, Mandingo, Gude and Mende, and others whose ancestry was unknown after the Middle Passage.  With them came many Nuttana, including Barcoo himself who fulfilled his pledge to bring harmony to Cavendia.  Gaels came, too, and a few other whites who had fled their undeserved indenture.  The original escapees included a handful of enslaved Amerinds, who helped to lead the others to safety in the uplands.  More Amerinds joined the escapees once they had reached the uplands, including many Cherokee, and some Creeks and Catawba [4].

These were the forebears of the Congxie, who in their new highland home created a new life for themselves.  Formerly of many peoples, they were gradually shaped into one, building a new common heritage out of the best of what they had inherited, building a new language and fostering harmony, balance, and the teachings of the Good Man...

From the Cherokee and Creeks who had lived there before them and many of whom joined them, the Congxie learned the arts of hunting and farming in their new home.  The Cherokee men taught them how to hunt the white-tailed deer and other animals of the uplands, both for food and for trade.  The Cherokee and Creek women taught them how to farm maize, squash and beans in the manner of the New World.  From the Nuttana, they learned how to farm the murnong which had been brought with them in the original uprising, and how to tame and cultivate the cornnarts which had grown wild in Cavendia since they were introduced with the first English settlers.  From the Nuttana, too, they learned the divine truth of the Sevenfold Path [Plirism] and the arts of writing.  From the Africans who had been conscripted into slavery, they learned the arts of blacksmithing, carpentry, and the works of the artisan...

The original Congxie were few in number, but they prospered and multiplied in the health of the uplands and in the balance they brought to their lives.  Their numbers grew steadily, both from their own increase and from those who joined them: fleeing slaves, a few Englishmen who preferred that life [5], children of traders, and some Cherokee, Creeks and Catawba...

In 1722-1726, many of the Amerind peoples rose in noble but futile efforts to destroy the English colonists of Cavendia, in a conflict which would come to be called King George’s War [6].  The Congxie stood aside from those efforts, recognising that such actions would only fail, and gave safe haven to some of the defeated warriors after the war.

After King George’s War and the reprisals which the Cavendians brought afterward, the Congxie became the single largest community in the uplands.  The Cherokee and the Creeks were tragically doomed after that war, which only hastened the effects of diseases such as smallpox, measles and Marnitja.  Those who survived mostly fled further inland or south out of range of English reprisals, leaving the upcountry to be dominated by the Congxie [7]...

From their upland homes, the Congxie continued the practice of hunting deer which they had learned from their Amerind forebears.  Deerskin provided a valuable trading commodity with Cavendia, both for use in the colony itself and for export to Europe.  Buckskin provided the English with clothing directly, and for shaping into gloves, bookbinding, and myriad other uses.  In exchange, the Congxie received weapons, powder, metal goods and other artifacts which were in short supply in their homeland.  Unlike the Amerinds before them, the Congxie refused to practice the slave trade to pay for such weapons.

The deerskin trade required interaction between the Congxie and their former exploiters, but contact would have been inevitable even without that, thanks to the proximity of the two peoples.  At first, Congxie often contested to free the slaves who were still being imported from Africa, but in time an unwritten pact developed, a new balance between the two peoples.  Congxie would not actively solicit slaves to flee into their lands, while Englishmen would not actively pursue those few slaves who did escape on their own and sought refuge amongst the Congxie.

For a time, peaceful trade endured between the two peoples.  The Congxie supplied not just deerskin, but cornnart grain and other foodstuffs that allowed the planters to exploit their land and workers more determinedly in their coastal rice and tea plantations.  When the supply of deer started to fail, some Congxie hunters started to search further afield, even across the Alleghenies [8], in pursuit of fresh stock.  Other Congxie turned to the cultivation of tobacco which found some value in the lowlands of Cavendia, being cheaper than importing kunduri or tobacco from further afield...

Inevitably, in time the balance was disturbed.  The population of both peoples expanded, driven by the high fecundity and hybrid vigour of the Congxie on the one hand [9], and endless wealth from rice and tea encouraging ever more immigrants and slave trafficking on the other.  Envious of the Congxie who grew ever more numerous in the uplands, the Cavendians in time began to encroach on their lands.

Some bold Congxie had already ventured west in pursuit of deerskin, with some occasional contacts with New Valois [New Orleans] and Barranca [Pensacola, Florida] to trade with the French and Spanish.  With shortages of good land even amongst their own people, some pioneering Congxie pressed further west through the Alleghenies and began to establish settlements in the western uplands [ie upcountry Georgia and Alabama]...

After the treachery of the Cavendians and the massacres of the Lord Protector’s War, the gradual westward migration turned into a flood.  Most Congxie went yarra [trek or great journey], preferring to abandon the uncertain fate of their birthlands and press into lands still occupied by Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws...

--

Taken from: “Fundamentals of Linguistics”
Cambridge University Press

Discussion Point: The Congxie Language

The nature of the Congxie language is endless argued.  Is it a true multiple-ancestry language [mixed language], or a single language with multiple registers?  A heavily modified creole of Nuttana?  A well-developed pidgin with variations?  In the study of linguistics, it is perhaps the most debated language in the world.

Classification of its vocabulary source languages is relatively straightforward.  The single largest portion of its vocabulary comes from Nuttana (approximately 30%), although that feature itself adds to debate since Nuttana is also controversial as to whether it is a mixed-ancestry language or one with a primary language and a very influential substrate.  A total of 40% of its vocabulary comes from various African languages; about one-quarter of the Congxie vocabulary comes from Mande languages (Mende, Soninke, Mandingo, and relatives) and about 15% from Gude.  About one-fifth of its vocabulary comes from Amerind languages (Cherokee and Creek), while about 5% each derives from English and Gaelic.

Usage of this vocabulary, however, marks a more challenging question.  One thing is certain: Congxie has multiple registers, different words with similar meanings which can be used in different contexts.  In broad terms, words of Nuttana derivation are the most formal and high-class versions, associated in particular with religion and government, but with some notable exceptions.  For many of these words, there are parallel words of the same or similar meaning, which are used in more informal contexts, and where the word roots are recognisably of a different derivation, such as where Mande or Gude word roots are used during everyday interaction.

For some meanings, there are up to four registers available to different people or for different situations, with derivations from recognisably different languages.  One of the most noted, and most debated, is that in many situations women use a different vocabulary to men, and that most of the female register is derived from Cherokee or Creek words, with some inclusions from Gude or Gaelic.

In some of these registers, Congxie’s usual grammatical rules also change.  Much of the informal, everyday register of Congxie uses tones to convey changes in grammar, which is indicative of the contributions of Mande languages, while tones are almost wholly absent from other aspects of Congxie grammar or its other registers.

Congxie grammar is more complex than has traditionally been ascribed to creole or pidgin languages, which is one contributing factor to the debate about its classification.  Its word order is relatively flexible, although not quite as free as some early linguistic studies classified it; the word order often depends both on what register is being used, and on which particular word which the speaker wishes to emphasise most, with the most emphasised word usually being spoken first.  It can also have a complex clause structure with dependent clauses, and with verbs retaining different tenses; both features which are rarely found in pidgins or creoles derived from them.

Traces of its ancestral languages remain in its grammar, such as the tones used for the informal register, and the multiple pronoun structure and post-nominal articles of Nuttana which persist in the formal register...

While debate continues without complete resolution, the broadest consensus, supported by the historical record, is that Congxie did not emerge as a true pidgin.  It developed from peoples who spoke multiple languages and taught them to their own children, who then learned these multiple registers and developed social codes on when to use them, rather than seeking to develop a common lingua franca.

--

The genetic and linguistic heritage of the Congxie is complex, a legacy both of the runaways who founded their society, and the social structure which developed in the uplands.  The largest group of initial founders were escaped Africans, largely speakers of various Mande languages from historical Senegal and Sierra Lone, and a smaller group of Gude speakers from the historical Nigeria-Cameroon border.  Virtually all of these runaways were still born in Africa, spoke their own disparate languages, and they had varying degrees of familiarity with English.

Accompanying the Africans were smaller numbers of escaping whites, mostly Irish, who spoke a mixture of Gaelic and English.  The Nuttana were about as numerous as the whites, and while they were often fluent in English, they preferred their own language except when dealing with Cavendians.  The remaining early Congxie were Amerindians (Cherokee, Creeks, Catawba and others), either escaped slaves or others fleeing the early epidemics.

While Africans formed by far the largest initial group, the heritage of the Congxie was rather more mixed.  The runaways, Africans in particular, included a larger number of men than women.  There were proportionately more women who were Nuttana, white or (especially) Amerindian, leading in turn to a larger proportion of their descendants having that heritage.  The Nuttana also occupied higher status positions in the early years (chiefs and priests), and so had their pick of the limited number of women in the crucial first generations.

After the founding generation, the Congxie received a trickle of newcomers from outside, including escaping African slaves, mixed-race children of traders who were left to be raised among the Congxie, and refugee Amerindians.  This added to the mixed heritage of the Congxie.

Natural selection also played a role in the progress over generations.  Strong selection pressure favoured mixed-race ancestry (African-Aururian or white-Aururian) because this gave the best overall genetic resistance to the mixture of Old World and Aururian diseases.  Natural selection also worked partly against those of pure African ancestry, since this involved a higher risk of sickle-cell anaemia.  This would have been an advantage in the malarial lowlands, but was a negative factor in the Congxie uplands, and so was selected against.

In short, the Congxie are a very mixed-heritage people.

--

[1] At this point, Cavendia is, very approximately, the historical Province of Carolina (ie before the later division into North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia).  As happened historically, its borders will change over time.

[2] Charles Cavendish is an allohistorical son of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

[3] A similar trade existed in the early days of the historical Carolina and Georgia colonies, and generally involved some indigenous peoples raiding their neighbours and trafficking the captives to Europeans in exchange for weapons and other trade goods.  The captives were then either forced into slavery locally, or traded to plantations in the Caribbean, Virginia, or Louisiana.  A similar process, on a smaller scale due to lower population, operated in allohistorical Cavendia.

[4] One of the many things which Ledda glosses over here is that the arrival of the Congxie forefathers brought disaster for the indigenous peoples of the uplands.  Not deliberately, for the most part – although there were clashes – but because the runaways included several asymptomatic carriers of diseases such as Marnitja and chickenpox, which swept through the upcountry with disastrous results.  The Congxie accepted some of the survivors, particularly women since there was a distinct gender imbalance amongst the runaways, and because the women generally knew more of how to farm maize, squash, beans and other local crops.

[5] Even in historical North America, some of the various Native American peoples had people of mixed or European ancestry, from those Europeans who had fled the colonies for one reason or another and joined them.  In allohistorical Cavendia, the Congxie fill that niche.

[6] King George’s War is the closest allohistorical analogue to the historical Tuscarora and Yamasee Wars.  Like those wars, it was started due to the encroachment and slave-raiding practices of European colonists.  While the indigenous chiefs had some local victories, they were too badly outnumbered and outgunned to win in the end.

[7] The demise of the Cherokee and Creeks was in fact much more due to population pressure from the Congxie than Ledda admits.  Disease certainly played a large part, but European reprisals were mostly limited to the first few years after the war.  The scattered survivors were often pushed aside by the Congxie, and he also glosses over the raids for women which were a common part of early Congxie life, and the clashes over deer hunting which happened later.

[8] In allohistorical North America, Alleghenies is the generic name for the entire Appalachians ranges.  The name Appalachians is reserved for the mountains between historical Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Maryland.

[9] The mixed heritage of the Congxie (African/European and Aururian) means that they are on the whole more resistant to both Old World and Aururian diseases, which is one reason that their population is growing even faster than that of lowland Cavendia.  The other main reason for the spectacular growth is that being in the highlands, they are also far away from the main reservoirs of malaria, yellow fever and hookworm which were so devastating to lowland populations.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #48: Steps in the Endless Dance

“The Dutch see only two colours: white and wrong.”
- Tjewarra (“strong heart”), Atjuntja activist

--

Jingella, it is called, in the language of the Gunnagal.  Jingella: the Endless Dance.  An eternal competition between the eight factions into which their society is divided.  A contest which is ostensibly over the sport which they call football (involving rules complex enough to give the Byzantines headaches), but which in truth dominates their nation’s economy, land use, justice and even the military.

The Dance is an endless struggle, a contest of balance and delicate alliance and counter-alliance.  The people of Tjibarr have stepped through the Dance in similar form for centuries, since the fall of the Empire, and the origin of their contest is much more ancient.

Unlike the rules of football, the rules for the greater Dance are not written, but they are equally real.  Each faction struggles for advantage, and the members of each faction compete amongst themselves.  Everyone vies for gain, but no-one dares to let any one rival become too strong.  Alliances are fickle things indeed if the participants think that the other members are growing too prominent.

In short, in a people who were familiar with the concept of balance of power centuries before Europe articulated the concept, the Dance can include some very strange steps...

--

Black Cockatoo Day, Cycle of Falling Stars, 8th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third [9 April 1640]
Estates of Wemba of the Whites, near Tapiwal [Robinvale, Victoria]
Kingdom of Tjibarr

A chorus of voices, one speaking over another over another.  Sounds of tables being thumped, men stamping their feet, or jumping up to look down on their neighbours.  Fists being shaken to emphasise points.

In other words, a perfectly normal afternoon’s discussion amongst the members of any faction.  On the whole, quieter than usual for the Whites.

More than half of the leading notables of the Whites had come to Wemba’s estates, which he saw as a personal triumph.  Ostensibly, they had gathered to discuss the preparation for the coming football season.  That topic would indeed be addressed, but it provided a convenient excuse for other debates.  Ones with more import, though it would be a chore to get many of the Whites gathered here to admit the existence of anything more important than football.

The discussion continued for a time, the volume waxing and waning.  No goblets had been broken yet, a sure sign that things were calm.  Yet it could easily continue all afternoon, as debates were prone to do.

Wemba would happily let the notables argue far into the night, but it would be better if he made sure that the decision was reached before the notables had exhausted themselves in argument.  He let his gaze wander around the chamber, lingering briefly on each of three other men, who met his eyes in turn.  That done, he whispered an apology which went quite unnoticed in the din of emphatic discussion, and left the main chamber.

He made his way to one of his favourite rooms in his manor, a second-storey north-facing room.  The shutters were open to let in the afternoon sun, and revealing a view of wealth-trees, yam-fields with dying vines, a few of the treasured kunduri-bushes, and beyond that his private ponds and the thin blue line of the Nyalananga [River Murray].  The room usually gave him ample daylight for reviewing correspondence or writing, or lately reading one or other of the marvellous paper books of the Raw Men.  He would scarcely get time to read any of those today, though.

For form’s sake, he picked up the most recent book which his compatriots in Jugara [Victor Harbor, South Australia] had acquired from the Nedlandj: an account by one of their sailors of his visits to the Atjuntja [1].  Nothing could be more valuable for understanding these Raw Men than reading their own accounts of how they perceived what they called the South Land.  Today, though, the book merely provided an excuse for him to be here until his three invited guests made their apologies and joined him.

Wemba had time to reread a few lines of the sailor’s account – apparently the Nedlandj found the Atjuntja’s human sacrifice utterly detestable, showing that they were at least partially civilized – before someone clapped outside the door.

“Be welcome,” he said.

Three men came into the room, as he had invited.  Nundjalung, who despite his greying hair kept most of the muscular physique and towering height which had made him the best White footballer in the last two generations.  Pila Dadi, greatest land controller [2] of the Whites, and the closest thing which their faction had to a first speaker.  Kuryal, premier ironsmith and metalworker, whose reputation was recognised beyond the Whites; he was accorded respect even from their bitterest rivals among the factions [3].

“Somewhat quieter here,” Pila Dadi said, with his characteristic half-smirk on his lips.  “A better place for you to read, if you find the subject pressing.”

“Knowledge is always valuable,” Wemba said.  “And a wise man-”

“Always makes use of time,” Pila Dadi interjected.  “So you’ve said before.”

“Truth does not stale through repetition,” Wemba said.  “But with guests here, I’m sure we can find other things to discuss.”

“Like your other guests downstairs?” Nundjalung asked.

Wemba said, “We could do well to anticipate their conclusions.”

Pila Dadi said, “If they reach any.  Beyond the basic truths which any man of vision can see, answers are not so easy to find.”

Wemba said, “Indeed.  These Raw Men will change the world.  We must struggle to accommodate them.”

“They will replace the Islanders,” Kuryal said.  “The Islanders’ strength has always been seafaring; now they are replaced.”

“Now the Islanders have rivals,” Pila Dadi said.  “Very strong rivals.  Perhaps they will find an accommodation, or perhaps they will fall.”

“Seafaring is only part of the knowledge the Raw Men bring,” Nundjalung said.

“Truth,” Wemba said.  “Much knowledge, much strength.  We must ensure that the Raw Men do not become too strong.”

Pila Dadi said, “The Islanders dominated too much for too long; these Raw Men could be much worse.”

“Fortunately, the Raw Men have divisions of their own,” Wemba said.

Kuryal said, “We must foster those divisions.”

“Such has begun,” Pila Dadi said.  “We trade with the Nedlandj, the Yadji have started to recruit among the Inglidj, and those Pannidj who raided in the west may yet return.  All this is good, but we must make sure that these divisions endure, or too much could fall to ruin.”

Nundjalung said, “And give them no reason to combine against us.”

Wemba said, “So, the situation is obvious-”

“But the solution is not,” Pila Dadi finished.  “How should we act, now that the Raw Men are part of the dance, wittingly or not?”

“We already asked that downstairs.  And got about a hundred opinions offering a thousand answers so far,” Nundjalung said, his lips crinkling.

“True answers are never found easily,” Wemba said.  “But we must learn their knowledge and their ways, as quickly as we can.”

“As you have begun,” said Pila Dadi, with a nod to the book at Wemba’s side.  “All knowledge of these Raw Men will be useful, but most of all their weapons, those muskets.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to Kuryal.  The ironsmith jerked his head up and to the left, as if snapping at an unseen mosquito: the ancient gesture of frustration.  “Before I saw these muskets and steel, I thought I knew as much of metalworking as any man living.  Now...  I am studying them, but even with all the resources of the Whites at my disposal, I can promise nothing.”

“Even with the prisoners to advise?” Nundjalung said.

“They know little, or pretend to know little,” Kuryal said.

“Think you they be truthful?” Pila Dadi said.

Wemba smiled briefly at the archaic phrasing of the question – an allusion to the Tales of Lopitja – then said, “Perhaps.  Our captives are soldiers and horse riders, not ironsmiths.  I wear mail at need, but could not tell you how it is made.”

“If we cannot learn for ourselves, we must find those who can teach,” Pila Dadi said.

“It’s been tried,” Wemba said.  “The Atjuntja have asked repeatedly, as have the Islanders.  Their... association [Company] refuses.”

“We can ask harder,” Pila Dadi said.  “And their association must realise that their Dance has changed now, too; they have rivals here.  Let them fear that if they do not teach us, the Inglidj or Pannidj will.”

“Or we can buy more examples of their craft to study,” Nundjalung said.

“If that will help,” Wemba said.  “Many times, craft knowledge is only in the heart of the maker.”

“Or buy their muskets and gunpowder for our soldiers,” Kuryal said.

“That could be done,” Wemba said.  “They value much-”

“Much of what is commonplace to us, they greatly desire,” Pila Dadi said.  “Much of what they would sell to us is of little value to them, but much worth to us.  Such is trade.”

Wemba said, “We would do well to make what they trade commonplace to us, where we can.”

“As they will try with us,” Nundjalung said.

Kuryal said, “Or trade with both Nedlandj and Inglidj, so that they cannot set their own price.”

Pila Dadi laughed.  “Truth for our own folk, too.  Think you not that the factions will bid against each other?”

“Unless we make a stronger alliance,” Nundjalung said.

“An association together could trade better, truth,” said Wemba.  “If it holds together.”

“If trust can be found for us,” Pila Dadi said.  “Our capture of the renegade Nedlandj already turns many suspicious eyes on us.”

“Fear for what we might do with those Raw Men, not what we have done,” Nundjalung said.  “Only frustration has come from them, so far.”

“Any threat is best faced early,” Kuryal said.

“He who cannot plan for tomorrow will fall the day after,” Pila Dadi said.

“So let us share some of the knowledge... with chosen factions,” Wemba said.

“Share what we do not have?” Nundjalung said.

“We have horses,” Wemba said.

That comment produced a long moment of silence, so rare amongst a meeting of Gunnagal.  The guests thought through the implications quickly enough, and as usual, spoke even before they finished thinking.

“Horses which have already bred-” Kuryal said.

“And carry a man faster than he can run,” Pila Dadi said.

“Or news,” Nundjalung added.

“Horses which any man of sense can see will change the world,” Wemba said.

“Which for now we control,” Pila Dadi said.

“Though others might trade for,” Kuryal said.

“Truth,” Pila Dadi said.  “No monopoly will hold.”

“So best to choose to end it on our own terms,” Wemba said.

“Offer some new-bred horses to other factions-” Kuryal said.

“And secure cooperation over trade with the Raw Men in exchange,” Pila Dadi said.

“Provided we are not too obvious, naturally,” Wemba said.

“Quite,” said Kuryal, with a shake of his head.

“How many other factions?” Nundjalung said.

“Two: Blues and Greens,” Wemba said.

Pila Dadi laughed at once, catching the meaning instantly.  It took Kuryal’s face a moment longer to show he understood.  Nundjalung didn’t, though.

Wemba said, “If ever Blues and Greens stand together...”

Belatedly, Nundjalung grasped the meaning, and finished the old aphorism, “Then the king will tremble.”

All factions were rivals, and some had longstanding hatreds, but the mistrust between Blue and Greens had always been the bitterest.  Rare indeed had been times when they cooperated without all the factions uniting.  Which made them perfect partners for quiet cooperation over trade, if offers of horses could secure their support.

“Very good, if it works,” Pila Dadi said.  “Other options exist, though, as our friends downstairs will be sure to tell us.”

That provoked rather more heated discussion about which factions should be sought for cooperation.  Wemba had expected nothing less, and settled in for a long, animated discussion of how best to secure the future of the Whites.

Hours later, with the discussion carried as far as it could be with only four speakers present, they adjourned.  The task of convincing the rest of the faction leaders would have to remain until the next day.

After his guests were safely retired to the many rooms where they could sleep, Wemba returned to his favoured room on the second floor.  A tinkling of the brass bell brought a servant hurrying to answer his bidding.  “Have Nuyts brought to me, along with... two guards.”

Waiting took some time, since the servant would need to find his way through the night, out of the main manor house and over the hill to the smaller complex of rooms where Nuyts and his fellow Nedlandj renegades were housed.

While he waited, the flickering lamplight was not the brightest, but still enough for Wemba to read more of the Nedlandj account of visiting the Atjuntja.  He laughed to himself a couple of times, and nodded in disbelief.  Stins, it appeared, expected that every proper-thinking person should think like a Raw Man, in their beliefs and in everything else.

“Fool,” he muttered.  Men thought differently from each other.  Understanding how other people thought, why they acted as they did, was an integral part of the Eternal Dance.  Surely not all Raw Men were stupid enough to believe the same as Stins?  Not all of them could be fools; their knowledge alone proved that.

Nuyts entered the room, looking about as unhappy as he always did, with two guards following him.

Wemba rosed and bowed in the Nedlandj style.  The greeting, though, while in the Dutch language, was of the Gunnagalic form.  “Be welcome, my guest.”

Nuyts frowned; it was an expression his long Raw Man face seemed built for.  “Your prisoner, you mean.”

“My guest,” Wemba said mildly.

“A guest held at swordpoint,” Nuyts said.

“The guards are for the protection of me and mine, not your imprisonment,” Wemba said.  They had had similar conversations before, but Nuyts refused to believe.  “You Dutchmen can be dangerous.”

“So they would just let me leave?” Nuyts said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“If you like, provided that you leave alone – no way to be sure what you Dutchmen will do as a group – and do not try to take any of your horses or other goods with you,” Wemba said.

“I don’t believe you,” Nuyts said.

“Believe it,” Wemba said calmly.  “If you wish to leave, under those conditions, the guards will not stop you.”

“Then, first thing tomorrow, I will-”

“But where will you go?” Wemba said.

“Anywhere but here,” Nuyts said.

“Where, exactly?” Wemba said.

“I-”

“Any other men of Tjibarr would return you to us rather than give you shelter; the king and council have agreed that you are our guest.  If you flee beyond our borders, the Yadji have sworn to kill you.  Gutjanal and Yigutji [the other kingdoms along the *Murray] are too weak; they would hand you over to the Yadji rather than risk angering them.”

“If I reach the sea-”

“You will do what?  Your own Company has declared you a traitor.  The Inglidj have promised to return you and your folk to the Yadji, if they find you.  The Islanders would find you a valuable prize to trade; their only concern would be whether the Nedlandj or Yadji would offer more for you.”

“I could go-”

“Where?  Into the desert?  I suppose you could find shelter there, if the savages who live there don’t kill you.  They won’t feed you, though.  Do you know how to survive in the red heart?”

Nuyts shook his head.

“I thought not.  You could try to go east, and cross the mountains.  If the half-civilized savages on the other side don’t kill you on sight, they might show you to a Maori ship to take you to Aotearoa.  Perhaps you will be fortunate, and not have the Maori eat you.  Then you could live among people who know less than we do, with no iron, no physicians, no kunduri, no spices worth naming, and almost as easy to anger as a Yadji.  Would you prefer that?”

Nuyts looked down.

“No, the truth is that only among the Gunnagal is your life safe.  And you must help us as much as you can, to stop the Yadji learning from the Inglidj, and invading us to force your return.”

--

Pieter Nuyts’s ill-fated attempt to conquer the Yadji (1636-1638) dealt a disastrous blow to the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) ambition to maintain a monopoly on trade with the South Land.  The English East India Company (EIC) had already despatched William Baffin on an exploration mission to this new land; now their English rivals had been given a vital opening to exploit.

The defeat of Nuyts’s adventurism led the new Yadji Regent, Gunya, to declare the Dutch anathema within his Empire, to be killed on sight.  The VOC made a determined effort to persuade Gunya Yadji to change his mind.  Their governor at Fort Nassau [Fremantle] sent emissaries to the Yadji realm to try to convince them that Nuyts had acted independently and without authority.

En route, some of the friendlier Nangu tried to warn the emissaries not to bother, that as far as the Yadji were concerned, the actions of the subjects were the actions of the ruler.  Perhaps unwisely, perhaps out of a sense of duty, the emissaries pressed on.

Gunya Yadji is reported to have told the emissaries, “Tjibarr has tried to tell us such things before, striking against us and then denying that they had done so.  We will not believe them, nor do I believe you.  Your words are lies because your adventure failed, nothing more.”

Gunya had all but one of the emissaries executed, with the last sent back to deliver the message to the VOC.  He also extended official hospitality to the EIC, giving them permission to set up two trading outposts on Yadji territory.  One could be established in the existing harbour of Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria], while the other was to be built somewhere in the wide harbour which the Yadji called the Little Sea [Port Phillip Bay, Victoria].

On 5 May 1642, the VOC responded with a raid on Gurndjit, targeting the half-built English fortifications there.  The raid caused some minor damage, but due to a stroke of ill luck for the VOC, most English ships were further east in the Little Sea establishing a new fort there, so those ships survived unscathed.

The undeclared war between the VOC and the EIC had begun...

--

[1] This is a book by Pieter Stins, called ““My Life in the South-Land”.  It is an account of his experiences as a crew member in de Houtman’s first two voyages to Aururia.

[2] In Tjibarr, all rural land is notionally under the ownership of the monarch; what is granted to each person – usually noble – is the right to use that land.  In practice, land ownership is one of the great prizes in the Dance, with intra- and inter-factional intrigues over its use being rife, as people try to outmanoeuvre each other for control of the most productive lands.

[3] Blacksmiths in Aururia have semi-sacred status and immense popular respect.  This is a legacy of how the craft first developed in the Atjuntja, where the first blacksmiths developed a reputation for great skill and for being touched by the kuru (spirits).  It has continued when blacksmiths were first recruited to travel east by the Nangu.  Among the Atjuntja, even the greatest of nobles make requests of master blacksmiths, rather than orders to attend.  Their social status is not quite as high in Tjibarr, but even there, a reputation as a master smith can transcend factional lines.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #49: What Becomes of Boldness

“Japanese ships are strictly forbidden to leave for foreign countries.
No Japanese is permitted to go abroad.  If there is anyone who attempts to do so secretly, he must be executed.  The ship so involved must be impounded and its owner arrested, and the matter must be reported to the higher authority.
If any Japanese returns from overseas after residing there, he must be put to death.”

- Tokugawa Iemitsu (r. 1623-1650), Edicts 1, 2 and 3, 1645 [1].

--

From: “The Century: History’s 100 Most Important People”
By Appian Harris

82. Kumgatu (Nangu explorer and founding father of the Nuttana)

The reputation of Kumgatu is, if anything, greater than that of the man’s achievements.  Known and celebrated as a cultural hero on three continents, his deeds have inevitably become mythologised to a degree which the man himself likely would not recognise.  Yet even stripping out the fiction, what remains is impressive enough.

He was born Werringi Wolalta on the Island, one of many adventuresome Nangu youths who took up life as a sailor and trader.  He died known as Kumgatu, first citizen of Wujal [Cooktown, Queensland], leading man of the Nuttana, a man with wealth and glory unparalleled amongst his people...

Kumgatu’s significance in global history stems from his three great voyages of exploration and trade, and from his role in setting up the pact of cooperation between the first four Nangu bloodlines (later expanded to six) in the association which would become known as the Nuttana.

To his contemporaries, Kumgatu’s main achievement was his first great voyage, his circumnavigation of Aururia in 1630-1631.  This voyage was the one which earned him the sobriquet which means ‘the Bold’, which in time he adopted as his proper name.  His first voyage was revered as a true voyage into the unknown, for he lacked any proper knowledge of what he would find.  Kumgatu’s two later voyages, while celebrated, were conducted with at least some guidance from Dutch and English sources, and so were not viewed as requiring the same courage.

History, though, judges Kumgatu’s achievements differently.  His circumnavigation of Aururia was a significant feat, but it was his later voyages into Asia which would have more lasting significance...

--

In the year which Europeans call the Year of Our Lord 1644, or the year which in the most widespread native calendar is called the 405th Year of Harmony, a new town is emerging.  A thriving town, near the mouth of a river where ten years before the only buildings were the animal-hide shelters of the hunters who had wandered this land since time immemorial.

Here, near the northernmost extremity of a land which a visiting English explorer has recently christened Aururia, is an outpost which the Islanders have named Wujal.  The town was founded as a ship repair port and victualling station, intended as a mere outpost worked by a handful of Islanders and a larger number of contracted Kiyungu farmers.  In a mere decade, Wujal has grown into something much larger.

Wujal nestles on the southern bank of the River Bidgee [Endeavour River], near the mouth of the river.  Here is a safe harbour for those who have learned to navigate the sandbar at the river’s mouth, and here it is that the Islanders have come.  A few of them, at first, to create a place where ships can resupply or seek shelter at need.  Many more have come, though, fleeing the Island and all its problems.

The buildings here have the impermanence of anything which has been constructed on the coast of a cyclone-prone region, balanced against a sense of purpose which shows that those who live here now intend far more than simply to grow kumara [sweet potato] and repair sails on passing ships.

Houses here are built solidly and decorated ostentatiously, marking an attitude which is common to both the Nangu and Kiyungu who make up the large majority of Wujal’s inhabitants.  The two most ostentatious houses of all are those of the elders of the Tjula and Wolalta bloodlines, who have made Wujal their permanent home.

Here, too, are buildings which show why Wujal is growing.  The dockyard is not just used to repair visiting ships, but for shipbuilding.  Warehouses nearby hold goods brought from both further south in Aururia, and from the Old World.  The buildings of other craftsmen cluster near the dockyard: scribes, weavers, potters, and, most prized of all, blacksmiths.

Wujal hosts four blacksmiths, plus a growing number of apprentices.  These are the first iron-workers to dwell among the Kiyungu; none of the master smiths are born on the east coast of the continent.  Three of them are master ironsmiths from the Atjuntja, discreetly recruited by the Tjula bloodline, and the fourth is a famously foul-mouthed Gunnagal.

Since the Nangu dwell here, the town of course holds a Plirite temple, built atop a grassy hill overlooking the city.  The temple is still small, by Nangu standards, but built of stone, by masons recruited from the Kiyungu.  It hosts two priests only, but both of them are kept extremely busy performing the daily ceremonies attended by many of the Nangu and a growing number of Kiyungu converts.

Despite the thriving town, counting the population is not an easy feat.  Neither the Nangu nor Kiyungu have any strong tradition of conducting a census.  Still, well over a thousand people live in Wujal or in the farmlands and timber camps further up the river.

Whether the exact numbers are known or not, even the most casual visitor to Wujal would see that the population is growing.  The sound of construction seems to be everywhere; new buildings are raised through every dry season.

More than that, children seem to run everywhere.  Their laughs and cries are spoken in Kiyungu or Nangu in almost equal measure, or sometimes a curious mixture of both languages.  The children’s heritage is similarly mixed; many of them have one Nangu and one Kiyungu parent.  The pairing is much more often a Nangu man and a Kiyungu woman than the reverse.  Many of the Nangu who have fled the Island are, not surprisingly, sailors, and they have sought brides among the Kiyungu.

Still, Wujal has many Kiyungu who dwell there for other reasons.  The initial pact between the Nuttana [trading association] and the Kiyungu cities called for labourers who would farm on five-year terms.  Many of those farmers have chosen to stay for longer, though, and other Kiyungu have started to migrate north, too.

The Kiyungu who dwell around Wujal are not the majority in the town itself, but they are the most numerous people in the surrounding lands.  The town could not survive without the food and timber they supply.  In the fields above Wujal are kumara, lesser yams, taro, wealth-trees [wattles], jeeree [lemon tea], and several lesser crops, including mung beans which Nangu ships have brought from Batavia.

Further up the river, the Kiyungu have a few timber camps where they log tropical trees and float down the river for construction of ships or buildings.  With so much construction, the loggers are ever busier, and more of them are needed every year.  Word is spreading further south among the Kiyungu: come north, where opportunity awaits!

--

From: “The Century: History’s 100 Most Important People”
By Appian Harris

Kumgatu’s second great voyage in 1635-1636 took his ships from the Island to Java and back again; the first Aururian ships to visit the Old World.  During the voyage, he established a trade agreement with the Dutch East India Company, and consolidated his trading association’s pact with the Kiyungu.

On the return leg of his voyage, he met the first English ships to explore Aururia under the command of William Baffin.  While neither party made any firm agreements, contact with the English offered Kumgatu and his fellow Nangu the opportunity to bypass the Dutch monopoly on European trade with Aururia.  He would put this opportunity to good use...

--

“Our world is out of balance.  The Raw Men can sail to our homeland as they wish, but we cannot sail to theirs.  Only when we can voyage as far as them will the balance be restored.”
- Attributed to Kumgatu

--

Nangu shipbuilding techniques had been evolving for centuries.  Isolated on their Island, sailing for fish and other produce of the seas such as dyes, they became the best native seafarers in Aururia.  Their techniques were only improved after contact with the Maori gave them access to Polynesian navigation techniques and knowledge of lateen sails.

The standard Nangu ship design from the late fourteenth century onward was a twin-hulled, lateen-rigged, shallow-drafted vessel whose Nangu name is best translated simply as “ship” [2].  These agile vessels were capable of navigating reliably even into the wind, and became the mainstay of Nangu commerce for nearly two centuries.

Although manoeuvrable, such shallow-drafted ships had severe limits in terms of cargo space.  By the late sixteenth century, more ambitious Nangu shipbuilders had begun to create larger vessels, preserving the triangular lateen sails, but with larger hulls and more decks.  These vessels, called great-ships, became the premier Nangu trading vessels on the westward run to the Atjuntja lands, and for other long-range sailing.

Nangu ship design did not end with the construction of great-ships.  Members of several bloodlines had considered making even larger ships.  These plans were given more urgency when word came of the Raw Men from out of the west, and of the massive single-hulled ships which they used.

The Nangu shipwrights gave little regard to single-hulled ships, viewing them as too limited in sailing against the wind.  Yet the volumes of cargo which the Raw Men’s ship could deliver were something to be admired, as were the reports that their large square sails and twin masts could sail faster with the wind behind them.

Frantic experimentation began among the Nangu, both with ship design and with the compass which the Raw Men used.  The first twin-masted, enlargened great-ships were built by the Manyilti bloodline in 1631, and others quickly followed.

The Nyugal and Wolalta bloodlines supported the push for larger ships, but gave more consideration to how to gain more speed when sailing with the wind.  More masts were an obvious part of the answer, but with lateen sails, even twin masts did not give as much sail area as comparable Raw Men vessels.

The two bloodlines were loathe to forgo the manoeuvrability of lateen sails, and in any case switching to square-rigged sails would have required learning entirely new sailing techniques.  Reports of some of the Raw Men ships gave them another solution: add a second sail (headsail) in front of the foremast, attached to a bowsprit, to be used when sailing with the wind.

The Nyugal had experimented with headsails on smaller vessels even before the Manyilti built the first twin-masted ship, and found them satisfactory.  In partnership with the Wolalta, they began to include them on twin-masted ships.

The first ship to incorporate both of these innovations was built in Wujal, away from prying eyes of other Nangu bloodlines.  Completed in 1640, its makers called it the Barrbay (swiftness).  The new twin-hulled swift-ship displaced nearly 50 tonnes, with twin lateen sails that manoeuvred well into the wind, while headsails could be run up to add to speed when sailing with the wind.

This new design was, in fact, seaworthy enough to be capable of sailing around the world.  Whether it would be permitted to undertake such a voyage, in competition with the seagoing powers of Europe was, of course, a much more difficult question to answer...

--

From: “The Century: History’s 100 Most Important People”
By Appian Harris

Due to the accomplishments of Kumgatu’s second great voyage, the Nuttana had permission to trade with the Dutch East India Company at Batavia.  This trading concession, while valuable, became ever more difficult to exercise given the ongoing state of war between the Netherlands and Spain-Portugal, and the undeclared war between the Dutch East India Company and their English counterparts.

Due to the problems of war, and resentment of Dutch attempts to monopolise trade with Aururia, Kumgatu organised his third great voyage.  His aim was to venture further into Asia, to reach the source of at least some of the goods which Europeans were bringing to Aururian ports.

Previous Nangu ships had used Dutch charts to venture through parts of the East Indies, and glimpsed the southernmost islands of the Philippines, but Kumgatu decided to venture much further into the northern hemisphere.  Despite having spent several years in profitable comfort overseeing efforts from Wujal rather than sailing himself, his third voyage demonstrated that he still maintained the courage that was his name.

In 1643, Kumgatu took personal command of the Garoo, one of the newest class of Nangu ships, and together with two other vessels, set out for Asia...

Surviving records do not reveal whether Kumgatu was just extremely fortunate in his timing and choice of stops, or whether he had obtained insight from Europeans who had visited Japan.  In any case, in his third voyage he bypassed war-torn Taiwan and avoided Cathay proper, and after leaving the Philippines, he explored the Ryukyu islands, eventually docking at Naha, the capital of Okinawa.

The Ryukyu kingdom was then a vassal of Japan, although it still preserved relations with Cathay.  Previously a nexus for trade between Japan, Cathay, Southeast Asia and the East Indies, its commerce had declined in the last few decades.  Nevertheless, Kumgatu viewed it as a good place to establish trade connexions independent of European authority, and here he offered the goods which he had brought...

Having learned from the preferences of Old Worlders in Batavia, Kumgatu had brought with him supplies of kunduri, lemon verbena, sweet peppers and other spices, and gold and silver.  All of these were positively received, but the trade good which made the greatest impression was jeeree.  Some visiting Japanese samurai who sampled the new beverage were extremely enthusiastic in its praises.

In exchange, Kumgatu secured samples of trade goods brought from elsewhere in Asia or India: Japanese lacquerware and fans; Chinese porcelain and textiles; Indian ivory; and Southeast Asian sugar and ambergris.  Of all the new goods, he rated Japanese muskets and gunpowder as the most important...

--

Taken from Intellipedia.

Kaikin (“maritime restrictions”) was the Japanese foreign relations policy whereby no outlander could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country, backed by the death penalty.  The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu and Tokugawa Ietsuna [3] through several edicts and policies from 1645-52, and remained in effect for nearly 200 years.

The term Kaikin (meaning restrictions on sea activity) was a contemporaneous term derived from the similar Cathayan concept of hai jin [citation needed].

Japan did not isolate itself completely during the Kaikin era.  The system saw the shogunate apply strict regulations to foreign relations and commerce, but never completely severed outside contact.  Under Kaikin, direct European contact was permitted only via the Dutch trading outpost in Nagasaki.  Trade with Cathay was also conducted at Nagasaki.  Commerce with Corea was restricted to the Tsushima domain, while trade with the Ezo [Ainu] was limited to the Matsumae domain.  Trade with the Ryukyu kingdom, and thus indirect trade with the Coral states, took place in Satsuma domain...

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[1] Historically, Tokugawa Iemitsu ruled a year longer (until 1651), and the equivalent edicts were issued ten years earlier (ie 1635).  The disruptions of the Aururian plagues within Japan, and flow-on effects of reduced European contact, has delayed the advent of the restrictions on foreign contact.

[2] The smaller Nangu vessels names would usually be translated as “boat”.

[3] Tokugawa Ietsuna (b.1642) is an allohistorical ‘brother’ of the historical Tokugawa Ietsuna; being born so far after the divergence means that he is not the same person.

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Lands of Red and Gold #50: A Necklace of Pearls

“If the United Netherlands can prosper so after seventy years of war, what will she accomplish after seventy years of peace?”
- Attributed (probably incorrectly) to Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, after the signing of the Peace of Hamburg (1638) saw Spain recognise the independence of the Dutch Republic

--

“Wherefore it be said, we will never make war with the Hollanders, for we are of the same faith.  Nay, for we still worship God, they have turned to gold.”
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Duke Regent of England, 1643

--

“Holland is a country where the demon gold is seated on a throne of cheese, and crowned with kunduri.”
- Claudius Salmasius, a Huguenot exile teaching at the university of Leyden, 1647

--

“There is hardly a single Hollander of any consideration in Java, who does not have a concubine – a way of life that is deplorable, and which can give very little inducement to the natives to become converts to our religion.”
- Anonymous Dutch minister of the Reformed Church, shortly after arriving in the East Indies

--

“Peer review can be said to have existed ever since people began to identify and communicate what they thought was new knowledge, because peer review (whether before or after publication) is an essential and integral part of consensus building and is integral and necessary to the growth of scientific knowledge.

In the stricter sense of formalised review of a professional’s findings by a group of their peers, albeit in a post-publication context, peer review seems to have begun with the physicians of Tjibarr, Gutjanal and Yigutji...”
- From The History of Medicine

--

“A traveller has a destination, a student has only a journey.”

“Fear not change; without change, nothing can take place.”

“All men are joined together; teach them, spurn them or punish them, but you cannot separate them.”

“The longest journey begins when a man looks inside himself.”
- From Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road]

--

“No gains of mere conquest or triumphs of will could have brought as much lasting wealth to the Danes as the introduction of what was, if seen from above the ground, merely an oddly-shaped dandelion.”
- Jesper Pontoppidan, Norse and Syd

--

“Sicily is a large island, but not large enough to hold that man’s ego.”
- Ferdinando III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after first meeting Lorenzo Piazzi, the Advent revolutionary turned King of Sicily

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“Bohemia is the axle on which the wheel of Europe turns.”
- Maximilian III, Grand Duke of Bavaria (among other titles), speaking on the eve of the Nine Years’ War

--

“For every state, from the smallest to the greatest, the principle of enlargement is the fundamental law of life.”
- Christian Albert I, Elector of Saxony, My Times and Testament

--

“Practice not usury.  Interest is false money.  No man should lend for reward unless he also accepts the risk.”
- From Good Man, Good Life

--

“By machines mankind is able to do that which their own bodily powers would never effect to the same extent.  Machines are the product of the mind of man, and their existence distinguishes the civilised man from the savage.”
- Rene Michaux, pioneering industrialist

--

“Society unravels in this modern age.  As we learn to do more with machines, we forget more of what it means to be men.”

“A mill [factory] is a means for concentrating the labour of many into the wealth of one.”

“A man who works for wages is scarce more than a slave.  A farmer finds food, hearth and home on his own land.  An artisan works for himself.  Yet a labourer in mill or workshop serves at the bidding of another.  If he is fortunate, he will be given enough coin to survive, but not to thrive.  If he is unfortunate, he will be cast aside, bereft of food or shelter.”

“Alone, a wage-labourer weeps at a world which is cast out of balance.  Never can a man in cloth cap stand equal to a man who wears a ruby.  Only when the labourers stand together can harmony be restored.”

- Myumitsi Makan, better known in English as Solidarity Jenkins

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“How can they claim to be one nation under God when they can’t give you a straight answer as to whether they have only one god?”
- “Sweet” Como Wiradjuri, retiring ambassador to Alleghania, on his return home

--

“A great cause needs great men.”
- Tjewarra (“strong heart”), Atjuntja activist

--

“Nia, Paluna, na Umoja.”  (Strong will, decisiveness, and unity [1].)
- Motto of the African Liberation Army

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“Old Man Keribee always said that Gideon and Samson are the only two men worth remembering in the Jewish [ie Old] Testament.  If I can’t be like Gideon for his life, I can be like Samson for his death.”
- From the last letter left by Ngengi wa Lemaron, for his parents

--

[1] This motto is in Swahili, the allohistorical version of which includes the borrowed word “paluna” (decisiveness).

--

Lands of Red and Gold #51: As the Butterfly Breaks the Earth...

A few glimpses of how the broader world has been changed by Aururian contact...

--

In history as we know it, China in the 1630s was ruled by the Ming Dynasty (大明); once great, now crumbling.

For over two and a half centuries, Ming rule had brought stability to the greatest economy in the world.  But as the 1630s began, Ming authority was failing.

The economy relied on silver currency, largely imported from the New World, and Spain had curtailed those imports.  Later in the decade, Japan’s closure of most overseas trade eliminated another source of bullion.  With the loss of silver imports, the economic structure collapsed, leading to rampant inflation and collapsing tax revenues.

Coupled with the economic problems came climate change; the advent of the Little Ice Age brought cooler and drier weather to most of China.  In turn, that led to crop failures and widespread famines.  These two problems led to inevitable unrest, with growing rebellions threatening the revenue-starved Ming government.

Externally, the Manchurian tribes, once tributaries to China, had been unified under Nurhaci (努尔哈赤).  Nurhaci had rebelled against Ming authority in 1618, and began a campaign of military expansion against China, Korea, the Mongols, and his Manchurian neighbours.  Nurhaci had several notable successes, until in 1626 he was defeated by a Ming army commanded by Yuan Chonghuan (袁崇焕), and died of his wounds a few days later.

Nurhaci’s son, Huang Taiji (皇太極), took command of the Manchus and continued the raids into China.  Yuan, one of the few Ming generals to have any success against the Manchu, successfully defended Beijing from Huang’s forces in 1629, but was betrayed by his own emperor and condemned to death.

After Yuan’s execution, the Manchus continued their expansion, breaking Ming control over Korea in 1638, and pushing into China.  Major rebellions within China saw rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng (李自成) and Zhang Xianzhong (张献忠) gain control of large parts of the country.  Li Zicheng broke Ming rule in 1644 by capturing Beijing; the last Ming emperor committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree.

Li proclaimed himself emperor, but his dynasty was one of the shortest-lived in Chinese history.  The Manchus under Huang drove Li out of Beijing after less than two weeks of his rule, and chased him across much of China until he died a year later.  Huang proclaimed himself emperor of the Qing Dynasty (大清) in 1644.  The Manchus were effective rulers of China from that time, although some Ming loyalists held out for nearly two more decades.

*

In history as it might have been, the fate of China moved onto another path.  In 1619, the Dutch explorer Frederik de Houtman first made contact with the natives of what he called the Great South Land, and which would later be known in English as Aururia.  This was a land of gold and silver, spices and the strange new drug kunduri.  Most important of all for the fate of China, Aururia was the home of two new epidemic diseases; the two-stage disease known in Aururia as the Waiting Death (Marnitja), and a new version of influenza called blue-sleep.

Contact with Aururia saw these two diseases escape into the wider world, even as Old World diseases were beginning to ravage Aururia.  In later European history, the familiar story of these two plagues would see Marnitja, most commonly known as the Dutch curse, brought by ship to the Netherlands and then sweep through Europe in 1627-9.  Blue-sleep was carried by Portuguese ships first into Flores, then through Indonesia and into mainland Asia, where it burned a path across the continent to emerge into Europe in 1631-2 and strike a population still reeling from the previous plague.

In China, the course of those two epidemics was reversed.  Merchant ships brought blue-sleep from the Indies to China in 1629-30.  Marnitja traced a slower path through much of the Old World, from Madagascar to mainland Africa to Arabia, before being carried by returning hajj pilgrims to India, then to Southeast Asia, and then by ship to Guangzhou (Canton) in 1632, from whence it spread across China in 1632-4.

The effects of the plagues wrenched China’s fate into a new path.  Blue-sleep appeared first in Guangzhou in February 1629, from whence it spread both by land and sea.  Ships carried it to Tianjin in May 1629, from where it was carried both into Beijing and into the Manchu-occupied province of Liaoning.

Blue-sleep has the peculiarity that its mortality is most severe amongst young adults, and thus it took a considerable toll among the young men of military age in both the Ming and Manchu armies.  While both sides were disrupted, this was of most advantage to Yuan Chonghuan, who in the winter of 1629 fought the Manchu armies further from Beijing, and made effective use of his superior artillery to rout the enemy armies.

Now confirmed as a military hero, with no aura of betrayal, Yuan spent 1630-1632 in overall command of China’s northeastern armies, where he worked hard to rebuild military forces, strengthen his artillery corps, and planned the reconquest of Liaoning.

While the consequences of the blue-sleep were fortunate indeed for Yuan personally, the wider effects of the twin plagues were catastrophic.  The famines of the 1620s had left a weakened, vulnerable population.  Blue-sleep killed over 6% of the population, and had a disproportionate effect on young adults.

The Marnitja epidemic which followed was even worse.  In southern China it killed around 15% of the remaining population, while in famine-stricken northern China the mortality was even worse, reaching over 20%.

The current Ming ruler, the Chongzen Emperor, had the fortune to survive both plagues.  Had he known the fate of his counterpart in another history, the Emperor would doubtless have celebrated the fact that Marnitja claimed people who would have been prominent rebel leaders: Li Zicheng slipped into a fatal coma in 1633, while Zhang Xianzhong died of the pink cough in 1634.

Since the Chongzen Emperor lacked that knowledge, of course, he was far more concerned with the problems in the China he found.  The massive death toll of the plagues was taken as a sign that the Ming Dynasty had lost divine legitimacy.  While the historical rebel leaders were lost to the plagues, others emerged to take their place; revolts sprung up throughout China.

Busy planning his campaigns on the frontier, Yuan was almost indifferent to the troubles in the rest of China.  In 1634-5, with the effects of Marnitja subsiding, Yuan launched his planned reconquest of Liaoning province.  With disciplined troops and his advantage in artillery, he pushed the Manchus out of China and back into Manchuria proper.  Korea, which in another history would have been lost to Chinese influence, remained a tributary state.

Yuan’s reconquest brought considerable glory to himself and his armies, but his very success was deemed suspicious in a time when rebel generals were springing up in several provinces.  Some of Yuan’s allies at court sent him word that his victories were viewed as too effective, that he was now thought to be cooperating with the Manchus and planning to turn them into allies and launch a revolt of his own.

In April 1636, Yuan received an order calling on him to surrender command of his armies and return to Beijing.  He was astute enough to realise what this order meant.  Knowing that he would be deemed as a rebel regardless of his actions, and believing that the plagues were proof that the Ming had lost their legitimacy, Yuan refused the summons.  Legend claims that his reply to the Emperor was: “When I come to Beijing, I will not be alone.”

Huang Taiji heard rumours of Yuan’s plans, and tried to launch more raids into Liaoning.  Yuan fought one last great battle against the Manchus near Xingjing (兴京) in May 1636, where Huang was killed in the fighting, and the surviving Manchus sued for peace.

With his rear secure, Yuan marched into China himself.  Feted as a hero by the local population, he won a battle north of Beijing in late June, and captured the city after the Chongzen Emperor fled the city ahead of his forces.  Yuan pushed further into northern China, finding plenty of local support.  In April 1637, at a battle near the city of Liaocheng (聊城), Yuan defeated the Ming armies under Hong Chengchou (洪承疇) who had been sent to reconquer northern China.

After this victory, Yuan proclaimed himself as the first emperor of the You Dynasty (大佑) [1].  He was quick to consolidate control over northern China, but lacked the manpower or support to push further south and conquer the whole country.  The result was a stalemate: Yuan did not want to risk his previous triumphs by a military gamble in southern China, while the surviving Ming rulers did not have the strength to push him out.

So, as had happened so many times before in its history, China was again divided, with the You ruling in the north while the Southern Ming tried to arrest their decay in their new southern dominions...

--

In history, France from 1624 onwards was dominated by the famous Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac, or Cardinal Richelieu as he is usually known.  The Cardinal served as King Louis XIII’s chief minister, and before his death in 1642 he would do much to strengthen the central authority of the French state.

In domestic affairs, Richelieu sought to bolster royal power at the expense of the nobility and religious dissidents.  The former saw the dismantling of most fortifications in France, to limit aristocrats’ ability to rebel.  The latter led to Huguenot rebellions in 1625 and 1627-9.  Charles I of England tried to intervene in the latter rebellion, resulting in the brief Anglo-French War of 1627-9.

As part of suppressing the Huguenot rebellion of 1627-9, the Cardinal took personal control of the troops besieging the fortified Huguenot city of La Rochelle.  Despite British naval efforts to relieve the siege, La Rochelle surrendered in October 1628.  The Huguenot rebellion persisted for a few more months, until Richelieu negotiated the Peace of Alais with the Huguenots.  Under the terms of this peace, the Huguenots were guaranteed tolerance, but were stripped of their political rights.

In foreign affairs, Richelieu’s core goal was opposition to the Habsburgs whose dominions in Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands came close to encircling France.  A pragmatic statesman, Richelieu put French national interest above religion.  While the Thirty Years War had begun as a religious struggle between Protestants and Catholics, the Cardinal provided French support for several Protestant nations against the Catholic Habsburgs.

Early in the Thirty Years’ War, Richelieu sought to use French subsidies to finance opposition to the Habsburgs, with French military action being limited to secondary fronts.  In that cause, France subsidised the Dutch to fight the Spanish, and the Danes and then the Swedish to fight against the Habsburg forces in the Holy Roman Empire.  Meanwhile, France fought directly against the Habsburgs in northern Italy during the War of the Mantuan Succession (1628-1631), where Richelieu again took personal command of French forces, this time in northern Italy.

Ultimately, the Cardinal’s indirect efforts to weaken the Habsburgs were insufficient, since neither Denmark nor Sweden were able to break Habsburg power.  As a result, Richelieu engineered direct French intervention in the Thirty Years’ War.  France declared war on Spain in 1635, and on the Austrian Habsburgs in 1636.  These wars both continued after Richelieu died in 1642.  The French war against the Austrians continued until the Thirty Years’ War ended in 1648, while the war with Spain lasted even longer, ending only in 1659.

One of the Cardinal’s other goals was expansion of French colonial power.  He was a supporter of Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who founded New France.  In the early seventeenth century, a variety of companies had been granted monopolies in the fur trade from New France, but had problems enforcing their monopolies due to traders from other nations, and because of political opposition in France.  In 1627, Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates, granting it a monopoly on the fur trade, and ensured Champlain was involved both as an investor and the commander of the Company’s first fleet sent to Quebec.

Richelieu continued to advocate for the interests of Champlain and New France even when another problem emerged: the war with England.  During the Anglo-French War of 1627-29, the English military efforts against France proper were largely unsuccessful.  English colonial forces had more success in North America, with much of New France being conquered; even Quebec City itself was captured in July 1629, with Champlain being forced to surrender the colony.

Fortunately for the future of New France, France and England had signed the Treaty of Suza in April 1629, which permitted both sides to retain colonies they had captured before that date, but required the return of ones captured later.  This included Quebec City and other parts of New France.  Getting England to hand back those colonies was a harder task, but Richelieu persisted.  The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (signed in March 1632) returned Quebec, Acadia and Cape Breton Island to France.

*

In allohistory, the fate of France and New France was shifted onto a new course.  The early years of Dutch contact with Aururia meant little to France; a new source of gold for the Netherlands meant that France provided slightly reduced subsidies to the Dutch, while the Dutch in turn would provide additional subsidies to Denmark when the latter nation intervened in the Thirty Years’ War.

As with all of Europe, France would suffer the effects of the Aururian plagues.  Marnitja swept across France in 1628-9.  The effects were not as severe as they would later be in China, but were still devastating: about 14% of the population died.  The most notable victim was Cardinal Richelieu himself.  At the siege of La Rochelle, in April 1628, he died coughing up blood, and many of the government soldiers died with him.  The casualties of the epidemic, and the power vacuum left by Richelieu’s death, saw the siege of La Rochelle lifted, for the time being.

With the French court intrigue-ridden after Richelieu’s death, Louis XIII turned to Honoré d'Albert, Duc de Chaulnes, marshal of France and brother of his former favourite, Charles d'Albert, Duc de Luynes.  De Chaulnes became the effective chief minister of France by July 1628, replacing Richelieu.  De Chaulnes had an equal desire to Richelieu to ensure France’s safety from the encircling Habsburgs, but he also had an appreciation of how heavy a toll the “Dutch curse” had taken on French manpower and prosperity.  De Chaulnes supported the policy of subsidising the Habsburgs’ enemies, but was disinclined to take direct military action.

De Chaulnes had no shortage of political opponents within the French court, but perhaps the most prominent was Marie de’ Medici, Louis XIII’s mother and former regent.  Half-Habsburg herself, Marie sought to advise Louis to maintain peace with that family rather than continue a bloody war.  De Chaulnes’s arguments, and Louis’ own suspicion, proved to be decisive, and Marie was exiled to Compiègne in February 1629.

Under De Chaulnes’ direction, while La Rochelle was left alone, French royal forces continued the fight against the Huguenot forces in southern France.  The weakened French economy meant that the struggle took longer, but the Huguenot leader, Henri, Duc de Rohan, was eventually forced to peace terms.  In February 1631, the Peace of Alais concluded the civil war, on terms which restored most of the Huguenots political rights, except that they were no longer permitted to build any fortifications [2].  This peace was rather timely, since blue-sleep would sweep over France later in the same year.

The problems within France meant that the war with England continued for a few crucial months longer, with the English believing that the continued Huguenot effort offered opportunities.  In practice, though, the only real English actions were naval efforts or colonial ventures; Charles I had neither the money nor the interest to invade France itself.  English ships under the Duke of Buckingham made half-hearted efforts to bombard Calais in October 1628, and Le Havre in February 1629, with the main intention being to require France to keep royal forces in the north and thus weaken the offensive against the Huguenots in the south.

After the failure at Le Havre, Charles I gave up interest in the endeavour.  Peace negotiations were concluded at Suza in August 1629.  As happened with the historical Treaty of Suza, the treaty terms were essentially that each nation kept any territory acquired until that time.

Peace in Europe itself was easily restored, since neither nation had seized any European territory from the other, but that left the fate of New France much more ambiguous.  Marnitja had not yet crossed the Atlantic, leaving the French and English/Scottish colonists in North America to fight each other without distractions.

The English/Scottish colonists had rather more success; as they had done historically, the English/Scottish colonists had seized most of New France by July 1629, including Quebec City, Port Royal, and Cape Breton Island, and the isolated trading post of Fort Pentagouet [Castine, Maine].  At the time the Treaty of Suza was signed, the only part of New France which still held out was Cape Sable [Port La Tour, Nova Scotia].

Even though Richelieu was dead, the Company of One Hundred Associates lived on, and its investors still looked for returns.  De Chaulnes personally did not care that much about New France, but he did find it galling that England should come away with so much colonial territory when its forces in Europe had been so spectacularly unsuccessful.  Once the Huguenots had been subdued, he began fresh negotiations with England for a revised treaty.

These peace negotiations were caught up in the broader foreign policy dynamics of post-Richelieu France, and the ravages of blue-sleep which swept through Europe in this era.  Under De Chaulnes’ guidance, France avoided direct war with Spain.  In Italy, this meant that France did not intervene in the disputed succession of Mantua, leaving the Spanish to partition the Mantuan succession between the rival claimants [3].  In the Holy Roman Empire, this meant that France offered subsidies to Denmark until that nation made peace in April 1630, and then that France began to offer subsidies to Bavaria and Sweden.

The new negotiations between France and England continued through much of 1631.  With the civil war over, the threat of renewed French military action was a credible one, and Charles I was in a poor domestic position due to lack of money.  All negotiations were suspended when Charles I himself succumbed to blue-sleep in November 1631.

France continued to press for a resolution, and with the chaos amongst the Austrian Habsburgs, France also had no clear rival that might be credibly considered to threaten it if it took military action against England.  In England, though, the new Duke Regent, William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, also could not afford to undermine his own position by handing back all of the colonial acquisitions.

Eventually, the Treaty of Bobigny was signed in May 1632.  In it, England agreed to restore Quebec City and the St Lawrence River to French rule.  France recognised the new Scottish colonies in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, although it retained Cape Sable and a vaguely-defined part of southern Nova Scotia (neither side had accurate maps of the interior).  France also obtained English recognition of its control over mainland Acadia [roughly New Brunswick and parts of eastern Maine], which would have a new capital founded at Fort Saint Marie [Saint John, New Brunswick] [4], and where the displaced colonists from Nova Scotia could resettle.

The other captured French outpost was the small trading post at Fort Pentagouet [Castine, Maine].  Settlers from the Plymouth Colony had seized Fort Pentagouet in 1628 and claimed it for their colony.  France wanted it removed from English rule, but it had also received a request from Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, that Sweden be granted the region of Penobscott Bay (including Fort Pentagouet).  Gustavus Adolphus had his own visions of securing part of his legacy in the New World, while France wanted to maintain good relations with Sweden to ensure its continued efforts against the Habsburgs in the Holy Roman Empire.  Under the Treaty of Bobigny, England relinquished control of Fort Pentagouet and, in turn, recognised the French cession of that outpost to Sweden...

--

In their long isolation from the other two worlds, Aururian peoples developed both crops and agricultural techniques which were distinct from any known in the Old World or the New.  Perennial crops, combined with systems of crop rotation, companion planting, low-till farming, and soil restoration, were well-suited to the poor soils and irregular rainfall of most of Aururia.

After European contact in 1619, it was inevitable that many Aururian crops would spread around the globe.  Whether the associated techniques would also be passed on, and how quickly, was another question entirely.  Transporting a few seeds across the seas was one thing; bringing all of the accumulated agricultural knowledge was quite another.

The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie was open to any new crop which might turn a profit; in his second voyage to the Great South Land, de Houtman brought back the first Aururian crops back to Batavia.  The Old World received its first samples of red yams, warran yams, wattles, murnong, and Aururian flax.

Whether through optimism or foolishness, Company officials tried to plant these crops in Batavia itself.  Perhaps they had heard that Aururia was hot too, and so thought that the tropics would be suitable.  These efforts were spectacular failures.  Red yams simply would not form tubers in tropical latitudes, and the other plants could not cope with the heat and excessive rainfall of the tropics.

Some Dutch trading captains brought more samples of the crops over the next few years.  Some of them tried to plant the crops in different parts of the East Indies, with no more success than the first efforts in Batavia.

Other captains brought the crops back to the Netherlands.  The first European efforts to cultivate Aururian crops were also largely unsuccessful.  Where Batavia was largely too hot, Amsterdam was mostly too cold, and for some crops, too wet.  Red yams, wattles [5] and Aururian flax all failed to grow in the Netherlands.

One crop, though, did grow around Amsterdam: murnong.  This perennial plant, a staple in its Aururian homeland, grows above ground in a form which to the Dutch reminded them of a dandelion.  But it is the portion below ground which is useful as a crop; each plant produces either four or eight radish-shaped tubers.  When farmed in Aururia, one or two of these tubers would be left in the ground to regrow the following year, while the rest would be harvested.

Unlike the other Aururian crops, murnong tolerated the cold of Amsterdam without difficulty.  It required well-drained soils, and too much rain or inadequate drainage could ruin the crops, but it was at least possible to grow murnong in the Netherlands.

To the Dutch of the 1620s and 1630s, murnong was a flavoursome but occasional addition to their cuisine.  Its taste was sweet, vaguely reminiscent of coconut, and some Dutchmen and Dutchwomen developed a fondness for it.  Still, murnong did not grow easily in the Netherlands, with some areas receiving too much rain, or with poor drainage in soils already below sea level.  More, while murnong can grow in poorer soils than many other crops, it did not yield as abundantly as its obvious rival, the potato.  So, while murnong was adopted into the Netherlands, in its early years it did not become more than a minor crop.

Things changed in 1637, when Lars Knudsen returned home to Amsterdam.  Knudsen was a man of Danish birth, but who had migrated to the Netherlands in 1616 and joined the Company’s service in 1621 [6].  His foreign birth created some initial mistrust, but he had served the Company well.  After ten years occupying a variety of roles, and with the shortage of native-born talent created by the Aururian plagues, in 1631 he was chosen to serve a five-year term as governor of one of the most valuable outposts, Fort Nassau [Fremantle, Western Australia].

After five years distinguished service at Fort Nassau, Knudsen returned to Amsterdam to live a more profitable life based on the private wealth he had accumulated at such a profitable outpost.  Knudsen had an interest in agriculture, and he had been quite observant of Aururian agricultural practices during his tenure.  He planned to become a landowner on his return to the Netherlands.

Knudsen did much to spread knowledge of Aururian crops throughout the Netherlands and, indeed, further.  While his efforts to grow wattles in the Netherlands met with little more success than his predecessors, the name he used for them, cornnarts (meaning grain-trees), would become the standard name for them in many languages, including English.  Knudsen’s descriptions of Aururian crops were among the factors which led the Company to decide to try those crops at the Cape after European crops had failed.  This meant that in 1640, Aururian farmers recruited by the Company were established in the Dutch settlement at the Cape, and brought with them both their crops and their agricultural knowledge.

Another of Knudsen’s actions, made almost in passing, would also have great consequences.  While he wanted to live in the Netherlands, he had not forgotten the land of his birth.  He had a fondness for murnong as a part of cuisine, and thinking that it might grow in Denmark too, sent seeds and tubers back to his home town of Lemvig.

The consequences were revolutionary.

Murnong turned out to be almost the ideal crop for much of Denmark.  Many parts of the country, particularly in western Jutland, had poor, sandy soils which did not give good yields of most European crops.  Even potatoes did not grow particularly well there.  Murnong, though, was native to a continent where nutrient-poor soils were the norm.  Even on the poor soils of western Jutland, murnong yielded about as well per acre as turnips.

Better still, as a perennial crop the requirements for ploughing and harvesting were lower; a valuable trait indeed in the labour shortage conditions of post-plague Europe.  Cultivation of murnong spread quickly across the country, and it transformed Danish agriculture.  Murnong was perfectly useful as human food, albeit not as a complete diet, but it was even more useful as a fodder crop.  Murnong-fed cattle allowed larger herds to survive over Danish winters, and the growing herds added considerably to Danish agricultural wealth.

In short, the cultivation of the “Dutch dandelion” (murnong) was the first part of what later scholars would call the Danish Agricultural Revolution.

The second element of that revolution also owed its inspiration to Lars Knudsen, although this time the particular crop he introduced to Denmark was of European origin.  Knudsen had learned of Aururian techniques of crop rotation, where wattles were alternated with other crops to replenish the soil, particularly its nitrate content.

Despite his best efforts, Knudsen still could not find varieties of wattles that could grow in the Netherlands.  However, the Dutch had other crops that could be used for rotation, particularly red clover.  Knudsen found red clover to be a reasonable replacement, if not quite as effective as wattles were in Aururia, and used it in his own farming.  As he had done with murnong, Knudsen realised that crop rotation would work equally well in Denmark, and sent samples of red clover to Lemvig in 1645.  As that crop spread, the system of crop rotation dramatically boosted Danish agricultural productivity, and in turn, the population and wealth of the Danish state [7].

While Knudsen’s direct actions benefited Denmark in particular, his inspiration for the adoption of Aururian crops at the Cape would eventually benefit much of the world.  The Aururian farmers who were settled at the Cape brought over the core of the Aururian crop package, and vigorously applied their indigenous techniques of production in their new homeland.  And since the Cape was a regular resupply point for ships both Dutch and foreign, in time these crops would be carried over much of the globe.

Of the early vectors of Aururian crops from the Cape, two were particularly noteworthy.  The first successful introduction of the red yam into Europe was by a Portuguese sailor named Miguel Ferreira do Amaral, who in 1648 collected some tubers from the Cape, and replanted the surviving ones when he returned to Portugal.

Red yams thrived in the Portuguese climate; the latitude is appropriate for them, and as a drought-tolerant plant, the red yams grew vigorously even during the dry heat of a Mediterranean summer.  From Portugal, red yams would in time spread to Spain, Italy, and the Ottoman dominions of Greece, Turkey and North Africa.  The red yam would boost agriculture in the Mediterranean almost as much as the potato would boost agriculture in northern Europe.

The other major early introduction of Aururian crops came in 1654, when a Spanish ship blown off course resupplied at the Cape before returning across the Atlantic to its original destination of Buenos Aires.  This ship, the Santa Maria, brought with it wattle seeds, and a couple of sailors who had seen how vigorously those trees grew in South Africa.  They planted some wattles around Buenos Aires, both as ornamentation and in two outlying farms.

The wattles thrived around Buenos Aires; in such a climate, they will grow even without deliberate farming.  Wattles are quite capable of spreading wild, and this was exactly what they would do over the next couple of decades.  The trees became, in fact, an invasive species which would spread over much of the interior.

What mattered more for the future of Buenos Aires, though, was in the early 1670s, when farmers started making major use of wattles as crops.  For relatively limited labour, the wattles yielded abundant food and timber.  Farming around Buenos Aires was transformed in productivity and in nutritional yield, and South America would never be the same again.

--

[1] The word “You” can be translated as “bless” or “protect”, with the connotation that the people of China would be safe with Yuan in charge.

[2] In effect, the *Peace of Alais has continued the terms of the original Edict of Nantes (1598), with the exception of no fortifications being permitted.

[3] This meant that Ferrante II, Duke of Guastalla, received the Duchy of Mantua, while Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, was given the Duchy of Montferrat.  This also means that northern Italy has been spared a rather bloody war which would otherwise have significantly depopulated the region.

[4] Historically, Fort Saint Marie was founded in 1631.  Allohistorically, it will be founded in 1633 and become the new capital of Acadia.

[5] There are some varieties of Aururian domesticated wattles which are capable of withstanding Amsterdam’s winters, but these are mostly grown in *Tasmania and *Victoria, not the varieties in *Western Australia which were available to the early Dutch visitors.

[6] Knudsen features in post #28.

[7] Historically, red clover was introduced to Denmark about a century later, and brought similar agricultural benefits when it arrived.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #52: The Shape of Things to Come

A glimpse of the future of the LRGverse...

--

Dawson (formerly Unega) [Montgomery, Alabama]
Alleghania

Above, a waning gibbous moon hangs low over the western horizon, offering steady light in an otherwise cloudless sky.  In the east, as if in counterpoint, faint glimmers of blue are beginning to emerge from the blackness; the first signs of the approaching dawn.

Below, Myumitsi Makan makes his careful way through the streets of Dawson.  Today marks his second morning in this growing new town, this place of mills and workshops.  A town which would be most appropriately titled if the same unegas who dominate it had not renamed it [1].

In this time of pre-dawn, the light is not yet bright, nor is the world yet balanced, but it meets Makan’s needs.  He can see well enough for his purposes; all he wants, for now, is to follow the right streets to reach the park, without stumbling over horse manure or street rails or any of the other hazards on the roadways of this crowded town.

A shout rings out from behind him, a wordless warning for him to stand aside.  He does so, as the fading shout is replaced by the clip-clop of iron-shod horse hooves and the fainter slide of iron wheels on iron rails.

A horsecar [horse-drawn tram] passes by; evidently, even this early hour is not enough to deter the inhabitants of Dawson from labour.  Few if any of the inhabitants follow the path laid down by the Good Man, so they would not have risen for prayers; only the ravenous demands of the ever-growing mills could have called them from their beds.  These mills and horsecars mark a new way of shaping the world, or so he has heard from a dozen or more people during his short sojourn in this town.  Alleghanians are a proud people, it seems.

The hints of blue are becoming more predominant in the eastern sky as Makan resumes his walk through Dawson.  The distance remaining is not far, if he can trust a day and a half’s worth of memories of the town’s layout.

He will have to learn more, of course, and quickly.  Dawson is a town crying out for labourers, by all reports.  The rich soils which once supported the farms and diverse crops of the Congxie are now being replaced by endless cotton fields.  Once that cotton is harvested, most of it is brought here to the mills of Dawson.

All in all, a welcome opportunity to earn some Alleghanian coin.  And, if he is honest with himself, an even more auspicious opportunity to live somewhere that people will not recognise him for his father’s name.  The past shapes a man’s future, both his deeds and those of his forebears, but surely some consequences can be side-stepped.

His strides bring him to an open expanse of green parkland, grass scattered with a few cornnart [wattle] and hickory trees.  A perfect place for morning invocation; the time when night is in balance with day and prayers are most harmonious.  Most Congxie make their morning invocations in a temple or in a shrine in their own homes, but Makan has always preferred to pray out of doors.  He needs only himself, a mat, and a copy of Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road] or The Great Dreaming and, if possible, an open space.

As he looks more closely around the park, he notices that signs have been placed at several points around the entrance.  He had not come close enough to see them yesterday when he first heard of the park; now, he has the time to look more closely.

The nearest sign shows a dark-skinned face, with tightly curled black hair, grossly exaggerated lips, and round yellow circles for eyes; just as the Alleghanians – or, more accurately, the Cavendians – depict the African race.  Two diagonal red lines cross over the face.

Below the crossed face is writing.  In English only, which he can read to a degree, though he is more fluent in French, and most fluent in his own language.  The words on the sign proclaim: NO BLACKS ALLOWED.

That message is clear enough, so Makan ignores it.  Here is the openness he needs, and dawn is about to break.  He unrolls the mat, facing east, kneels down upon it, and places his copy of Oora Gulalu to one side, for the moment.

Now, Makan prays, as he has done every dawn and dusk for all of his adult life.  He prays for wisdom, for knowledge, and for his deeds to bring only harmony.  He invokes guides to aid his course through the day, calling in turn on the Fire Brothers, then Tsul Kalu, then the Rainbow Serpent.

Before he can invoke a fourth guide, a most unwelcome voice interrupts him.  “What are you doing here, nigger?”

Makan brings himself to his feet, however reluctantly; to leave a prayer unfinished is a most inauspicious start to any day.

A clean-shaven, wig-festooned, typically overdressed unega stands before him, the colour of his rage showing plainly on his sickly, creamy skin, even in this early light.  As is true of most unegas, this man is shorter than Makan, but speaks much more loudly than is required in such circumstances.

“I am praying,” Makan says.

“Go pester your pagan gods somewhere else,” the unega says.  His clipped accent marks him as a Cavendian, although that would be obvious anyway.  “Even if you can’t read, you can see the sign.  No blacks allowed here.”

“I’ve read it,” Makan says.  Calmness is called for; the first path will not be followed by responding with anger.

“So get your black arse out of here!” the other man proclaims.

“But I’m not black.  I’m Congxie,” he says.  Even an unbalanced unega should see that much.  Makan’s skin and curly hair have much the same shade as Africans, but the breadth of his nose, the bulk of his jaw, and the height of his cheekbones announce to all the world that he is Congxie.

“Who cares what tribes you niggers divide yourselves into?” the unega says.  “The same rules are for all of you.”

“Rules you wrote for bondsmen, not for free men,” Makan says.

“Don’t get fresh, nigger,” the other man says.  “This is Alleghania now, and our laws are what matter.  Get your big black arse out of the park before I call the militia.”

Not worth a fight, Makan tells himself.  Pride has its place, but so does judgement.  He rolls up his mat, collects the book, and walks away.  As he leaves, though, one thought runs through his mind again and again.

If those are the rules, then they must be changed.

--

[1] Unega is one of the Congxie words for white; originally borrowed from Cherokee, but now almost exclusively used to refer to people of European descent.

--

Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #2: The Twelve Tales of Christ’s Mass

In the spirit of the festive season, this is a glimpse of how Christmas may be viewed in the future of the Lands of Red and Gold timeline.  As with other Christmas specials, this should be taken in a light-hearted vein.

--

For the prevention of disorders, as have arisen in diverse places within this dominion by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by my authority that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or All Hallows’ Eve or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or in any other way, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence a fine, not exceeding six shilling, as shall be set by the court of each county.

Set this day by my hand and seal,
Martin Armstrong
Governor of New England
4 July 1697

--

Taken from The Westmoreland [Williamsburg, Virginia] Courant
26 December 1954

CHRISTMAS TRUCE HOLDS!

With the passing of midnight, Alleghania has reason to celebrate.  The old proverb has been confirmed: no news is good news.  No reports of acts of terrorism have been received from anywhere in the country.

This proves a fact which many found hard to credit, including your humble commentator.  The CJP [1] were sincere in their announcement of a truce.  For the first time in more than a decade, they have refrained from their traditional Christmas bombing campaign...

--

23 December 1962
Shrewsbury, Pembroke [Cambridge, Maryland]

Two dozen men, with varying skin tone and varying height, but all dressed in similar attire: forest green jackets and pointed caps, with chestnut pants.  The traditional costume of a wassailer out to sing evening noëls [Christmas carols].

Jamet Byrne is third from the front as the group moves on to the next house.  A large two-level white building, almost a mansion, with four mature chestnut trees growing in its front garden.  No point going wassailing in a poor district, of course.  What would they gain from that?

“This is the true spirit of Christmas,” Byrne murmurs, to quiet sounds of acclamation around him.  Wassailing is a grand old tradition, and part of a proper Christmas as far as he is concerned.  Not like all of the new-fangled gimmicks which are celebrated these days, which are driven by traders and merchants.  Scarcely Christian in most cases, and explicitly non-Christian in a few cases.  Why, for the last few years, the Christmas decorations around the Shrewsbury town hall had included chimes, of all godless things.

No, Christmas should be celebrated in the proper way, with hearty singing, drinking, gifts, and wassailing.

The wassailers reach the front of the white building, which now he sees really should be called a mansion.  So much the better.  With loud but marvellous harmony, the wassailers begin their performance:

“Noël, noël, noël, noël.
Who is there that sings so: Noël, noël, noël?

I am here, Father Christmas.

Welcome, my lord, Father Christmas!
Welcome to us all, both more and less!
Come near, Noël.” [2]

The wassailers continue with the noël, describing the story of the Nativity, while Jamet hopes that the owners will come out soon.  Wassailing is an exhausting task, and requires the traditional gifts of pudding and good sweet wine for the wassailers to recover from their efforts before they move on to the next house.

--

17 December 1976
Offices of Wyatt & Rolfe Shipbuilding
Newport News, Virginia

Friday night a week before Christmas Eve: the perfect time for an office Christmas party, in John Thomas Rolfe’s not so humble opinion.  His fellow director Edmund Wyatt had disagreed, which was why he was nowhere to be found tonight, along with virtually all of the workers who were directly involved in ship construction.  Those who had come to the party were the office workers: finance, office administration, sales, and manpower [personnel].

For all of that, Rolfe thought that he organised a damned fine party.  Quiet music played in the background; instrumental tunes only that had a suitably festive feel if not actually Christmas songs.  Gifts for everyone who came, as befit a good host: candies, chocolates, perfume.  Food enough for all who came – two roast turkeys had pride of place on the table – and, most of all, alcohol.  Wine, ale, duranj [gum cider], brandy, whiskey... something for everyone, or so he hoped.

Everything seemed to be going well.  Until he heard raised voices coming from the other side of the room.  Very raised voices, of the kind which could only not be called shouting because it was nearly Christmas and he was feeling kind.

As he strode over, Rolfe saw there were two people involved in the argument: William Beal and Generosity Enoli.  A handful of other men and women looked on, with expressions ranging from amusement to horror.  But it was the two men in the middle who held his attention: short, pale, blond and muscular William looked up at tall, thin, dark and black-haired Generosity with no sign of backing down, either literally or metaphorically.

They were arguing something about the merits of the Populists.  Of course, the content of their argument mattered nothing to Rolfe, only their volume.  “Come on, partners, cool it down.  Show some Christmas spirit.”

Generosity raised an eyebrow.  “What, assume that someone will show up and magically make everything right for you, rather than taking responsibility for your own actions?”

“This isn’t the place to start religious arguments,” Rolfe said.

“Then why did you bring it up?” Generosity said.  “I don’t expect you to celebrate Mamabula [3]; Rene here doesn’t expect you to celebrate Passover.  Why do you think we should care about the day your holy man was born?”

For the first time, Rolfe understood why Wyatt had not wanted to hold a Christmas party.

--

Episode Guide: Mighty Mouse Saves Christmas [4]
Episode No. 21 (also called the first Christmas special)
First broadcast 24 December 1977

Cast:
Mighty Mouse – a mouse
El Gato – a cat
Lechien – a dog and part-time used furniture dealer
Father Christmas – an anthropomorphic personification and spirit of Christmas
Mary Christmas – a recurring pun
White Bess – a horse
Grampa Thorn – an anthropomorphic personification and head of the Child Hunt
Davey Cricket – a Hunter
Bison Bill – a Hunter
Danielle Bloom – a Hunter
Freddy Flames – a Hunter
Hopi Smith – a Hunter
Guido Folks – a man with an apparently bottomless, multidimensional toolbox

Synopsis

The episode opens in Greenland, where Father Christmas and Mary Christmas are relaxing over cups of tea, talking about how good it is that everything is ready for Yuletide.  They are visited by Grampa Thorn [5] and a couple of his fellow Hunters.  They have an argument about a few children who Thorn says have been naughty, but eventually Father Christmas produces his list, and says that they are good, so Thorn has to leave them alone.

After Grampa Thorn leaves, Father Christmas gets suspicious about the visit, and goes to check the rest of the ice cave.  He finds that while Thorn had been distracting him, the rest of the Hunters have tunnelled inside and stolen his magic sack, which contains all of the gifts needed for the good children.

Meanwhile, unaware of this catastrophic turn of events, Mighty Mouse is preparing an ambush for El Gato.  He collects an elaborate set of items in preparation: a birdbath, a clutch of feathers, a rope, quick-setting cement, a cape, and an apple pie.

The precise plan for these items is never revealed, for when El Gato is about to enter the room, Lechien stops the ambush.  The Dog, whose canine hearing is unsurpassed, says that he has heard the sound of ultimate despair coming from the north.  Given where it is coming from, and the season, that can only be Father Christmas who is unhappy.

Realising that something has gone wrong with Christmas, El Gato and Mighty Mouse agree to a truce until things are fixed.  Since they need a quick way to get to Greenland, they call on Guido to help them [6].  Guido appears, and after hearing their problem, reaches into his toolbox, and pulls out a hyper-powered shovel.

Mighty Mouse and El Gato take it in turns to dig to dig under the house, under the city, and then under the sea.  They get exhausted along the way and have to come up to Kesteven [Boston, Massachusetts] for a meal.  They go back, keep digging, and come up just outside the entrance to Father Christmas’s ice cave.

They find Lechien waiting for them.  When they ask how he got there ahead of them, the Dog simply shrugs and says, “Atlantic Flyways”.

The three of them go in to visit Father Christmas, who explains how Grampa Thorn has stolen the sack.  Father Christmas tells them that they will have to retrieve the sack, and that he cannot help them since White Bess is powerless without the sack.

Mighty Mouse leads his friends down the tunnel which the Hunters used to sneak in, and find that it comes out near a walrus-covered beach, but with no way to find out where the Hunters have gone.  The Mouse wants to call Guido again, but there is no mirror nearby.  Eventually, El Gato realises that ice can be polished enough to act as a mirror, and so the three scrape clear a patch of ice, and smooth it until they can use it as a mirror and call on Guido again.

Guido gives them a magic carpet which he says will let them chase Grampa Thorn, although what happens when they get there is up to them.  The magic carpet takes them on a wild ride around the world, showing people of a variety of nations preparing for Christmas, including children who are writing their letters, before stopping somewhere on nameless tundra covered by wandering reindeer.

The three find the entrance to Grampa Thorn’s cave, whereupon Mighty Mouse, in traditional style, decides to charge right in and attack Thorn.  The other two chase after him, and find Thorn inside along with five of the Hunters.  Mighty Mouse does not wait any further, but starts a fight with Thorn.  El Gato and Lechien need to hold off the other Hunters, leaving the Mouse to fight off Thorn and retrieve the sack.  The three run back out, leaving Thorn cursing and swearing behind them, and take the carpet back to Father Christmas.

--

Song list for “It’s Christmas Time”, a popular Christmas album released by Yvonne [7] in 1987

1. Messiah
2. Feliz Navidad
3. Desire of Ages
4. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
5. See the Mistletoe?
6. Yuletide Hunt
7. Big, Fat Father Christmas
8. Glory to the King
9. Hear Heaven Sing
10. Coming Home for Christmas
11. Three Red Candles
12. Blue Wine
13. Night of Nights

--

24 December 1994
Université de Bourbon
Chaleurs, Louisiana [Alexandria, Louisiana]

Mid-afternoon on the eve of Noël.  The sandstone buildings and courtyards of Bourbon University, so crowded with students only the day before, are nearly deserted now.  Only a relative handful of students and faculty remain here, those who for one reason or another have not returned to their homes and family over the week’s break.

Alix Bourque is one of those.  Except for her youngest sister, none of her family would welcome her at any time.  They would tolerate her attending a funeral, she muses briefly, even if a couple would be secretly hoping that she had been the guest of honour at that event.

The thought is only a passing one, though.  Alix returns her focus to the immediate surroundings, which are much more pleasant.  She nestles her head against Tsiyu’s welcoming shoulder, leaving her long black hair to fall over his arm.

A slight breeze blows across the courtyard, carrying a sweet lemony fragrance with it.  The university is set just outside the town limits of Chaleurs proper, and ringed on three sides by groves of lemon verbena [lemon myrtle].  That distinctive odour is one of the most pleasant aspects of life at Bourbon University, although the spice farmers have hardly planted the trees for the students’ benefit.

Tsiyu starts to run his fingers along her shoulder in that electric touch which she knows so well.  She murmurs softly in response, in that way where the words do not matter so much as the tone in which they are said.

Before his fingers or lips can move much further, though, the breeze shifts and brings a fresh set of smells with it: the odours of cooking.  Frying fish, pork or some similar meat being smoked, and boiling mixtures of seafood and vegetables, with the smell of onions predominating.

She glances over at the kitchen window; fortunately, it does not mean she needs to move her head much or disturb Tsiyu’s actions.  “It’ll be a change, celebrating Christmas properly,” she says.

“How so?” he murmurs, though his fingers keep moving.

“I’ve missed réveillon,” Alix says.  All of the students and lecturers who are still at the university are automatically invited to the long dinner-cum-party that will last past midnight and the proper arrival of Noël.  A much more attractive prospect than a caustic evening with her parents and sisters, even setting aside Tsiyu’s attentions.

“It happens every year,” he says, bemused.

“Not everywhere,” she says.  “The last two years, I was at the Panipat [8].  A place to learn, like few others, but I missed Noël.  They don’t care about it at all there; it’s just another day on the calendar.”

“How odd,” Tsiyu says, but a moment later he moves his lips to kiss her.  Alix forgets, for the moment, about her sojourn overseas and even about the coming réveillon feast.

--

25 December 1995
Gustavsburg [Bangor, Maine]

“I do declare: I doubt I can move,” Astrid Kruse said.

It had, in fact, been an excellent Christmas lunch.  Just four people, but easygoing, relaxed conversation.  The lunch had featured a wide variety of scrumptious food, though the goose took pride of place.  The overall effect was splendid; it just meant that staying in place for the next hour or two would probably be the wisest course of action.

“Oh, no room for dessert?” Irma said.

“Not for a good long while,” Astrid answered.  “Digestion essential: motion non-trivial.”  Both of their husbands made similar comments.

Irma laughed.  “Just as long as you spared room for a genu-wine Christmas toast.”

Astrid raised an eyebrow.  “You mean...?”

Irma produced a bottle of wine with a flourish.  A blue-tinted bottle.  “Yes.  The proper article.  No Virginian imitation or Cali-fornication.  Real Castilian blue, just for you.”

Scott rose to get the glasses, but Irma managed the uncorking and pouring herself.  So she should, if she’d obtained a real bottle of Castilian blue.  At Christmas, anyone could find something which called itself blue wine, but a decent bouquet was another thing altogether.

Bubbles rose and sparkled within the glass as Irma passed it over.  Astrid took it, and inhaled the spicy bouquet of verbena, and the promise of more to come.

Ingrid proposed the traditional toast, and they repeated it: “To Christmas and the New Year!”

The first sip of the blue delivered everything it promised: a spicy, sparkling flavour of anise and cinnamon, with a hint of lemon.  Astrid could not fit any more in, yet, but that was all to the good: it would be a long, pleasant afternoon.

--

25 December 1996
Reading, Berkshire

Getting up before the children is always a challenge on Christmas morning.  Fortunately for Jerome Duke’s sanity, getting them to sleep early on Christmas Eve is not.  So he and Anne set everything out ready the night before, and only need to wake up at a suitably early hour.  This is still difficult, with two boys who have internal alarm clocks more efficient than any mere human construction, and a girl who could sneak up on a werewolf.

This year, at least, something has worked properly.  Jerome wakes up in the winter darkness, and quietly moves back out to the living room.  He flicks on a lamp and gives everything one final check.

The Christmas fir tree is in place, with the bulkier gifts stored beneath it.  By the front door, four boots have been filled with small toys and candies; four because Electra, with impeccable eight-year-old logic, argues that fairness requires that the boys and girls divide equal numbers of presents.  The four-branched candelabra is in place opposite the fir tree, with four rows of three candles pointing in each cardinal direction, and the larger thirteenth candle in the centre.

The candelabra is the only task that remains undone, so he lights the candles, starting with the central candle, then the east, south and western branches, and finally the northern branch.  Thank God that the children are old enough nowadays that he doesn’t need to dress up in bright green and act as Father Christmas any more.

Now, he needs only to wait for the storm that will begin when the children come out.

--

Taken from: “The Guide to the Perfect Christmas”

Together with the Christmas tree, the Christmas candelabra is one of the two iconic elements of a proper Christmas.  In many ways, the candelabra is the more cherished of the two.  A natural Christmas tree must be replaced every year, and even artificial trees are often likewise obtained anew each year.  Yet a high-quality, exquisite Christmas candelabra is an artefact which will last for a lifetime.

While many elements of the modern Christmas tradition have antecedents which go back for a millennium or more, the candelabra is a relatively recent addition.  Candles have been used in various Christmas roles for centuries, such as being held for nightly vigils or inclusion in an Advent wreath.  But the particular use of a dedicated candle-holder is first known from southern France in the late eighteenth century, where four-candle holders were used.  The number of candles increased over time, until the modern version which holds thirteen candles in total: four candles for each cardinal direction and a larger central candle.

Candelabras were first introduced into North America in Louisiana around 1820, and gradually spread to other countries.  By 1890, they were well-known in Cavendia and Virginia, and were adopted in Tigeria around the turn of the century, and are now popular over the continent...

Selection of a proper candelabra is an important decision.  Quality workmanship is important, as is durability, but it should not be over-decorated or elaborate.  The best candelabras have an elegant simplicity to them.  Height of the candelabra is equally important; it should stand within easy reach for an adult, but should never be taller than the Christmas tree.

Tradition dictates that the candelabra should be lit at the central candle, and then the branches should be lit east, south, west, then finally north.  Within each branch, the closest candle to the centre must be lit first, and then the next closest, then the third.  The candelabra must be lit sometime over Christmas Eve and kept alight for the following morning, with candles replaced if necessary.  It is usually considered unlucky to open Christmas gifts if the candelabra is unlit.

--

Taken from Intellipedia.

Christmas (Old English: Crīstesmæsse, literally “Christ's mass”) is an annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, generally conducted on 25 December.  Commemorated as a religious and cultural holiday by billions around the globe, and a legal holiday in many nations, Christmas is celebrated throughout the Christian world, and by growing numbers of non-Christians.  Although only rarely in predominantly Muslim nations, and virtually never in the Plirite world [citation needed].  However, Plirites in majority-Christian nations often celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday.  Christmas is a fundamental part of the festive season.

The date of Jesus’ birth is not known [discuss].  The celebration of Christmas on 25 December is first recorded in the early fourth century.  Christianity adopted the date of the Roman winter solstice and linked it to ancient pre-Christian winter festivals to incorporate those of pagan faith into Christianity, and reduce the appeal of pagan holdouts.  [This sentence has been tagged as offensive and flagged for removal.  Refer to the discussion page.]

Celebratory customs associated with Christmas include a hodge-podge of pagan, Christian and secular themes which have been blended into the modern event [informal tone: discuss].  Popular modern holiday customs include giving or exchange of Christmas gifts and cards, Christmas music both religious and secular, special meals, church commemorations, wassailing, evening vigils, and displaying a variety of special decorations, including Christmas trees and candles, Christmas lights, religious scenes (usually of the Nativity), mistletoe, wreaths, holly and chimes.  [This sentence has been locked due to repeated attempted vandalism to remove the reference to chimes.  Refer to the discussion page.]

Also, several related figures are associated with bringing gifts during the Christmas season, and have their own body of traditions and lore.  These figures are variously known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and the Christkind.  In the English-speaking world, Father Christmas is the traditional figure: an old man dressed in a bright green suit trimmed with white fur, and associated with drinking, singing and merry-making.  And gifts, which he traditionally produces from a magic sack that he carries with him.  The sack knows which children have been good or naughty, and will only provide gifts for the good children.

An additional mythological figure has also been associated with the negative aspects of Christmas, variously called Grampa Thorn, Krampus, or Gumphinckel.  Grampa Thorn has his own body of tradition and lore, and is generally depicted as a figure who travels the countryside on Christmas Eve (or another winter night) searching for bad children, and either warning them or punishing them.  In the English-speaking world, Grampa Thorn is said to play tricks or scare naughty children, or give them a useless gift such as a lump of coal.  For children who have been particularly badly behaved, Grampa Thorn is said to carry them away for a year, where they have to make the gifts which next year will be given to the good children.

Due to gift-giving and associated festival aspects of Christmas, economic activity grows during the holiday season, and this is a critical sales period for the retail sector.  However, this increasing trend of commercialisation is widely regarded [by whom?] as harming the religious aspects of Christmas [bias: discuss].

Name

The word “Christmas” originated as a compound meaning “Christ’s mass”. It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse.  The form “Christenmas” was also historically used, but is now considered archaic.

In addition to “Christmas”, the holiday has been known by various other names throughout its history.  The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as Midwinter, or, more rarely as Nativity.  Yule (or Yuletide) was previously used to refer to the December-January period, and the name has been revived as a secular alternative to refer to the holiday season, although rarely to refer to Christmas Day itself.  Noel (or Nowell or Noël) entered English in the late 14th century, derived from Old French.

Celebration

Main article: Christmas globewards [worldwide]

Christmas Day is a major festival and public holiday in many countries around the world, including some whose populations are mostly non-Christian.  In some non-Christian countries, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration, while in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday.  In such countries, the main secular aspects of Christmas which have been adopted include gift-giving, Christmas trees and candelabras.

Christmas celebrations around the world vary considerably, based on different cultural and national traditions.  In countries with a strong Christian tradition, participating in a religious service is usually an important part of the season.  Christmas, along with Easter, is the period of highest annual church attendance.

In Catholic and Orthodox countries, a range of religious processions or parades are held in the days leading up to Christmas.  In Protestant and non-Christian countries, secular processions or parades featuring Father Christmas and other seasonal figures are often held.

Family reunions are an integral part of Christmas in most traditions; Christmas is usually held to be the day when dispersed families reunite.  Exchange of gifts is likewise a major feature of the season, either on Christmas Day or on a nearby religiously significant day (eg 6 December, Saint Nicholas Day, is used in Tigeria).

While many non-Christian countries observe Christmas as a secular holiday, in some non-Christian countries, public celebration of Christmas is considered offensive [by whom?].  In particular, in several Plirite countries, Christmas Day is not a public holiday and public Christmas displays are stigmatised.  Plirite minorities in some majority-Christian countries have adopted Christmas as a secular holiday (eg the Kogung), while in other countries, Plirite non-observation of Christmas has become a mark of cultural identity (eg the Congxie).

Also, even in some countries with a strong Christmas tradition, celebration of Christmas is predominantly secular.  In New England, the early colonists strongly disapproved of public celebrations of Christmas, based on religious objections.  Observation of Christmas was legally forbidden, and later socially prohibited even when no longer outlawed.  Recent adoption of Christmas traditions in New England has focused on the secular aspects of gift-giving and decoration, rather than religious celebrations...

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22 December 1999
Horeb [Providence, Rhode Island], Narragansett

Evening draws near, but the night is not yet come.  The chill is growing, but snow has not yet fallen.  The perfect time to take to the streets as Old Man Thorn, or so John Beckwith thinks.

His costume is modelled on the devil which is said to inhabit the great swamp to the south: brown fur covering his body, hoofed feet, unfurled bat wings, and clawed hands.  His face is covered in a devil-mask, too, complete with fangs and forward-curving horns.

Not the most traditional form for Grampa Thorn, but it will do well, he thinks.  It needs to be scary enough, but not horrific.  The chains are wrapped around his wrist, to be clanked whenever children come near.

As he starts his walk through the streets, lights begin to flicker on in a few houses.  Elaborate Christmas decorations, those, even if they will be better appreciated once night has truly fallen.

In the meantime, the most soothing sound is the chimes hung outside most of the houses he passes.  The breeze off the bay is slight, but enough to set them ringing from time to time.  A reassuring part of Christmas, as far as he is concerned.  He’s heard that down in Alleghania, too many people complain that they are a pagan symbol, but who cares [9]?  They are part of Christmas now.

As he walks, he starts to sing the traditional song.  “You’d better watch out, you’d better take care, Old Man Thorn is coming to town...”

--

[1] Congxie Jamaane Pliri, or roughly translated into in English, Congxie Homeland and Harmony.  Congxie comes from the most widespread name which that people use for themselves.  Jamaane is a Congxie word adapted from the Soninke language, which in a Congxie sense means something like “territory” or “homeland”.  Pliri is from a Gunnagalic root (via the Nangu and Nuttana) which means “harmony”, although in this context it is used in a largely non-religious sense to mean stability or security.

[2] This is a historical carol, with words slightly changed by the passage of allohistorical time.  It was composed by Robert Smert sometime in the fifteenth century, although the real modern form has changed considerably.

[3] Mamabula, or Liberty Day, is a celebration of the day when the forefathers (and foremothers) of the Congxie revolted in Cavendia (*South Carolina/Georgia) and began their flight to freedom in the uplands.  It is celebrated on the June new moon, to mark the historical use of that new moon as a sign to trigger a unified revolt.

[4] Mighty Mouse is an allohistorical cartoon character who has very little in common with the historical version.  He is a small-sized, big-talking mouse who knows martial arts, and who often gets himself into trouble due to his combative attitude.  (The allohistorical author based in the name in part on a pun about “mighty mouth”).

His main foil is a cat named El Gato; the two often clash, although they occasionally cooperate too, as in this Christmas special.  Another recurring character is Lechien (the dog), who oddly enough gets on with Mighty Mouse rather well.

[5] Grampa Thorn is the English-speaking world’s version of Krampus, who hunts down naughty children.  He has been incorporated into a version of the old Germanic tradition of the Wild Hunt, and has several Hunters who accompany him.  Traditions differ as to the number and names of those Hunters, although there are rarely more than 12.

[6] In this cartoon, the way to call on Guido Folks is to stand in front of a mirror, say “handy man” five times in a row, and Guido will appear behind you, holding his toolbox above his head.

[7] Her full name is Yvonne Martin, but her musical career has been successful enough that she simply goes by Yvonne.

[8] In full, the Tjagarr Panipat.  This is a Gunnagalic name which, literally translated, means “Place of Great Disputation”.

[9] This is because chimes are an integral part of Plirite worship, being used in most of their temples.  In Alleghania, some efforts have been made to adopt chimes as a Christmas symbol, to show that it is a secular holiday that is not exclusive to Christians.  This has not been particularly well-received either by Christians or by the Congxie who follow the Plirite faith.  Nevertheless, the use of chimes has been publicised enough that they have been adopted in some other nations, particularly in New England, where the observation of Christmas is largely a secular affair anyway.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #53: Meeting in Twain

“In granting the [English East India] Company a monopoly on trade with the Indies, the Crown has forgone all the wealth that it could have earned, but gained none of the benefits that it could have found by requiring merchants to compete with each other.”
- David Franklin, Fortune and Famine

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Wealth, uncounted and limitless.  A land to rival the fortunes which the Spanish conquistadors had found in the Americas.

Or so an endless stream of rumours claimed.  Filtered through sailors, barkeepers, drunkards, whores and optimists, the tales grew stranger with each retelling.  Everyone in Europe know someone who had heard from someone about what could be found in this strange land, this place of gold and spices.

In England, the ever-rising crescendo of tales, combined with worsening relations with the Dutch, led the English East India Company, in time, to risk their peaceful accord to investigate the South Land.

The man they chose was William Baffin, one of the most accomplished captains in the Company’s service [1].  His instructions were thorough in their details, but simple in essence: find out the truth of the Great Spice Island, map what you can, establish whatever positive relations you can with the natives, and don’t interfere with the Dutch unless you can get away with it.

Baffin was, in truth, an excellent choice by the Company’s directors.  An astute navigator by European standards of the time, his observations of coasts, tides and magnetism would be found to be astonishingly accurate when later explorers retraced his voyages.  His techniques of instrumentation and charts were alien to the Islanders who were the premier navigators of his target land, and in some ways inferior to the accumulated traditions and lore possessed by those Nangu, but still more than sufficient to let him act as a pioneer for what would be generations of Company sailors to follow.

In July 1635, Baffin took command of the Intrepid, the lead ship in a fleet which also included Godspeed, Lady Harrington and Delight.  Sailing from London, they made the long voyage to the South Land with several stopovers.  These included Dutch-ruled northern Brazil where Baffin let the word be that he was sailing to India, as so many Company ships did, and afterward a stop in uninhabited Mauritius, which according to rumours had been the last resupply point used by François Thijssen before he became the first European to visit the eastern parts of the South Land.  Baffin hoped to follow in his footsteps, in more ways than one.

As the Dutch had discovered before him, Baffin learned that sailing east was easier by dropping down into the latitude of the Roaring Forties, where the winds made for a fast if risky passage to the Orient.  Lacking precise knowledge of the longitude of the South Land, he did not turn further north until he was already past the realms of the Atjuntja.  Even then, that was fortunate for him, since by this time the Dutch had established a firm presence in the Middle Country and would be difficult to dislodge.

Baffin’s ships discovered [2] the same cliff-lined, dry, treeless coast that one of his Dutch predecessors had called the Nightmare Coast.  One of the most hostile shores in the world, battered by endless waves and with winds that pushed any sailing ships straight into the cliffs, this unwelcoming landscape was one which Baffin’s normally scrupulously detailed charts would show only in sketchy outlines.

Persistence had always been one of Baffin’s virtues, and he had the advantage of knowing that somewhere to the east, wealth awaited.  In time, breaks began to appear in the cliffs, and the shores were covered in trees and other greenery; the more fertile lands of the east.  Baffin’s ships charted the coast which another history would call the Eyre Peninsula, and which the local Mutjing inhabitants called the Seven Sisters.

Baffin’s ships passed three coastal city-states, Luyandi [Port Kenny, South Australia], Nilkerloo [Elliston] and Yorta [Coffin Bay], but Baffin chose not to make contact until they arrived at what was clearly a major port.  Pankala [Port Lincoln], its inhabitants called it, and they proudly proclaimed it the greatest of the Mutjing city-states [3].

In Pankala, Baffin found that several of the natives were passably fluent in Dutch.  He found this welcome for its easing of communication, but distressing because it meant that the Dutch influence was strong even here.  With his explicit orders not to break the peace with the Dutch, Baffin and his crew asked only elliptically about how the Dutch were viewed, and were left with an equally vague impression that the Dutch were occasional but valued traders “second to the Island”.

The first English contact with the Mutjing did not match the vision of stupendous wealth which the rumours had found.  The Mutjing knew of gold, and had a few items of gold jewellery, but not in the abundant fortune which had been eagerly anticipated.  For adornment, the natives made more common use of some unfamiliar opaque gemstone whose colours ranged from white to green.

In drugs and spices, Baffin found the new land more promising.  It seemed that every man of substance had his food flavoured by a strange kind of intense peppery spice, and the appeal of such a crop was obvious.  The Mutjing used other flavourings too, if not always with clear trading potential: river mint, some aromatic eucalyptus leaves, and a grass which reminded the Englishmen of lemon [4].  They also had a little of a drug which they called kunduri, but which Baffin christened “greater tobacco”.

To Baffin, though, the most valuable feature of all about Pankala was that it brought him into direct contact with the Islanders.  He had arrived at the most-frequently visited port in all of the South Land; not a week went past without several Nangu ships arriving to trade for the red yams and wattleseeds needed to sustain life on an Island too crowded to grow its own food.

The Islanders were eager indeed to speak to the Englishmen.  Baffin’s biggest problem was sorting through the endless questions, requests to view their goods, trade proposals, invitations to the Island, and efforts to persuade them to follow the Seven-fold Path.  Plenty of them spoke Dutch, too; another reminder that the sons of Albion were latecomers to the South Land.

Baffin learned quickly of the rival bloodlines at the heart of Nangu commerce, and he recognised how this could be turned to the Company’s advantage in time.  Any firm pacts would be premature, though, when he could come into contact with a Dutch ship or Dutch allies on any day, and with the nearest help at the Company outpost in the Indies.  So he responded with generic overtures of friendship, but little more.  After spending enough days in Pankala to suit his own assessment of the Mutjing, he did accept an invitation to follow a Nangu ship directly to the Island.

Once on the Island itself, Baffin realised that the signs of Nangu commerce he had seen in Pankala were merely faint shadows beside the buzzing activity of their homeland.  The Islanders had plenty of ships in the port whose name they translated, apparently literally, as Crescent Bay.  Thankfully, no Dutch ships were among those in the port, but several Islander ships arrived and departed each day.  Finding out their destinations proved to be harder, for the Nangu viewed that sort of information as part of their trade secrets, and refused to describe it without receiving information or English goods in recompense.

Baffin was nothing if not persistent, though, and in time he learned that there was one port where almost every Islander urged him not to go.  A native empire.  The Yadji, the weavers of gold.  Never mind the greater tobacco or sweet peppers they proffered, no matter how appealling those commodities might be.  Gold was the ultimate lucre, the most convertible of trade goods, the source of glory, and what the Directors back in London wanted to find above all else.

Negotiations for a guide to the Yadji proved quite difficult; the Islanders were most reluctant to visit there.  Baffin had to offer a substantial combination of English goods, particularly woollen textiles and a clock, before a captain of the Manyilti bloodline agreed to act as guide and translator in a visit to the Yadji realm.

With that deal struck, Baffin left the Island behind, to obvious consternation from the other Nangu bloodlines.  The Manyilti captain proved an excellent navigator, guiding Baffin’s four ships to a Yadji port which they called Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria].  Here, Baffin’s men became the first Europeans to visit the Yadji Empire, and not coincidentally, the first to witness why their neighbours called them the weavers of gold.  Baffin was so impressed that he decided to mark the name of this new land on his charts as Aururia, from the Latin for the land of gold.

Dealing with the Yadji proved to be frustrating in many respects, for they were disinclined to explain themselves, and the guide repeatedly warned about the dangers of asking questions which might be deemed impertinent.  Yet the advantages of a pact with them were plain; here was the greatest native empire in Aururia, a source of gold, and one which so far had not entered into any alliances with the Dutch.  Baffin arranged for some of his men to stay behind in Gurndjit until the next visit from English ships, together with dropping some apparently welcomed hints about a possible trade pact when the next Englishmen returned.

With that deal concluded, Baffin ordered his ships to sail on, with a stronger sense of urgency.  He still had his existing orders to chart the coast and establish relations with the natives, but he doubted that anything he could find after Gurndjit would be as impressive as the gold he had found amongst the Yadji.

He was wrong.

Learning of his mistake took Baffin some time, as his exploration continued.  He sailed over the strait which the natives called the Narrow Sea [Bass Strait], and established contact with another native people called the Tjunini.  They had gold, too, but displayed it much less opulently [5], and cared little about trade or much of anything else except for any weapons which could aid them in their apparently endless war with some other group of natives called the Kurnawal.  Baffin made similar promises of friendship, enjoyed the gum cider that was their main form of hospitality, and noted in his journal that this would be a market for selling whatever weapons the Company wished to provide, but did not make any immediate efforts to exploit the contact for profit.

In the Cider Isle, Baffin left his native guide behind as had been negotiated, and returned to the north side of the Narrow Sea.  Here, he continued charting the coast of the Yadji Empire, although he was careful never to land on any of their towns.  It had taken only brief contact with the Yadji for him to realise that their reputation for capriciousness was well-deserved.

The four ships of Baffin’s fleet made steady progress along the southern coast of Aururia, and they found in time that the coast turned to the north.  Baffin naturally ordered that the ships turn north to follow the coast, recording in his journal that this corresponded with the eastern limit of the Yadji realm.

In fact, Baffin was mistaken, although the main error was not of his own making.  The headland he had reached [Wingan Inlet, Victoria] was considerably east of any meaningful Yadji presence, but the Yadji claimed much further than they controlled.

After this, the fleet sailed north along Aururia’s eastern coast.  None of them realised yet, but they were now exploring waters that no Europeans had ever reached before; François Thijssen, the only Dutch explorer to come nearly this far had sailed further east to Aotearoa instead of turning north.

Baffin found that the eastern coast of Aururia, at least at first, had little to commend it when compared to the wealth of the Yadji, or even the Tjunini of the Cider Isle.  While not as bleak as the forbidding treeless cliffs earlier in his voyage, the coastline was generally rugged, with few areas of flat land or cultivation.  Villages and towns clustered along some of the bays and harbours, but they looked to be small when compared to the previous places of wealth.

Baffin ordered his sailors to venture ashore twice during the first part of the eastern coast voyage, at places which the natives called Maliwa [Eden, NSW] and Wanderribee [Narooma, NSW].  He found little to interest him here, and for the next part of the voyage north he contented himself with charting the coast and did not risk landing to make contact with potentially hostile natives.  He continued to believe that nothing else in Aururia could match what he had seen in Gurndjit.

In time, Baffin’s ships came far enough north to reach the coastline of what another history could call the Hunter Valley, and which in allohistory was inhabited by a people who called themselves the Patjimunra.  These were a mostly inward-looking, caste-ridden society, whose political history was marked by alternating periods of near-complete unification and collapse into competing city-states.

In 1636, most of them had been reunited into a kingdom with its capital at Gogarra [Newcastle, NSW], but some of their outlying regions maintained their independence as city-states.  Baffin would never see Gogarra itself; though the city was a port of sorts, the sandbars at the mouth of the Kuyal [Hunter River] appeared treacherous enough that his ship captains bypassed it altogether.

Not far north of Gogarra, though, the English fleet did find a place promising enough to land.  A new harbour, its entrance marked by twin headlands, which would clearly give shelter from even the worst of storms [Port Stephens, NSW].  Baffin may have explored the harbour anyway, since it had such obvious promise, but at the time when his ships were sailing past, they saw a small fishing boat emerging from the harbour.  This boat was a tiny, pitifully-made vessel by the standards of the Islanders, but its mere presence was an invitation to enter the harbour, in Baffin’s judgement.

What awaited the English inside the harbour was Torimi, a reasonably prosperous independent Patjimunra city-state.  It proved to be about the same size as Gurndjit, although its inhabitants had less in the way of gold and the other adornments which the Yadji had possessed [6].

Fortunately, though, they included a few of their number who spoke the Nangu language, so communication was relatively straightforward.  Even more fortunately, from Baffin’s perspective, they cultivated a range of spices much broader than those which he had found amongst the Mutjing or Yadji.  These included more kinds of sweet peppers, a flavouring like lemon but sweeter, several other kinds of leaf spices with flavours like aniseed or cinnamon or with no alternatives that the Englishmen could name, and a couple of pungent fruits [7].

Baffin lost no time in procuring samples of those spices.  But the new crop which he found most valuable of all was a beverage which the natives called jerree, but which called lemon tea.  This beverage had a pleasing, refreshing, mildly calming effect, and Baffin deemed this to be as valuable a trade commodity as greater tobacco, although not all of his crew agreed.

While the Company’s ships were at Torimi, they received an even greater surprise.  A fleet of great-ships and other Islander vessels sailed into the harbour.  Baffin had known, of course, that the Nangu had contact here, as the natives’ knowledge of the language demonstrated, but he had not expected such a fleet.

Contact between the Englishmen and Islanders was wary, but in time the Islanders explained that they had returned from a voyage to the Indies, where they had traded with the Dutch.  Knowledge of this opened many possibilities, but as he had done previously, Baffin knew better than to make any firm commitments.  He settled for vague talk of friendship, and then led his ships north again.  Again, he had the feeling that what he had seen in Torimi could not match Gurndjit, and that the rest of his voyage would not lead to anything much more promising.

Baffin kept that thought in his mind as his ships sailed further north.

Until one dawn, where the morning sky in the east had started to turn red and orange as the sun began to fight its way above the horizon.  Baffin was on the Intrepid, as always, standing near the bow while he watched the land to the west.  So it was that he was the first person on his ship to see a colossal, obviously man-made structure.

A step pyramid rose out of the western shoreline, built of some pale stone that looked almost golden in the dawn sun.  The pyramid towering above his ship, but even that was not the most impressive feature.  The steps of the pyramid glistened and shone, with some creation of glass or gemstone that reflected the light, brilliantly enough that as the sun rose, the reflection was so bright that Baffin could no longer look directly at the pyramid.

So William Baffin became the first European to glimpse the greatest religious monument of the kingdom of Daluming.  And when he landed, he became the first to see the skulls which had been entombed behind that glistening glass, and it was he who christened the pyramid Glazkul.

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[1] Historically, Baffin died in 1622 during a raid on a Portuguese fort in the Persian Gulf.  Allohistorically, the raid was delayed, Baffin survived, and he has continued the service with the English East India Company which began in 1617.

[2] For a given value of ‘discovery’ which excludes the people who were actually born there and so don’t really count as discoverers.

[3] Pankala was not always the most important Mutjing city-state, but it has grown considerably in prominence over the last couple of centuries since it is the most convenient port for Nangu traders to visit.

[4] Baffin and his crewmen will naturally try to relate these spices to their closest Old World equivalents, although not all of them are close relatives.  River mint (Mentha australis) is a true mint, and its flavour is similar to peppermint.  The Mutjing also cultivate another spice called mintbush (Prostanthera rotundifolia), which has no close relative outside of Australia, but whose flavour has been described as somewhere between thyme and peppermint.  The “sweet peppers” are pepperbushes (Tasmannia lanceolata and relatives) which have an intense peppery taste that is roughly ten times as strong as true peppers.  The “lemon grass” is lemon-scented grass (Cymbopogon ambiguus), a relative of common lemongrass.  The aromatic eucalyptus leaves include varieties from several species, the most common of which is blue-leaved mallee (Eucalyptus polybractea).

[5] The Cider Isle (Tasmania) produces if anything more gold than the Yadji realms, but the Tjunini and Kurnawal who live there do not value it quite as highly, and much of their gold is taken by the Nangu for export, mostly in exchange for kunduri.

[6] The Patjimunra are relatively wealthier than most other eastern coast peoples because they live far enough north that they can cultivate a range of spices unknown further south, and because the mountains west of the *Hunter Valley do not present much in the way of a barrier to inland travel.  This has made them one of the major sources of spices for the kingdoms along the *Murray-Darling.

[7] These spices include some other kinds of sweet peppers, lemon myrtle, aniseed myrtle, cinnamon myrtle, curry myrtle, strawberry gum, and the fruit of the Illawarra plum (Podocarpus elatus).

--

Lands of Red and Gold #54: Slings and Arrows...

“Call no man happy, until he is dead.”
- Herodotus, Histories I. xxxii

--

“Everything that belonged to the use and commodity of man was and is there...  Nature seemed to make the country [Bohemia] her storehouse and granary.”

Jedidja Frühling-Feld, History of the Twenty Years’ War, 1869.

--

In history as it is usually known, the conflict which would be called the Thirty Years’ War became one of the most devastating wars that Europe had ever seen.  Fought mainly in the territory of what would later become Germany, what began as a religious struggle within the Holy Roman Empire expanded into a broader struggle which drew in most of the major European powers, and became the longest-lasting continuous war in modern history.

The war originated from unresolved religious conflict within the Holy Roman Empire, which had been temporarily halted by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555.  That peace established that, in most cases, the ruler of a state could choose the religion of their realm, and require their subjects to convert to that faith (cuius regio, eius religio).  Exceptions were made for Lutherans living under the rule of a Catholic prince-bishop, who were permitted to still follow their religion, although a prince-bishop who converted to Lutheranism would be required to relinquish his realm.

Augsburg was an incomplete peace, since the only religions it recognised were Lutheranism and Catholicism.  It ignored the more radical Anabaptist sects, and did not address the emergence of Calvinism as a separate faith in the second half of the sixteenth century.  Moreover, Augsburg’s provisions were often unenforced; some bishops who changed religions refused to abandon their realms, leading to fresh struggles.

Religious conflict returned to the Holy Roman Empire during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.  Neighbouring powers had a keen interest in this contest, whether from genuine religious fervour or as a pretext for territorial and economic gains.  The staunchly Catholic Spanish branch of the Habsburgs were displeased over the relative religious tolerance of their Austrian relatives, and directly intervened in some struggles.  Conversely, the Lutheran realms of Denmark and Sweden sought to support their co-religionists, partly from religious unity, and partly from a desire to extract economic concessions in northern Germany.

The immediate trigger for what became the Thirty Years’ War was a contest over the inheritance of Bohemia.  Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia was elderly and had no immediate heirs.  On his death, his lands would be inherited by the devout Catholic Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria.  Several of the Protestant notables of Bohemia feared Ferdinand’s succession as a threat to their religious liberty, and supported an alternative Calvinist candidate, Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate.  Nevertheless, in 1617 Ferdinand II was duly elected as heir apparent by the Bohemian estates.

In May 1618, Ferdinand II sent two Catholic emissaries to administer Bohemia in his absence.  A group of Protestant notables responded by hurling the emissaries out of the palace window into a pile of manure.  This event, famously called the Defenestration of Prague [1], marked the start of the Bohemian revolt, and the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.

As events played out historically, the Thirty Years’ War is traditionally [2] divided into four stages: the Bohemian revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.

The Bohemian revolt saw religious conflict spread throughout the Bohemian estates, and into neighbouring regions such as Austria.  The Protestant Bohemians named Frederick V, Elector Palatine, as King of Bohemia, and he eventually accepted.  The revolt had some early success, with one Bohemian army reaching Vienna, but it was gradually crushed by a combination of Imperial and Spanish forces.  Not all of the divisions were along religious lines; after due consideration [3], the Protestant John George I, Elector of Saxony, invaded Bohemia in support of the Imperial forces.

Bohemia was re-occupied before the end of 1620; Frederick V’s brief reign (almost exactly a year) saw him derisively referred to as the Winter King.  The war continued in the Palatinate, Frederick V’s ancestral lands, which were invaded and gradually occupied by the Spanish [4].  Frederick V was outlawed from the Holy Roman Empire, with his lands given to Catholic rulers, and his title as Elector handed to his distant relation, Maximilian I of Bavaria.

Frederick V withdrew to exile in the Dutch Republic, which in 1621 had restarted a separate war with the Spanish.  From there he agitated for restoration of his ancestral lands, without success.  He remained banned by Imperial edict.  He had a boating accident in January 1629 where he nearly drowned, and he lost his eldest son Frederick Henry.  The near-drowning had severe effects on Frederick V’s health, and he died in November 1632.

In 1624, the war nearly ended.  The Protestant forces were reeling, with the Bohemian revolt crushed and the Palatinate occupied.  However, the situation changed when Denmark intervened in support of the Protestants.  Christian IV, King of Denmark, was also the Duke of Holstein, part of the Holy Roman Empire, and feared the success of the Catholic forces.  He also received generous French subsidies to support his armies; national interest trumped religion here, since Catholic France held strong fears about being encircled by the equally Catholic Habsburgs.

The Danish intervention lasted from 1625-1629.  As with the Bohemian revolt, despite early success, most of the military victories were on the Catholic side.  Denmark was a wealthy kingdom, and received French subsidies, but found itself strategically isolated.  England stood aside, France was busy with internal religious struggles, Sweden was engaged in a war with Poland, and the northern German Protestant powers of Brandenburg and Saxony preferred to maintain their precarious peace.

The leading Catholic generals were Albrecht von Wallenstein, who had grown rich by confiscating the estates of Protestant Bohemian nobles, and Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly.  Between them, Wallenstein and Tilly pushed the Danish forces out of the Holy Roman Empire, and eventually occupied mainland Jutland.  Nevertheless, they lacked the naval power to occupy the Danish islands, and eventually the two sides negotiated the Treaty of Lübeck.  This stipulated, in effect, that Christian IV could keep Denmark provided that he withdrew his support for Protestant forces in the Holy Roman Empire.

With the withdrawal of Danish support, the course of the war turned even worse for the Protestants.  The remaining Protestant forces were largely crushed; only the single Baltic port of Stralsund remained defiant against Wallenstein and the Imperial forces.  In 1629, the Emperor announced an Edict of Restitution which claimed to be enforcing the provisions of the Peace of Augsburg.  In practical terms, the Edict meant that significant parts of Protestant territory and property were to be transferred to Catholic rule, and interfered with some Protestants’ practice of religion.  In some ways this was a miscalculation on the Emperor’s part.  The Edict widened the war from a religious contest into a dynastic struggle for control of territories, and turned many lesser German princes against the Emperor.

Still, in the short term, the war was apparently almost won.  Forces within Ferdinand II’s court, led by Maximilian I of Bavaria, turned against Wallenstein.  While an excellent general and in command of a large personal army, his political loyalty was questioned, and he was dismissed from service in September 1630.

With hindsight, Ferdinand II probably considered that a mistake.

For on 20 July 1630, Swedish forces under the command of Gustavus II Adolphus landed at Stettin, in Pomerania, marking the beginning of the Swedish intervention in the war (usually dated 1630-1635).  Gustavus Adolphus’s motives for entering the war have never been entirely clear, but he shared a common religion with the Lutherans, was suspicious of the power of the Holy Roman Emperor, and stood to gain economic benefits from control of more of the Baltic coastline.

Sweden’s armies were well-trained and equipped, and adept in new military techniques such as lighter and more mobile artillery.  Like Denmark before them, Sweden received generous French subsidies to fight the Habsburgs.  The Swedish forces won several critical battles between 1630-1632, including the Battle of Rain in April 1632 which led to Tilly’s death.  Due to these setbacks and the loss of his most prominent general, Ferdinand II recalled Wallenstein to service.

Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus met at the Battle of Lützen on 6 November 1632.  The Swedish forces proved victorious, but Gustavus Adolphus died while leading a cavalry charge.  While Sweden remained in the war after the death of their monarch, their campaign gradually lost political and strategic direction, and the Imperial forces and their Spanish allies regained the initiative.  Wallenstein brought himself under suspicion in 1633 when he tried to mediate between the two sides, and he was dismissed, arrested, and then assassinated by one of his men.

With the Swedish forces lacking focus, the Spanish and Imperial forces gradually drove them out of southern Germany.  Most notably, at the Battle of Nördlingen on 6 September 1634, an army under the control of the Spanish Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand (later governor of the Spanish Netherlands) routed the Swedish army.

While Sweden did not abandon the war after Nördlingen, its influence was curtailed.  German Protestants opened negotiations with the Emperor, which led to the Peace of Prague in 1635.  This peace essentially repealed the Edict of Restitution and replaced it with a new understanding that Protestants could keep what they had held in 1627, but with some restrictions on their political power.  The Peace also forbade formal alliances between states in the Empire, or with foreign powers.  It created a notionally unified command for all armies within the Holy Roman Empire to defend it from invasion.  The Peace extended amnesty to rulers who had taken up arms against the Emperor, with the notable exclusion of the descendants of Frederick V, the disgraced and now-dead Winter King.

The Peace of Prague did not, in fact, end the war.  Sweden had no part in the negotiations, and Spain was also not bound by it.  Most importantly, though, the terms of the peace alarmed France.  Under Cardinal Richelieu, France had been indirectly supporting opponents of the Habsburgs, with subsidies at various times going to the Dutch, the Danish and the Swedish.  With the Protestant opposition to the Holy Roman Emperor nearly ended, France intervened directly, declaring war on Spain in 1635 and the Holy Roman Empire in 1636.

This began the longest, and in many ways the bloodiest stage of the war, the French intervention (1635-1648).  The French fought in the Holy Roman Empire as allies with the Swedish, but also fought separately against the Spanish within and outside the Empire.  Sweden regained the military initiative in northern Germany, while France was at first unsuccessful with many of its own territories invaded and ravaged by Spanish and Imperial forces.  With the resources available to both sides, though, the war continued for many years, at the cost of much blood and treasure and devastation of much of the fought-over territory.

Denmark and Sweden fought a local war (1643-45) as part of the broader struggle, nicknamed the Torstenson War after the leading Swedish marshal.  Sweden had naval victories and extracted territorial and economic concessions from Denmark, marking the beginning of a rivalry which would continue long after the Thirty Years’ War ended.

The cost of the war provoked internal revolt in Spain.  Catalonia erupted into revolt in 1640, beginning a bitter struggle of regular and then irregular warfare which would not be fully suppressed for about two decades.  Portugal, too, resented Spanish encroachment which it viewed as an effort to turn it into another Spanish province and break the power of the Portuguese nobility.  This provoked a Portuguese revolution in 1640 which named John IV Braganza as king of Portugal.  This revolution re-established a separate Portuguese crown, although Spain would not recognise it until 1668, after a long period of diplomatic standoffs interrupted by bouts of warfare.

By the mid-1640s, both sides were suffering from the long war, and negotiations opened between several of the powers.  The Thirty Years’ War ended not in a single treaty, but a series of treaties between the various powers.  Concluded in 1648, these were collectively called the Peace of Westphalia, and marked not just the end of the Thirty Years’ War, but the much longer Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Netherlands.  Westphalia did not, however, resolve all the warfare; France and Spain continued their war until 1659.

The Peace of Westphalia broadly established the principle that princes could choose the established religion of their states, with certain exceptions, and did not allow a prince who changed religion after 1648 to change the established religion of their state.  Calvinism was recognised as a religion, and a degree of toleration was established for Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists who lived in a state which had a different established religion.  Other faiths, most notably the Anabaptists, were still excluded.

Westphalia involved many territorial changes, including those which established Swedish territory within the Empire, recognised the independence of the Netherlands and Switzerland from the Empire, and which granted Bavaria control of the Upper Palatinate, and a recognised vote as Elector.  Charles Louis, the second son of the now-dead Frederick V, was restored to the Lower Palatinate only, and had a new Electorship created for him.

Westphalia also established the concept of sovereignty for each member state over its lands and people.  This concept of Westphalian sovereignty would later be seen as the foundation of the modern conception of a sovereign state [5].  In practice, Westphalia broke most of the power of the Holy Roman Empire as a supranational entity.  While the Empire was not abolished, after Westphalia, many of the states within the Empire established de facto independence.

--

In allohistory as it is about to become known, the course of the four-staged struggle would be wrenched into a new course.

The first stage of the war, the Bohemian revolt, passed largely unchanged.  The first blow in that war was struck before Frederik de Houtman made the first landing in the Atjuntja lands in south-western Aururia.  The key battles in that stage were fought when the gold, drugs and spices of Aururia were but distant and mostly unheeded rumours of a new spice island.  The extra gold flowing into Dutch coffers buoyed their war effort with Spain after their truce expired in 1621, meaning that they needed fewer French subsidies.  The Netherlands even provided some subsidies of their own to Denmark after Christian IV declared war, as he had done historically.

The early course of the Danish intervention, too, passed much as history knew it.  Outmatched in the field by the Imperial forces commanded by Wallenstein and Tilly, the Danish forces were pushed out of the Empire.  Jutland itself was invaded, though the Danish isles were protected by their fleet.

Lacking a fleet on the Baltic, Wallenstein made preparations to capture the port of Stralsund, which had the facilities to build a suitable fleet to invade insular Denmark.  However, Wallenstein’s plans for a siege of Stralsund were overwhelmed by a much larger event: the outbreak of a strange new epidemic which swept through Europe.

At the time, the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire knew it only as the Dutch curse, a horrible malady which saw its victims coughing up fluid, and often blood, and which later afflicted some of the initial survivors with a fevered delirium that spelled nigh-inevitable death to any who exhibited those symptoms.  This disease appeared in Amsterdam in August 1627, causing a heavy death toll there, and spread across the Netherlands and into the Holy Roman Empire later that year.  In 1628, particularly in the spring and early summer, the Dutch curse swept across Germany, bringing death on a scale not seen since the Black Death.

The new disease was no respecter of rank.  Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor himself, was severely afflicted by the pink cough.  It did not claim his life, but took his health: he had severe breathing difficulties from that time on.  His last surviving brother, Leopold, died from the Dutch curse in April 1628.  Count Tilly was even less fortunate; while he survived the pink cough in November 1627, he was one of the first to be claimed by delirium two months later, and after a futile struggle he breathed his last on 9 February 1628.  Wallenstein was luckier, catching only a mild dose of the pink cough in March 1628.  Still, the deaths amongst his troops and in broader Germany were severe enough that, for now, he suspended his plans to besiege Stralsund.

Protestant rulers were not spared from the epidemic either.  John George I, the Protestant Elector of Saxony who had supported the Emperor during the Bohemian revolt, died of vomiting and ‘blood in the urine’ associated with the pink cough.  Christian IV survived the Dutch curse with no major ill effects, but his children were less fortunate.  His son Frederick [who would later have become King Frederick III], succumbed to delirium.  The designated heir, Prince Christian, survived with severe scarring of his lungs that caused him breathing problems and vulnerability to infection, and which ultimately would shorten his life.  Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, was permanently invalided by breathing problems, and for governance he largely relied on his Catholic chancellor, Adam, Count of Schwarzenberg.

The disease casualties were heavy for both sides’ armies, but for the moment this worked in Denmark’s favour.  With Tilly’s death and the related chaos, the armies of the Catholic League were temporarily withdrawn.  Danish forces liberated parts of Jutland, with Wallenstein forced to respond there and abandon his thoughts of Straslund.  The result was a year of inconclusive manoeuvring in Jutland, with the two sides fighting several engagements but without a decisive victory.  War exhaustion still told heavily on both sides, and by mid-1629 they sought peace terms.

The outcome, in April 1630, was an allohistorical Treaty of Lübeck.  Denmark had its occupied possessions of Jutland and royal Holstein restored, and had their allies the Dukes of Mecklenburg likewise returned to their rule.  This concession was significant because Wallenstein had confiscated estates in Mecklenburg; he was compensated by estates around Stettin in central Pomerania, which gave him the bonus of collecting tolls from river trade along the Oder.  (There are benefits to being the chief negotiator.)

Denmark obtained a number of smaller concessions as part of the negotiations.  The Duchy of Holstein was granted joint overlordship of Hamburg.  Prince Ulric, Christian IV’s younger son, collected the titles of Prince-Bishop of Verden and Bishop of Schwerin, and was named as the heir of the Lutheran Prince-Bishop of Bremen, when the incumbent died.

In exchange for these concessions, Christian IV agreed to withdraw all Danish forces from elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire, and not to provide any further support to Protestants in Germany [7].

Ferdinand II had only been generous with Denmark because the Imperial forces needed an end to external intervention to subdue the Protestant forces in southern Germany.  To some degree he was successful, since during the de facto ceasefire in mid-1629 the Imperial forces acted against Protestant rulers in the south, even while the negotiations continued.  In May 1629, Ferdinand II issued an Edict of Restitution which was similar to its historical counterpart in seeking to restore Catholic control over former ecclesiastical lands that had been taken over by Protestants since the Peace of Augsburg.  The reaction to this Edict was similarly polarising.

The Treaty of Lübeck itself, though, gave the Emperor only momentary respite.  For while the negotiations in Lübeck were drawing to a conclusion, a secondary wave of the Dutch curse swept through Sweden and Danish-ruled Norway.  Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, caught the pink cough in May 1630, less than a month after the treaty was signed.  He survived that cough with no major ill-effects, but by now the symptoms of the disease were notorious; Gustavus Adolphus knew that he faced a three-year wait to see whether he would be consumed by a fatal delirium.

Gustavus was of no mind to wait around for death.  He had already been considering intervention in the Holy Roman Empire, in the name of the Protestant faith, and saw the Danish failure as a betrayal of the Protestant cause.  Now, with Germany in chaos, glory beckoned, and he sought to secure his legacy.  Swedish forces landed near Stettin in June 1630, with Gustavus Adolphus at their head and with conquest on his mind.  He occupied Pomerania from a military standpoint, but did not yet lay formal claim to it, while using it as a base to push further into Germany.

As with Denmark before them, the Swedish cause was generously funded by French subsidies; the death of Richelieu did not mean the death of Realpolitik.  Gustavus sought to bring Denmark back into the war, too, and offered the Baltic island of Rügen as an incentive.  Christian IV declined the offer, though, on the grounds that he was too busy rebuilding his country.  (Or, less charitably, too busy seeing which way the winds were blowing and looking for a legitimate causus belli.)

Despite their monarch’s grand intentions, the Swedes spent the remainder of 1630 consolidating alliances and control in northern Germany, most notably securing the alliance of the duchies of Mecklenburg.  Diplomacy played a part here, too; France had also subsidised Bavaria to maintain neutrality, and wanted Sweden to honour this pact.  The most notable battle of the year was fought near Brunow, in Mecklenburg, in September 1630, where the Swedish forces defeated Wallenstein’s personal army.  Wallenstein remained politically suspect, but with the death of Tilly, the Emperor had no real alternative but to rely on Wallenstein to fight the Swedish.

In February 1631, in a deliberately timed announcement while winter still held, Brandenburg-Prussia confirmed its neutrality in “the matter of Sweden”.  Brandenburg’s territories offered a useful route for Sweden to march further south, but neither the unwell Georg Wilhelm nor his Catholic chancellor trusted the Swedish monarch’s intentions.

Brandenburg’s neutrality blocked what was reportedly Gustavus Adolphus’s earliest intention: to march south and persuade or pressure the young John George II, the new Elector of Saxony, to take up the Protestant cause rather than follow his father’s previous support for the Empire.

Gustavus Adolphus chose, for the moment, to push into the Empire via a more westerly route, via Mecklenburg and Brunswick-Lüneburg, and thence toward Saxony.  He knew that this would bring him into further conflict with Wallenstein and with the forces of the Catholic League, and hoped that another victory there would sway Brandenburg, Saxony and the lesser Protestant princes of northern Germany to his side.

In May 1631, the Swedish forces under Gustavus Adolphus again met Wallenstein’s forces near Brunlem, northeast of Hidesheim.  Wallenstein’s forces had been bolstered by allies from the Catholic League, but this proved insufficient, and again the Swedes claimed the victory.  The diplomatic consequences of this victory were immense; with Swedish military prowess confirmed, more of the Protestant princes in northern Germany began to pledge support, although Brandenburg and Electoral Saxony still reserved judgement.  In turn, the victory alarmed Maximilian I of Bavaria, who had previously maintained neutrality due to French subsidies, but who now expressed support for the Catholic League.

These diplomatic manoeuvrings were soon overtaken by another devastating epidemic.  In June 1631, the first word came of a strange, devastating form of influenza ravaging Ottoman lands.  As the summer rolled on, this disease swept through Hungary and into the Holy Roman Empire, with the Habsburg lands of Austria and Bohemia the first victims.

This malady was recognisably a form of influenza, but with distinctive symptoms: a particularly intense fatigue immediately after onset, and the faces and lips of its victims turned blue.  Europeans knew the disease as Turkish flu, and the Habsburgs in particular would have reason to fear it.  For while Turkish flu was overall less deadly than the Dutch curse which preceded it, the new disease took a particularly heavy toll on young adults, including the men of military age.  Armies were severely weakened on both sides as the Turkish flu swept through the Empire in 1631 and 1632.

The most prominent victims of Turkish flu were found among the Austrian Habsburgs themselves; the disease devastated their family.  Contrary to what most people believed then and later, Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor, was not among those victims.  On 6 September 1631, the Emperor died of pneumonia brought on by lung damage from the previous epidemic, the Dutch curse.  His children, though, were of the most vulnerable age to the new epidemic, and the effects were devastating.

Ferdinand III had only succeeded his father for six weeks – and even then, not officially elected as Emperor – before he succumbed to the Turkish flu on 18 October 1631.  His only brother, Archduke Leopold, did not even live that long, dying on 5 October.  The only surviving children of Ferdinand II were two daughters, Cecilia Renata and Maria Anna, and Cecilia herself survived only a few more weeks, dying on 9 November.

The only surviving close male relative of the Austrian Habsburgs was a three-year old boy, Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Further Austria, posthumous son of the elder Leopold who had died from the Dutch curse.  This unfortunate child had never known his father, but on his young shoulders rested the legacy of the Austrian Habsburgs.  As the poet Johannes Schmidt would later write in a much-quoted line: “Only one heir, young and slender, but a host of pretenders.”

Chaos was the initial result on all sides, with all previous plans forgotten by the new circumstances of no clear Emperor, and what seemed liked a divine blow to dispossess the Austrian Habsburgs.

The fastest monarch to move was Maximilian I of Bavaria.  His first wife had already been ill, and died of the Turkish flu in October.  While Maximilian mourned his wife, this did not stop him seeking the most politically promising replacement: Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria.  Maximilian hastened to Vienna, where he paid his respects to both dead Ferdinands, but took the opportunity to more or less force Maria Anna into marriage [8].  Based on this marriage and existing Bavarian claims, Maximilian began to make overtures about the possibility of acquiring Inner Austria, Bohemia, and the entirety of the Palatinate.

In Bohemia, the restive Protestant population began fresh calls for a Protestant monarch.  In Denmark, Christian IV started to consider whether to abolish his peace deal with the Empire.  In Brandenburg and Saxony, the respective Electors pondered what was usually a simple decision: who should be elected Emperor.

And, in his exile in The Hague, Frederick V, Elector Palatine, saw what seemed divine opportunity.  He had already been more fortunate than he had been hisotrically; the disruptions of the Dutch curse meant he never suffered the boating accident in 1629 that invalided him, and his heir Henry Frederick also survived.  Acting on this apparent miracle, Frederick V not only reasserted his claims on his ancestral lands of the Palatinate, but proclaimed a much bolder bid: he sought to be named Holy Roman Emperor.

The election of a new Emperor required the votes of four out of the seven Electors: the three spiritual Electors, the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, and the four lay Electors, the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Duke of Saxony.

This election, already contentious, was made even more controversial because of rival claimants to some of the electoral titles.  Maximilian I asserted his vote as Elector Palatine, which had been awarded to him when Frederick V was outlawed, but this claim was not universally recognised.  Frederick V himself still claimed this title, even in his exile.

Likewise, the Austrian Habsburgs claimed the title of King of Bohemia, and while the majority of the Empire had backed that claim, the people of Bohemia were themselves more supportive of Frederick V.

Naming an Emperor would prove problematic since not all of the claimants could even meet the Electors during their deliberations; Frederick V was, after all, still outlawed within the Empire.  The election was managed, at first, by the various Electors publicly stating their preferences or, in some cases, by rather more publicly not stating any preference.

The three spiritual Electors were undecided whether to back Ferdinand Charles or another Catholic prince.  The young Ferdinand Charles did not even speak on his own behalf, but his Habsburg relatives had named his Spanish cousin, Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, as his regent.  Insofar as the spiritual Electors took a position, the Archishops of Trier and Mainz broadly favoured the Habsburg claim; it was entirely coincidental, of course, that they were neighbours to the Spanish Habsburgs.  The Archbishop of Cologne did not express any position publicly, but privately preferred to support whoever was named by his brother, Maximilian I of Bavaria.

Frederick V continued to assert that he had claims both as King of Bohemia and Elector Palatine, even though the Catholics did not recognise these claims.  Of course, he faced another problem: one man could not claim two votes as an Elector.  Frederick V devised a novel solution, abdicating as Count Palatine in favour of his son Henry Frederick.  As well as the immediate benefit of a claim for two electoral votes, he knew that this meant that even if he lost his claim to Bohemia, his son would have a greater chance of retaining the Palatinate.

Ferdinand Charles – or, more precisely, Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand – claimed the electoral vote of Bohemia, but the Protestants did not recognise this claim.  Indeed, John George II, the new Elector of Saxony, was far less cautious than his father, and more inclined to listen to his Protestant relations.  He publicly proclaimed his support for Frederick V as Holy Roman Emperor.

Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg vacillated, as he had done throughout much of his reign.  He mistrusted the Swedes and Saxons both, but was caught between them, so voting for any Catholic candidate could have proved problematic.  In the end, he reluctantly announced support for Frederick V, hoping that a Calvinist Emperor would in turn have influence to help him with the Seudo-Saxon vice now gripping his country.

In the midst of all the electoral manoeuvring, Maximilian I found himself in an odd position.  He had refused to become a candidate for the Imperial throne over a decade before, but now ambition tempted once more.  He had at least two Electoral votes, if he chose to make a bid.  However, the practice was that electoral votes could not be recast once made, and so he held off his own claims to the Imperial crown while he evaluated the situation.

Eventually, Maximilian decided that he could not secure the Imperial diadem, and opted for a compromise which suited his interests almost as well.  At the time, Ferdinand Charles had already been named as heir to Further Austria and Tyrol, but had never been named as ruler of Inner Austria, since that title was held by Ferdinand III until his death.

Through his marriage to Maria Anna, Maximilian asserted his right to inherit Inner Austria [9], and for continued imperial recognition of his right to the Upper Palatinate, including the Electoral vote.  In exchange, he yielded his family claim to Bohemia.  That left Ferdinand Charles with Further Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, parts of Hungary and Croatia, and the Lower Palatinate.  With that deal concluded, Maximilian I exercised his vote as Elector Palatine, and named Ferdinand Charles as Holy Roman Emperor, with Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand (formerly of Spain, now of Austria) as regent [10].

In March 1632, after Maximilian’s proclamation, the spiritual Electors fell into line behind him, announcing their support for Ferdinand Charles as the Holy Roman Emperor.

That now meant there were five votes for Ferdinand Charles: three Archbishop-Electors, Maximilian as Elector Palatine, and Ferdinand Charles himself as King of Bohemia.  However, Frederick V also claimed four votes: the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, Frederick V himself as King of Bohemia, and his son Henry Frederick as Elector Palatine.

Two men thus claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor.  With good reason, the third stage of the war would be known to allohistory as the War of the Habsburg Succession.

Under Gustavus Adolphus’s aegis, most of the Protestant states in Germany formed the Protestant Union, a successor of sorts to the earlier Protestant Union which had been dissolved in 1621 at the order of Ferdinand II.  The Union formally backed Frederick V as the Holy Roman Emperor.  The notable exceptions were the Danish-aligned areas of north-western Germany, which remained neutral, and Brandenburg, which granted Sweden transit rights into Habsburg lands, but did not join the war.

Still in exile in the Netherlands, Frederick V did not have an army of his own, but soon found support.  Under the guidance of chief minister De Chaulnes, France continued to provide aid to anyone who fought against the Habsburgs.  The subsidies which had previously been provided to Bavaria were now redirected to Frederick V, and with those funds he raised a fresh army of his own.

The Catholic forces in the War of the Habsburg Succession fought in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor, but in practice there were two powers that mattered: the Spanish, fighting on behalf of their Austrian cousins and seeking to bring them more into their orbit; and the Catholic League, dominated by Bavaria, which fought against the Protestants with religious fervour, but which also quietly opposed having too strong an Emperor.

The military campaigning in 1632-3 had two main theatres.  In eastern Germany, the Swedes and Saxons sought to occupy the Habsburgs possessions of Bohemia and Silesia.  The conquest of Bohemia was in the name of Frederick V, although Saxony expected to gain some concessions there, while Sweden had designs on Silesia.  Gustavus Adolphus also had plans for his legacy: while Frederick V might be named King of Bohemia, so far his heir had been designated as ruler of the Palatinate only.  Gustavus wanted to have his daughter Kristina named as heir to Bohemia after Frederick V’s death.  In the west, Frederick V fought against the Spanish and sought to reconquer the Palatinate.

The Bohemian campaign saw what became the most notorious action of an already destructive war.  The Protestant population of Bohemia were already resentful of Habsburg rule, and viewed the death of Ferdinand II and the subsequent chaos as an invitation to revolt.  Unfortunately, their actions were premature.  Wallenstein fought against the Protestants in Silesia, and while he could not force a decisive victory, he was capable enough to keep the Swedes and Saxons busy there while the Bohemian revolt was quelled.

The task of subduing Bohemia fell to the Catholic League, which essentially meant Bavaria.  Since the death of Tilly, Count Johann von Aldringen had taken command of the League’s armies.  He hastened to Bohemia, and sought to subdue the Bohemians with fire and sword.  Aldringen routed the Bohemian Protestant militias, and encircled Prague in a siege which lasted eight months, from April to November 1632.

The city finally fell after parts of the walls were mined, and the League’s forces broke into the city.  The attacking troops went berserk, massacring most of the inhabitants.  Prague caught fire during the final assault, although reports differed as to whether it had been fired by the defenders to deny it to the enemy, or if the fires had been set by the attacking troops.  In any event, before Aldringen regained control of his troops, most of the city had been ruined and its inhabitants killed.

No-one knew exactly how many people were killed in the sack of Prague.  The city had around sixty thousand inhabitants before the war started, and many of them had died or fled the city during the first Bohemian revolt, but nonetheless, tens of thousands died from fire or the sword.  After it was over, Prague had fewer than four thousand inhabitants left alive.

By all reports, Aldringen did not plan or authorise the massacre.  Nevertheless, his name became associated with it, and for Protestants in Germany from that time on, the Sack of Prague, on 20 November 1633, became a day which would live in ignominy.  From that time on, whenever Catholic forces tried to surrender or sought quarter, the common Protestant response was to offer “Prague justice” and execute them [11].

Silesia fell more or less entirely to the Swedes and Saxons by November 1633, too late to spare the people of Prague.  The Suedo-Saxon forces could not move into Bohemia until the following spring.  When they did, the war-ravaged population were sympathetic to the Protestants, but could offer little tangible support.

Wallenstein had gradually reformed his armies after the plagues and defeats, and had started to refine his tactics to counter the Swedish advantages.  In addition, he was reinforced by Aldringen.  Between them, these two generals held their own in two major battles against the Protestants; neither side could inflict a major defeat on the other.

In the circumstances, Wallenstein took it upon himself to try to mediate a peace between Sweden and the Empire.  The content of these negotiations has been lost to history, but the rumour was that he disliked the Edict of Restitution, and that he sought to present the new Emperor with a peace treaty as a fait accompli.

Regardless of the reason, with the rumours that Wallenstein was negotiating with the enemy, he was deemed to be a traitor.  The Cardinal Regent gave orders for his assassination, but Wallenstein was warned, and in early May responded by changing sides to the Protestant cause, taking his personal army with him.

The defection of Wallenstein and his forces should have been seen as a great boost to the Swedish cause.  But it coincided with a rather more monumental event.  Throughout the first week of May, Gustavus Adolphus had been suffering from headaches and a creeping fever.  On 10 May, the same day that Wallenstein announced his defection, Gustavus suffered a seizure.

This seizure was not severe in itself, but confirmed a hideous truth.  Gustavus Adolphus had held off the delirium for three years, an astonishing length of time, but this seizure meant that he had not been spared from the second stage of the Dutch curse after all.  From here, death was inevitable, and sanity itself would slowly slip away.

The Swedish monarch took advantage of what moments of sanity remained.  He issued his final orders, and dictated his last testament, which would be nicknamed “The Legacy of the Lion”.  In that testament he laid out his vision for Sweden, including how he foresaw a future where “on every shore of the Baltic flies the yellow cross on blue”, and that the recently-founded outpost of Gustavsburg [Bangor, Maine] would become the capital of “a New Sweden over the waves”.  One of his final orders was that his daughter Kristina be named as heir-presumptive to the throne of Bohemia, and that she become engaged to her cousin Karl Gustav [12].

Gustavus Adolphus suffered repeated seizures for two more weeks, and on 27 May slipped into a coma from which he would never awake.  He died on 3 June 1633.  After his death the Swedish campaign in Bohemia and Bavaria lost focus.  Wallenstein, while now fighting for the Protestants, also counselled that informal inquiries be made to see what peace terms the Catholics would consider.

In the western theatre during 1632-1633, the Spanish-led Catholics had more success.  Frederick V had raised a new army, but could not establish a strong position within the Empire.  He found support from Calvinist rulers such as William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Kessel, but he could not make much headway against the Spanish.  Frederick V was only spared major defeat because the Spanish were also busy in their separate war with the Netherlands; the Dutch had invaded the Spanish Netherlands and besieged Antwerp.

The course of the war took another turn in 1634, thanks to another consequence of the plagues.  The Duchy of Lorraine had a long history, but just before the plagues swept through, there were only three surviving male members of the House of Lorraine: the former Duke Francis II (who had abdicated in 1624 and would die in 1632), and his two sons, Nicolas and Charles.  Nicolas had taken holy orders and was now a cardinal, while Charles had been ruling the duchy as Charles IV since 1624, although he had yet to father a male heir.

Both brothers caught the Dutch curse, but survived; Charles IV escaped the pink cough with no significant symptoms, while Nicolas Francis was reportedly “fatigued” ever since (later physicians would interpret this as mild scarring of the lungs).  Four years later, when the Turkish flu swept through Lorraine on its way into France, Charles IV was among his victims, dying suddenly on 9 February 1632.  Nicolas Francis caught the disease too, and became even more “fatigued”, but he was now the only heir to the duchy apart from an elderly and ill Francis II.

Much diplomacy ensued, as France in particular had a keen interest in who would rule Lorraine, and Spain did not want a hostile ruler to threaten their Spanish Road.  Of course, there was only one possible heir.  Nicolas, a man of devout faith, did not want to resign as cardinal, but did not see that he had any choice.  He relinquished his religious offices, married his cousin Claude Françoise [as he did historically in 1634] and became Duke Nicholas II of Lorraine.

Sadly, the legacy of two respiratory illness had taken their toll on Nicholas’s health, and left him vulnerable to further diseases.  In early 1634, he caught an unexpected chill and died of pneumonia on 30 January.  The Duchy of Lorraine was now heirless.

Three claims emerged on the vacant Duchy of Lorraine.  Gaston, Duke of Orléans, had married Marguerite of Lorraine (Charles and Nicolas’s sister) in 1631 [13], and through this marriage, he asserted a claim to Lorraine.

Two more distant claimants appeared, although their claims were mired in another unresolved succession dispute within the Empire.  Francis II’s sister Antoinette had married John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, although that marriage had produced no children.  After John William’s death, the succession of the Duchy was contested through John William’s surviving sisters.  Those claims had passed to the Catholic Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, and the Calvinist Georg Wilhelm I, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia.  Both of them asserted their claims on the entirety of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, and through the same descent, they both laid claim to Lorraine.

The Orleanist claim was notionally the strongest, but few within the Empire were willing to let the claim go to a potential heir to the French throne.  Within France, both King Louis III and De Chaulnes were broadly satisfied with the course of the war (ie the Habsburgs getting curtailed).  They were not prepared to invade directly in support of Orleans’ claim, since it risked giving Spain a reason to become even more involved in the war.

Cardinal-Regent Ferdinand was eventually called to arbitrate the disputed succession.  After some consideration, he deemed that Georg Wilhelm’s claim was the strongest, and awarded the House of Hohenzollern the Duchy of Lorraine.

Near-simultaneously, and entirely coincidentally, Georg Wilhelm declared that he had considered his position on the matter of the imperial election, and had decided to vote for Ferdinand Charles.  That led Ferdinand Charles to proclaim that he was now uncontested Holy Roman Emperor, since he had enough votes to assume the imperial dignity, regardless of how the claims to Bohemia and the Palatinate were viewed.

Protests followed from Sweden, Saxony and even from Christian IV of Denmark, who argued that electoral votes could not be changed once cast.  The three spiritual Catholic Electors, though, said (with remarkably straight faces) that the Elector of Brandenburg was simply clarifying what would otherwise be an impossible election.  From this point on, Ferdinand Charles was broadly if grudgingly recognised as Emperor, and Frederick V’s position was near-fatally weakened.

All the same, retaliation followed.  Christian IV had already been considering re-entering the war.  Partly out of frustration at the failure of Frederick V to become Emperor, partly because Sweden re-offered the island of Rügen as an incentive, partly wanting to have a voice in any broader peace negotiations, and mostly to secure the claims which had been granted to Prince Ulric, Christian IV declared war on the Emperor once more.  His public justification was that the peace he had concluded had been one made personally with Wallenstein, but now that he had changed sides, the peace was void.

Sweden and Saxony, in turn, declared war on Georg Wilhelm.  Their plans for an invasion of Bavaria were abandoned as they adopted defensive positions in Bohemia and turned on the House of Hohenzollern.  Brandenburg was invaded and overrun in 1634, although Prussia itself was left alone to avoid any risk of Polish intervention.

With Wallenstein’s defection and Denmark’s re-entry into the war, the burden of defending Catholicism and the Emperor fell largely to Spain.  The Spanish found themselves fighting on three fronts: against the Dutch in the Spanish Netherlands and nearby regions, against the combined forces of Denmark and Frederick V who pushed into south-western Germany and threatened Cologne and Munster, and in the east where they fought with the Catholic League against the Swedes and Saxons in Bohemia, and at times in Austria and Bavaria.

The weight of numbers told against the Spanish, though some of their generals were still capable of remarkable victories.  Most notably, Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, took command of the Imperial forces in Bohemia and Bavaria.  He routed the Swedish forces in the Battle of Deggendorf in August 1635; the first decisive defeat of the seemingly-invincible Swedes.  The action in that theatre returned to Bohemia, as the already-ravaged province suffered even more predation from the war [14].

Despite a few victories, Spain paid an immense cost to support the war.  The population at home had already been severely reduced by the plagues, particularly the disproportionate loss of young adults from the Turkish flu.  Military recruitment drew more young men into the army to fill those gaps, leading to less productive farms and towns.  That, together with the spiralling war costs, led to repeated increases in taxation, to the point where many of the people found themselves unable to pay.

The result, in March and April 1636, was near-simultaneous revolts in Catalonia and Portugal.  The former was an unplanned uprising which led to the formation of an irregular militia to fight against Spanish rule – or at least against Spanish taxation.  The latter was a meticulously-planned coup organised by discontented Portuguese nobility who believed that the increases in taxation were planned to bankrupt them and hand their lands over to Spanish aristocrats.  The Portuguese nobles, with popular support, named John, Duke of Braganza, as the new monarch.

Faced with these internal troubles and an ever more difficult military situation, Philip IV of Spain sought peace negotiations.  For their part, most of the Protestant nations in Germany were exhausted by nearly two decades of war.  Denmark had re-entered the war with the aim mainly of securing its earlier gains, plus some minor further concessions, and was willing to negotiate any peace which secured those goals.  Without the driving leadership of Gustavus Adolphus, and facing some military reversals, Sweden was also prepared to discuss peace terms.  The only parties who preferred to continue the war were the Emperor Ferdinand Charles, who was too young to be taken seriously, and the anti-Emperor Frederick V, who had no capacity to keep fighting if his allies deserted him.

Peace negotiations opened in Nuremberg in September 1636.  Separate negotiations between the Dutch and the Spanish began a month later in Hamburg.  These negotiations dragged on for nearly two years, and the fighting continued in the interim, as both sides sought to use military gains to their diplomatic advantage.  Denmark, in particular, pushed south into Munster and Cologne during 1638, although it found little gain from doing so, since both the Netherlands and the other Protestant German powers were rather unwelcoming of any further Danish gains within Germany.

Peace finally came in August 1638, in two separate treaties.  The Peace of Nuremberg was signed between the Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, Bavaria and allies, and Sweden, Denmark, and allies, and ended what would become known as the Twenty Years’ War.  The separate Peace of Hamburg between the Dutch and Spanish saw final recognition of the Netherlands as an independent nation outside of the Holy Roman Empire, and ended what would be known as the Seventy Years War.

*

Between them, the two peace treaties signed in 1638 remade the Holy Roman Empire.  The accord at Hamburg recognised formally what had been truth for some time; that the Netherlands were not and would never again want to be part of the Empire.  The pact at Nuremberg contained a great many provisions both of territorial changes and of other guarantees, but the most important part was not written into the treaty: the greater princes of the Empire had become rulers of de facto independent states.

The Peace of Hamburg settled the differences between Spain and the Netherlands, both within Europe and across their sprawling colonial empires.  In Europe, the Dutch gained what they most craved: formal recognition of their independence from Spain.  The Peace also recognised their various territorial acquisitions during the later stages of the war, ie the seizing of Antwerp and its environs, and the separate conquests of Upper Guelders and eastern Limburg.  Likewise, the Dutch ceded all claims to the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands [15].

Outside of Europe, the Peace recognised the current colonial borders between Spain and the Netherlands, although it remained distinctly silent about the status of Portugal.  Most notably, Spain recognised the Dutch acquisitions in northern Brazil, and “all existing Dutch territory in the East Indies”, a term which in the understanding of the times included the existing Dutch claims in Aururia (mostly the Atjuntja).

The Peace of Nuremberg followed the same broad principles as the historical Peace of Westphalia in terms of recognising the established religion of particular states, tolerance of Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists in each others’ territories (the Anabaptists and other radical faiths were still excluded), and acceptance of the sovereignty of each member state over its lands and people.  Likewise, it recognised the independence of Switzerland and the Netherlands from the Empire.

Much else changed, though.

Perhaps the most dramatic transformation was that involving the Hohenzollerns [ie the former royal family of Brandenburg-Prussia].  That family’s former territories of Brandenburg-Prussia were lost entirely, being divided up between other powers.  Instead, the Hohenzollerns were recognised in their control of Lorraine.  With the Emperor backing their claims, the Hohenzollerns also gained control of the entirety of Cleve-Mark and Jülich-Berg [16].

In one of the many odd bits of diplomacy which characterised the Peace of Nuremberg, the Hohenzollerns were also made the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg.  This bishopric bordered Bavarian lands, and had been occupied by the Protestant powers late in the war.  During the peace negotiations, the Hohenzollerns repeatedly sought to regain their lands in Brandenburg, but were unable to do so.  They were awarded Würzburg as a compromise.  This was given a veneer of legitimacy because the House of Hohenzollern, several centuries earlier, had started as Burgraves of neighbouring Nuremberg.  As a practical matter, awarding Würzburg to the Hohenzollerns meant that with their relatives ruling neighbouring territories in Bayreuth and Ansbach, there was now a united front to block potential Bavarian expansion in this area.

As a result of the Twenty Years’ War, the Hohenzollerns were thus transformed from a growing power in north-eastern Germany to a regional power in south-western Germany.  The Electoral dignity continued with their house [17], and they were henceforth known as Electors of Lorraine rather than Electors of Brandenburg.  As soon as the treaty was signed, the invalided Georg Wilhelm abdicated his throne, leaving his eighteen-year-old son Friedrich Wilhelm [who would historically have been called the Great Elector] as the new Elector of Lorraine, with his Catholic Chancellor Schwarzenberg as de facto regent for the first few years [18].

In all of their territories, the Calvinist faith became the established religion.  While Friedrich Wilhelm would in fact turn out to practice religious toleration, in the first couple of years, many Catholics in Lorraine and Jülich-Berg fled Hohenzollern territories for some of their Catholic neighbours.

Bavaria emerged from the Peace of Nuremberg as one of the major powers within the Holy Roman Empire.  In the treaty, Bavaria gained formal recognition of the territories it had previously acquired in Inner Austria and the Upper Palatinate.  It also gained confirmation of the Electoral dignity which had previously belonged to the Palatinate, although as happened historically, Maximilian would usually be called the Elector of Bavaria rather than Elector Palatine.

The Austrian Habsburgs, while still confirmed as Holy Roman Emperors, found themselves holding more scattered possessions.  They maintained their rule of Austria proper, Further Austria, Tyrol, and their Hungarian and Croatian possessions outside the Empire.  The Habsburgs also took control of the Lower Palatinate.  Bavaria was confirmed as ruler of Inner Austria, and Silesia was ceded to Sweden.

The Habsburgs also held onto most of Bohemia, with a couple of exceptions, through another political compromise.  The arrangement reached (at Swedish and Saxon insistence) was that Frederick V would be King of Bohemia until the Peace of Nuremberg was ratified by the Emperor, but that after that he would cede control to the Habsburgs.  As part of that arrangement, Frederick V recognised the religion of Bohemia as Lutheran.  In keeping with the broader principles of the Nuremberg treaty, the established religions of Imperial states were those which were recognised by monarchs at the time of ratification.  Any later conquests or acquisitions by princes of a different faith, or conversion of particular princes, did not change the established religion of that territory.  So, under this arrangement, Bohemia had a Catholic monarch ruling a Protestant territory, and who could be required to persecute Catholics in that territory who broke the restrictions on public worship [19].

A few territories in Bohemia were separated entirely from Habsburg rule.  Two members of the House of Lichtenstein were kept as rulers of the Duchy of Teschen (under Gundakar) and the Duchy of Troppau & Jägerndorf (under Karl II Eusebius); two small, officially Catholic islands in a Protestant sea.  Wallenstein, that most morally supple and politically flexible general, was confirmed in his control of the core of his confiscated Bohemian estates, as the independent Duchy of Friedland.

Denmark did not make many direct territorial gains from the Peace of Nuremberg itself beyond what had previously been recognised at the Treaty of Lübeck.  However, these gains became more important because when the Treaty of Lübeck was signed in 1630, Prince Ulric (a younger son of the King of Denmark), was named Prince-Bishop of Verden, Bishop of Schwerin, and the designated heir of the Lutheran Prince-Archbishop of Bremen.  Since that time, John Frederick, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen died in September 1634, and Denmark’s Chosen Prince [ie designated heir] Frederick died in February 1637, leaving Ulric as ruler of Verden, Schwerin and Bremen, and heir to the Danish crown.  This made his inheritance more contentious, to say the least, but Denmark successfully had Ulric’s claims recognised at Nuremberg.

As part of the peace treaty, Denmark also successfully argued for a “clarification” of the Treaty of Lübeck that the claim on Bremen included the city of Bremen, not just the surrounding Archbishopric.  It also obtained recognition of the island of Rügen as its territory [20].  Christian IV established Rügen as a personal possession of the Danish crown, because of his ancestral claim to be King of Vends.  As a practical matter, that meant that Rügen was withdrawn from the Empire and placed under personal control of the Danish monarch; neither the Holy Roman Empire (via the Reichstag), the Emperor, or the Rigsraadet (the Danish Council of the Realm) had any say on the governance of Rügen.

Of all the powers, Sweden gained the most from the Twenty Years’ War and the Peace of Nuremberg.  Sweden took control of all of Pomerania, except for Rügen and for the minor realm of the Bishopric of Cammin, held by Ernst Bogislaw von Croÿ, the grandson of the last independent Duke of Pomerania.  With the partition of Brandenburg, Sweden gained eastern Mittelmark and Neumark (with the rest going to Saxony).  Most valuable of all, in territorial terms, was Silesia, which Sweden detached from the Bohemian crown and claimed as its own territory.  In exchange, Sweden recognised Habsburg rule of Bohemia proper (after Frederick V handed it over to them), and abandoned Kristina’s claim as Queen of Bohemia.  In turn, Sweden was recognised as the defender of the Protestant faith in Germany.  As part of the conquest of these new territories, Sweden more or less broke all of the local noble estates in these acquisition; the Swedish monarchs had absolute power in their new territories [21].

The Electorate of Saxony was another power which gained considerably from the war.  As well as western Brandenburg (Altmark and western Mittelmark), Saxony gained Lusatia, Magdeburg, and Mansfeld.  These new acquisitions gave Saxony some regions with rich soils and considerable potential agricultural wealth.  As with Sweden, Saxony broke the power of the local estates in its new acquisitions, which were largely ruled directly by the monarchy.

As a result of the war, Saxony also gained control of most of the Elbe between Denmark-Holstein and Bohemia.  The exception was the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, backed by the restored Dukes of Mecklenburg, who did not want to be the only state standing between Denmark and Sweden.

With Brandenburg proper swallowed by Sweden and Saxony, the Hohenzollern territories of Prussia were given to Courland, since any Swedish claims would have risked Polish intervention.

As for Frederick V himself, former Elector Palatine, one-time contender for the Imperial Crown, while he lived longer allohistorically, he did not end up much happier.  The Imperial Ban on him remained even when almost everyone else was pardoned, his title as Count of the (Lower) Palatinate was still lost, and he lived out a longer but still mostly unhappy exile in the Netherlands.

His eldest son, Frederick Henry, was more fortunate.  The Protestant princes were rather concerned about the prospect of having a son losing his titles for the actions of his father.  No number of remonstrations could persuade the Habsburgs to grant the Lower Palatinate to Frederick Henry, for the Habsburgs themselves were feeling like they had lost too much territory.  As a compromise, a new Duchy of Münster was created and granted to Frederick Henry.  Unlike what happened historically, though, this did not lead to Frederick Henry being granted a new Electoral dignity.  Frederick V was still alive and held in too much contempt to be given such a new honour; the number of Electors remained, for the moment, only seven.

The Habsburg acquisition of the Lower Palatinate also meant that this territory was recognised as Catholic rather than Calvinist.  This would lead, in time, to large-scale emigration of Calvinists, particularly to now-Calvinist Lorraine, and also to Münster.

All in all, the Peace of Nuremberg reshaped the map of the Holy Roman Empire, nearly broke the power of the Austrian Habsburgs, and created some new or increased powers whose appetite for expansion had only been whetted by this war, no matter what its length.

--

“I did not expect to find the kingdom of Bohemia so lean, wasted and spoiled, for between Prague and Vienna everything has been razed to the ground and hardly a living soul can be seen on the land.”
- Swedish Field Marshal Johan Banér to Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, 1635

--

"The road to absolutism began with the Twenty Years' War."

- Lars Løvschøld, "The Development of Early Modern Europe"

--

[1] Defenestration is one of those words which sounds even worse than it is.

[2] ie according to a certain online encyclopaedia.

[3] This consideration involving the Emperor recognising Saxon control of the region of Lusatia.

[4] The Palatinate held strategic significance out of all proportion to its size, because it was the only non-friendly territory on the land route which the Spanish used to attack the Dutch Republic after 1621 (the Spanish Road).

[5] Although as with just about any concept in politics or history, there’s innumerable arguments on this topic, such as whether it was Westphalia which established the principle of sovereignty, or even if there is such a thing as Westphalian sovereignty.

[6] John George’s actual cause of death was kidney failure caused by side-effects of the pink cough, although the medical science at the time had no way of determining that.

[7] The terms of the allohistorical Treaty of Lübeck are more generous to Denmark than their historical counterpart (where Denmark essentially got its occupied lands back in exchange for withdrawing from the HRE).  Allohistorically, the Imperial forces are more hard-pressed due to Tilly’s death and reliance on the less than trustworthy Wallenstein as their main general.  Ferdinand II was rather more concerned with the cessation of Danish support for other Protestant rulers, so that he could focus his efforts on quelling them.  The additional concessions which Denmark obtained were at the expense of other Protestant rulers, so Ferdinand II decided he could tolerate that, although it did leave Denmark with a stronger position in northern Germany.

[8] Or, at the very least, Maria Anna may have seen Maximilian I as the least unpalatable of the alternatives.

[9] ie Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the Windic March, Gorizia, the city of Trieste and assorted smaller possessions.

[10] Bavaria had not actually been a particularly powerful nation with the Empire before this time, but several factors granted Maximilan I his decisive influence.  Firstly, his quick action to marry Maria Anna gave him a useful claim on large chunks of the Habsburg heritage, in an era where existing holdings were often divided.  Secondly, his French alliance gave him a useful chunk of cash, which he used both to raise troops and for some notable bribes.  Thirdly, while not everyone recognised the Bavarian claims to an electorate, the Habsburgs already had, which made it more important for them to keep Bavaria onside.

[11] A similar term arose after the historical sack of Magdeburg on 20 May 1631.  Allohistorically, Magdeburg was spared a similar sack, since the Protestants and Catholics largely fought in other theatres.

[12] Karl Gustav would historically become King Karl X Gustav of Sweden in 1654, after Kristina’s abdication.

[13] Historically, Gaston and Marguerite met in Lorraine when Gaston fled there after taking refuge from Cardinal Richelieu’s wrath, and were married a year later than happened allohistorically (ie in 1632).  In allohistory, Gaston became friendly with De Chaulnes, the post-Richelieu chief minister, met Marguerite earlier while visiting Lorraine, and had no problem gaining royal recognition for his marriage.

[14] The consequences of the war and the plagues lead to more extensive depopulation of Bohemia, since more of the fighting is conducted there.  After the war, this will lead to more German emigration into the emptier land; in the long run, more of the population will be Germanophone.

[15] With the seizure of Antwerp the Dutch could, in fact, have acquired rather more of the Spanish Netherlands; they had captured the main port which allowed the Spanish access to that region.  The Dutch did not push further for a combination of foreign policy and domestic political reasons.  The Dutch preferred to have a weakened Spain there as a buffer against gaining a land border with the French.  The Dutch were also opposed to too much expansion because of domestic concerns; it would require greater military expenditure, and so risked increasing the power of the Stadtholder.

[16] The Jülich-Berg and Cleve-Mark split was related to the previously mentioned dispute over the Lorraine succession.  As had happened historically, the former United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg were disputed between the Catholic Count Palatine of Neuburg and the Hohenzollerns.  This was eventually resolved historically by dividing it into the Catholic territories of Jülich-Berg (to Neuburg) and the Protestant territories of Cleve-Mark (to the Hohenzollerns).  Allohistorically, with the Emperor supporting the Hohenzollerns and opposing anyone related to the anti-Emperor Frederick V of the Palatinate, the entirety of this region was given to the Hohenzollerns.  The various Protestant powers, of course, hardly cared that territory was being taken from a minor Catholic prince to be handed to a Calvinist one.

[17] The Hohenzollerns kept their Electoral vote because a Protestant Elector was needed for religious balance within the Empire.  No-one (apart from the Swedes themselves) wanted to have a Swedish claimant as Elector, so any claims which the Swedes might have made from annexing parts of Brandenburg were disregarded.  Saxony, likewise, already had an Electoral vote and could thus not acquire any claims from taking the rest of Brandenburg.  Raising another Protestant state to an Electorship was not in keeping with tradition, and in any case the main Protestant contender would have been Holstein (ie the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein), which was no better than Sweden.  So the Hohenzollerns kept the title and the vote, although as happened historically with Bavaria, they were soon usually called the Electors of Lorraine.

[18] From a historical point of view, the Hohenzollerns have done poorly here.  From Lorraine, they are not in the same position to unify Germany as they would have done historically.  From an immediate point of view, though, they have acquired some respectably wealthy territories and are if anything better off financially than they were before the war (although without gains such as Pomerania which they would have had historically).

[19] While this may sound odd to modern readers, a similar arrangement happened historically in Saxony, which was recognised as Protestant territory, but its monarchs converted to Catholicism.  This led to Catholic monarchs persecuting Catholics in Saxony.

[20] Gaining Rügen and the city of Bremen was minor in territorial terms, but actually represented a huge financial windfall for the Danish monarchy, since it allowed them to tax North German trade.  Combined with their other taxation opportunities (it’s not piracy if a government does it) from the Treaty of Lübeck, such as Hamburg, the Danish crown will find itself swimming in money over the next few decades.

[21] The new Swedish acquisitions have roughly doubled the country’s population.  In the short term this strengthens them against their main rival, Poland.  In the longer term, this means that Sweden has entered the big league of powers, and conversely it is also seen as much more threatening by its neighbours.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #55: The Lord’s Prayer

“Knowing yourself is wisdom;
Knowing others is insight;
Knowing how to act is essential.”
- Congxie saying

--

Dawson (formerly Unega) [Montgomery, Alabama]
Alleghania

Sometimes, Myumitsi Makan feels that he has lived an eternity in this town that the unegas [1] call Dawson.  Other times, he feels as if only yesterday he came to this town to make a new name and find men who could not remember his old name.

Tonight, he most definitely feels the former.  In his head, he knows that it has been only three years since he first came to Dawson.  Now, though, he looks upon the mass of Congxie who have come at his urging, and he thinks that it should have been much longer.  Dawson has simply grown so fast.  This place of mills [factories] and workshops, this place for the reshaping of cotton, iron, and timber, is a lodestone for the dispossessed, the adventuresome, and, amongst unegas, the avaricious.

The flickering whale oil lamps are not particularly bright, but they suffice to show him how many people have crowded into this place.  A large Christian church, built most foolishly by optimistic unega plutocrats who believed that the Congxie would abandon the Seven-fold Path and become slaves to a hanged god.

Most days, even their Sundays, this church stands empty of Congxie.  Tonight, though, it is filled to the rafters.  Literally; the smaller child labourers have been passed up to where they can sit on the cross-beams.

Voices fill the church; the Congxie are not a quiet people at the best of times.  Makan makes his way slowly to the pulpit to address the workers.  For what will be a sermon, in fact, if not one which the Christian priests would endorse.

“Silence for Mr Jenkins!” several people call out, and by degrees, quiet falls.  As quiet as a gathering of Congxie ever gets, that is.

“Tell us, Mr Jenkins!” someone calls out.

Makan smiles.  Mister Jenkins.  An essential honorific, that.  Unegas would call him by his assumed surname alone, if they had their way, and the tale is that many of them used to try with other Congxie, in the first days.  Newcomers to Dawson still try, often-times.  They soon learn.

If Congxie are going to be called by a surname chosen in English, of all languages, then they will be shown respect.  If an unega refers to him by surname alone, Makan hears only the wind.  Most Congxie in Dawson act in like manner.  It is this accomplishment, more than anything else, which has persuaded him to organise the morrow’s bold endeavour.

“My friends, this is the night for planning, and tomorrow is the day for decisiveness!”

“Say it, mister!” a woman shouts, to general acclaim.

Makan gives the woman a nod – Cordiality, he thinks her name is – and continues speaking.  “Together we must stand,” he says, to another round of acclamation.

“Together, we must strike a great blow,” he says.  “Our actions are born of new circumstances, in this new town the unegas have built.”  On land they had forcibly stolen from the Congxie, but that is something which Makan does not let himself dwell on.

“Remember: the unegas speak of this land as a new world.  In truth, it never was new.  Our forefathers dwelt here since time immemorial.”  Relative silence falls, now.  Is that because they are considering, or just that they are bored?  He does not know, but this message still needs to be heard.

“The true new world comes from knowledge, not from exploration.  This modern age is a time of machines, of learning how metal and timber can be crafted by the fires of the earth.  This is the age of machines... and we labour in the mills for the bosses who own those machines.”

“We slave, you mean!” someone calls out.

“Oft-times, yes,” Makan says.  “But hear me, my friends: there is more to this new age than just a few bosses who care naught for the difference between a slave and a Congxie.”

This time, he thinks that the silence is thoughtful.  All to the good.

“This is a new world.  A world with new ways of working.  With new rules.  There is no yindewarra [2].  No proper tradition.”  He pauses again to let that be considered, then adds, “Even when the bosses are good men, they have no yindewarra to guide them how to act.  Not in this new world, where the rules have changed.”

The crowd starts to descend into angry mutters.  Makan says, “We must teach them new rules, proper rules.  And we must do it together.  If we stand alone, each of us will be nothing.  Alone, all the power is with the owners.  With the bosses.  Only by acting together can we balance their power.  We must stand in...” he pauses, hen chooses an English word, since it seems to fit better.  “We must stand in solidarity.”

“Solidarity!”  The crowd repeat the word over and over, until it becomes a chant.

When the noise subsides again, someone asks, “Can we really do this, Mr Jenkins?”  The crowd believes it, of course, or they would not be here.  All the same, they want reassurance.

Makan smiles broadly, even though he is not sure how many can make it out.  Not for the first time, he is glad that he is known by an assumed surname.  The surname Makan is not an auspicious one, these days.

“Remember our forefathers.  Remember how the Congxie were born.  They rejected the new rules which the unegas sought to impose on them, even then.  They rose as one.  They acted as one.  And they triumphed!”

This time, cheers ring out.  Once the crown quietens again, he says, “Spread the word.  Let everyone know.  The mills will fall silent tomorrow.  No Congxie will work at their mills, by their rules.  We will not work tomorrow, and we will not work again until they listen to us.”

--

[1] “Unega” is literally translated as “white”; the word is of Cherokee origin.  In the Congxie language, it has become one of their words for people of European descent.  The word is not particularly respectful, although in Makan’s era it is not an explicit insult.  (It would later become derogatory.)

[2] Yindewarra is a Congxie word which is roughly translated as “tradition”, but with stronger connotations: it refers to the proper, established way of doing things.  In accordance with Plirite morality, people are expected to act with propriety, in accordance with their station and with established conducts of behaviour.  Behaving without yindewarra is seen as breaking the Second Path.  In an established Plirite society, it is a good way to get condemned, ostracised or, if a ruler, deposed.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #56: What Becomes Of Memory

“Yesterday is today’s memory.  Tomorrow is today’s dream.”
- Daluming proverb

--

First touch of the morning.  Eastward the horizon glows crimson and amber as the sky begins its slow transformation from black of the night to blue of the day.

Golden is the light, shining from the first rising of the sun’s disc, reflecting from the fragments of cloud wafting above.  Golden too is the water, shining around the Intrepid as if the vessel floats on an ocean of endless wealth.

William Baffin stands at the bow.  He watches the land, not the sea.  Waves and clouds he has seen many times before, even those with the hue of gold.  He cares more for what he may see on the shore of what he calls the Land of Gold.

He is about to be rewarded for his attention.

Westward the shore waits, stretching out in an endless line as the Intrepid passes north, darkness of sand taking on hues golden and white as the first shards of light touch it.  Beyond the beach, the shore is merely hints and shadows, glimpses of trees and hills that await the full rising of the sun to be brought into light.

Northward the Intrepid sails, while Baffin keeps vigil.  The shore draws closer to the vessel, not from the direction of the ship, but because here the land extends further east.  Baffin turns back for a moment, and sees the helmsman is alert and in place at the stern.  No further words are needed, so he returns his gaze to the nearing shore.

Or so he tries.

Light shines brilliantly at him, a triangular constellation.  A thousand individual flashes, perfectly positioned to reflect the dawning sun back at him in golden splendour.  Dazzling, blinding, a myriad of starlets reaching an apex far higher than the masts of the Intrepid.

He lowers his gaze rather than lose his sight.

Baffin snaps orders to bring the ship nearer the shore, and then heave to in preparation for dropping the anchor.  More cautiously this time, he raises a hand to shade his eyes and look back at the shore.

Golden light shines back at him still, but the passage of the ship has been far enough that he can take in the spectacle.  A thousand mirrors give back the sun’s touch in silent testament.  Housed in a fitting edifice, a pyramid of some pale stone that itself takes on the same lustrous golden hue in the morning light.

And so William Baffin, already the first European captain to visit the shores of eastern Aururia, becomes the first Raw Man to gaze upon the largest single monument built in the Third World.

Glass, he quickly realises.  The thousand lights must be glass.  Nothing else could be found or made in enough abundance to shine like that.  Set in a pyramid built in several steps.  Ten levels, he counts.

A pyramid.  Is this Land of Gold truly not so isolated after all?  Did some band of the ancient Egyptians land here ages ago, and built this monument to their arrival?

Impatience grips him.  He must find out more about this pyramid.  The order to sail close and lower the boats has already been given, so he can do naught but look longer upon this shining construction, and around it for any sign of the people who built it.

He sees a few trees and fields on the shore, but if there is any large town nearby, it must be to the north.  An island takes shape just off the coast to the north; it will probably create a sheltered harbour beyond.  For now, though, he sees nothing of the makers; he must find what he can from the pyramid itself.

Slower than he likes, the Intrepid anchors near the shore.  Baffin is in the first boat, taking a place at oar nearest the bow of the smaller vessel.  Eagerness runs through him, enough that he mistimes his oar strokes; he keeps rowing faster than the others.

When the boat runs into the shallows, Baffin leaps out and runs toward the pyramid.  Leave others to pull that boat ashore.  He hurries to something much more important.

The approach of the boats has brought him nearest to the southern face of the pyramid.  Easier to investigate here anyway; the eastern face is still swathed in dawnlight.

The pyramid rises up above him.  Up close, he realises just how tall it stands.  The first step-level is far above him, well over twenty feet, perhaps thirty.

Now, though, he sees what makes the shining lights.  Niches have been set at regular intervals into the top of each step.  A sheet of clear – or almost-clear – glass has been set in each one.  It is those mirrors, positioned to reflect the light, which so dazzled him on his first glimpse.  If the glass niches hold anything, he cannot see it from down here.

Only after a few moments of gazing up in frustration does he look around and realise that there is a way to climb up.  A staircase has been cut into the first level of the pyramid, about a third of the way along the southern face.  The stairs are very steep, but he runs up them quickly anyhow.

A glass-covered niche is set at the top of each side of the staircase.  Looking into them is not easy; the staircase is set deep enough into the first level that he cannot see into them during the climb.  Baffin gets onto the first level of the pyramid, lies down on the ground, and carefully pushes his head over the edge for an upside down look into the first niche.

A skull stares back at him.

Surely not!

Baffin rises to his knees and crawls across to look into the next niche.

Another skull grins back at him.

Baffin pulls himself to his feet, feeling numb inside.  He runs his gaze across the immense length of the first level, with the regular glass niches, then finds his eyes drawn inexorably upward.  To where nine more levels of the pyramid still tower above him, every one of them filled with skull-niches.

Baffin sinks back to his knees, his mouth open but incapable of shaping words, and he cannot tear his eyes away from the monument rising above him.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #57: Long White Clouds

“Ka pu te ruha ka hao te rangatahi.”  (As an old net withers another is remade.)
- Maori proverb

--

Eagle Day, Cycle of Bronze, 398th Year of Harmony (12.5.398) [19 May 1637]
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]

With gently undulating waves in front of him, and a steady breeze blowing behind him, Tjirubal of the Kalendi felt as if he could sail forever.  Which would be a welcome prospect, right now.  On board a ship, surrounded by his fellow Kalendi sailors, he felt truly safe.  No danger, here, of a knife in the back.

The Dawn Hunter – as he had renamed the vessel – was a fine ship, and this had been a pleasant voyage.  Still, the coast of Aotearoa was close ahead of him, a reminder that all voyages must end.  At least the end of this voyage would be amongst the Maori, who posed their own dangers, but ones which could perhaps be managed.  Not like back on the Island, where it seemed that any man he did not personally know might be a man of the Nyumatta bloodline seeking to deliver the next blow in the vendetta.

Ahead, a bank of white clouds awaited.  A long bank of clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon.  Clouds which formed above land, and which would inform even the youngest and most stupid sailor that a shore was nearby.

Tjirubal was young, he knew, one of four young sailors raised to captains by the new Kalendi elder two years ago.  Only one day after the elder himself was raised.  All five of them, elder and captains, had been chosen as replacements for those killed in a few particularly bloody months of the vendetta.  That elder was dead now too.  His replacement, Bunban, was now the fourth elder to lead the Kalendi in seven years; unless Bunban himself had died in the time since the Dawn Hunter let the Island.

Young or not, Tjirubal had been given his opportunity, and he would make every use of it.  His first efforts had been with the Atjuntja in the far west.  Regrettably, these had accomplished little.  The Kalendi’s strongest trade ties had been with the Atjuntja, but of late those ties had been weakened.  The new Raw Men, these Nedlandj, brought marvellous new goods, but traded with whom they wished, breaking the old trading hierarchies amongst both Atjuntja and Nangu.

Worse had followed.  The long-serving elder of the Kalendi – who had been nicknamed the Beard for so long that Tjirubal struggled to recall his true name – had been the man with the vital contacts within the Atjuntja nobility.  With his death, major revolt amongst the Atjuntja, and the coronation of a new monarch, new trading relationships needed to be established.  The Kalendi had lost their foremost place in the western trade.  Tjirubal’s best endeavours in the west had won only small quantities of gold, and none at all of the more valuable sandalwood [1].

Bold action was required, and after some thought, Tjirubal had decided to strike far to the east.  To a land where few Nangu ever successfully visited.  The land of long white clouds.  The land of the Maori.  Aotearoa.

One thought led to another.  He was still a young captain, with only a ship, not a great-ship [2].  He could not carry a large cargo, so he needed something small, valuable, and to which the Maori would not already have easy access.  Kunduri would normally have been the obvious choice, but the price for that drug was now beyond the means of a minor captain.  Nedlandj and Nangu bid against each other to buy kunduri.

Nor could he use spices.  Most spices worthy of the name came from the east [i.e. east coast of Aururia] anyway, where the Maori could trade for them as easily as any Nangu.  Bronze would be similar: the Maori welcomed it, but they could trade directly with the Cider Isle.  Tjirubal doubted that the Maori would accept a price for bronze which would still let him turn a profit [3].  He had considered dyes, so many of which were grown on the Island itself, and indeed he had some of those on the Dawn Hunter.

Tjirubal’s great moment of inspiration – perhaps Turnong the Glider had granted it to him – came from one of the stories he was told when he made inquiries about Aotearoa.  According to the story, the Maori were inordinately fond of a kind of sea shell called paua [4], which had an iridescent, multi-hued interior shell which the Maori used to adorn themselves or their goods.

Tjirubal’s inspiration came when he remembered something else iridescent: opals.  By themselves, opals were reasonably common gemstones; they had been mined in the desert since time immemorial and brought to Dogport [Port Augusta, South Australia].  However, some of the rarer opals were translucent and iridescent, too; rainbow opals [crystal opals] which showed every hue known to man.

If the Maori valued paua, surely they would revere rainbow opals all the more.

Better, as far as he was concerned, the Nedlandj did not seem to care at all for opals.  Their price remained largely unchanged since before the coming of the Raw Men.  Trading for opals – especially rainbow opals – still demanded a price, but not an impossibly high one.

Tjirubal had taken the Dawn Hunter to Dogport and secured some opals, a few rainbow, the rest solid, for his ship’s cargo.  Then to Dabuni [Hobart] in the Cider Isle [Tasmania].  War still raged there between Tjunini and Kurnawal, but that mattered little for his purposes.  Tjirubal had recruited a Maori-speaking Kurnawal to serve as an interpreter.  He had to pay a stiff price to find someone willing to visit Maori in Aotearoa, but that had been as he expected.

What he had not expected was for a priest to ask to join the voyage to Aotearoa.  Priests visited the Cider Isle fairly regularly, of course, and would regularly claim right of passage on any visiting Nangu vessel to come home.  Yet it was a rare priest who would want to visit further afield, especially to a place as distant as Aotearoa.

Whatever his reasons, the priest had claimed a place on the Dawn Hunter, and what true Nangu could refuse such a request?  Having a priest on any voyage was a blessing.

The priest was an odd fellow: tall, bearded like the Atjuntja or the Beard himself, and who said little apart from leading the crew in the dawn and dusk prayers.  Who had ever heard of a quiet priest?  Still, the priest had a sense of humour: whenever asked his name, he just said “Call me Bana [Nameless].”

As if called by Tjirubal’s thoughts of him, the priest came to the front of the left prow, just behind Tjirubal.  True to form, Bana said nothing for a time, just watched the white clouds ahead build in size as the Dawn Hunter neared Aotearoa.

Soon enough, land appeared off the right as the ship sailed further east.  Tjirubal did not need to order the helmsman to come closer and follow it; he had made sure that he recruited decent sailors before beginning his voyage.

“How will you know when you reach Ngamotu?” the priest asked.

Polite as always to a priest, Tjirubal said, “The port has four or five small islands just off the coast [5].  Coming from the west, we will see them just before we reach there.”

Bana smiled.  “Then you need only convince the Maori themselves to welcome you.”

“It can be done,” Tjirubal said.  Any Nangu knew of the Maori reputation for bellicose hostility to outsiders, but trade still happened.  He did not trouble himself to explain to the priest that he had chosen Ngamotu because the Maori here were said to be more open than most; some of them even followed the Seven-fold Path.

Bana shook his head.  “With boldness comes reward.  If others have not already claimed the reward.  Will they know your bloodline?”

“I don’t know,” Tjirubal said.  The Dawn Hunter announced his bloodline to the world, of course.  The triangular sail was dyed in Kalendi colours: a base of scarlet, divided into four uneven quarters by two crossed lines of undyed white.  But who could say how much the Maori here knew about the Island and its bloodlines?  “If they don’t, I’ll gladly tell them.”

Bana chuckled, then went back to watching the coast.

Before much longer, the first of the promised islands appeared: pyramids of dark rock rising out of the sea, partly covered in trees, with waves breaking against their shores.  “We draw near,” he said, then whispered a quiet prayer of thanks to Turnong for the inspiration that brought him here.

Past the islands, the Dawn Hunter tacked into Ngamotu.  A small town had been built up along the harbour.  Most prominently, a wharf had been built out to sea.

Could that be a bad sign?  Maori boats were designed for hauling straight up onto the beach.  So were standard Nangu ships.  The only vessels large enough to require a wharf were Nangu great-ships or Raw Men fluyts.  And yet the Maori had built a wharf here.  Were foreign visitors a regular sight at Ngamotu?

The sight of the wharf almost made him wish that he had earned the right to command a great-ship.  That would let him carry larger cargoes, and, of course, profits.  Still, that was not a good wish to make.  The only way he would be given a great-ship now would be if the vendetta which consumed the Kalendi had claimed yet another high-status victim, and that he had been promoted despite youth and without due accomplishment.

Perhaps if his voyage here succeeded, and he turned this into a regular trade route, that might be enough to earn him a promotion.

If the wharf was there, though, he would use it.  A brief order saw that the Dawn Hunter was brought alongside the wharf.  The Maori must expect visitors to use it, if any came.  Certainly, they kept a watch on the sea, for a group of Maori had gathered at the end of the wharf.

Tjirubal was first onto the wharf, Bana right behind, and the interpreter third.  As he walked closer, he saw that the Maori were clearly warriors.  All men, with curving black lines tattooed onto their faces, and carrying spears or similar weapons.

“Now we find out if they will welcome us or kill us,” Tjirubal said.

--

[1] To Europeans and other outsiders, gold is a more valuable commodity than sandalwood, particularly Aururian sandalwood (which is viewed as inferior to the Indian variety).  To eastern Aururians, though, the reverse holds true; sandalwood, used by Gunnagal perfume makers amongst others, is harder to obtain than gold which can be mined in abundance in several locations.

[2] The Nangu word which is best translated ship refers to the older style of Nangu vessels: twin-hulled, lateen-rigged, shallow-draft vessels with a steering oar rather than the newer rudders.  The Nangu mostly use these ships for shorter voyages between the Island and nearby destinations like the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] or Jugara [Victor Harbor, the main trading port for the Five Rivers], while the larger great-ships are used for longer distance voyages.  Even the basic Nangu ships are still quite seaworthy, though, and capable of undertaking a voyage to Aotearoa.

[3] As it happens, Tjirubal is wrong about that.  Bronze is still in sufficient demand amongst the Maori, and the voyage across the Gray Sea [Tasman Sea] sufficiently challenging, that any trader who can bring bronze to Aotearoa can still earn a decent profit.  The real difficulty is in establishing a trading relationship with the Maori, who are so often hostile to outsiders.

[4] Paua is the Maori name for several species of abalone (principally Haliotis iris) which have particularly iridescent mother-of-pearl inside their shells.  Both historically and allohistorically, the Maori favoured paua for adornment and other decorative purposes.

[5] Historically, these are called the Sugar Loaf Islands, just offshore of New Plymouth.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #58: Preparing A Head Of Time

“The Bunditch [Bungudjimay] keep their heads during trouble.  That’s good.  The problem is that they keep other people’s heads too.”
- Quote attributed to William Baffin (possibly apocryphal) during his time in Daluming, 1636

--

Time of the Closure [August 1636]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming

Dawn in the Land of Gold; a time when the colour of the light matches the wealth of the land.

William Baffin kneels on the first level of the pyramid, as he stares upward at the towering levels of above him.  Each holds niche after niche filled with skulls and sealed in with glass.  A testament to a savage people.  This is no Egyptian-built pyramid.  Have some Mexicans brought their pagan human sacrifices across the Pacific?

He hears his sailors climbing up the stairs to join him, but another set of footsteps approach from the east.  Someone new.  A native.

Baffin stands, but finds that the newcomer is silhouetted against the dazzling sun.  He cannot see much of the man, save that he is tall and has the dark skin of a native Aururian.

The native speaks quickly in his own language, of which Baffin cannot understand a word, or even anything close to it.

His confusion must be apparent, for the native speaks again.  This time in the Islander language, of which Baffin knows but a little.  Enough, though, to understand the few words the native speaks.

“Greetings, you who come at the end of the world.”

*

“Be diligent.  Observe everything.  Remember all.  Report all that is important,” said Ilangi the priest.  He sounded as if he were hissing.  But then he always sounded like that.  Most priests did.

“I will,” Keajura said simply.  Worthless to argue.  The priests expected a miracle, but they should have asked one of the ancestral heads at the Mound of Memory or in the western mountains.  Keajura was merely a still-living man.

Oh, he had a gift, one the priests knew about, but they always expected that gift to be greater than it was.

Keajura had a talent for learning languages quickly.  A son of a minor chieftain of the Jubula people, he had been born in Anaiwal [Armidale] to the west.  As a young man he had been among the hostages brought to Yuragir to ensure the good behaviour of the newly-conquered subjects.  While a hostage, he had demonstrated his gift by learning the Bungudjimay language so fluently that he was often mistaken for a member of that people.

Bungudjimay priests were sharp, in some ways, and they soon recognised his gifts.  While still young, he had been given duties as an interpreter.  Duties which endured as the weeks turned into months and now into years.  No longer was he quite a hostage, but nor was he permitted to return to his homeland.  A priest much like Ilangi had said, in his usual hissing way, that someone of his gifts and rank could not be allowed to return to threaten Daluming rule with revolt.

In truth, Keajura found that he preferred life here in Yuragir.  He would inherit no rank, but there were many other benefits.  Comfort, food, wealth, all were here in abundance in the heart of the kingdom.  Best of all, Bungudjimay women favoured those who had a gift for words.  So long as he was careful never to touch a weapon, then his gift and reputation ensured his safety even from the even most challenge-mad Bungudjimay warrior.

He still served as an interpreter.  He had learned the Kiyungu language from a couple of their women who had been brought from the north as captives, and who found his protection useful.  Of course, many interpreters had learned the Kiyungu language.  More recently, and with more difficulty, he had learned the Islander language from their sporadic visits.

Now, the priests expected him to understand the pink men’s language simply by hearing a few words of it.  A gift he had, but miracles were not his forte.

“What tongue do they speak?” Keajura asked.

“Some few words of the Islander tongue,” Ilangi said.  “So say those who met them at the Mound of Memory, where they came with the dawn.  But they speak another language amongst themselves.”  He did not quite say you will learn their language immediately, but his expectations were clear.

“I will go to them,” Keajura said.  No point to staying longer and letting the priest make his demands for a miracle more explicit.

The pink men had been brought to the largest feast hall in the palace.  A place filled with large tables occupied by a swirling, rowdy mixture of warriors, priests, and other royal hangers-on.  On occasion the king would even come here himself, though not when outlanders were present.  Even most of his own subjects would rarely get such a close glimpse of their revered monarch.

The pink men were easily recognised, and not just from the odd unfinished colour of their skins.  In a hall filled with noise and celebration, the outlanders were almost silent.  Keajura took a vacant seat close to them – left empty by priestly order, no doubt – and studied them more closely.

Their clothing was distinctive: white ruffled collars that covered half their shoulders and overlaid tight-fitting clothes of black and red, made of some strange fabric, and which covered arms and legs entirely, leaving only hands unclothed.  Their hair was remarkable too, some brown, some the colour of sand, and some, strangest of all, nut-red in hue.

The first servants appeared, bringing food for the guests alone, while the others simply spoke and drank.  An odd practice, but then Keajura was not exactly sure what status the priests were giving these new pink men.  Honoured guests?  Captives?  Warriors about to be blooded?  Even the priests did not know, he suspected.  Looking forward to the Closure for your whole life was one thing.  Reaching it was another altogether.

Keajura had planned simply to observe the pink men for a time while they ate, to learn what he could.  Yet before the outlanders started eating, one of them looked over at him and made an unmistakable come-here gesture.  Odd to see that some things remained common no matter where men came from; he had seen the same gesture made both by Kiyungu and Islanders.

The outlander who had called him over was one with the nut-red coloured hair.  Clean-shaven, or almost so, with perhaps a day’s growth.  His clothing had the same ruffled collar and full sleeves and leggings as the rest, but with more decoration than most of his fellows.  Their priest, perhaps, or maybe their lord.

The outlander spoke in the Islander tongue.  Awkwardly, with hesitations and mispronounced words, but his meaning was usually clear.  “You here to... watch us?”

“To guide you,” he said.  He almost added and learn your language, but restrained himself.

“Good.  I name Wilyembatin.”

“Keajura son of Ngamunda.”

“What this land called?” the outlander asked.

“Daluming.  The lands of King Otella.”

Wilyembatin frowned, as if he had not understood such simple words.  However much of the Islander tongue this man thought he had learned, it was not adequate.

“What land do your people come from?”

“Inglund.  We serve... Company.”  Keajura repeated the foreign word, the first he had heard of the Inglund tongue.

Wilyembatin had a brief discussion with one of his neighbours, who looked as if he spoke more of the Islander tongue.  Yet it was Wilyembatin who spoke again.  “Association.”

“Does your association forbid you from eating?”  Keajura gestured to the still untouched food.

“No.  Not sure what food is or... rules when men eat,” Wilyembatin said.

That showed more cunning that most visitors; any Kiyungu brought to Daluming would immediately any food put in front of them.  “Others will not eat at the same time as you.  They are not sure yet what rank you have, so will not know whether to eat at the same time or later.”

Wilyembatin started to speak, stopped, then had another colloquy with his neighbour, repeating Islander phrases a couple of time between themselves.  “What rank do we have here?”

“You are outlanders.  I cannot say.”  The priests would have to decide that.  Let them make whatever choice pleased them.  It was them who believed in the Closure, in that time when all that was needed would be completed.  However much Keajura enjoyed life in Yuragir, in his own heart he still prayed to Eagle and Goanna, not to the heads of other people’s ancestors.

Wilyembatin still looked perplexed, so Keajura gestured to the food.  “Eat.  It is for you.”

Wilyembatin spoke briefly to his companions again in their own language.  It was too long simply to be an instruction to eat.  Which also meant that, for now, Keajura had still only learned one word of their Inglund language.

The pink men started eating, almost as one.  Wilyembatin stopped after the first mouthful.  “This good.  Very good.  What it?”

“Fish fried in linseed oil [1],” Keajura said.  The fish was flathead [2], but he did not know the Islander word for it, and he doubted the name would mean much to the Inglund people.  “Spiced with sweet peppers and lemon myrtle.”

“Very good,” the outlander captain repeated, then went back to finishing the fish, with obvious relish.

Keajura stayed quiet while they ate the first course, listening to their occasional chatter amongst themselves.  He was not learning words, yet, but it let him familiarise himself with the sounds of their language.  And it was alien; it had sounds which no other tongue contained.  He suspected that Wilyembatin was not exactly how that man said his own name, either, but learning to pronounce it properly would take time [3].

The next course arrived in due time.  He announced without being asked.  “Noroon [emu] meat, roasted and flavoured with lemongrass and white ginger [4].”  He started to explain that the hot drink being served with it was jeeree [lemon-scented tea], but stopped when he saw that Wilyembatin already knew what it was.

Wilyembatin ate a little, and his face spoke for itself of his regard for the food.  This time, he got his more fluent neighbour to ask questions.  The other outlander said, “This food is splendid.”

“The palace has some fine cooks,” Keajura said.  Most of them were in fact captives like himself, brought in from the western highlands or from the north.  The Bungudjimay appreciated fine food, even if they often did not know how to cook properly.

“No doubt,” the outlander said.  “But even then, we have tasted these spices elsewhere in this land, and they have not been so flavoursome.”

“In the far west?” Keajura said, and the other man shook his head.

“What you have eaten in the west, that is what we trade to westerners after it has been dried for storage.  That must be done with spices if they are to be traded.  But those we use in the palace are fresh, grown in the highlands and brought quickly down the river.  The taste is better when fresh.”

“So I must agree,” the outlander said, then he and his fellows went back to eating the meal.

The third course came in time.  “Kumara [sweet potato] chunks, roasted with caramelised sweet gum [wattle gum] flavoured with cinnamon myrtle and strawberry gum leaves,” he said.  The sweetest part of the meal, and his favourite.

Wilyembatin did not start on this part of the meal, though.  He gave Keajura a long glance, then said, “If you guide us, what most important that we know?”

Keajura considered that for a moment, then lowered his voice.  No telling if others around also knew the Islander tongue.  “If anyone here asked you whether you have killed a man, say no.  Always say no.”

--

[1] The Aururian linseed oil is grown from native flax (Linum marginale).  Much like common flax, some cultivars of this plant have been grown for fibre, but others – particularly on the eastern seaboard – have been selected for large, oil-rich seeds.

[2] This species of fish is dusky flathead (Platycephalus fuscus), which lives in estuaries, of which there are several around Yuragir / Coffs Harbour.

[3] Keajura is experiencing difficulties because native Aururian languages, like their historical equivalents, almost entirely lack some classes of consonants which occur in most other languages (including English).

The main examples of these are fricative (and pseudo-fricative) consonants, which among others include sounds represented in English by “h”, “s”, “f” and “th”.  Aururians tend to mishear these sounds as other consonants which are more familiar to them.  For example, Keajura pronounces “Baffin” more or less as “Batin”.

[4] Lemon-scented grass (Cymbopogon ambiguus) is a relative of common lemongrass (various Cymbopogon species), and has similar flavour and culinary uses.  Native ginger (Alpinia caerulea) is a plant whose various parts can be used for different spices.  The one which has been used here is the crushed fruit and seeds, which has a pleasantly sour taste and is used in Daluming cuisine both for its flavour and for the visual effect of the red hue it adds to food.

--

Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #3: A Christmas Beverage

In keeping with the LoRaG tradition of Christmas specials, here is a brief exploration of one allohistorical Christmas tradition...

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From: “Blue Wine, Good Time: The Making of a Christmas Tradition”

Wine that bubbles and sparkles is nowadays considered by most connoisseurs to be the finest and most deserving of wines.

This was not always so.  The effervescence of bubbling wines is caused by carbon dioxide dissolved in the wine, making it fizz and sparkle when opened.  The properties of some wines to effervesce were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, if not earlier.

For many centuries, this quality of wines was thought a fault, not a blessing.  Lacking glass with the strength to withstand the pressure of bubbling wine, effervescing wine created an occupational hazard for medieval winemakers.  Bottles that bubbled could explode, and set off a chain reaction amongst neighbouring bottles that could destroy an entire wine cellar.  To say nothing of the risks to the winemakers themselves.

Since medieval times, wine from the Champagne region was known for its tendency to lightly bubble.  The reason, though local vintners did not know it for centuries, was because the cold winters of Champagne would stop fermentation in the stored wine.  When warmed up again in spring, or after transportation to more temperate climes, fermentation would restart inside the bottles, creating the effervescence.  And, in some cases, exploding bottles.

Champagne vintners detested bubbling wine, and sought techniques to stop it.  In England, though, imported Champagne wines were noted for their effervescence, and became popular for it.

Two men were the catalyst for transforming this desire into the creation of proper bubbling wines.  The first, Sir Robert Mansell, was an English admiral and parliamentarian.  In the early seventeenth century, he used his political connections to obtain a monopoly on English glass-making, and pioneered the establishment of glass factories which used sea coal rather than wood or charcoal in glass-making.  Glass bottles made in this manner were strong enough to withstand the pressure of bubbling wine.

The second man, Christopher Merret, was an English physician, scientist, and industrial pioneer.  As well as practicing medicine, Merret studied botany, agriculture, metallurgy, glassmaking, and mining.  Despite his varied interests, his most important achievement was his study of the process of effervescence in wine.  Merret found that the bubbling quality of wine was caused by the presence of sugar left in the bottle, and that adding sugar to a wine before bottling could turn any wine into a bubbling wine.

These discoveries set the scene for good bubbling wine.  This would first, and most famously, be taken up in the Champagne region.  During the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century, bubbling Champagne wine became a favourite of royalty and aristocracy in France and England alike.

For a long time, the very name Champagne became synonymous with bubbling wine; in some countries it still is.  The manufacture of bubbling wine quickly spread beyond the Champagne region, to elsewhere in Europe, and in time to other winemaking regions around the globe.  For the story of blue wine, however, what matters is when the craft of effervescent winemaking spread to Spain...

The practice of adding spices to wine was ancient in Europe.  Wine – or other alcoholic beverages such as cider or mead – were often heated and mixed with spices or fruit.  Anciently called Hipocris after the physician Hippocrates, in England they came to be called mulled wine.

Essential to making mulled wine is the process of heating it.  The process which led to blue wine, however, came from another tradition entirely.  One which did not rely on heating wine, but rather on adding choice, piquant flavours from spices alone.

In ancient Aururia, grapes were not known, and the alcoholic beverage of choice was ganyu, made from fermented yams.  Yam “wine” in itself has little flavour, and the early Aururian brewers added the crushed pulps of local limes to the yams before fermentation, producing the basic flavour of ganyu.  Different varieties of ganyu were further flavoured by combinations of the varied spices of the Great Spice Land, leading to a distinctive culture of local spiced beverages which continues in Aururia to the present day.

The road which led to blue wine started when some Aururian brewers adopted another fruit to flavour their wines.  Instead of using their local limes, the Aururians turned to a plant which they called yolnu, but which is better known nowadays as the wineberry [1].

Wineberries are sweet, but not cloyingly so.  While small as berries go, their distinctive flavour and sweetness proved an excellent accompaniment to regular ganyu, and in some brewing cultures, replaced the local limes entirely.  Interestingly, wineberries exist in both red and blue forms, both of which give similar sweetness, but lend different colours to the finished beverage.  The early Aururians seem to have chosen the blue variety as much for its colour as for any other reason.

Blue ganyu spread throughout much of the continent, and developed the same local varieties as other beverages.  The form which would become most popular, however, developed around the Lower Nyalananga.  Using imported spices, the local brewers created a flavour that would be treasured around the world: aniseed verbena and cinnamon verbena in roughly equal proportions, with a small portion of lemon verbena.

While blue ganyu itself became an exported product from Aururia to the world, the tale of blue wine is the story of how wineberries and spiced wine-making knowledge was brought from Aururia to Catalonia...

Medieval Champagne vintners had tried adding elderberries to their wine to improve the flavour.  History does not record whether this practice was remembered and gave inspiration to adopt the Aururian practice of flavouring wine with berries.  For whatever the reason, in Catalonia the vintners turned to this practice after the importation of wineberries from Aururia.

The first European wineberries were grown in the Penedés region of Catalonia, along the banks of the River Foix.  The distinctive colour and flavour of “Penedés blue” became noted throughout Europe by the early eighteenth century, even before the Penedés farmers started using imported Aururian spices to create premium spiced wines.

In 1721, a rich vintner named Bartomeu Gavarró i Berdugo, whose vineyards were near the village of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia [2], successfully imported the first verbena trees, and began their cultivation.  The hills of the Alt Penedés region turned out to have sufficient rainfall to sustain production of productive verbena trees, and within a few years Gavarró’s vineyards were producing Penedés blue flavoured by fresh rather than imported spices.  The new vintage was still expensive, but did not require the same massive premium demanded by wines flavoured from imported spices.

The culmination of true blue wine production came when knowledge of effervescent Champagne-style wines came together with Aururian-style spiced wine to produce the greatest of modern beverages.  The first recorded deliberate creation of bubbling blue wine is in 1786, when vintners in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia are described as adding sugar to blue wine before bottling and exporting the completed bubbling blue to the Algarve.  Like spiced blue wines before them, effervescent blue wines soon took Europe by storm...

Only a few favoured locations in the world possess in close proximity the right microclimates needed to produce blue wine.  A region must have three locales, the first warm and moist enough to grow the fresh spices needed to flavour the wine, the second warm and moderately humid to grow the grapes, and the third warm and dry enough to produce a good wineberry harvest.

Connoisseurs usually agree that Spanish blue wine from Penedés (Catalan blue) or La Rioja (Castilian blue) is the premier blue wine.  The closest competitor is Kuyal Valley [Hunter Valley, NSW] blue wines from Aururia.  A few other regions also produce noteworthy blues, with California and the Cape being perhaps the most well-known...

Like knowledge of creating bubbling wine, understanding of the merits of blue wine for Christmas began in England.  In mid-nineteenth-century England, the wealthiest technocrats took to imbibing premium Castilian blues as an appropriate toast for the turning of Christ’s Mass.  As production of blue wine increased, so the tradition spread throughout the British dominions, and in time to much of the world.

Today, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good Castilian blue will not lack for company over Christmas...

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[1] This plant is the one known historically as ruby saltbush (Enchylaena tomentosa).  In its wild form, it is a small shrub that grows in semiarid areas, and like many Aururian plants is tolerant of drought and poor soils.  It produces foliage which is readily eaten by grazing animals, and also produces sweet but rather small berries.

Ruby saltbush has different domesticated forms grown either for their agricultural properties or as berry-producing varieties.  The berry-producing cultivars have much larger berries than their wild relatives.  The agricultural versions have larger leaves, and take advantage of the saltbush’s ability store salt in its leaves, and are thus very useful for desalinating any over-irrigated, salinised soil.

[2] Historically, the village of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia is in the centre of one of the most productive Spanish wine-producing regions, and is the centre of cava (Spanish champagne) production in Catalonia.

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Lands of Red and Gold #59: Balancing Choices

“Ki te kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi.”  (Without foresight or vision the people will be lost.)
- Maori proverb

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19 May 1637
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]

Sometimes the Balance merely involves weighing two almost equally unpalatable alternatives, Nardoo thought.

The choice to join the Dawn Hunter on its voyage to Aotearoa had been one of those occasions.  There, one option had been to stay at home on the Big Island [Tasmania] and risk being levied into joining the ever more bitter war with the accursed Tjunini.  With the war going on so long, the risk of conscription was great.  The other option had been to accept the invitation to act as an interpreter on the voyage.  A long voyage across the seas, on a smaller Islander ship and with an impossibly young captain.

Nardoo had prayed and taken counsel with his wife, the one person he could trust to keep his dilemma secret.  He had not dared to seek advice even from his priest; a lack of courage was one thing he would never admit.

In time, he had decided that the sea offered a less bad choice.

So here he was, having survived the first half of the voyage, about to step foot onto a jetty in Aotearoa.  Another choice of two unpalatable alternatives.  Stay on the ship and be known as a coward, or step onto the land and risk the fickle hospitality of the bloodthirsty Maori.

This choice resolved itself more quickly; he did not want to admit cowardice.  So he became the third member of the ship’s complement to stand on the jetty, with the captain and the priest in front of them, and Maori warriors waiting on the shore.

“Now we find out if they will welcome us or kill us,” the captain said.

Thank you for the reassurance, captain, Nardoo thought.  Fear gave him enough urging to speak, though.  “Remember what I have said, captain.  Go down on one knee.  Ask to speak to the ariki iwi [king], or his kin, to seek permission to enter his dominions.  And offer your gift in recognition of his mana.”

The captain would have to say those words, too, not just let Nardoo interpret.  Some Maori might know the Islander tongue.

Young the captain might be, but he had at least the rudiments of wisdom.  At the end of the jetty, the captain went down on his right knee and gave his introduction.  “I am Tjirubal of the Kalendi, captain of the Dawn Hunter, from the Island.  I ask for the permission of the ariki iwi to sojourn in his lands, and to offer certain items in trade.  In recognition of his mana, I offer this gift.”

The captain held out a small cast bronze figurine of the Rainbow Serpent.

A disrespectful choice, that.  Not for the Maori themselves, whose lust for bronze was legendary on the Big Island.  But a poor choice all the same, because the figurine would not be properly revered.  The Maori valued bronze too much, and they did not know the true faith.  They would melt down the figurine and use its bronze for some other purpose.  The captain should know better; he was a good Plirite from the Island itself.

No-one showed any signs of understanding the captain’s words, so Nardoo translated.

One of the Maori warriors took the figurine.  “Your gift is accepted, in the name of ariki iwi Arapeta.  Who is the other man who stands behind Tjirubal?”

When that was translated, the priest said, “Tell them that I honour the mana of Arapeta son of Naeroa, whose name and deeds are known even across the sea in Toka Moana [Australia].”

Nardoo said, “They have asked for your name.”

The priest smiled.  “Tell them to call me Nameless.”

“Are you mad?” Nardoo asked, shock pushing him to show discourtesy even to a priest.  “You would insult the Maori king by refusing to give your name?”

“Do not translate it, then.  Just use the word,” the priest said.

What makes the priest take such a risk?  Like any good Kurnawal, Nardoo found an unsolved puzzle something that nagged at him, but he did not have time to consider this one.  In the Maori language, he said, “This is Bana [Nameless], a priest of the Sevenfold Path.”  He translated the rest of the priest’s words.

The Maori warrior appeared unoffended.  Fortunate.  “Come.  We will bring you to the marae.”

About half of the dozen or so Maori warriors started to walk ahead of them into the town.  Nardoo, the captain and the priest followed them, and then the rest of the warriors took a position behind.

Maori crowded the town of Ngamotu: men, women and children, young and old, high and low status.  Nardoo had met plenty of Maori traders when they visited Dabuni [Hobart, Tasmania], and had believed he knew what they looked like.  Light-skinned, usually armed, faces tattooed with swirling lines, and usually decorated with pendants or other artefacts of their favoured greenstone [jade].

Now, he saw more.  Only a few Maori they passed had tattooed faces; mostly men, and those were the ones who were armed.  They had more decorations too; not just greenstone, but feathers in their heads, or ornaments of bronze or, in one case, gold.  The other Maori were dressed in simpler clothes: skirts or kilts and cloaks woven from that marvellous kind of flax which grew on Aotearoa, but with fewer patterns or colours to mark their rank.

The warriors led them up a sloping road, until they arrived at a large open area paved with stones, bordered with wooden posts, and surrounded by large buildings on three sides.  Nardoo had an impression of strange figures carved into the front of each building, but returned his gaze to the single man waiting for them in the centre of the open space.

A Maori chieftain; that much was obvious.  The man’s only item of clothing was a kilt belted around his waist, with no particular decoration.  He wore ornamentation, though: a large carved pendant and earrings of greenstone, and gold bracelets on each wrist.  More than his ornamentation, though, his bearing was that of a man used to being obeyed.

Nardoo kept behind the captain and the priest as they stopped in front of the chieftain.  One of the warriors handed over the serpent figurine, then the chieftain said, “I am Riwha Titokowaru, kin to ariki iwi Arapeta.  Why have you come to the lands of the Ngati Apa iwi?”

The captain went down on one knee.  “I am Tjirubal of the Kalendi, captain of the Dawn Hunter, from the Island.  I have come to sojourn in the lands of the Ngati Apa, if it please the ariki iwi.  I wish to talk of many things, of this iwi and its deeds, and to trade in gemstones and dyes and other items, if it please the ariki iwi.”

“Many have come from your Island before and seek to trade,” Riwha said.  “Few have been permitted to remain.  These are the lands of the Ngati Apa, where we honour our ancestors, and we have this land in our bones [1].  Why should we allow you to stand on our land?”

“While many may have come to trade, I have brought gems and dyes from far away.  They cannot be found in the Cider Isle or any of the places in Toka Moana where the Maori visit to trade.”

The priest added, “And because I wish to hear more of the deeds of Arapeta son of Naeroa and his ancestors, back to Ruatea who came in his great canoe from Hawaiki.”

The chieftain was silent for a long moment after Nardoo translated.  Eventually, he said, “Tell them I am ready to show my choice.”

Nardoo said, “The chieftain has decided.  Take position for their challenge, and remember what I told you: remain on one knee for the entire time.  Hand over your knives, hilt first, when the challenge is finished.  A warrior will take them.  If the chieftain hands them back hilt first, you are under the king’s protection and may rise and be welcomed.”

“And if we are not welcome?” the captain asked, as he went down on one knee.

“He will drop your knives on the ground and withdraw.  If he does, he says that the only way you can remain here is by force of arms.”

“So be it,” the captain said.

The Maori warriors took places around the chieftain.  Twelve warriors, standing in two rows.  Three on each side of the chieftain in the first row, with the remaining six in a second row behind, spaced so that all of them could be seen.

The warriors began the haka, the challenge [2].  Thirteen men moving in rhythmic unison, chanting words of ritualised challenge.  Arms were folded and unfolded, placed into several positions, accompanied by regular stamping of booted feet onto the stone.  All of the men moved at the same time, even when not performing exactly the same movements.

All designed to be intimidating, Nardoo knew, and with good reason.  If the captain and the priest were intimidated, though, they did not show it.  Also good, since showing weakness now might make the chieftain decide against admitting them, even if he had previously been minded to grant them permission.

The warriors moved slowly forward, stamping their feet as they came.  Two of them, either side of the chieftain, stepped forward as one to take the knives which the Islanders held out.  They stepped back, then with one final shout, all of the warriors brought their legs together and stood motionless.

The chieftain took the knives from the two warriors beside them, stepped forward, then held them out to the Islanders, hilt first.

“You are under the protection of ariki iwi Arapeta.”

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[1] Riwha is speaking literally here: the Maori word iwi literally means “bones”.  Its use derives from the fact that the Maori bury their ancestors and honour their bones.

[2] Nardoo does not quite understand the Maori word here.  Haka is the Maori name (both historical and allohistorical) for a number of ritualised dances, not all of which are challenges.  Haka can be used as acknowledgements, as formal welcomes, for funerals, and for other purposes besides challenges.

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Lands of Red and Gold #60: Heart of Glass, Heart of Stone

“What sacrifice of mankind and blood unbound has brought Mexicans to this fatal shore?”
- William Baffin, recorded in the journal of his voyage to Aururia, 1636

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Time of the Closure [August 1636]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming

A clamour of voices.  A crowding of many priests, from lowly skull-polisher to the Father [high priest] himself, mixed with men of the court.  Speaking out of turn, over each other, heedless of rank or propriety.

All most strange.  Against fortune, against custom.  But then, who could expect decorum to be honoured when the end of the world drew near?

Ilangi the priest said little, letting the multi-speaker, disjointed conversation wash over him.  He saw little accomplishment in speaking.  Not until he had something worth saying.  Some times were made for declaration, some for proper thought.  Most of the men in the throne room mistook this time for the former.

Significantly, King Otella said nothing for a long time, too.  Content to listen and inform himself, perhaps.  The monarch was a difficult man to anticipate.

Not that any man could predict what would happen at such a time.  A time of which much had been foretold, but none that could be confirmed.  A time that would bring change, and a future which might not even contain men any longer.

At length, the king extended one hand and gathered the staff of office from its resting place across his knees.  A simple staff of red-brown wood, carved fresh from an ironbark tree [1] at the start of His Majesty’s reign.  As were all staves of office.  Only the head of the staff was preserved: gold carved into the shape of a miniature skull, its eye sockets inset with a blue sapphire and a white pearl, symbolising the Blue and White Lands.

The more alert courtiers and priests saw that His Majesty had taken up his staff, and fell silent.  The less alert, and the more stupid – those often being the same men – kept talking.  Until the king said, not over-loudly, “Attend me.”

Absolute silence descended soon thereafter.  The king was merciful compared to some of his predecessors, and was not known to have had men executed over trivialities.  But only an utter fool would knowingly test the limits of the royal patience.

“How many niches in the Mound of Memory are yet unfilled?” Ortella said.

The Father said, “Twenty-three.”

No-one added, but Ilangi knew, that those few niches remained unfilled because the priestly hierarchy had become ever more vigilant in assessing any new heads for suitability.  Most had been rejected, over the past couple of years.  He had presided over several such judgments himself, and invariably found that those who sought a place in memory were unworthy.

That practice had caused its own problems.  Where rejection of a head had been rare, now it had become commonplace.  The remaining few niches could only hold those of the uttermost quality, but that simple truth had been difficult to grasp amongst the warriors.  His Majesty may have heard whispers of the discontent that caused, but that would not come from the priests.  Their role was to protect His Majesty from any who would interfere with his divine duty.

“So few, out of so many,” the king said.  “Selecting who could fill the remainder must have required great diligence.”

The Father bowed, neatly avoiding answering.  An astute practice, when reading the royal mood was ever more difficult.

“Even when a head deserves memory, it need not always be on the Mound,” the king said.

The décor of the throne room proved that.  The walls held many niches too, skulls which had been placed here over the years for one reason or another.  Being of royal blood ordinarily entitled a man to be preserved on the Mound upon his death, but some chose to be honoured here instead.  Other niches had been filled with warriors’ heads to defend the monarch in death as they had in life.

Not that all the skulls in this room were from the worthy.  His Majesty casually sipped his ganyu [spiced yam wine] from the polished skull of the last would-be usurper who sought to claim the throne.  The crown of the skull had been smoothly sliced off and re-attached by bronze hinges, while glass had been set to fill the eye sockets, nasal cavity, and ear holes, and both to attach and seal the jaw.  The usurper had been denied Memory, but was still remembered.

“Identifying the worthy skull-bearers to fill the Mound is a formidable task,” the Father said.

“And it has been yours,” the king said.  “So advise me.”

The Father’s face went smooth.  Too smooth.  Ilangi, who had long experience judging the moods of the senior priests, knew that this meant that the Father concealed reluctance to speak.  Surely due to not wanting to express a view contrary to the decision which the king had already made.  Death would be a rare punishment for the highest priest, but more than one previous incumbent of his office had found himself reassigned to spiritual duties in the western highlands for offering statements which the king did not want to hear.

“A time of change beckons.  That is inevitable, as legends and sacred writings foretell.  What is not foretold is what the People must do to ensure that we endure through the change.”

“That is truth, but not a path of action.  I keenly await your advice,” the king said.

“The Mound of Memory must sustain us,” the Father said.  “Its near-completion tells us that its purpose is nearly ready to implement, but it is still up to us to fill the remaining niches with the most worthy, so that the Mound can fulfill its destiny.  Surely most of the remaining niches must be filled by these raw men – or those capable of besting them.  It cannot be chance that these raw men have come now.”

“No.  Their arrival is fated.  The Closure is upon us,” the king said.

That produced a wide murmur of assent, as men prostrated themselves in recognition.  Ilangi was among them.  His heart started to beat faster.  He already knew that the end of the world drew knew, but hearing His Majesty’s declaration made it feel so much more real.

Otella casually lifted his staff, and quiet returned.  “But we still must know what role these raw men will play in the Closure.  What do they say they want?”

The Father looked to another man, the interpreter Keajura, who had spoken most with these raw men.  The interpreter said, “They babble of their Association and their desire for trade.”

“Trade!” the Father said.  “As if they are some mere Islanders who care more for baubles than for morals!”

The king remained quiet, leaving the Father to go smooth-faced again.  The highest priest turned back to the interpreter.  “Do these men truly say they have sailed from the other side of the world?”

The interpreter shook his head.  “They do.”

The Father said, “They have come at the Closure of the world, from the uttermost ends of the earth.  Surely they cannot be some mere merchants!”

Weenggina pushed forward to stand beside the Father.  Captain of the king’s guard, the man had a notorious reputation.  Nicknamed “Twelve-Man”, he had won twelve duels against other blooded warriors whose skulls now resided in the Mound.  Fortunately for the priests, Wennggina had not accepted any more duels since his appointment as captain; if he had fought and died, not even the most ardent priest could deny the man’s right to fill one of the remaining niches in the Mound.

“How many men have these Inglundirr killed?” Weenggina demanded.

“They deny having killed anybody, let alone a blooded warrior,” the interpreter said.  “To a man, they deny it.”

“Spoken like Islander cowards!” Weenggina said.  “Though even they have sometimes been persuaded to fight.”

The interpreter said, “The right words can persuade almost anyone to fight.  Particularly if spoken by a warrior carrying a very large sword.”

The king laughed.  Rather more than the interpreter’s small witticism deserved, to Ilangi’s mind, but he dutifully chuckled along with the rest of the court.

“If it please the king, I will challenge them personally,” Weenggina said.

“Your ardour befits you, as always, but that will not be necessary,” the king said.  He clicked the staff on the ground beside him three times.  I have decided, the action declared.

“These raw men will be instructed to name two champions to fight each other.  The winner will fight a blooded warrior, to determine who is worthy of the Mound.  If the raw men refuse to name champions, then blooded warriors will kill two of them, and those warriors may fight each other to determine who shall be added to the Mound.”

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[1] The grey ironbark tree, Eucalyptus paniculata, which has distinctive red-brown heartwood.  This wood is extremely hard and pest-resistant, and so is the wood chosen to carve the Daluming monarch’s staff of office.  Because of these qualities, it is rare that even the most long-reigning monarch would need to replace their staff of office during their lifetime.

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Lands of Red and Gold #61: A Time For Harmony

“Ta mal-pa Pliri, ni gapu-pa Bula Gakal-girri marang.”  (There is but one Harmony, and only the Sevenfold Path will give it balance.)
- The traditional affirmation of faith made by the Nangu school of Plirism

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May-December 1637
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]

Every land has its own rhythm.  Its own cycles, its own patterns and ways of conduct into which every man and woman would find themselves falling.  Cycles of months and years: the turning of the seasons, the collections of the harvest.  Cycles of proper times for conduct: times for festivals, times for restraint, a time for war, and a time for peace.  Cycles of life itself: birth to childhood to adolescence to adulthood to marriage, creation of a fresh generation, aging, death and finally rebirth.

Or so it seemed to Nameless the priest.  He had quickly found the rhythm of the Maori lands.  Even before he had learned much of their language and their ways, he found himself fitting into their rhythm.

Much of this land’s rhythm he found familiar.  So many crops and spices were the same: red yams, wealth-trees [wattles], murnong, sweet peppers, river mint, and many others.  The cycle of planting, tending and harvest was the same on both sides of the Gray Sea [Tasman Sea].  Ducks and noroons [emus] were the same too, both in their behaviour and their taste, though he missed the geese of the Cider Isle [Tasmania], especially food fried in goose fat.

Yet much of the land’s rhythm was strange, too.  Their rituals and worship were entirely alien: acknowledgement of their genealogy and bloodlines; long recitations of deeds, both their own and their ancestors; poetry both spoken and chanted to music; dances and music of most peculiar form.

Unusual, too, was how their entire town’s life focused around the open, paved area which they called the marae.  Everything except eating seemed to happen here: not just their rituals and dances, but everyday discussion of events, welcoming or rejection of visitors, the place to practice their crafts like their odd form of tattooing, and where they had held two weddings and one mass funeral that he had seen so far.

Or, rather, everything except eating and weaving.  Even on the Island, people knew of the superior form of flax which the Maori grew on Aotearoa.  On the Cider Isle, he had seen that textiles and rope woven from that flax were the major trade good which the Maori exchanged for bronze and spices.  Here in Aotearoa, he saw how it formed the largest part of their lives, at least for the women and slaves: cultivating and harvesting the flax was part of the rhythm of the seasons, while washing, bleaching, fixing, softening, dyeing and drying the completed fibres became part of the rhythm of many individual lives [1].

In all, living in Aotearoa had quickly shown Nameless that this land had its own rhythm and customs, and that the Maori used this to bring themselves into their own form of marang [balance].  Not a perfect balance, naturally; only the Sevenfold Path could bring that to a land.  But still, living here had reminded him that many peoples had part of the truth.

The Maori king and his chieftains here, for instance, considered it a mark of their mana to harshly punish someone who acted outside of their station.  Death could come quickly to anyone who transgressed the unwritten codes of Maori life.  A woman who spoke out of turn, a low-ranking person who failed to show proper respect, or a slave who committed even a minor infraction.  All of them could face death.

On the Island, or the Cider Isle, or any place which had learned much of the true path, death would be considered too severe an action.  Yet for all of that, all Maori understood their station in life.  They had grasped part of the Second Path, that everyone should act in accordance with tradition and station.

Indeed, it seemed to him that the Maori were closer to the truth than some other peoples.  Take the barbaric Atjuntja, as Nameless had discovered when he resided for a time in the Nangu Quarter of the White City [Albany, Western Australia].  The Atjuntja had grasped a little truth, no matter how they concealed it in their fables of Lord and Lady.  Even part had a pain in life, Nameless knew.  Some priests spoke of a world in perfect harmony as being one without pain, but he knew better.  Pain can help, or can be necessary, much as a Gunnagal physician caused pain when removing a diseased tooth.

The Maori, too, with their endless cycle of revenge and retribution, knew that every action has consequences.  What they had not yet learned – though perhaps he might teach them – was how to choose the best response.  Sometimes violence must answer violence, but at other times the answer would be not to respond.  The Maori had to balance their knowledge of the Second Path with the guidance of the First and Third Paths.

So Nameless had remained among the Maori to learn their ways, as he done among the Atjuntja and Kurnawal before them.  The weeks turned into months, and he found the rhythm of the land, and he learned.  The Kalendi had conducted their trade mission and gone, and while Nameless cared little for the minutiae of commerce, that young captain seemed to have done well for himself.  The captain had made various intimations that he or another Kalendi captain would return.  Perhaps they would; it did not matter.  There would be a way home if Nameless needed one.  There was always a way, for one who followed the Sevenfold Path properly.

When the Kalendi traders had departed, they took the interpreter Nardoo with them.  The interpreter was a coward – though he concealed it well enough that anyone who was not a priest might not recognise it – but still, the man had been very helpful in communicating with the Maori.  His departure left Nameless much more hard-pressed to understand the people of Aotearoa.

Nameless persisted, though.  He had never been a man to lose hope easily, and the Third Path dictated that an action, once commenced, should not be lightly abandoned.  He learned the Maori language as quickly as he could, aided by those here who knew something of the Nangu language.

Soon enough, he found himself in a position where he could give proper advice, to those who sought it.  A considerable number of people wanted his guidance.  For these Maori, who called themselves the Ngati Apa, had a surprising number of Plirites.  Distressingly, most of these adherents were men and women of lower classes.  That would never do, in the long run.  All must be Plirite for a society to be properly harmonious, but most notably the rulers.  The head controlled the body, and the rulers set the tone for the land.

None of which stopped him giving proper advice to all who asked.  Sadly, those who called themselves priests here were but half-trained locals, bereft of communication with other more experienced priests on the Island who could help them along the Seventh Path to improve their own understanding.  He found out, eventually, that the last Island-born priest had died five years before, and the people here had been lacking in guidance ever since.

Nameless had expected to be in a position to give advice to individuals.  Respectful of Maori custom, though, and mindful of the maxim that counsel is usually best given alone, at first he gave his instruction away from the marae.  What surprised him –though, on reflection, it should not have – was when the Maori started to call on him to speak during the discussions at the marae.

He struggled with that concept, at its inception.  A community needed to work together to be in proper harmony, but nonetheless the road to understanding was one each individual must tread alone, at their own pace.  But the Maori were much for speaking at the marae, at least for individuals who were deemed to have mana.  The Maori king eventually made his decisions privately – or in conference with his high kin – but he usually first informed himself by letting the high-ranking men and women of the community offer their views.

So, for all that it went against his preferences, Nameless adapted to the rhythm of this land, and began to speak at the marae, offering his counsel on matters as they arose.  He spoke at times of the Paths and how they offered guidance, though he was careful never to couch his views as absolutes, only as part of what would help the community reach understanding.  He offered choice quotes from Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road] where he found its eloquence greater than his own.

And the Maori listened.  Nameless was one voice among many, at first, but as he found more of the rhythm of this land, he found that his voice was heeded more and more.

One day, the marae saw a particularly vigorous debate about how to manage a dispute between two subkings.  Or ariki hapu, as the Maori called them [2].  Nameless offered his views, as he always did, about how best to avoid turning the dispute into a vendetta.  The debate ended, as it usually did, with King Arapeta withdrawing into the wharenui, the great hall which formed the more private part of his palace.  As normal, the king invited a number of the high-status speakers to join him.  More unusually, the invitation was extended to Nameless.

Inside the wharenui, the king said, “Tell me more about why you believe that I should end the conflict between Pomare and Henare Kaihau... equally, you say?”

“Without favouring one side over the other,” Nameless said.

One of the younger chieftains said, “A leader must be strong and reward those who show the greatest mana.”

The king held up a hand.  “Let Bana [Nameless] speak.  I would hear him.”

Nameless said, “Pomare and Henare Kaihau lead different hapu, but they are part of the same iwi.  Part of the same community.  Fighting between them only weakens the iwi as a whole.  Favouring one over the other would bring disharmony to the iwi.”

“If I order them to stop fighting, then their warriors will be deprived of war, of the chance to prove themselves and their deeds.  Do you say that warriors should not fight?” the king asked.

“Sometimes war is proper.  Sometimes it is not.  I have not heard anyone say what Pomare and Henare Kaihau have done that makes war proper, only that each fights because the other does.”

“Once the first blow is struck – for whatever reason – the other must respond,” the king said.

The lack of a clear explanation could only mean that no-one really knew which of the two hapu had the right of it.  Which was why this dispute must be ended.  “And then the other must respond to the second blow, and again and again.”

“That is how life works,” the same younger chieftain – Ngata – said.

“And so should they fight each other in perpetuity?” Nameless said.  “Both are of this iwi; if their hapu are weakened by endless warfare, the iwi is diminished.”

The king said, “And is this how your people solve disputes on your Island?”

Nameless said, “Sometimes.  Many things must be considered.  Feuds and vendettas are part of our history.”  More frequently than Nameless would have liked, in fact, but he glossed over that.  “Sometimes they are necessary.  Sometimes they are not.  And even when they are necessary, in time they must be ended.  Or the whole Island would be harmed.”

Ngata said, “A feud ends when one side concedes the superior mana of the other.”

“Or when the fighting between them goes on for so long that another iwi invades,” Nameless said.  “One who is not weakened by infighting between its hapu.”

The king gave Nameless a long, steady gaze.  The priest returned it calmly.  At length, the monarch said, “I would speak with the priest alone.”

After the others departed, the king said, “You held back many of your thoughts.  Speak plainly now.”

Nameless said, “What we have learned on the Island is that the response to a vendetta is one of the measures of a true leader, rather than a mere man who gives orders.  Sometimes vendettas must happen.  What marks a true leader is one who can determine when such feuds must end.  Sometimes a feud or raid must be done, for honour, to ensure that men learn that their actions have consequences.”

“And so?”

“What you must remember is the consequences of your own actions.  If those actions mean that what follows will be worse for you and the iwi who depend on you, that is when you must consider what must be done to end a vendetta.”

The king shook his head.  “I will consider this.”

Nameless bowed, and started to withdraw, until the king held up a hand.

“I would like to hear more of your Island, in the days ahead,” King Arapeta said.

Nameless almost offered to give the king a copy of The Endless Road, to let the king find out for himself.  Then he decided against it.  That book contained too much truth for the king to absorb at once.  Too many things which a Maori mind would need to unlearn, and to hear all of them at once might be too repelling.

Besides, he was not even sure if the king could read.  Some Maori could, but most did not.  The role of scribe was not particularly prestigious in this land, no matter how essential they were to running the kingdom.

Instead, Nameless said, “I will tell you more.”

--

[1] Historically, the Maori in Aotearoa made extensive use of textiles created from New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax and P. colensoi), creating everything from clothing to fishing nets to cooking utensils to baskets to cordage to lash together ocean-going canoes.  However, the plants were abundant enough that the Maori simply harvested what they needed from the wild; they rarely (if ever) cultivated the plants.  Despite this, cultivation of New Zealand flax is quite simple, and the plant has been established overseas as a fibre crop, e.g. the island of St Helena had an economy which was basically dependent on a monoculture of New Zealand flax for much of the twentieth century.

Allohistorically, the much higher population in Aotearoa means that the Maori have taken up active cultivation of New Zealand flax, and also conduct more slave raids to secure slaves to work it.  The greater demand means that the gender divide about working the plant has also been reduced; the historical Maori regarded weaving of flax as women’s work, and Maori men did not take up weaving flax until the development of an export trade in the nineteenth century.

[2] Each Maori iwi, or kingdom, is divided into a number of hapu (roughly translated as clans), which in turn are further subdivided into whanau (roughly translated as localities).  An ariki, or leader, rules each of these subdivisions: ariki whanau lead a locality, ariki hapu lead a clan of various whanau, and the ariki iwi is more or less a king.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #62: Heaven’s Mandate

Taken from Intellipedia.

Absolute Monarchy

Absolute monarchy or supreme monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the monarch wields supreme governing authority.  The monarch fills the role of head of state and head of government, with powers that are unrestricted by a constitution, law, or any other official constraints.  An absolute monarch possesses full sovereignty over both the state and its people.  Absolute monarchies are usually hereditary but other forms of succession are sometimes applied, such as elective (a designated body chooses the successor) or selective (the monarch chooses the successor).  Absolute monarchy contrasts with bound monarchy, where the monarch’s authority is constrained by a constitution or other legal or religious limits.

Notionally, an absolute monarch possesses supreme, unrestricted power over the land and the people.  Examples of such pure [questionable term: discuss] absolute monarchs are rare; in most instances the monarchy is still subject to political constraints from other social groups or classes, e.g. the aristocracy or clergy.

Some contemporary monarchies have ineffectual or façade legislatures or other governmental bodies which the monarch can remove or change without constraint...

Historical Examples

In the words of historian Matthew Perry: “The history of early modern Europe is the history of the transition from feudal contract to absolute monarchy.”

Among the most apt examples of an absolute monarch is James II of England [1], epitomised in his famous declarations: “I cannot break the law; I am the law.” and “In my heart, that is England.”  While some modern historians [who?] criticise him for his opulent lifestyle, he ruled England for nearly half a century, and he is widely recognised [dubious: discuss] for his achievements both domestic and foreign.

As King of England, he held in his person the supreme executive, legislative and judicial powers.  As head of state, he had the power to declare war and to raise war funds by any means he chose.  He was the ultimate judicial authority, with final right to condemn men to death with no appeal.  He considered it his duty to punish all crimes, and to prevent crimes being committed.  While advised by the Privy Council, he alone retained the power to enact and repeal legislation.

Absolutism in early modern Europe first found formal written expression in the 1656 Kongeloven (“King's Law”) of Denmark [2].  The Danish monarchy already exercised absolute authority in its realm of Rugen, where as King of the Vends he had no constraints on his authority.  The 1656 declaration extended this authority to all of the realms of Denmark and Norway, and ordered that the monarch “shall from this day forth be revered and considered the most perfect and supreme person on the Earth by all his subjects, standing above all human laws and having no judge above his person, neither in spiritual nor temporal matters, except God alone.”

Under this authority, the Danish monarch removed all other sources of power.  The most significant of these was the abolition of the Rigsraadet, the Danish Council of the Realm, which had been a long opponent of unfettered royal power.

However, testament to the limits of absolutism also came from Denmark.  Even an absolute monarch turned out to be not so absolute after all.  In the next year after the Kongeloven Declaration, King Ulrik sought to enforce his personal rule on the city of Bremen.  Bremen had historically been a free city within the Holy Roman Empire, but Denmark had claimed sovereignty over the city at the end of the Twenty Years’ War.  However, Bremen continued to hold itself to be a free city.  In response to the absolutist declaration, the city council of Bremen declared that it was a free imperial city, paid homage to the Emperor, and sought a seat and vote in the Imperial Diet.

King Ulrik responded by ordering a siege of Bremen to force the city to acknowledge his rule.  Heavily fortified, Bremen could not be easily conquered, and the city found support from the Netherlands and the Emperor, the one on the grounds of religion and commerce, the other on the grounds of imperial prestige, and the both on the grounds that Denmark already had too much power.  With imperial and Dutch troops on the border, Ulrik had to abandon the siege.  While Denmark did not yield its formal claim to absolute rule of Bremen along with its other territories, it did allow Bremen to remain de facto separate, with levels of taxes and duties paid that were minimal in comparison to the Danish norm, and the Emperor sought to preserve this peace by removing Bremen’s participation in the Diet.

Sweden under King Charles X instituted a form of government which was never formally called absolute monarchy, but which in practice conformed to that standard.  Under Charles X and his son Charles XI [3] all other centres of power were systematically removed or reduced to impotence.  The Riksrådet, the Swedish Council of the Realm, had served as a bastion of aristocracy with nobles who advised the monarch.  The institution was rarely called under Kristina and was dissolved by Charles X in 1672, replaced by a Royal Council of bureaucrats who advised and were chosen by the monarch, and served at his pleasure.  In 1675 the power of the aristocrats was further curbed by the Great Reduction which returned most of the noble estates to the Swedish crown.

The Swedish legislature, the Riksdag of the Estates, was not formally abolished, but became ineffectual because the Swedish monarchs treated it as having authority only in the pre-1618 borders, and not in the lands acquired during the Twenty Years’ War.  In the new territories, Sweden broke the power of the local aristocracy, with most of their lands falling under the rule of the monarchy, leading to Kristina and Charles X being absolute monarchs within those dominions, which comprised the majority of the population of the Swedish empire.  With these lands and resources at their command, Charles X and Charles XI reduced the Riksdag to a rubber stamp that approved their decisions, when they bothered to assemble the Estates...

For most of history, absolute monarchy found its theological underpinnings via the Divine Right of Kings.  European monarchs such as those of Russia claimed supreme power by divine right, with subjects having no rights to check monarchical authority.  The House of Stuart (James I, Charles I, and Charles II) imported this concept to England during the seventeenth century, leading to political dissension, rebellion, and ultimately the English Civil War during the reign of Charles II and the beginning of the era of English Absolutism.  However, Portugal [flagged for irrelevance: discuss] never had a period of absolute monarchy in early modern Europe [citation needed].

Even where the concept of Divine Right had been abandoned or become outmoded, except in Russia, absolute monarchs continued to claim their supreme sovereignty on the grounds of the State; the monarch was the state.  This doctrine of personal sovereignty first found explicit expression in France: “L’état, c’est le roi” – the State, it is the King.  The same fundamental concept was adopted during the Absolutist period in England, and in most other European states, however, Russia retained the explicit trapping of Divine Right.

Objections to the doctrines of divine right and personal sovereignty were prominent in the ideas expressed during the Age of Enlightenment...

Saxony

Saxony had a nearly unique political framework in early modern Europe: a de facto absolute monarch in a de jure limited monarchy.  The emphasis in Saxony was on the Elector (and later, the king) in the role of “sovereign servant of the state”, rather than possessing explicit supreme authority.  Despite this, over the course of the seventeenth century, especially during and after the Twenty Years’ War, Saxony developed in a way which paralleled the rise of Absolutism.

John George II (r. 1628-1667), the Musician-Elector, acquired enormous new territories during the later part of the Twenty Years’ War, and in keeping with the trends of the time, these became part of the dominion of the sovereign rather than being awarded to nobles.  These new estates supported the extravagant expenditure of the Musician-Elector, who made Dresden a major centre of music and the arts and attracted composers and performers from across Europe [4].  His son John George III had a strict Lutheran education, focused on the duty of the Albertine Wettins as the protectors of the Reformation (as they saw it), and learned more about fortification and warfare than he did about music; those same incomes were used for more martial pursuits.  Under John George III and his successors, the “sovereign servant” became simply sovereign, and in time each of the representative assembles of ancestral Saxony [5] granted the monarch the authority to levy taxes without needing their consent: a mark of Absolutism.

Sicily

Sicily is the most well-known example [dubious: flagged for discussion] of the replacement of absolute monarchy by limited monarchy within early modern Europe.  Insular Sicily had been an absolute monarchy under the Aragonese and Spanish crowns since 1409.  However, the Sicilian Agricultural Revolution, starting circa 1660 [6], dramatically increased agricultural productivity, & in turn sent population increasing and economic strength was boosted.

Lacking in any local sovereign representation, Sicily was ruled by the distant absolutist sovereigns of Spain, who never visited the island except in time of war, and viewed it merely as a source of funds.  Discontentment and dissension followed, particularly over arbitrary decisions of Spanish-born magistrates about taxation and sometimes confiscation of the newly-productive lands.  Lacking systematic land tenure or inheritance, discontented younger sons turned to agitation, and in time to revolution.

The Advent Revolution was ignited by objections to the absolutist rule of Spain, and led to the establishment of a new, native monarchy.  Lorenzo Piazzi claimed the title of monarch in 1729, and won international recognition of his rank in 1736 with the culmination of the Revolution, but what he could not claim for himself was the role of an absolute monarch.

Sicily was independent, but reliant on foreign support that constrained it from overseas adventures that might have been used to distract the populace.  Lorenzo I had no legitimate claim to royal birth, and thus no hereditary authority to use as sanction for Absolutism.  During the revolutionary era, local assemblies had raised both troops and funds to support the rebellion.  These assemblies did not willingly disband after the Revolution was successful, but instead demanded a form of permanent recognition.  While Lorenzo I would have preferred to establish an absolutist monarchy [citation needed], circumstances forced him to create a constitutional monarchy with a permanent representative assembly...

--

[1] Not the historical James II of England / James VII of Scotland (b. 1633), who was son of Charles I of England.  The historical James II of England does not exist because his father died from the Aururian plagues in 1631.  This James II (b.1652) is the allohistorical son of Charles II of England and Luise of Hesse-Kassel (herself the allohistorical daughter of William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel).

[2] Denmark made a similar declaration historically, but nine years later (1665).  The enhanced monarchical power of the Twenty Years’ War leads to the earlier introduction of the King’s Law.

[3] The allohistorical Charles XI of Sweden (b. 1650) is the son of Charles X Gustav of Sweden (while still only Duke of Öland and heir presumptive to the throne) and his wife and cousin Queen Kristina of Sweden.

[4] Historically, John George II’s expenditure on music and the arts nearly sent him bankrupt, and he was forced to grant much revenue-raising power to the nobles and burghers.  Allohistorically, the income from his new estates lets him indulge his heart as patron of the arts without needing to make any concessions.

[5] i.e. the pre-Twenty Years’ War territories of Electoral Saxony.

[6] i.e. the introduction of new Aururian crops and farming methods into the island of Sicily, and the consequent agricultural development with increased output and new farming technology.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #63: The Fatal Shore

“Duty is doing what others would have you do.  Integrity is doing what you know you must do.”
- Bungudjimay proverb

--

My pen feels heavier than a mountain.  Perhaps duty is what weighs it down, but I must hold it, all the same.  The world must know what passes here.

Gold brought us to this land.  Lucre was what the Company sought.  We found it here.  This place is a land of gold.  Some of it is ripe for commerce, with natives who are if not welcoming, at least willing to consider trade.  Gold, peppers, greater tobacco, jeeree, will please any Director of the Company.

Alas, some of this land is much, much worse!

The people here have built a pyramid.  Reaching into the heavens, and decorated with glass, it shines into the heavens when first seen with the dawn.  As if Egypt of old has been reborn here.  But step closer to it, and you will see the rotten heart of this land.

This pyramid is properly called Glazkul, for behind each pane of glass is a skull.  No Egyptians are here.  This is a place of barbarism, of some half-breed Mexicans who have crossed the Pacific to bring their pagan rites to this new land.

And, though it pains me to write it, this must be told.  The Mexican king has declared that more skulls will be added to this pyramid.  Our skulls, or those who kill us.  We must agree to have two of us fight each other, and the winner fight a Mexican challenger, with the loser of that to give their skull in pagan rite.  Or they will kill two of us anyway, and fight among themselves for whose skull will be added to Glazkul.

What sacrifice of mankind and blood unbound has brought Mexicans to this fatal shore?

(signed) William Baffin

--

Cultural clashes are hardly unknown in history, or even in allohistory.  Even so, the divergent perspectives of the English and the Bungudjimay of Daluming were spectacular.

The Bungudjimay had built their state religion on collecting the heads of the worthy dead and interring them behind glass in the pyramid they called the Mound of Memory.  The completion of the Mound, with its ten levels of skulls, marked the Closure, the end of the world.

Quite what the Closure meant was never completely defined.  The priests had never built a consensus, although various sacred foretellings described a wide collection of events involving resurrection of the fallen, visitation from various supernatural and perhaps divine beings, and the creation of a new world order.  It did not mean the physical destruction of the world as a whole, but the establishment of a new age where all that had gone before was overturned.

The arrival of the Closure had been long-awaited, but not hastened.  Many of the existing priests, while fervent in their beliefs, did not want the Closure to begin until there were suitable signs.  So as the number of empty niches in the Mound declined, they became more cautious about who was chosen to have their heads interred behind glass.  That would let them respond to the right portents when they appeared, and discover what the end of the world involved.

Whatever the Closure meant, the last thing which the Bungudjimay priests expected was that it would be heralded by another group of traders come looking for spices.

An English expedition under William Baffin had explored Aururia, with discovery motivated by profit.  The English East India Company had charged Baffin with finding new markets and new trade goods.

Baffin had fulfilled his instructions well, reaching what was an entirely new world to English eyes, and one which until recently had developed in complete cultural isolation.  In time-honoured European fashion, Baffin tried to relate the inhabitants of Aururia into other peoples who were already known from the Old World, though he was often unsuccessful.

The early English contact with the other natives of Aururia – Mutjing and Islander, Yadji and Tjunini – found peoples with strange ways and beliefs, to European eyes.  Yet at least these people were comprehensible, if unusual, and more importantly, showed receptiveness to trade.  Or indeed, open-handed eagerness, in the case of the Islanders.

After this, coming to face to face with Daluming and its pyramid of skulls was the very model of a modern major culture shock.

Alien as the Bungudjimay were, the English sought for cultural analogies.  Brief visions of Egyptians were shattered when Baffin first glimpsed the skulls in the Mound of Memory.  To be replaced by fumbling explanations of Mexicans and human sacrifice.  A forgivable misunderstanding, perhaps, given what followed.

Baffin and seven sailors had been invited as guests to the royal palace in Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, NSW].  While there, they were summoned to their first audience with the Daluming monarch, in the royal hall decorated with interred skulls.  Those skulls were from previous princes and warriors who had chosen to be preserved there, but the English sailors naturally assumed that the skulls were from sacrificial victims.

In this same hall of skulls, Baffin and his sailors were informed that they were to name two champions to fight each other, with the winner to fight a Bungudjimay warrior for a place on the Mound of Memory.  Or with the option of having two random sailors killed by Bungudjimay warriors instead, and those would kill each other as the price of admission to Glazkul.

The English reaction to this pagan rite needs little imagining.   However imperfect their faith might be, Baffin and his crew considered themselves Christian, and more precisely as adherents of the Church of England.  No Christian could countenance such human sacrifice.  Even if the alternative was merciless slaughter of two of their own.

In the account which was recorded in Baffin’s journal, the dilemma was solved when two of his sailors, Jonathan Bradford and Nicholas Beveridge, volunteered to fight each other to save their companions’ lives.  Baffin tried to dissuade them, but they remained steadfast in their desire.  Bradford and Beveridge fought what was meant to be an even fight to the death, but Bradford deliberately stumbled during the duel, allowing Beveridge to kill him.

Beveridge went on to fight a Bungudjimay warrior, Weenggina – or Wing Jonah as Baffin misunderstood the name – who killed him with ease, and Beveridge’s skull was added to the pyramid of skulls.  Bradford’s skull was given back to the English, where Baffin took it with him to be returned to England for a proper Christian burial.

With that challenge completed, Baffin fled with all haste from Daluming, and this time he was unhindered.  He recorded in his journal that he hoped that the next English ships which came to “Mexico of the Orient” should send a volley of cannonballs into Glazkul.  He charted the rest of the eastern coast of Aururia, including an island at the southern end of a great reef which would later bear his name [Fraser Island], but refused to set foot on the Land of Gold again.  He skirted New Guinea and returned to Surat in India, where he gave his report and asked for a ship to be sent to rejoin the sailors who he had left among the Yadji.  After that, he brought his ships back to England.

Of course, that was what was recorded in Baffin’s journal.  The story was matched by every account ever given of the experience by the five remaining sailors who had accompanied Baffin onto land.  Bradford’s skull was interred in Wells Cathedral in Somerset, where he quickly became venerated as a martyr and in time as a saint (hero) of the Church of England.

On Baffin’s eventual return to England, however, Nicholas Beveridge’s wife Mary refused to believe that her husband would have gone to his death in such a manner.  She insisted that Baffin and the other sailors must have forced him into it, giving up her husband for a pagan rite, and that Baffin had effectively condemned him to death.  She began a public campaign of letter-writing and denouncements which continued for as long as she lived; her efforts only ended with her death from smallpox in 1651.

No matter how many times Baffin denied Mary Beveridge’s tale, he was never completely believed.  Opprobrium lingered on William Baffin.  No matter how much of a plutocrat he became in later years, he never quite gained acceptance into wealthy society, thanks in part to the lingering suspicion which clung to him.

The Company, however, was greatly pleased with Baffin’s discoveries.  While Daluming itself seemed to be a place to be avoided, establishing permanent relations with the Yadji was an immediate priority, with the gold of the Tjunini and the spices of the eastern seaboard also seen as promising opportunities.

The next English ship to visit the Yadji had been sent from Surat before Baffin returned to England, and it would not be the last.  The English East India Company now actively pursued an interest in Aururia.  A fact which greatly displeased the Dutch East India Company, for they considered the continent their private preserve, and the greatest spice island.

Within a handful of years, the two companies were in a state of undeclared war.  The first blow was struck in Aururia itself; in 1642 the Dutch raided Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria], the first English outpost in the Yadji realm.  But the campaign would be a much more wide-ranging one, fought across Aururia, the East Indies, Ceylon, India and southern Africa...

--

Lands of Red and Gold #64: From the Island to the World

“Mourn not for the past, learn from it.
Hope not for the future, plan for it
Complain not about the present, experience it.”

- From Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road], a text composed in Tjibarr in the fifteenth century, and widely respected by both Plirite and Tjarrling believers

--

Crimson Day, Cycle of Strength, 398th Year of Harmony (1.26.398) / 15 January 1638
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]

Life among the Maori in Aotearoa: a place where reputation had made them out to be barely better than the Yadji, bloodthirsty warriors ready to kill without provocation.  As Nameless the priest had expected, that reputation held some truth, but only some.

The Maori had their own social code, their own customs.  Within the limits of that code, they were hospitality personified: welcoming, generous, polite, helpful.  Anyone who transgressed the bounds of the Maori code would be punished, though.  Severely punished.

Nameless had learned what he could of their customs before visiting, based on what he was told by some Maori and Maori-speakers living on the Cider Isle [Tasmania].  That had helped.  When he finally arrived in Aotearoa, the Maori were open enough for him to learn more.

In turn, Nameless started providing advice to the Maori.  At first, he gave individual guidance to those Maori who had accepted the true faith, who followed the Sevenfold Path [Plirism].  The Maori being as they were, they soon started inviting him to speak at their communal meetings at their marae.  And, in time, he found himself giving advice to the Maori king himself.

Ariki iwi [King] Arapeta proved to be far more thoughtful and open to proper guidance than Nameless had expected.  Like any Maori chieftain, he was inclined to harshly punish anyone who transgressed the Maori social code.  They believed that demonstrated a chieftain’s mana.  But Arapeta was willing to think about things, to hear alternative perspectives even if he did not agree with them.

Nameless found, in fact, that he had become a private counsellor to the king.  Sometimes on particular matters which affected the kingdom, but also about how to conduct life in general.  To provide that advice, Nameless usually turned to The Endless Road – which in his opinion was the most helpful single text ever written – or one of the half-dozen other writings he had brought with him to Aotearoa.

There was no point in giving the king a copy of the book itself.  Even if it could be translated into Maori – a feat beyond Nameless’ ability – the king could not read.  Arapeta relied on scribes to record information and read it to him when needed.

In any case, this let Nameless choose the best passages to read to the king.  Like any non-believer, too much truth at once could overwhelm him.  Nameless chose those passages which were most appropriate to the king’s current level of understanding.

Among his preferred segments were about how the Good Man had lived, back in the long-vanished days of the kingdom of Lopitja.  How the Good Man had wealth and power, and had abandoned it.  How he believed that his mana – a word which Nameless translated loosely – would benefit all men, spreading his advice by words rather than by force of arms.  The Good Man did not decry warfare, as Nameless was at pains to point out, but helped people to see how it fit into the broader pattern of their lives.  The Good Man showed how everyone could order their lives to ensure maximum harmony for all, within their own stations in life.

The king seemed to be more and more intrigued, as Nameless chose other passages from The Endless Road which explained about how to live.  Until, one morning, the king turned his attention to another of the endless feuds which dominated Maori life.  Nameless had given advice before on resolving a vendetta between two subtribes [hapu] within the kingdom.  This vendetta was more complex, involving an endless cycle of raids and revenge attacks between one subtribe of Arapeta’s realm, and that of the neighbouring Muaupoko kingdom.

Nameless saw his opening when the king mentioned that these endless raids were costing too many warriors from the subtribe for its subking to answer properly when the king called for warriors.

“What stops you from negotiating a settlement with the ariki iwi of the Muaupoko to end the raids?” Nameless asked.

“A raid cannot go unanswered,” the king said.  “A leader of strong mana cannot afford to show weakness.”

“Doing nothing is not always weakness,” Nameless said.  “Sometimes having the self-control to do nothing is the greatest strength of all.”

“And have my ariki hapu whisper that I lack the courage to respond to their weakness?” the king asked, but he sounded intrigued.  Nameless had long since learnt how to tell when the king did not want to hear more on a subject.

“Sometimes revenge is not the best demonstration of mana,” Nameless said.  “Sometimes the ability to ignore trivial raids shows your mana more: how better to show your strength that you do not need to waste your time with minor raids.  All you need to remember is that if their raids continue for long enough, and that if they do not learn this wisdom, then you will punish them severely enough that they will be afraid to respond.”

“That is how your Island maintains its peace?” Arapeta asked.

“It is.  We still have feuds from time to time – there are a couple now – but they are rare, and they can be ended if required.  Or a bloodline is exterminated entirely, as has happened, if they would not learn when to end a vendetta.”

King Arapeta was silent for a long time after that.  Nameless knew better than to interrupt.  At length, the king asked one, rather pointed question.  Nameless give the only answer he could give, in the circumstances.

“Accompany me,” the king said, then rose and walked to the entrance to the wharenui [great hall of the palace].

Outside, there were various clusters of Maori having whatever discussions they wished at the marae.  They saw the king at the entrance, of course, and quickly fell silent as they assembled in a rough semi-circle, well back from the entrance.

King Arapeta stepped outside, paused for a moment, then took seven paces forward.  He raised his voice.  “Ta mal-pa Pliri, ni gapu-pa Bula Gakal-girri marang.”  There is but one Harmony, and only the Sevenfold Path will give it balance.

--

Taken from: “People of the Seas: The Nangu Diaspora”
By Accord Anderson [1]
New London, Alleghania: 1985

3. Breakup of the Seven Sisters

Long the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia] had been the granary of the Island.  Red yams and cornnarts [wattles] from Mutjing farmers came, endless-seeming harvest to sustain the people of an Island too small to feed itself.  Rulership of the Seven Sisters remained with Mutjing, not Nangu, yet guidance and mediation came from the Island to ensure harmony remained.

The Island now riven with feud and discord, with plagues and Dutch competition rampant, failed to sustain the vital guidance.  City-kings of the Seven Sisters strove now in waal [bringing discord], hatreds once old now renewed, and alliance with Dutch now contemplated by those who once revered the Island alone.

With legacy of friendship most ancient, no Mutjing would commit to war against the Island itself, yet catastrophe most severe could fall without one direct blow from Mutjing to Nangu.  City-king Maralinga of Luyandi [Port Kenny] formed pact with the Dutch, and formed pride within himself, bringing the Seven Sisters into imbalance.  Pankala [Port Lincoln], pre-eminent Sister for so long in reputation and commerce, to the Island remained steadfast.

Courage and rivalry dominated, wise counsel was forsaken.  The Seven Sisters descended into war most troublesome.  No longer could the Island’s influence quell bloodshed, with the confluence of Dutch supporting the western Sisters, and the Island itself riven, incapable of speaking with one voice.

Mutjing and Nangu alike suffered.  Victory elusive, strife continued over years too numerous.  Surplus harvest consumed by the fires of war, no longer could the Seven Sisters sustain the Island, and misery and famine took the helm as the fate of the Island shifted onto a new course.  Population reduced already from European plagues, notwithstanding, no boldness from the Nangu remaining on the Island could conjure food from nothing.

Discord had previously troubled the Nangu, ancient bloodlines contesting over scraps of Dutch trade, dislocation of old trade markets, and loss of experienced mediators with the plagues.  Famine looming, people of the Island cared little even for which faction won victory in the Seven Sisters; the war itself marked disaster.  The Island now shattered, and the shards fell where they willed...

Where the Island could no longer provide, exodus now beckoned for those astute and for those defeated.  The former knew opportunity and seized it, the latter hoped for opportunity and sought it.  Some few bloodlines had fled already, in whole or in part, a trickle of Nangu across the waves, which uncivil war in the Seven Sisters pushed into flood.

Bloodlines four, more shrewd than most, already had established their Nuttana [trading association] on a coast most distant within Aururia [far north Queensland].  Two more bloodlines secured common purpose, Mudontji and Nyawala acceding to the syndicate previously formed.  In union most beneficial, to the Nuttana came more knowledge, more workers, and a future where the old surety departed but new hope remained.  Kiyungu of the Coral Coast joined them in numbers, whether volunteers for indenture or migrants most buoyant...

Across the Tethys Sea [Tasman Sea], another shard fell on ground most fertile and fortunate.  Whether auspicious or prudent, years before the Kalendi bloodline gained trade connexions with Maori in Aotearoa.  Missionaries had striven to prepare the way, until Bana [Nameless] guided the first Maori king into acceptance of the Seven-fold Path.

Vendetta driving them, and old trade routes fallen, Kalendi found new aspiration among the Ngati Apa in Aotearoa.  To the Maori, they brought wisdom: the true faith, shipbuilding, iron, dyes, spices [2], and determination...

--

[1] Accord Anderson is a Congxie (see post #47) author who thinks that he speaks English fluently enough not to need a translator.  He may perhaps be mistaken in that view.

[2] That is, those spices which could grow in Aotearoa.  Some Aururian spices can, generally the ones which are native to historical Victoria and Tasmania or alpine areas further north (e.g. some sweet peppers, sea celery, river mint), though many Aururian spices are subtropical (e.g. lemon myrtle and other myrtles) and will not grow in Aotearoa.

--

Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #4: Eostre of the Dawn

In similar vein to the LoRaG Christmas specials, here is a short exploration of another significant day seen through the distorted mirror of allohistory.  This instalment was originally posted on 1 April 2013...

--

14 April 1974 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Kesteven [Boston, Massachusetts], New England

The man handcuffed to the chair looks too young in all respects, save one.  Fresh-faced, his smooth cheeks hardly need a razor; a scraggly blond moustache almost disappears into those same cheeks.  Cap worn to the side like some disaffected youth who confuses poor fashion sense with parental rebelliousness.  But his gaze is steady, eyes wide, unflinching.

“You are alone,” says Detective-Cornet Jamet Mabbinck.  “Captive.  Never to be released until I am satisfied.”

The man’s gaze stays fixed on Jamet.  “I am never alone, so long as one member of the League continues the fight.

The detective-cornet laughs.  “Companions who you will tell me about.  Who they are.  Where they plan to strike next.”

“You will never know,” the fresh-faced man says.

“Never is a short word for a long time,” Jamet says.  “Even one day can seem a very long time, in the right circumstances.”

“You will never know,” the man repeats.

Jamet smiles.  “We already know.  About you and your League, and your plans.  How you few foolish hot-heads want something that no other nation in the world supports.”

“We have more support than you know!  We will continue the fight.  We will-”  Abruptly, the man stops.

“Oh, you will never win your little war, as the GG has so aptly called it,” Jamet says.

The man’s gaze still remains fixed on him, despite everything.  “A little war, but our “little warriors” are part of a big struggle.  We will prove that to you.  And to the world.”

“Yes, your little warriors.  Your boyz, you call yourselves.”  Jamet’s grin returns.  “That proves merely that you are much poor spellers as you are misguided.”

“The boyz will never give up.  We will make the world listen to us, and heed us.  New England is just the start.”  His glare still has not moved.

“What you will do is tell me what I want to know,” the detective-cornet says.  “How long that takes is up to you.  It may take a day, or a year.  But I promise that even a day will seem like a year.”

--

27 April 2008
Tensaye [Easter Sunday, Ethiopian Orthodox reckoning]
Gondar, Ethiopia

Yared Bikila smiled as he looked across the back yard of his new house.  The early morning sun showed it for what it was: small, as yards went, with a handful of gum trees overshading most of it.  But the yard was his.  The house was his.

For the last week, the yard had kept the noroon [emu] he had been feeding himself, twice a day.  Too many people nowadays seemed to have given up on tradition.  They just bought their “Paschal chicken” from the megamart rather than feeding it and slaughtering it themselves.  But they should know better.  The proper way had always been to feed the Paschal feast before it fed you.

His wife, Tirunesh, came to the door.  “Pity you couldn’t buy one that lays,” she said, with a smile on her face.  “Would’ve saved me buying an egg for the omelette.”

Yared laughed.  “One egg, for the Paschal omelette.”  This is the first year he has felt rich enough to buy a proper noroon egg.  Before that, he and his family had always made do with chicken eggs.  Though costly at the best of times, noroon eggs always became ten times the usual price in the days before Tensaye.

The egg sits in a bowl in the kitchen.  A large bowl.  The dark green shell holds the weight of a dozen chicken eggs, or thereabouts.  Enough to make a good-sized omelette for him, his wife, and their three sons.

That is his wife’s job, of course, along with helping the boys decorate the cast-aside eggshell.  His job waits outdoors.  And even in a small yard, it is difficult to catch a noroon which does not want to be caught.

Yared said, “Be back soon.  I’ve got to go catch the Paschal chicken.”

--

30 March 1975 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Horeb [Providence, Rhode Island], New England

“Mother of God!”  Detective-Cornet Jamet Mabbinck knew it would be bad, to be called down from Kesteven for something the local wrecks [1] cannot handle.

Now, he sees for himself.  The megamall is a large two-storey building, a good two hundred yards long just on this side, filled with stores.  Or it was.  Now smoke rises from a gaping hole where most of the nearest wall and its roof have collapsed, with only small portions at either end still upright.

He barely hears the explanation from the local sheriff how the League boyz somehow broke in and drove a car laden with explosives through the megamall until they detonated it between some shops.

When the sheriff’s account winds down, Jamet says, “The only mercy is that no-one was inside.”  He pauses.  “Was anyone inside?”

“None we’ve found, sir.  Not that the League bastards would’ve cared.”  The sheriff spits expertly into the gutter.

Jamet is not so sure about that.  The boyz are bastards, but know that they are fighting their “little war” for the hearts and minds of the people.  Easter Sunday is one of the very few days where not only can they get in undetected, but expect that they will not kill anyone while doing so.  All the same, he holds his peace.

“Do you know what shops were closest to where the car bomb went off?” Jamet asks.

The sheriff nods.  “Two fashion stores.  Delarkey’s and Musora.”

“Those won’t have been the targets,” Jamet says.  The League cares nothing for women’s fashion stores, unless they are selling lingerie.  “What else was nearby?”

“On one side a doctor’s practice and a shoe store, on the other, a pharmacy and a tobacconist.”

“Ha!  That says enough,” the detective-cornet says.  “I’m surprised they didn’t use two cars.”

“Sir?” the sheriff asks.  A perfect example of Horeb’s finest.

“Never mind,” Jamet says.  “Let’s get to work.  We have some boyz to track down.”

--

3 April 1994 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Oxford, Pembroke [Cambridge, Maryland], Alleghania

Jessica Cuffin counted the Easter eggs in front of her, slowly.  Then she counted them again.  Twelve eggs!  Twelve!  She had to count them a third time, just to be sure.

“Twelve eggs!” she said.  The Easter Duck had really come!  So much for Emily next door saying that the Easter Duck wasn’t real!  How else could she have gotten twelve eggs to eat?

--

26 March 1978 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Newport [New Haven, Connecticut], New England

“This is turning into a very bad Easter tradition.”  Detective-Cornet Jamet Mabbinck frowns.  “Five years in a row, responding to the League.”  For what he has done to fight the League, he should now be a detective-ensign, but he keeps that thought to himself.

“I don’t know what you’ve done before, but this must be the worst,” the sheriff says.  One of the few surviving sheriffs from the Second Precinct, and that only because he was off-duty at the time and too far away to respond to the call to duty.

They have left the ruins of the station, but Jamet knows that the images of the destroyed Second Precinct will forever burn in his memory.  No-one who was inside at the time still breathes.  Nor do most of those who answered the call to duty.  Or should it have been called a call to arms?

“Fifty armed men, if not more,” Jamet says.  “In three groups who struck with well-coordinated precision.”

He has never believed the rumours of League training camps in the Nya Sverige backwoods.  But how else to explain a blow on this scale?  No mere collection of disaffected boyz could manage this.

“One thing’s for sure, sir.”  When Jamet raises a polite eyebrow, the sheriff continues, “Containing the League can’t be called a police action.  Not anymore.”

Jamet lets out a long, slow breath.  “I fear you’re right.  Not even the riot squad could handle this.”  What will it take?  Special armed forces, perhaps.  God forbid that the Army needs to be deployed on its own soil, against its own citizens.

Another sheriff comes up to them, and hands over a photograph.  “This shows what was left at the entrance to the Precinct, sirs.”

Jamet takes the photo.  It shows a note placed carefully amongst blackened ruins of what was once a door.  The message is simple:

“That for the lackey’s of inaction!  The League will triumph!”  The signature reads: Mary Jane.

The detective-cornet stares at the photograph, reading the message over and over without taking in the words.

--

22 April 1984 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Irving [Columbus, Georgia], Alleghania

The first rays of the sun just began to poke between the apartment blocks to the east.  The light was dim, but enough for what Barcoo and his friends planned.  They stood on the parkland that ran along Jacks River [Chattahoochee River].  The grass was still cool with the night’s dew.

Importantly, the park had a walkway that ran alongside the road, all the way to downtown. Even now, early in the morning on what the unegas [whites] and blacks called Easter Sunday, a few people strolled back and forth along it.  Enough people, for their purposes.

Jimmy unveiled the statue: a three-foot high wooden figure carved from river oak [2].  It showed a naked woman, abundantly female, with her hair hanging in artfully-carved tresses down her back.  The boy had done the carving himself, and was justifiably proud of it.  Barcoo had never been able to ask which girl, or memory of a girl, had been the inspiration.

The four boys arranged themselves to the west of the statue, and went down on their knees.  Jimmy spoke first, in a loud voice, “Hear us, o, Ēostre, Goddess of the Dawn.  Heed us, your faithful servants.”

The ceremony went on in a similar vein.  Barcoo, Jimmy, Hando and Modibo took it in turns to offer loud invocations to Ēostre, the pagan goddess that the unegas and blacks had named their supposedly Christian festival after.  They raised their voices even louder whenever someone white or black came by, and quietly chuckled whenever the passers-by passed by even faster after realising what they were seeing.  Barcoo and his friends did not bother to raise their voices whenever the occasional Congxie wandered past.

After a time, Hando pulled the eggs out of the cartoon, and handed three eggs to each of the other boys.  “Time for a sacrifice.”

Jimmy took the first turn, as he usually did, cracking one of the eggs open at the base of the statue, and invoking Ēostre’s name.  Hando took the next turn, then Barcoo stepped forward to do the same.

“Stop right there, you boys!” a commanding voice demanded.

Barcoo looked up to see a woman bearing down on them.  A large woman, who he didn’t recognise, but whose prominent jawline and high cheekbones proclaimed her as Congxie.  Her skin was on the lighter side for a Congxie; either she was one of the few remaining descendants of the old great families, or she had a more recent unega in her ancestry.

“Young fools, you!  Why borrow trouble?”

Jimmy ventured, “We are venerating our God-”

“Bringing discord is what you are doing!”  The woman was tall; she overtopped even Hando.  But the command in her voice would have given her the same authority even if she had been shorter than Modibo.  “Get rid of this nonsense right now, and go somewhere that you can do something decent.”

The boys exchanged glances, but no-one dared disagree.  Jimmy reached for the sack and re-covered the statue.

“Better,” the woman said.  “Save that kind of mockery for Christmas where it belongs.”

--

15 April 1979 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Green Mountains [Vermont], New England

From his seat at the front of the rotorala [helicopter], Sergeant Mitchell Rabson keeps a keen eye out on the passing mountain slopes.  So do the other troopers at every window.  No-one wants to let the League boyz go unspotted, if any of them is out here today, of all days.

The sun still hangs low in the sky to the east, but there is enough light for what they need.  The boyz rarely move in daylight, even this early, but they may have been careless.

Trees and mountain slopes stretch out below them.  To the west, the rocky profile of Mount Vert [Mount Maxwell] stretches out like an elongated human face.  The boyz might be there; it would be like the League to choose the highest peak in the Green Mountains for one of their refuges.

“Stay on the game, lads,” Mitchell says.  In truth, he expects his men will do well.  Corporals Winston Rose, whose prickly nature belies his name, and Johnny Champion, nicknamed “Chimpo” in the manner of soldiers, are both very good men.  He would call them super troopers, if he were not afraid of boosting their egos too much to listen.

“Movement!” Chimpo calls.  “Ten o’clock!”

“Human?” Mitchell asks, as the pilot brings the rotorala around to the new vector.  He brings the binoculars to his eyes and starts searching.

“Think so.  Didn’t look like no deer,” Chimpo says.  If it is people, they have to be the League, or their supporters.  Half the Green Mountains are excluded territory these days, including Mount Vert.

Mitchell looks back and forth, with binoculars and without.  His fellow troopers do likewise.  No-one finds any signs of movement.

“Knullar!” Chimpo says.  “I’m sure I saw something.”

“Take us closer,” Mitchell says.  The pilot complies, and the rotorala slips forward slowly.

Something streaks out of the trees, ascending on a pillar of smoke.  Mitchell just has time to yell “Torpedo!” before it hits the rotorala.

--

30 April 2000 [Easter Sunday, Eastern Christian reckoning]
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Yelena Ivanovna knew she should have done more to celebrate Pascha [Easter] properly.  Morning was giving way to afternoon, but she had not eaten the kulich [Easter bread] before breakfast, as she should have.  She had certainly not attended the Paschal Vigil to have the kulich blessed.  Even for Pascha, she would not go to church at midnight!

She should have made pashka [3], but she had broken the mould last year, and not bothered to buy a replacement or some store-made pashka either.

Motivation was hard to find nowadays.

She could not believe that the government had followed New England’s lead.  With so many obscure countries to listen to, why would anyone listen to the dictates of a handful of ideologues turned revolutionaries on the other side of the world?

Alas, for whatever misguided reason, the government had listened, and now her favourite hobby was illegal.  Deathly illegal.

What was the point?

--

7 April 1985 [Easter Sunday, Western Christian reckoning]
Taken from the Chelmsford [Hartford] Courant

LITTLE WAR OVER!
LEAGUE TRIUMPHANT!

... Under the deal, the siege of Kesteven was lifted.  In emergency session, Parliament passed the enabling legislation last night as the Prohibited Substances Act 1985.  No changes were made to the draft bill tabled by the League at the start of the Little War...

The Cannabis Abolition League of Insurrectionists has fulfilled the vision laid out by its founders, after thirteen years of armed struggle.  New England is now the first nation in the world to prohibit the possession and inhalation of Cannabis...

--

[1] “Wrecks” is the informal name used among themselves by the Republican Elite Constabulary in New England; the closest equivalent they have to the contemporary FBI.  Not recommended to be used by those they catch, unless they no longer feel attached to their teeth.

[2] River oak is the common name for a tree that is widespread in allohistorical Georgia and Alabama.  It is a species of Casuarina (C. cunninghamiana) that is used for agroforestry purposes to prevent soil erosion, as a windbreak, and to revitalise the soil.  Historically, the species (misnamed Australian pine) has become invasive in Florida.

[3] Pashka is a cottage cheese dish moulded into the form of a pyramid, and in both historical and allohistorical Russia is traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday (after being blessed the previous night).

--

P.S. For those who missed it, this post is an April Fool’s Day special and should not be taken as canon, though some of the details are accurate.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #65: Empire State of Mind

“The World he found was New
And Death on swift wings Flew
To Men who sweet maize Grew.”
- From “Elegy to Columbus”, by Piety “Chancellor” Jackson

--

Taken from: “Cannon, Clocks and Crops: The Destinies of Human Societies.”
By Julius Sanford
Newport [New Haven, Connecticut]: Winthrop & Jessup, 1993.

Prologue

It is both commonplace and misunderstood that history has yielded different fates for peoples from different parts of the world.  The Ice Age ended some 13,000 years ago, at a time when all humans in existence lived similar lifestyles: small, usually nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers equipped with stone tools similar to those which our prehuman ancestors had wielded on the savannahs of ancient Africa.

In the millennia which followed, some of those peoples went on to develop literate societies with metal tools, some peoples became farmers but remained illiterate, and some remained hunter-gatherers with only stone tools.  A smaller subset of those literate metal tool using societies went on to dominate the globe, conquering or exterminating the non-literate societies, and then with the twin prongs of commerce and industrialisation, overcoming even the other literate metal tool using societies.

The legacy of these historical inequalities continues to shape the modern world.  While the fact of these inequalities is one of the most basic items of world history, the cause of these inequalities remains shrouded in ambiguity and controversy...

Examination of the differences between these societies poses a host of questions.  Why were Europeans the ones who sailed to Cathay, and later dominated it, rather than the other way around?  Why did Europeans conquer and settle so much of the New World, while no New World society established itself outside of the Americas?  Why did Bantu farmers from West Africa settle and displace the Pygmies and Khoisan peoples from sub-equatorial Africa?  Why were Austronesian peoples successful in expanding across a distance that spans half the globe, from Madagascar to Easter Island, while the more ancient farming societies of New Guinea remained confined to that land and nearby islands?  Why were the Nuttana the first to contact Japan and Cathay, rather than the other way around?

Technology clearly plays a role in many of these cases, most prominently in the European conquest and large-scale population replacements in the New World.  Yet technology is not in itself a complete answer, as shown by the Nuttana who were less advanced than Cathay and Japan, but still reached those nations first.

The answers to these questions can be found in the explanation for the differences which have shaped the modern history of the world.  Where did these differences originate?  What did they mean for the fate of different peoples?

This book is an attempt to answer these questions...

Chapter 2: Collisions of Continents

For the first 12,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, different human societies on separate continents largely developed in isolation.  While there was some contact between them, this was usually sporadic or carried on by a chain of intermediaries.  For most of their course those societies developed along their own paths.  Only over the last thousand years have the different societies of the world come into direct, sustained contact.

These collisions of continents are most dramatically demonstrated in Hernan Cortes’ conquest of the Aztecs, and Francisco Pizzaro’s triumph over the Incas.  These two clashes marked the defeat of the two greatest empires of the New World by a handful of men from one society in the Old World, and would be followed by the large-scale population replacement of most of the Americas’ inhabitants with peoples from the Old World, and in some cases from the Third World.

Other collisions of continents often lacked the same defining moments that marked the Spanish conquests in the Americas, but their consequences were profound for all peoples involved.  The modern history of sub-Saharan Africa is the story of the collision of Africans with invaders from Europe and the Near East, and of a cultural though non-political invasion from Aururia.  The history of the Indian continent is likewise shaped by the collision with European societies, and the different consequences for the societies within India.  The modern history of Aururia is the story of multiple collisions, both as European and Polynesian cultures collided with it, and Aururian societies colliding with others across the globe.

The different outcomes of these cultural collisions were shaped by the differences which had emerged in the societies of each continent over the last 13,000 years.  These differences are simply illustrated by using the year 1500 AD as a convenient dividing line.  This marked the beginning of a watershed moment, when continents were about to collide.  The separate destinies of each continent became merged after that time...

In 1500 AD, each of the continents had diverse societies, in most cases ranging from stone-tool using, non-literate hunter-gatherer bands to sedentary, literate, metal-tool using farmers at least partially into states.  The gulf between the continents was vast, and these differences would quickly become pivotal in world history.  For our purposes, Europe should be considered to include North Africa and West Asia, as both are joined by the Mediterranean.  Europe was almost exclusively occupied by literate, metal-using sedentary farmers, with only a few herders and hunter-gatherers in the arctic and desert fringes.  India was similarly controlled largely by organised states, as were large parts of Asia, although that continent also had vast northern reaches controlled by nomadic herders or hunter-gatherers.

Other continents, however, were not at the same level of development.  Aururia was occupied by several organised, literate, iron-using farming states in its south-eastern and south-western corners, but much of the southern half of the continent was still occupied only by bronze-using non-literate chiefdoms, while the northern half of the continent was still occupied almost exclusively by stone-tool using hunter-gatherer bands whose way of life had not changed significantly since the end of the last Ice Age.  Africa likewise had a few metal-tool using, literate, farming states such as Ethiopia, but large parts of the continent were non-literate and were not organised beyond the level of chiefdoms.  North and South America each had only one large organised metal-tool using state, the Aztecs and Incas, and most of both continents were still at a lower level of technology and social organisation...

These differences were brought into sharp contrast as continents collided after 1500 AD.  These collisions saw societies in many continents conquered or dominated, and in many cases replaced entirely, by a relative handful of organised societies, mostly from Europe.

The collision between Spain and Inca, between Old World and New, is the most iconic example of this collision.  The advantages which Spain possessed were many: cannon both as artillery and handcannon, seafaring technology, literacy, steel armour and weapons, horses, and diseases.  The Incas were overwhelmed, as were the Aztecs before them and many other cultures would be in the years afterward, by cannon and the other technology that accompanied them.

The fate of the Incas is illustrative of the collision of continents, but as other examples demonstrate, differences in technology were not the only differences that mattered.  In 1500 AD, Cathay was unquestionably the most advanced society on the globe.  Over the preceding millennia, Cathay had developed a host of technological innovations, including the predecessors of the same cannon which the Spanish used in the New World.

In some measure Cathayan technology continued to develop even after 1500.  Notably, though, Cathay also rejected some aspects of technology, both home-grown and foreign.  Cathayan voyagers such as Zheng He had pioneered seafaring technology which extended Cathayan influence across two other continents.  Yet Cathay abandoned its own maritime adventures.  It also resisted superior technology when introduced from other continents.  European clocks were mechanically superior timepieces than those produced in Cathay, but the Cathayans treated them merely as toys.  Cathay’s spurning of practical clock technology is the best symbol of some cultures’ rejection of advances in technology...

The world’s history since 1500 has been one of transfer, of technology, crops and animals, diseases, and populations, all moved around the globe.  The fate of different societies has been determined by how they adapted to these great exchanges.

The differences in technology made a major part in deciding this adaptation, but this provides only part of the tale.  What mattered was whether each society was both capable and willing to adapt to the global transfers after 1500, including the diseases which would shape so much of later history.

A society needed to be capable of adapting.  If the gap in technology was too large, no amount of willingness would change the destiny of a society when continents collided.  Such was the fate of most stone tool using hunter-gatherers who fought cannon-using literate farmers; the consequences were obvious and largely pre-destined.  Early cannon, both artillery and hand cannon, were significant in the European irruption into the New World and the Third World [1].  More advanced cannon, and the broader developments in military technology which they symbolised, became more significant in later centuries as the collisions continued between Europe, Aururia, Africa, India and Asia.

Where the gap in technology was smaller, if both sides had cannon or at least quick capacity to learn how to use them, then the receptiveness and other institutions of state mattered.  If a society was prepared to take up clocks, and all of the other new technologies which they symbolise, then that society was much better-placed to triumph during the upheavals that followed.

And, as the next section of this book will explore, it was the crops and animals that were available to each continent which largely determined whether societies got up to the starting gate in 1500 AD...

Chapter 5: Nature’s Bounty

Crops permit farming.  That is a truism.  The fact of history which takes more examination is that even in areas where domesticable plants existed, those crops were different the world over.  Their differing characteristics drove much of the destiny of the societies which they fed.

Ease of domesticability varied considerably between crops of different regions.  Some regions included a diversity of crops that were readily and quickly domesticated.  Others had fewer crops, or ones which needed much longer unconscious human selection before a package of crops emerged which supported agriculture.  This single characteristic of regions goes far in explaining the different destinies of societies on different continents...

The Near East, Cathay, and New Guinea were most blessed in their native crops, with agriculture emerging soonest in those regions (by 7500 BC, as shown in Table 5.2).  The Andes and Aururia were intermediate in their ease of domestication, with full agriculture emerging later in Mesoamerica, while eastern North America was the most recent independent centre of domestication.  For the remaining continent, archaeology has not yet determined with African agriculture emerged independently or was initiated by transfer from the Near East...

The crop packages developed in each centre of domestication each had their own individual suite of characteristics, which shaped the societies that they fed.  Two examples of this are the red yam and maize.

The red yam is the main staple of the ancient Aururian crop package.  It provided the largest source of agricultural calories for ancient Aururian farmers.  Even today it is the single most calorific crop on the continent.  Maize filled a similar role in Mesoamerican agriculture, and after its transfer, to pre-Columbian North American agriculture, too.  It is entirely possible that without those particular crops, there would have been no independent emergence of agriculture in either Aururia or Mesoamerica, with major ramifications for world history.

With such a dominating agricultural presence, the characteristics of these two plants had major consequences for the societies which developed on each continent.

Red yams, like most root crops, have a decent carbohydrate yield but are very low in protein.  Unlike most other domesticated root crops, red yams are a perennial crop which can be harvested and replanted for a decade or more.  Red yams grow well even in arid conditions, a valuable ability in a frequently drought-scourged continent.

Maize, like most cereals, is a high-energy crop which has a reasonable protein content.  Maize provides a very high yield of calories per acre, more than most other staple crops such as wheat, and is also more water-efficient than most staple crops [2], except for red yams and cornnarts [wattles].  Maize is typically thought of as a tropical or subtropical crop, though it can be harvested in temperate zones with spring planting.

As perennial crops, red yams needed less effort to plant and harvest than most annual crops.  The tubers can stay in the soil for several months, so harvesting is not as time-critical as it is for cereals or fruit.  These characteristics mean that red yams, and the other perennial Aururian crops, need fewer labourers to produce an agricultural surplus than comparable societies.  In turn, red-yam-based societies can support more non-agricultural specialists.  Aururian societies were notable for their larger urban populations and more vigorous trade networks.

The drought-resistant nature of red yams meant in turn that red yams allowed remarkable agricultural stability.  Aururia has the most irregular climate of any inhabited continent, plagued by unpredictable droughts that alternate with devastating floods.  The stability brought by red yams allowed Aururian farmers to endure despite these natural challenges.

Despite these advantages, red yams also placed remarkable constraints on native Aururian agriculture.  Red yams are plants very well-adapted to subtropical latitudes, but are simply incapable of growing within the tropics.  Not even the best modern plant breeders have produced a variety of yams which can grow productively within tropical latitudes.

Before European irruption, this meant that productive Aururian agricultural was essentially confined to the south-eastern and south-western corners of the continent.  The northern half of the continent was devoid of agriculture, and remained inhabited by hunter-gatherers.  This left native Aururian societies severely limited in their available arable land and opportunities for expansion.  If Aururia had been 1000 miles further south, the available farmland would have been much larger, and the history of the world would have been entirely different.

In Mesoamerica, maize agriculture also defined the societies that emerged.  Maize was the only major true cereal domesticated in the New World (and none at all in the Third World), as distinguished from the myriad cereals domesticated in the Old World.  Maize provided very high farming yields per acre, allowing for the emergence of large urban centres and high populations.

However, maize’s most defining characteristic is that it exhausts the soil.  In Mesoamerican societies without animals to provide fertiliser, or alternative crops to switch to, this left them vulnerable to agricultural collapse.  The pattern for maize-based agriculture was for repeated flourishing of urban civilizations, followed by agricultural collapse after soils were exhausted.  The Tamochan [Olmecs], Teotihuacan, Classical Mayans, Cahokians, and Puebloans were among the maize-based urban civilizations which emerged and then collapsed in North America.  The lack of agricultural stability was characteristic of maize-based cultures, and the impossibility of maintaining long-term cultural continuity had major consequences for the history of the North American peoples...

Agriculture in the Old World’s continents did not have an equivalent of the single-source crops such as maize and red yams.  From early in the emergence of agriculture, Old World farmers had a range of cereals or other staple crops to choose from, and were not so restricted by the characteristics of any single crop.  Rice became the key staple in much of India and Asia, but even then rice only reached its dominant position because it was the best available crop, not because it was the only suitable staple crop.  Rice was not the initial domesticate in East Asia, but its cultivation became widespread as it replaced the earlier millets that were the original cereals of East Asian agriculture...

Chapter 9: Happiness and Head Starts

Each different crop in the world possesses different characteristics, and thus provides different opportunities to societies that grow it.  Having more crops available is an advantage to any society, as it gives more flexibility in adapting to different circumstances, and often better agricultural yield.

The benefits of new crops were often immense.  Consider, for instance, the Nuttana of north-eastern Aururia.  They were one of the most well-known Aururian societies, and the main way in which Aururian culture was transmitted to the world.  But the Nuttana culture was created on land that its forebears did not occupy at the time of European irruption.  Indeed, the Nuttana lands were not farmed at all before European contact.  The two crops which were foundational to the Nuttana, sweet potato and sugar cane, were not even native to Aururia...

The Old World, and particularly the Eurasian supercontinent, had the twin advantages of earlier agriculture and multiple centres of domestication.  Eurasians received crops from the separate agricultural origins of the Near East, Cathay, and New Guinea, and even a few crops from Africa such as coffee, sorghum and pearl millet.  These widespread, earlier exchanges of crops gave the Old World a very long head start when compared to societies in the Americas or Aururia.

In contrast, geographical barriers were greater in the New World and Third World, such as more deserts and jungles.  This, combined with the later start to agriculture compared to the third world, limited the exchanges of crops between regions with independent centres of domestication.  For instance, Mesoamerican and Andean agriculture transmitted only a few crops in each direction, such as maize and cassava.  Other extremely useful crops such as the potato remained confined to their region of origin.  In turn, this meant that the defining characteristics of the native crop packages, and their restrictions, continued in those regions until 1500 and the world upheavals that followed...

The three continents of Eurasia between them possessed the largest areas of arable land and had access to the largest number of centres of domestication.  The earlier dates of domestication, from the greater ease of domesticability of their crops, and the overall greater number of available crops, gave the most opportunity to the Eurasian continents.

Conversely, eastern North America had the latest start of domestication, and the fewest and least useful crops.  This gave eastern North America the least opportunity of any continent...

Chapter 11: Germs and Livestock

...The emergence of epidemic diseases, then, is a function of two factors.  The first is the number of domesticated animals, which act as reservoirs for potential diseases.  The second factor is the length of stable urban civilizations, which offer the largest population pool of potential infectees for diseases to make the jump to human-centric epidemics.

Of these factors, the Old World in general and Eurasia in particular were clearly most-suited to acquiring lethal epidemic diseases.  Aururia was intermediate as an origin of diseases; a long history of large cities, but only a few domestic animals that could provide their diseases.

Mesoamerica was the least likely region of any to provide diseases, due to its paucity of domestic animals, and regular collapse of urban centres.  This resulted in the paradoxical situation of healthier, larger urban populations in Mesoamerica, but the greatest vulnerability to diseases from elsewhere...

Chapter 13: Uneven Exchanges

Europe, Asia and India had the largest head start among the continents, thanks to the earliest exchanges of crops and technology.  The example of the Kiyungu in Aururia illustrates how even a small exchange can transform continents.  The Kiyungu were one society in Aururia confined by the characteristics of the red yam, which meant that they could not penetrate further north into the northern half of the continent.

The introduction of a single crop, the sweet potato, around 1300 AD transformed Kiyungu society.  The sweet potato was capable of growing in the tropics, and the limitations on the Kiyungu were removed.  In the three centuries after receiving the sweet potato, the Kiyungu advanced over a considerable portion of coastal north-eastern Aururia, and would have progressed further if not for European irruption...

The great exchanges of world history, the Columbian Exchange and the Houtmanian Exchange, transformed the world, uniting the continents, and bringing together all of the crops from their independent centres of domestication.  The greatest benefits came to those who already had a head start in both technology and capability: Europeans most of all, and to a lesser degree the Aururians...

--

[1] When compared to his historical equivalent, Julius Sandford places less emphasis on steel, because there were more iron-using cultures in Aururia and Africa that still suffered from European irruption.  Likewise, while he considers germs, he views them as less decisive than they were historically, because of the presence of new diseases waiting in Aururia.

[2] Sanford’s research is in fact partly incorrect.  Some domesticated cereals, including maize and sorghum, use a form of photosynthesis called C4 carbon fixation, unlike the C3 carbon fixation cycle used by other domesticated cereals such as wheat and rice.  (Most plants in general use C3 carbon fixation for photosynthesis.)  The C4 process is indeed more water-efficient than C3.  However, maize is a plant with extremely shallow roots, which means that it is limited to collecting surface moisture, and so is in fact not very drought-tolerant.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #66: Under The Nine-fold Crown

“Easier to juggle death adders than wear the Nine-fold Crown.”
- Proverb in the Kingdom of Tjibarr

--

Sandstone Day, Cycle of Water, 4th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third [17 August 1636]
Estates of Nyulinga of the Azures, near Yoorala [Wentworth, New South Wales]
Kingdom of Tjibarr

Rain falling outside: soothing, welcoming, blessing.  The sound of water bringing bounty to the soil, a rare and most auspicious rhythm here in the West Lands [1].  The lands here were almost as dry as the red heart, among the most marginal lands where crops could grow.

But how ever poor the rainfall might have been, these lands were Nyulinga’s to manage as he would.  Or should have been managed as he had instructed, which was why he had summoned one of his most senior farmers here, to hear his wrath.

The music of the rain came through the unshuttered windows into his manor-house.  Nyulinga needed that sound; it was an anodyne to his soul.  It helped to maintain much-needed composure, to preserve his shouting for a time when it would be most appropriate, not when he first saw the misguided farmer.

Nyulinga settled into a chair in his common meeting-hall.  Nothing special distinguished the chair or the table beside him; it was but one of many used to entertain large gatherings.  Indeed, a handful of his other guests were breaking their fast at other tables.  Greeting the farmer here, instead of privately, was another part of the message he needed to send.

A brief nod to the nearest servant, and Jarrakana was ushered into his meeting hall.

If the senior farmer had any idea what fate awaited him, he did not show it.  He glanced around the nearly empty meeting hall, then exchanged the usual polite greetings with Nyulinga, the same ones which would be used between even the bitterest rivals in the Dance [2].

“Be welcome, my guest,” Nyulinga said.

“Fortune and good health to you,” Jarrakanna replied.

Nyulinga waited a long moment before speaking again.  Enough to make the senior farmer uncomfortable, and to test whether he would have the audacity of trying to speak first before someone of superior status.

When he decided that the message was clear enough, Nyulinga said, “What have you done to the trees near Three Stone Creek?”

“Cut down two hundred on the western march.  You were told-”

“You had permission to cut down twenty, no more,” Nyulinga said.

“I needed the timber for-”

“Why have you done this on my lands?” Nyulinga said.  This farmer overreached his authority.  Jarrakanna had authority to farm set lands, but only within the constraints set by Nyulinga.  He had no authority to clear land, collect trees, or do anything further without permission.

“My kin required them.  What does a couple of hundred trees matter?”  The senior farmer, fool that he was, sounded completely unapologetic.

“Everything matters!”  Nyulinga did let himself shout now; anger fitted properly.  “No more trees are to be cut down than are replaced.  You have no forethought or management of the forests.  If we cut down too many trees, then we would soon run out of trees, and then where would be?”

Proper management of forests was important anywhere, but doubly so here.  Rain was a rare event around Nyulinga’s lands, but floods were all too common.  The Anedeli [River Darling] joined the Nyalananga [River Murray] a short distance upriver of his estates.  The Anedeli was irregular as a river, but flooded prodigiously at times.

Floods were a mixed blessing, but one his family had long learned to use.  Crops in the ground at the time of floods could be ruined.  Likewise, his manor-house had been built on a natural hill that had been further heightened to be above the worst known floods in memory of his own or his father’s time.

Yet for all of their destruction, floods replenished the soil, quicker and cheaper than leaving each field to be grown with wealth-trees and wandered by noroons [emus] for two years.  Trees, too, benefitted from a flood [3].  Timber was more valuable to his estates than crops, in most years.  Jarrakanna’s short-sighted actions threatened that.

The senior farmer paused for a long moment before attempting to answer.  “Two hundred trees for good purpose is not-”

“You do not decide on that!” Nyulinga said.  “Even if you had such authority, a man must care not just for today, but for all time.  Now, what will I see if I look to the west?  Fewer trees than I should.”  The bloody man continued to look at him in disbelief.  “If there is to be a shift in priorities in my estates, then I will decide it.”

Another man entered the meeting hall.  Nyulinga gave him the briefest of glances, then decided to curtail his condemnation of the senior farmer.  “Jarrakanna, you are dismissed from all of your allocated land in my estates.  Find something smaller within another faction’s land, if you can.  No land controller in the Azures will accept you, not after making such a breach without even asking permission.”

The senior farmer looked as if he wanted to argue further, even now.  Then he caught sight of the newcomer ambling up beside Nyulinga, and darkness fell across his features as he thought better of it.  The first glimmer of intelligence he had shown.  Jarrakanna gave a curt shake of his head, then turned and stalked out.

The newcomer settled into the chair which the farmer had vacated.  He reached for a kunduri pouch at his waist, and settled into the ritual of mixing the pouch with the cold wealth-tree ash on the table before him.  While preparing, the man gave only the briefest of glances around the meeting hall.  Suddenly every other guest in the meeting hall decided that they had eaten enough this morning, too.  Within a matter of moments, the meeting hall was empty.

“Your talents are still strong,” Nyulinga said dryly.

The newcomer grinned, though as with all of his smiles, it did not touch his eyes.  “If my greatest gift was to clear a room without words, you would have put me out to chop trees years ago.”

A casual reference to why Jarrakanna had been punished?  With this man, it was hard to say.  The minutiae of estate management should have been beneath his notice, but perhaps he had heard a whisper, or reasoned it out from the few sentences he had overheard.  With this man’s talents, it was far from impossible.

Nyulinga said, “What word have you heard from the west?”

The man shrugged, as casual a gesture as most of those he made.  Most things about the man were average: middling height, middling build, middle-aged, so far as anything could be judged of his age.  His skin, for now, was as dark as a Junditmara; most unusual for a man of the Five Rivers, and no doubt a product of some skin colouring or other.  A story would be behind that, probably the same story about the neatly-trimmed moustache.  A story which would never be told.  The only real distinguishing feature was his eyes: so narrow he appeared to have a permanent glare etched onto his features.

“Trade with the Raw Men continues apace,” said the man, who answered to the name of Northwind [4] when he bothered to acknowledge any name at all.  “Those with wit and fortune can do well.”  He completed mixing the kunduri, and popped the ball into his mouth to start chewing.

That much, Nyulinga already knew.  The Raw Men – Nedlandj, he had heard they called themselves – had some valuable goods to sell, but paying for them was difficult with the produce of his estates.  Kunduri and spices, the Nedlandj valued most; rather more than they were worth to anyone of sense, in fact.

Alas, growing such crops on his frequently-flooded land was seldom easy.  Timber fetched a good price along the Nyalananga, but it was useless to bring in bulk across the land road to Jugara [Victor Harbor].  He had considered trading his timber for spices and then trading those with the Nedlandj, but such bargains most benefitted the merchants in the middle.

“Any word of factions making trade pacts to gain better terms from the Raw Men?”

Northwind paused to spit, with perfect accuracy, into the bowl on the table reserved for that purpose.  “Some small-scale bargains between individual merchants, but naught that suggests a major agreement between two factions.”

Nyulinga shook his head.  He had given some thought to establishing a trade pact between himself and another faction, to find something which the Nedlandj valued more highly, but had made no determination.  Offering a pact could bring gains, but it also admitted a certain element of weakness.  That was a perilous step in the Endless Dance.

“Some of the trade with the Raw Men is curious,” Northwind offered.  “Someone is buying Raw Men books.  Quite a number of them.  The agent appeared to be working for the Whites, but I do not know which particular noble was his principal.  I judged it better not to probe too closely, so I advised your agent not to bid against him.”

“Quite.  No need to attract attention with a bidding war.”  Nyulinga wanted Nedlandj books, if they could be obtained at a decent price, but his wealth was not endless.  Nor was he willing to make his interest too open.  “There will be more books, now that the Nedlandj know they can be sold.”

“If their Association approves it,” Northwind said.

Nyulinga nodded.  This Association – Company was their word – was one of the strangest features of the Raw Men.  One Association which controlled all of the Nedlandj trade.  Odd to think that it worked.  Most frustratingly, it meant that certain Nedlandj goods were not for sale.

“Does their Association still forbid trade in their thunder-weapons?” Nyulinga said.

“A few have been sold.”  Northwind smiled.  “Men are men, no matter how much their Association commands.  But only a few weapons, and at a high price.”

A few of those weapons was not enough.  Even worse than that, the weapons were not like swords, which needed only to be swung, or even a bow, which needed arrows that any decent fletcher could make.  The weapons needed fuel, like a fire, but a fuel which so far only the Nedlandj could supply.

“Can we force their hand in trade?” he mused aloud, though mostly for his own benefit.

“They have more knowledge than us,” Northwind said.  “In some things, at least.”

“Not in all,” Nyulinga said.  He shook his head for emphasis.  “You were in the east at the time, I think, but did you hear what happened when our physician tested the Raw Man doctor?”

“Only that our physician had some cutting remarks,” Northwind said.

Ignoring the horrible pun – the man’s talents did not extend to humour – Nyulinga said, “The Raw Men believe that bleeding a sick man can cure them.  Our physician, Lopitja, let their doctor test it on three men fevered with swamp rash.  Horrible.  Two of the men died after the bleeding, and the third worsened; he was only saved when Lopitja intervened and refused to let the doctor bleed him again.”

“So the Raw Men don’t know everything.  Comforting.  But then they didn’t know of kunduri before coming to our lands, either.”  Northwind chuckled.  “Now kunduri they are keenest for of all.”

“If they value it so much...”  Nyulinga’s voice trailed away as he considered options.  “What then, would they say to an embargo on their Association: if they will not sell weapons to us, we will not sell kunduri to them?”

Northwind raised an eyebrow.  “Think you that the factions can be persuaded to that?”

“Not immediately.  But the idea can be planted.”

Northwind thought for a long moment, too.  “Even if the factions agree, we still need to sell kunduri.  To the Islanders will it go, and they will sell it to the Raw Men.”

“Of course.  But at a higher price.  And the Raw Men will know that, too.  Let us test their resolve over their thunder-weapons.”  Nyulinga smiled, now.  “As for spreading the notion...  Make sure that it is discussed widely, in every tavern and celebration of the Azures during the coming football season.”

“That will see it widely heard.”

“Quite.  We can do more to encourage it.  Let us see what springs from our first soil, and if need presses, drill more seeds.”

This had to work.  The Raw Men were here, and were changing the world.  They would not be giving up their contact with the Five Rivers and going home.  Even if ignorant of some things, perhaps they would bring an age of miracles.  The Dance is Endless, but I fear that from now on, the dancers will move to a different tune.

--

[1] The West Lands is the ancient Tjibarr name for the westernmost farmable length of the Murray River, which stretch westward from historical Mildura.  Rainfall here is erratic and barely enough to sustain the dryland farming techniques of Aururia.

[2] i.e. the Endless Dance (Jingella), the eternal competition between the eight factions in Tjibarr.

[3] The trees which Nyulinga manages are river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis).  This is a large, long-lived tree which produces a distinctive hard red wood which is much prized both historically and allohistorically for decorative purposes and where rot-resistant timber is needed.  Red river gums live along watercourses, especially in the Murray-Darling basin, and rely on regular flooding to remain healthy.

[4] To the people of Tjibarr, a northerly wind is a bad omen.  Northerly winds blow from the arid heart of the continent, bringing heatwaves and the worst conditions for bushfires.  Even when they do not fan bushfires, northerly winds lack any moisture or rain, and are sometimes strong enough to damage crops.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #67: New Partners in the Dance

“Keep your eyes on the sun and you will not see the shadows.”
- Tjibarr proverb

--

From: “The Proxy Wars: Colonialism and Conflict in Aururia”
“Volume 1: Preparing the Ground”
Chief Editor: Proximity Smathost.
Editors & Translators: Demitri Leinfellner, Florian Vandermeer, Sebastian Doyle, & Jeera Kunanyi.

Introduction.

The conflicts that engulfed much of Aururia during the mid-seventeenth century was known to the European colonialists as the Proxy Wars.  They viewed these conflicts as wars between native pawns of the main European protagonists, principally the VOC [Dutch East India Company] and EIC [English East India Company].  To them, and to much of subsequent historiography, these conflicts were created and driven by agendas of company directors in London and Amsterdam, with the Powers successfully agitating the natives to follow their lead.

A more considered view, however, can be found through the primary sources of the time...

*

The Surprise Annal

Preface

(by Demitri Leinfellner)

The Surprise Annal (Jeera Julam) chronicles the history of the main Plirite temple at Warrala [Wemen, Victoria], and some events of the surrounding town.  Many Plirite temples in the Five Rivers wrote annals which were reminiscent of those of ancient Rome.  Each temple’s annal recorded significant events that happened in the temple or the surrounding region, and sometimes recorded news or rumours that were reported from further away.

The Surprise Annal is unusual in that the Warrala temple had a tradition of recording events that were julam, a word with nuances of meaning that include “surprising”, “unexpected”, or “out of the ordinary”.  Noteworthy events within the temple were recorded in the same fashion as that of other temple annals, but events from the town or broader kingdom were only included if they were somehow surprising.

For example, the only years when the Surprise Annal records the winner of the annual football competition at the capital city, Tjibarr, were those years when the winner was not one of the favourite teams.  If the winner was one of the expected teams, which generally speaking meant the top two or three ranked teams from the previous year, then this would not be recorded in the annal.

The original version of the Surprise Annal at the Warrala temple is now lost, although it is believed to have been maintained until at least 1660.  Two partial copies survive, due to the tradition that when a new temple was founded, it would copy its parent temple’s annal up until the date of the new temple’s founding, then create a new annal with its own entries from that date.  The Peetja Annal is based on the original Surprise Annal until 1646, while the Tjomee Annal follows the Surprise Annal until 1589...

1633
(Translator’s Note: Then as now, Plirite religious calendars start on the southern hemisphere autumn equinox [1], so this entry covers the time from 21 March 1633 to 20 March 1634)

In this year, came learned Venerable Brother Wiratjuri hither over sea from the Temple of the Five Winds on the Island, and sojourned at our temple for the Cycle of Falling Stars [2-13 April] to give counsel to the brothers and sisters.

In the same year, came hither one Bunjil from Yarralinga [Hamley Bridge, South Australia], who was brother to the wife of one who ruled there, to Tjibarr of the Lakes [i.e. the capital city itself], and spoke to the king, and attended a match of football to watch the Reds whom he favoured; whence he proceeded downriver.

(Translator’s Note: The Whites won the annual football tournament in this year, but they were among the favourites, ranked second the previous year, so in keeping with their usual practice, the priests of Warrala did not mention the winners.)

When he was about a mile or more above Warrala, he put on his mail, and so did all his companions: and they proceeded to town.  When they came hither, they resolved to break their fast wherever they wished.  Then came one of Bunjil’s companions, who would claim food at the house of a master of a family against his will; but having wounded the master of the house, was slain by sword.  Then was Bunjil quickly into battle, his companions with him, and they slew the master of the family under his own roof, and wounded several other men besides.

The townsmen slew six of Bunjil’s companions, and Bunjil and his other companions ran to Tapiwal [Robinvale], where the king was then residing, and he was wroth with the townsmen.  He called council with the sentinel [2] of the Greens and two land controllers of the Grays, which two factions most of the townsmen supported, and determined that six noroons [emus] and a half-pouch of kunduri should be given to Bunjil by the townsmen; while a footballer of the Reds was found to counsel Bunjil and his companions against excess...

This same year were the quandongs most bountiful in the harvest, more so than any time in the memory of man, so that the farmers had more than they could barter away for any good purpose, and during the Cycle of Life (16-27 November) called a celebration in the town, and brought in all the quandongs that could not be traded, and the children and townswomen were given to eat as much as they could.  Whereas the nuts [edible seed kernels] of the quandong were returned, and in respect traded downriver to a broker in Jugara [Victor Harbor] who found the Islanders most grateful, and returned to the town much gum cider.

This same year came blister-rash (chickenpox) to the kingdom and the town.  The physicians called for quarantine, but the blister-rash spread beyond all excluded towns.  More Warrala townsfolk died of the blister-rash than anyone knows of any sickness before; more than swelling-fever (mumps) or the red cough (tuberculosis) or the worst year of the Waiting Death (Marnitja).  The king died in Tjibarr of the Lakes, and Guneewin became third of that name to be cast in silver [3].

(Translator’s Note: The relatively brief reference to what was a massive epidemic is typical of the style of Plirite annals.  Events are merely described and not given any particular weight over each other; in the original language, the account of Bunjil’s passage and its aftermath is three times as long as the explanation of chickenpox.  The first four infectious diseases known to have reached Aururia by 1635 (syphilis, tuberculosis, mumps and then chickenpox) are estimated to have killed more than ten percent of the population; a million people or more, depending on which estimate of the pre-contact population was correct).

In this year died Eldest Brother Kalaree of the temple, and Tjuri became Eldest.  Nine brothers and three sisters joined their kin (died) during the year.

*

Letter 29

Azure Day, Cycle of Bunya Nuts, 5th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third [4] (2 August 1637)

To Murranbulla of the Reds from your friend Nyulinga of the Azures [Light Blues]: May your days know honour and good fortune.  May your nights know good sleep.  May your footballers be favoured whenever they do not play the Azures.

Refusal of the Raw Men to trade us their weapons is an insult to all who have goods to sell.  They have not listened to reason, not in all the ten years since their ships first called at our ports.  Where remonstration has failed, manoeuvre must be used to convince them.

Single action will never make the Nedlandj Association renounce its ban.  Joint action is required; for a time, all the partners in the Dance must step in the same direction.  We must tell the Raw Men that until they agree to sell their weapons, and at a price which is fair, then we will withhold all kunduri from them.  It is the trade good they value above all, and it is needed to bring them to accord.

The embargo must be collective to succeed.  In the short-term, it will bring more costs, but not unacceptable, since we can sell to the Islanders, who will sell to the Association for a greater profit, and more cost to the Raw Men.  This cost we must tolerate.  The Blues [Dark Blues] and Blacks have voiced their support to me, if we can find agreement elsewhere.  The Blues agreeing means that the Greens are reticent, but this can be addressed if every other faction moves in step.

Joint action is required, anathema though this may be to the Dance.  Once the Raw Men have conceded that trade must flow, the factions can return to their ancient habits, but we must do what is necessary first.

(Translator’s notes: Such open language is unusual in a letter between members of different Gunnagal factions, who usually adopted a much more circumspect style to discuss political manoeuvres.  The plain wording adopted means either that this letter was public confirmation of an already agreed plan between the parties, which the author intended the recipient to circulate unofficially as part of further covert negotiations to gain support, or that the author expected the letter to be intercepted and spread widely to build a broader public pressure campaign to bring about the desired collective action.)

*

Letter 34

Wombat Day, Cycle of Life, 5th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third (22 November 1637)

(Translator’s note: According to Tjibarr protocol, a letter addressed to the sentinel of a faction was the way to write to the all of the notable members of a faction, even though in most cases, the sentinel had no real political power within the faction.)

To Waminung, Sentinel of the Golds, from your comrade (i.e. fellow Gold supporter) Nabool: May your days in this life be long.  May you know good health and vigour.  May our footballers triumph always over all rivals.

I hear your requests that more must be done to support our beloved Golds of Renown.  Too many players of talent have been lost to blister-rash or swelling-fever or sorrow, and those who would replace them must be searched out and trained.

People who might attend to cheer our players are fewer in number.  It saddens me to hear that there were unfilled seats in the last game between Golds and Reds.  The tribulations are growing throughout the kingdom.

While I am filled with pain to write it, I cannot provide the further silver or musk you have asked for to support the Golds.  My estates are afflicted with flood, and lack enough workers to make repairs or harvest what remains in the fields before rot begins.  Those of my neighbours suffer even more, for the new land controllers are young after their fathers and uncles joined their kin, and know not yet how to manage the land with one eye to what may come.  (Translator’s note: A Gunnagal idiom which means roughly “look both to what must be done now, and to what is needed for the longer term).

*

Letter 35

Eagle Day, Cycle of Fire, 6th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third (18 May 1638)

To Magool Wallira of the Blues from Nyulinga of the Azures: May your dreams be free of nightmares.  May you find the harmony you seek.

(Translator’s Note: Diplomatic letters in Aururian civilizations had a number of large stock phrases which could be used as openings, and Tjibarr was no exception.  The reference to harmony indicates that Magool Wallira was among the minority of Gunnagal who followed the Plirite faith.  The lack of well-wishers to his footballers also indicates that the Blues land controller (aristocrat) was among those for whom faction membership was for political and economic reasons, not sport.)

Further truth has been revealed; the nature of things is now clearer.  The new Raw Men who visited Jugara, these Inglidj, are no minor splinter of the Nedlandj.  They are a nation of their own.  So the Raw Men have factions too, their associations, and nations also.  If not rivals now, they may become so.

The rules have changed.  Peetanootj [5] brought war to the Yadji, and his failure is our threat and opportunity.  The Nedlandj are driven from the Land of the Five Directions; the Inglidj now have the monopoly there.  Raw Men weapons and their makers have been captured by the Yadji, and Peetanootj is now in the kingdom [i.e. within Tjibarr’s borders].

What had been prepared has been overtaken.  While successful so far, it has been overtaken.  Plans in travois must be unmade; new plans can be formed.

(Translator’s Note: This is a circumspect reference to earlier attempts by the Azures aristocrat to establish a coalition (see letters 27 and 29) who would proclaim a kunduri embargo unless the Dutch East India Company agreed to trade in weapons.  With Pieter Nuyts and fellow captives in Tjibarr, some Dutch captives in Durigal [the Yadji lands] and English traders now likely to arm the Yadji, the Dutch restrictions on trading weapons were now largely superfluous.)

I invite you to consider these matters with me and several friends.

*

Letter 48

(Translator’s Note: This letter was written in Dutch, and is the first official communication between a Tjibarr monarch and a European body.  It is believed to have been composed by Wemba of the Whites, probably with assistance from one or more of the Dutch captives he retained from Nuyts’ failed conquest.

Three copies are known to have been sent, one to Jugara to await the arrival of the next Dutch ship, one to the Island to be sent to the Dutch trading outpost at the Mutjing city-state of Luyandi [Port Kenny, South Australia], and one via the Nuttana for them to deliver it directly to Batavia on their next trading run to the East Indies.)

Weemiraga's Day, Cycle of the Sun, 7th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third (19 December 1639)

To Anthony van Diemen, Governor of the Indies in Batavia, and through you to the Lords Seventeen of your East India Company.  May your Three-fold God favour you in all of your endeavours throughout your life.

... Your Company has chosen to refuse us trade in your guns.  While your reasons may have been valid in former times, the world is no longer as it was.  The English Company has permission to trade with the Yadji, and has begun to sell them weapons.

The Yadji hate us with a vigour that stretches back centuries.  With their new weapons, they will soon start war with us.  If the port of Jugara falls, then you will lose all trade with the Five Rivers, particularly in the kunduri which grows nowhere else.  The Yadji will trade only with the English, and your Company will be the weaker for it.

It is time to lift this restriction, and trade freely with us your guns, your powder, your cannon, for fair prices...

(Signed with nine signatories, the monarch and a representative of each faction)

King Guneewin of the Nine-Fold Crown
Pila Dadi, Premier Land Controller, for the Whites
Waminung, Sentinel of the Golds
Gatjibee, Lifetime Champion (Footballer) of the Greens
Kaalong, Sentinel of the Blacks
Gumaring, First Speaker of the Azures
Tjee Burra, Senior Physician, for the Grays
Magool Wallira, in harmony, for the Blues
Murranbulla, Land Controller, for the Reds

--

[1] Most agricultural cultures throughout history have considered the year to start during winter or spring.  In Aururia, the nature of perennial farming and the particular crops grown mean that there is not the same connection to new growth in spring.  In the Aururian farming cycle, winter is not a dead time of the year, since many of the crops (wattles) flower during winter, and the first harvests (red yams and murnong) can begin in autumn, not in summer.  So the Aururian calendars are based on the autumn equinox as the start of the year.

[2] Sentinel is the usual translation of the Gunnagal word for the person in a faction who is notionally responsible for choosing which players are selected into the football squad for the season.  In some factions, the sentinel is a politically important figure who conducts negotiations with other factions over many matters (commerce, military, land control), not just football; in other factions, the sentinel is merely a agent who selects football players, and whose only negotiations with other factions is over exchanges of players and the like.

[3] Part of the investiture of a new monarch in Tjibarr is to have a statuette of them cast in silver and placed in the Thousand-Fold Palace.  The statuette is a symbol of the living monarch, not a permanent reminder; after the monarch’s death, the silver will be melted down and recast into a new statuette for the new monarch.

[4] In the Gunnagal calendar, the start of each year is fixed at the autumn equinox.  The period from the crowning of a new monarch to the next autumn equinox is considered the monarch’s first year, even if it only lasts a single day (or even one hour).

[5] i.e. Pieter Nuyts, the would-be Dutch conquistador who had just failed in his bid to do a Cortes and become ruler of the Yadji realm.  See post #44 (and its predecessors).

--

Lands of Red and Gold #68: Music of the Dance

“They [the Dutch] are not only to lend us their experience but give every assistance to our merchants trading in the East and West Indies, leaving them free to trade on whatever coasts they choose in full security and liberty and to associate with them [French merchants] in their navigation to the said countries.”
- Cardinal Richelieu, 1627 (shortly before his death) setting out the conditions that the Dutch would have to accept in exchange for French finance in the Dutch war for independence from Spain

--

Venus's Day, Cycle of the Moon, 8th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third (28 February 1641)
Hall of Rainbows [1], Tjibarr of the Lakes
Kingdom of Tjibarr

Heat lies heavy in the Hall.  Summer is all but gone in the turning of the seasons, but its presence lingers yet.  A man who has lived as long as Kaalong develops a feel for the weather.  No matter what season the calendar proclaims, the north wind, the time of danger and fire, will dwell in Tjibarr of the Lakes for many days to come.

Inside the Hall, no man forgets what lies outside.  The Hall of Rainbows has many qualities, but not those that give coolness during the day.  Splendour, yes, that is here in abundance.  The Hall is full of marvels that proclaim the triumphs of the factions, most notably the bronzed statues of champion footballers, and other treasures of history passed.  Precision, yes, that is here too, from the carefully polished eight-sided table in the centre of the Hall, to the eight equally-sized grand entrances in the centre of each of the eight walls.  Ventilation, though, is not a quality that was foremost in the minds of the builders.  Heat which enters the Hall lingers long after the daily dying of the sun which gave it birth.

Kaalong maintains his composure as best he can.  Thirty-two men have gathered here in the Hall.  Four chosen to represent each faction.  The best four.  Here is the grand chamber which forms the heart of the Endless Dance.  Here, those who are permitted to enter are those who are best suited to the Dance.

Of the thirty-two men here, Kaalong likes to think that he is the best Dancer.  His talents have won him the post of Sentinel of the Blacks, one of only two factions where the Sentinel is in truth the leading man.  More than that, his talents have kept him there.  In the Endless Dance, a man soon finds that gaining something is only the prelude; holding what he has won is the true achievement.

For all of his talents, the gap between him and the other Dancers gathered here is not large.  A blundering man will soon misstep in the Dance.  Even if such a misstep is not fatal, it will be enough to remove a man from consideration for true power.

A man in plain brown clothes enters through the Grays’ entrance.  “Stand!  He comes before you!  The Nine-fold King!  The Essence of Harmony!  He who brings balance to the kingdom!  He comes before you!  Stand!”

Kaalong smoothly rises to his feet.  So does every other man.  A king in Tjibarr is no absolute ruler, like the emperor of the Yadji.  The emperor of the Yadji has unbounded power over his people.  The Yadji ruler can order a man to go bring back a sword to be used for his own execution.  No king of Tjibarr has such power.  Yet despite that truth, it would be a poor Dancer who failed to show proper respect for the person of the king.

His Majesty Guneewin, third of that name, is a young man, barely thirty, and his youth shows on his smooth-cheeked face.  Mostly smooth-cheeked, that is.  The king has not grown a beard in the fashion of the barbaric Atjuntja, but hair grows in front of his ears.  It runs down both his cheeks, ending just before his lips.

Such is the fashion in Tjibarr this season.  A fashion Kaalong has not bothered to follow.  He has seen too many summers to be comfortable yielding to the ever-changing demands of fashion.  More, he deems it unwise to earn a reputation for being needlessly changeable; being seen as such can only hinder the steps of his Dance.

The king enters through the grand entrance of the Grays.  That choice of entrance has been scrupulously chosen by drawing lots beforehand; Kaalong had one of his retired footballers as witness to the choosing.  The king walks slowly around the Hall in a full circle, pausing for the same length of time at each of the grand entrances.  All accords with custom.  No monarch of Tjibarr who openly shows too much preference for one faction will hold the throne for much longer.

His Majesty takes an ordinary seat – no thrones here, in the Hall of Rainbows – aligned between the table’s centre and the Grays’ grand entrance.

After the king sits, the faction leaders do the same.  Four at each side of the table, with no servants or hangers-on in hearing distance.

“Let us consider what must be done,” the king says, speaking first as protocol requires.  Ritual words, but with import far above their usual meaning.  Any full gathering of the factions is time for politics, but every year that passes now makes for a more delicate balance.

The last full gathering of the factions saw the production of a letter to the Nedlandj Association’s rulers.  Now the factions now must decide what other steps Tjibarr will take.  The Endless Dance moves ever on, but now it does so across a much larger scale.

To any normal man of Tjibarr, the discussion which follows is unusually quiet and reserved.  Most meetings of Gunnagal are times for loud interjection, for argumentation, quibbling, and laborious exploration of individual points.  Sometimes, Kaalong thinks that most Gunnagal seek to convince as much by volume as by reason.

This is no meeting of ordinary Gunnagal.  The best Dancers are well-seasoned, and astute.  They know when to be silent.  They know when to listen, and when to think.  They know not to speak unless they have something worth saying, or until they want people to think that they have nothing worth saying.  They can read volumes in any speech, in what is said, in how it is said, and in what is not said.  Language of the body can speak more than words which pass the lips.  The Dance has many facets, many levels of manoeuvre, and many men who need to think.

Only the best Dancers are in the room, now.

Silence descends around the table for a long moment.  Further sign that this is no casual meeting of Gunnagal.  Most times, five or six men would already being speaking over the top of each other.

Waminung, Sentinel of the Golds, is first to offer an opinion.  “War comes soon.  We have held Jugara [2] for over twenty years.  The Yadji will not tolerate our control for much longer.  Only their mad emperor and succession war has held them from acting for so long.”

“The succession has cost them much,” says Gumaring, First Speaker of the Azures.  A man who obsesses much with status, yet is astute regardless.

“And won them much,” says Murranbulla, one of the more senior land controllers [aristocrats] among the Reds.  “Veteran soldiers who know how to fight.  Generals who know how to command.  That Bidwadjari understands battle like any seasoned Dancer understands politics.”

“I hear that the Yadji have fewer soldiers now than when we drove them out of Jugara,” says Tjee Burra of the Grays.  A man who rejoices in the title of senior physician, which is true, but only the smallest part of what he does.  Tjee Burra has very good hearing, especially for events within Durigal [the Yadji lands].

“So do we,” says Magool Wallira.  Who represents the Blues, in some manner, but in a way which is as ambiguous as any of the manoeuvres of that most troublesome of factions.  Magool has neither seniority nor the greatest prestige nor the greatest holdings amongst Blue land controllers.  One can never tell whether Magool makes the decisions or if he is a convenient front for the true architects amongst the Blues.  “The plagues have cost us much.”

A most cutting reference, that.  His Majesty only holds the throne because of the latest of those plagues.  A reminder of that could be an accident.  Could.  Kaalong tries to watch everyone’s reaction, and has to settle for noticing that Pila Dadi has shown no reaction at all.  A sign of great composure, or a sign that the Whites’ greatest land controller awaited that remark?

“This is not the time to list how many soldiers and factionaries can be found within the lands of the Nine-fold Crown,” His Majesty says calmly.  If he is offended, it does not carry into his voice.

Kaalong says, “Let us ask instead if war comes with the Yadji, what can we gain from it?”  An obvious question, but a useful one.  Staying silent too long in the Hall carries its own risks, from those who would see plots even where is none, and from those who would interpret quiet as weakness.

Murranbulla shrugs.  “We hold as much land as we can, almost.  If we push further, we may take land for a time, but could we hold it?”

“If we weaken the Yadji hold in the Red Country [3], it will be harder for them to push back to the Nyalananga [River Murray],” says Bili Narra, a senior Gold land controller.

“Better to consolidate what we hold in the Copper Coast,” Murranbulla says.

“What do you think we’ve been doing for the last twenty years?” says Waminung.  Support for his fellow Gold member, or a sign of dissension within the faction?  Or a bid to make the other factions think there is a rift within the Golds, and so see what advances are offered to each?

“Taking advantage of the Yadji’s internal distractions to manoeuvre amongst factions to gain the best lands.  So it always is,” says Magool Wallira.  Is that a hint of humour in his voice?

“What has happened, has happened,” says Pila Dadi of the Whites.  “Better to ask if the Yadji are in a condition to advance into the Copper Coast.”

“They have more soldiers than us,” Kaalong says.  He wishes he knew exactly how many more.  He is no Gray, to have ears everywhere.  Yet what his sources in Durigal can find out suggests that the Yadji have suffered even more from the blister-rash [chickenpox] than the Five Rivers.  “It is always so, unless we can persuade both Gutjanal and Yigutji [the inland Five Rivers kingdoms] to stand with us.”

“Numbers are not everything.  Or the Yadji would never lose the Copper Coast,” says Gumaring.  The Azures’ First Speaker’s gaze shifts to the king, just for a moment.

“Truth.  Soldiers in the Copper Coast are ever hard for the Yadji to support,” Waminung says.

“Can the Yadji support their troops better with their new horses?” says Gatjibee of the Greens.  The only man here who is a former footballer, he had a reputation for devious tactics on the field, which has carried over into his new role as representative for his faction in the greater Dance.

“They have few horses.  Or so I hear,” says Tjee Burra.

“Quite.  They ate most of those they captured,” Magool Wallira says, amusement plain in his voice this time.  “Short-sighted of them.”

“Ask what we can do with our horses,” Murranbulla says.  The Reds land controller looks across the table to the four Whites representatives.

None of the Whites respond immediately.

Bili Narra says, “These new beasts can carry much.  If we have them, we can push into the Red Country and bring more food with us.”

“Or the Yadji will get their own from their Inglidj allies, and move more men and supplies along their roads.  Whatever else may be said of the Yadji, they are master road builders,” says Gumaring.

“So in war, we must rip up their roads?” Magool Wallira asks.

“Most importantly, we must stop their building teams making new roads.  Such as one straight to Tjibarr,” Kaalong says.  He watches the Whites representatives again when he speaks, but sees nothing.  Most quiet on their part, since so far the Whites are the only faction to have horses.

“Never mind what the Yadji can do with horses,” Gatjibee says.  “Ask what we can do.”

That remark produces much turning of heads to Gatjibee.  The Greens footballer meets the gaze with a broad smile.

Kaalong watches the Whites instead.  It is hard to be sure, amongst such skilled Dancers, but Wemba looks less enthusiastic about the whole discussion of horses.  Wemba is the man who secured both Peetanootj [Pieter Nuyts] and the first horses to come to Tjibarr.  He has been allowed to keep them because he held them first, and because the factions could not – and cannot – agree who will be rewarded with the horses if they were taken off Wemba.  The Whites will have plans of their own for horses, surely.  No matter that Pila Dadi leads the Whites, Wemba will be the one making plans.  He is the one who must be watched carefully.

Gatjibee says, “Horses can move goods quickly by road.  So we know from what the Nedlandj tell us, and what Peetanootj did in Durigal.  So let us build a great road from the Great Bend [4] west across the dry lands, to a port on the farther reaches of the Copper Coast.  Taparee [Port Pirie], Nookoonoo [Port Broughton], or perhaps even Dogport [Port Augusta].”  He grins widely.  Insufferably.

Representatives of four factions try to speak at once.  His Majesty holds up a hand.  “Murranbulla spoke first... though it was a close-run thing.”

Muranbulla says, “If horses can run across the dry lands, across a road to a new port, that will reshape the balance.”

“Jugara and the Bitter Lake [Lake Alexandrina] will no longer be the sole route for trade with the Island and the Raw Men,” Gumaring says.  “If the Yadji take Jugara, we will no longer be cut off.”

“Better, if the Yadji try to advance as far as Dogport, then we can advance along the Nyalananga to threaten their supplies,” says Waminung.

“Best of all, we can still obtain the Nedlandj weapons even if the Yadji still hold Jugara,” Kaalong says.

From there, the discussion flows into a more general one of the consequences of the new horses, the muskets – if those could ever be obtained – and of how to face the Yadji threat.  Or so it appears on the surface.  As Kaalong is all too well aware, much more is being discussed beneath these topics.  He strains his awareness to identify what he can.  He looks for the hints, the meaning in silences, and in half-spoken sounds.  He strives to understand what each means, whether they be truth or deliberately spoken impression.

Each of the factions does the same, he knows.  They watch where each other stands, and what ideas each faction advances.  Each faction, each representative, seeks what can be found for their own advantage, as part of the broader struggle.  Many offer ideas as if for the first time, presenting them as new inspiration.  Most of those ideas will have been heard earlier, by some or perhaps all of the factions.  The ground has to be prepared.  No Dancer takes his first step onto the dance floor without studying that floor first.

Kaalong tries to watch each faction.  Apart from Wemba and the rest of the Whites, those he observes most are the Azures.  That faction has manoeuvred much of late, under Gumaring their First Speaker and Nyulinga who provides the ideas.  They had plans of their own for a kunduri embargo that would force the Nedlandj to trade their weapons.

The outcome has worked, at least in part, but not as Nyulinga had planned.  The outlaws’ raid into Durigal and the weapons the Yadji captured there have forced the Nedlandj to trade weapons.  Which is far from what Nyulinga had sought: a compact with the Azures at the head, bargaining favourable terms with the Raw Men.  They are resentful still, surely, and will be making fresh plans.  Another faction to be watch.

In time, the discussion shifts to the inland kingdoms of Gutjanal and Yigutji.  The age-old kingdoms who are allies as often as enemies in the ever-changing steps of the Dance.

Gumaring says, “Of one thing we can be sure: Yigutji and Gutjanal can never reach the sea to trade for Raw Man weapons.”

Magool Wallira says, “Quite.  They are isolated.  Most of what they want to sell must pass through our lands.  Now, too, so must what they most dearly need to buy.”

Bili Narra smiles.  “They will rely us.  We can threaten them.  Advance on them.”

Murranbulla nods.  “Gutjanal, or perhaps both, could buy weapons off the Yadji.  If the Yadji agree.  But why would they not, if it will give them allies against us?”

While obvious signs are few, resentment forms in many others around the table.  Not just for Murranbulla speaking a voice of caution.  As always in the Dance, there is more to the tale.

The Reds won the football in the season just passed.  As always, that has brought them more glory, and some of the people, and perhaps a few land controllers, changing to their faction.  Along with more generous support from the land controllers aligned to them.  Equally, the victory has brought jealousy, more distrust, and more opposition both covert and overt from land controllers of other factions, in all matters pursued by the Reds.  Such is the Dance.

Waminung says, “Moving the guns by road from the Yadji lands will be much harder than moving them by water is for us.”

Pila Dadi says, “We could make the inland kingdoms dependent on us.  Sell weapons to them, for a good price.  They will need fresh powder to come from us.  They will not be able to turn on us so easily, for they will find themselves unable to use the weapons they would now rely on.”

That comment provokes a round of silence; a rare achievement even amongst so accomplished Dancers as here.  Perhaps even rarer here; the lingering silence shows that every man here recognises a good idea when he hears one.

Kaalong does not want that acknowledgement to go so far, so he adds, “Sell some to the hill-men, too.  They can always find uses for weapons.”

Magool Wallira laughs.  “The Nguril and Kaoma [5]?  Oh, their only problem will be deciding whether to use them on the Yadji or the inland kingdoms.”

“If we can sell weapons through the eastern kingdoms,” Murranbulla says.

“With the prices the guns will command, surely that can be managed,” Tjee Burra says.

Several men shake their heads. With that, and the effects of Pila Dadi’s comments fading, most of the Dancers return to their usual air of silent thoughtfulness.  That is the most common appearance of an experienced Dancer.  Unless, that is, they decide that acting like an ill-spoken, status-obsessed, typical loudmouth Gunnagal suits their current purpose in a discussion.  Or, for the truly subtle, cultivate such an image to ensure that opponents underestimate them.

The talk continues about the needful actions to meet the changes in the world.  Until the king holds up a hand and says, “All that this Council has said must be considered.  Now I bid you pay me heed to what the kingdom needs.”

An ancient phrasing, that, and one best used only by those rulers with the prestige to steer the factions along the royal course.  The current monarch lacks that prestige so far, or so Kaalong judges.

King Guneewin continues, “In all of our actions, dissension must be kept between Nedlandj and Inglidj.  While we must trade with the Nedlandj alone for now, as circumstances require, we must keep open some communication with the Inglidj.  For the alliance of Yadji and Inglidj may shift.  The Inglidj must not be driven from the Land forever.

“Better still, we must encourage other Raw Men nations to sail to the Land.  Since we must Dance with the Raw Men, we must ensure that they provide more Dancers.”

That produces much shaking of heads amongst the Council.  In genuine agreement, if Kaalong is any judge, not just superficial acknowledgement for the Nine-fold Crown.  This new king may be young, but he is far from a fool.

And that truth, too, will become part of the Dance.

--

[1] The Hall of Rainbows is the tallest building in Tjibarr of the Lakes (the capital city for which the kingdom is named), and its central complex is where the senior representatives of each faction come to meet to resolve issues which concern all factions.  Whether the monarch is admitted depends on their personal reputation; a king who has established some credibility as an arbiter may be invited.

[2] Jugara [Victor Harbor, South Australia] is the closest port to the unnavigable mouth of the Nyalananga [River Murray], and is linked to that river by a much-travelled road.  Save for a small handful of high-value goods traded east and north for spices, most of the produce of the Five Rivers is exported via the Jugara Road.  As such, Jugara is the most-contested city on the continent, with Tjibarr and Yadji fighting numerous wars for control of the port and the trade control that comes with it.

[3] The Red Country is the Yadji name for the lands between the Nyalananga and Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria].  This is a fertile, low-lying land [called the Limestone Coast historically] that is ruled by the Yadji but populated by subject ethnicities.

[4] The Great Bend is the Gunnagal name for the point (around modern Morgan, South Australia) where the Nyalananga makes an abrupt change in course, turning from its generally westerly route to a southern course that brings it into the sea about 300 kilometres further south.

[5] The Nguril and Kaoma (hill-men) live in the highlands of the historical Monaro plateau, among the headwaters of the Matjidi [River Murrumbidgee].  They raid both into the Five Rivers, and into the Yadji’s eastern provinces.

--

Lands of Red and Gold #69: On The Cusp

“Faith can move mountains, but dynamite is quicker.”
- Djiramarra “Jeremy” Uptilli, Junditmara engineer

--

Venus's Day, Cycle of the Moon, 8th Year of His Majesty Guneewin the Third (28 February 1641)
Hall of Rainbows, Tjibarr of the Lakes
Kingdom of Tjibarr

Wemba of the Whites listened with contentment as the Council debated how to manage the future of the kingdom, how to cope with the changes sweeping over the land with the appearance of the Raw Men and the plagues they brought with them.  He did not need to speak much himself; the points which needed to be said emerged from other people, sometimes as planned with the Whites and their political allies, sometimes as members of other factions had been guided to say.

In time, a new topic emerged in the discussion.  Loongana, one of the senior land controllers for the Grays, spoke for the first time.  “We Dance around a broader truth.  The question this Council must consider is whether all four nations [1] will survive the changes that come with cannon and horses and everything else the Raw Men bring.”

Murranbulla of the Reds said, “The four nations will long endure, as they have before.”

“Where is Lopitja nowadays?” said Waminung, Sentinel of the Golds.  “Once it was our first rival among the nations, now goannas and desert rats wander over the sands that cover what once were its cities.”

“The winds and rains changed, dooming Lopitja,” said Gatjibee of the Greens.

“And do the Raw Men not represent the greatest change in the wind which the land has ever known?” Waminung asked.

King Guneewin held up a hand.  “All that this Council has said must be considered.  Now I bid you pay me heed to what the kingdom needs.”

Wemba kept his expression smooth, but with more effort than usual.  The monarch had the power to end the Council meeting when he wished, but better sense would be to wait until the discussion was clearly drifting, rather than when it was productive.

The king added, “In all of our actions, dissension must be kept between Nedlandj and Inglidj.  While we must trade with the Nedlandj alone for now, as circumstances require, we must keep open some communication with the Inglidj.  For the alliance of Yadji and Inglidj may shift.  The Inglidj must not be driven from the Land forever.

“Better still, we must encourage other Raw Men nations to sail to the Land.  Since we must Dance with the Raw Men, we must ensure that they provide more Dancers.”

All around the table, the Council members shook their heads.  Wemba made sure he was among them; no reason to show disagreement with good sense.  The king was not a fool, just young and unseasoned.  He was learning, but had not yet learned how to grasp the full subtleties of what was said and not said.

The Council meeting broke up, and the representatives of each faction walked back to their own grand entrances and their own wings of the Hall of Rainbows.  Once inside the Whites’ own rooms, Wemba allowed himself to relax somewhat.  Council meetings always required the concentration of a physician performing surgery.

Even here, he could not end his vigilance completely.  The factions competed between each other, but sometimes the struggles within factions were worse.  Wemba had acquired considerable standing amongst the Whites, perhaps the second behind Pila Dadi – the great land controller – himself.  That brought prestige, but it also made him a target.

Once back in the Whites’ own council chamber, Pila Dadi said, “That went about as well as we could have expected.”

Wemba shook his head.  “The Blues and Greens have said everything we wished we could say.”

He did not bother to explain that they had been helped further by the Golds too-transparent disagreement between themselves.  That was an obvious ploy of faked dissension, to encourage other factions to contact the apparently competing Waminung and Bili Narra of the Golds to exploit the supposed internal divisions of the Golds.  And so reveal their own plans to the actually united Golds.  In some lesser factions, Wemba might have wondered whether such disagreement was genuine – it certainly happened, sometimes – but Waminung was too experienced a sentinel to show honest disagreement with his own faction member in the Council Hall.

Pila Dadi chuckled.  “Blues and Greens have been rivals for so long, few suspect that they might ever stand together.”  Not that the two ancient rivals were truly standing together – they certainly had their own plans to undermine each other, in time – but they had agreed to a certain measure of cooperation in exchange for access to horses.

Some of the other factions bore watching, too.  Wemba was particularly wary of the Azures.  Their old plans had failed.  While he had nothing to do with that failure – that was the actions of Pieter Nuyts and the Inglidj – the Azures would still blame him, and the Whites.  He had to be careful.

He had concerns also about the too-quiet Kaalong, Sentinel of the Blacks.  The man thought he knew more than he did – another common flaw – but he was no fool.  What were the Blacks planning?  Why had they said so little during the Council?  Perhaps they were just watching and waiting, but what if a trap yawned there, too?

Pila Dadi said, “Is there anything else you think we should do now?”

“Not that we can guide the Council toward, yet,” Wemba said.  “We almost got there, until His Majesty ended the Council meeting.”

“True.  Unfortunate he came to the throne so soon,” Pila Dadi said.  “But the Golds at least, and maybe the Greens, are starting to grasp that we must make a lasting, meaningful alliance with the two inland kingdoms [Gutjanal and Yigutji], or be overwhelmed by the Yadji.”

“Do you think they grasp that we don’t want that alliance to defeat the Yadji?” Wemba asked.

“Speak plainly,” Nundjalung said.

Wemba had almost forgotten Nundjalung, and the other White councillor.  Both of them had been invited to the Council only to observe; Pila Dadi did most of the speaking, and Wemba joined in when required.  Nundjalung had been a champion footballer in his day, and while he knew much of the Endless Dance, he had not been raised with it like Wemba or Pila Dadi.  Sometimes he did not grasp points quickly enough.

Wemba said, “As long as the Five Rivers and the Yadji are rivals, we can both get aid from our Raw Men “allies”.”

Pila Dadi added, “And both of them depend on us as their favourable interest here.”

Comprehension dawned on Nundjalung’s features.  “If one of us succeeds in conquering the other, then we become the target of-”

“Of both Raw Men powers,” Pila Dadi said.  “The defeated Raw Men nation will try to control us directly, while our former allies will no longer need us to support their “interests” here.”

Wemba said, “So they might move to take direct control too.”

“Or at least dictate terms to us, in trade, and in their weapons, and in all else,” Pila Dadi said.

Nundjalung shook his head.

Wemba laughed.  “If I thought Gunya Yadji would grasp the concept, I would have the suggestion delivered to him that we make our warfare so indecisive that it drags on forever.”

Pila Dadi said, “A shame the concept would elude him.  Yadji never have much grasp of this world.”

“They are too busy thinking about their supposed world to come,” Nundjalung said.

Only partly true, Wemba thought, but did not bother to correct the footballer.  In truth, the Yadji were a young empire, who had been shaped from a thousand minor polities into a nation only two or three centuries ago.  The factions in Tjibarr had been competing in the subtleties of the Endless Dance since before the fall of the Empire.

“One truth the factions have grasped, and perhaps even the Yadji,” Pila Dadi said.  “We must quickly learn as much as we can of the Raw Men and their ways.  Especially their weapons.”

Wemba said, “Without that, w will be forever dependent on them.  And go the same way as the Mexicans and Inca.”

“Who are they?” Nundjalung asked.

“Exactly,” Wemba said.

--

7 September 1639 / 3rd Year of Regent Gunya Yadji
Near Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Durigal [Land of the Five Directions]

“This job is a pile of shit,” Rikert Wulff muttered.  Which was true both literally and metaphorically.

Four sheds were set up in front of him.  Each covered what had been laid down as a bed of rammed clay, then manure piled on top of it.  Dried pellets of manure from the gloriously oversized chickens these kuros farmed instead of cattle or pigs.  These had been mixed with ashes from the wood of the grain-trees [wattles], liberal quantities of branches, leaves and twigs, and plenty of regular soil.  The heaps were turned every week or so – fortunately a job for Yadji peasants – and also dosed with urine and dung-water.

Eventually, this should produce the whitish crust on the heaps which was the first step on the road to making saltpetre.

This was hardly a job for a master cannoneer.  He had to do something, though.  These Yadji were barbarous and bloodthirsty, and only the belief that he and his fellow cannoneers could produce something useful kept them alive.

Making cannon was out of the question.  The Yadji didn’t even know what cast iron was, let alone having the artisans or foundry needed to cast it into cannon.  One of his junior cannoneers had decided to try casting bronze cannon instead.  That was not entirely a fool’s errand – the Yadji did have a few bronzeworkers around – but still Wulff doubted that anything useful could be made for years, if ever.  The Yadji’s patience would run out long before then.

Creating gunpowder had seemed to be a useful alternative.  Something that would keep the Yadji happy, and let him keep his own neck intact.  Alas, so far, Wulff couldn’t even work out how to produce saltpetre properly.  He had seen parts of it being done, over the years, but had never known completely how it worked.  Now he had to try to find out, and even producing usable amounts of unleached saltpetre from the manure heaps was difficult.  Tackling the leaching and refining process that would be needed afterward would be another challenge altogether.

The wind shifted, blowing from the sheds, and bringing the pungent smell to his nostrils.  “This shit had better work,” he muttered.

--

Time of the Closure [August 1638]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming

Dawn broke over the Mound of Memory.  The sun’s first rays should have turned everything golden, but this was a rare day of clouds.  Light began to pierce the distant horizon, bringing gray to the blackness, but none of the usual glory of golden sunlight on glass.

Ilangi the priest stood with several of his fellows at the peak of the Mound.  Unusually, the Father himself [the high priest] had come today to lead the dawn invocations.

Ilangi mouthed the words he had spoken a thousand times before.  The same ritual invocations to the worthy heads who had been interred behind blessed glass.  All of the words were as they should be, but Ilangi’s thoughts were elsewhere.  As he spoke the words, his gaze wandered to the sea, where the cloud-dimmed sun sill allowed enough light to see if any ships were passing by.

Two years had passed now since the Inglundirr, the Raw Men, had come to Yuragir.  Two years since King Otella had formally declared that the Closure, the end of the age, was upon the kingdom.  Those Inglundirr had fled in their ships after leaving one of their number behind to be interred in the Mound.  The king had let them go, foolishly in Ilangi’s opinion, but no-one had dared gainsay the king.

With the Inglundirr skull filling its niche, twenty-two empty niches had remained in the Mound.  Only the utterly worthy could be considered for inclusion now, the greatest of blooded warriors or those with royal blood.  Despite the application of these strict criteria, five niches had been filled since.  Seventeen remained, but the Inglundirr had never returned.

The Raw Men had to be part of the Closure.  They had to be.  Ilangi was utterly convinced, though not all the priests shared his realisation.  So every day he made sure that he was one of the priests who went to the Mound for the dawn invocations, and every day he looked for ships.

On rare occasions he had seen Islander ships, far out to sea, with their distinctive triangular sails.  But as best he could tell, none of the Inglundirr ships with their squarish sails came near to Yuragir.

When would they return and bring the Closure?

--

12 May 1642 / 6th Year of Regent Gunya Yadji
Fort Cumberland [Geelong, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Maurice Redman – Governor Maurice Redman – looked out on what the Yadji had made, and saw that it was good.

The Islanders were right: the Yadji knew much about building in stone.  In what seemed like an impossibly short time, they had built a fort here for the Company to occupy.  A small fort, but well-made in stone.

Better, the Yadji had listened to him, when it came to protecting from cannon fire.  The fort had been built above earth ramparts, to absorb any bombardment.

Redman did not know whether such precautions would be necessary.  The fort was inside the already-treacherous entrance to the great bay [Port Phillip Bay], and further inside a bay with a sandbar so shallow that seagoing ships could not be sailed directly into the port, but goods had to be loaded onto smaller boats.  A raid by the Dutch or even Spanish would be difficult here; the reason he had chosen such a location.  But additional safety never hurt.

Of course, siting Fort Cumberland here had other benefits.  One of the great Yadji roads passed here, keeping near to the sea, and ran all the way to their capital of Kirunmara and further to the other main outpost at Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria].  There was plenty of fresh water: two rivers ran nearby, though not right beside the fort.

Most importantly, the site of Fort Cumberland did not have a Yadji town in the immediate vicinity.  The Yadji had built their usual water works along both rivers, but there was still a decent emptiness around the new fort.  Redman greatly preferred that: living too close to intemperate Yadji was not a prospect which appealed.

As he looked over the surrounding countryside, he saw someone coming along the great Yadji road.  Riding along the road.

An Englishman.  It had to be.  The Yadji had no horses, so far as he knew, and even if they had acquired some, he doubted they had learned how to ride properly.

The man was riding his horse at a gallop, too.  If he had come all the way from Gurndjit – the only place that had horses – at near that pace, he must be close to killing his horse.

Redman looked away from the fort walls and shouted out an order to have the rider brought to him as soon as he was in a fit state to talk.

Soon enough, William Greentree was brought into his presence.  Greentree looked – and smelled – like a man who had not rested or bathed in a week.  His first words confirmed it.  “Treachery!  The Dutch have struck at Gurndjit!  A week gone now, their ships appeared and bombarded the fort we were building.”

Greentree looked around for a moment, as if finally realising that the fort here was finished, though begun much later than the one at Gurndjit.  Of course, the fort planned at Gurndjit was about five times the size of this one.

“War,” Redman said coldly.  If not war that was officially declared, war all the same.  “War on us, and on the Yadji.”  Those two facts must be combined: this must be used to spur the Yadji ruler into active support for the Company.

--

Taken from: “People of the Seas: The Nangu Diaspora”
By Accord Anderson
New London [Charleston, South Carolina], Alleghania: 1985

4. Island in the Sea of Struggles

Guidance from the Nangu providing the way, the Manyilti captain Jerimbee led Baffin to the Yadji.  Compact formed for English benefit, for Pieter Nuyts then struck at the Yadji heart, while Jerimbee his own course pursued in quest for glory.  Most determined all parties were.

Nuyts routed, and hostility to Dutchmen born, Yadji and East India Company began their accord.  Trade and fortifications were their first concern, while Manyilti bloodline found opportunity for its own contacts with previously recalcitrant Yadji.

Most forthright construction the Company planned, with forts twice established for trade and security.  Until the day when the Dutch Company abandoned pretence, and Gurndjit was raided with cannon and soldiers.

Begun, the Proxy Wars had.

--

[1] i.e. Tjibarr, Gutjanal, and Yigutji, the three kingdoms of the Five Rivers, and the Yadji Empire.  These are the four peoples which political factions in Tjibarr generally recognise as forming civilized nations.  Question marks always hang over the Atjuntja, who are regarded as barbaric, and the Nangu on the Island, who are usually regarded as too chaotically run to count as a nation.

--

And thus ends Act I.