Entry 64-1: Chīmalpāin's Name
There won't be an Oasisamerican update to Entry 39 until the mid-fifteenth century, corresponding to the collapse of Paquimé/Casas Grandes IOTL and ITTL.
We're still in the reign of Lakekala Siki, who disappeared only two years before Ah Ek Lemba, in 1427. Exercises making students compare Ah Ek Lemba with Lakekala, maybe even looping in the Taiguano Prophetess or the Second Guacayaraboque, will one day torture many a high schooler... The teacher could even bring in Tamerlane, if they're into that sort of comparisons.
There will be more South American updates at some point, though only after concluding Ah Ek Lemba's campaigns (which are still far from finished). In short, the Siki commercial project has been transformative for the entirety of western South America. TTL's Incas will be dramatically different in their statecraft strategies from OTL.
I haven't done nearly enough research on the Mississippians, but I'll look into a few books and see what I can do. (The PODs should already have rippled up to the Rockies by 1492, if we're being realistic.) I like @metalinvader665's ideas about the Yuchi. There should be a lot more North American updates once Ah Ek Lemba is dead and burnt...
There's a reason his name is lost.
We'll see. But do note that Entry 47 has the Balams but not the Kans (who have been replaced by the Pols) stationed in Q'umarkaj in 1425.
They're from the general Tawantarkira area, yes. The chiefs in the Miskito homeland along the Atlantic littoral are all loyal to Tiho so far, so there's no question of support just yet. Miskitu Tara is making cultural compromises to locals, to the chagrin of some of his Miskito followers.
An intentional rejection of Isatian in favor of Maya is part of Miskitu Tara's anti-Tiho ideology, since the language is closely associated with the Tiho regime. The issue is that Nahuatl-speakers (technically Nahuat-speakers, but Mesoamericans don't see much of a difference) actually constitute the majority of the territories the rebel controls. The Miskito rebels currently discriminate in favor of non-Nahuas: the Mangues, the Matagalpas, and the Ulwas. This isn't a stable long-term solution, especially since the local elite is Nahuat-dominated to an even great degree than the population at large. The Miskitu will have to adopt Isatian if they want to rule here in the long term.
Yeah, that's a mistake with continuity on my part. I should make a spreadsheet at some point like GRRM supposedly does. But let me see what I can do...
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CHĪMALPĀIN'S NAME
Tēmiquittac ("Dream Seer"), Soconusco's mercenary-turned-king, was once named Chīmalpāin ("Shield Carrier"). This is a late fifteenth-century legend of how he came to be called Tēmiquittac.
Chīmalpāin was sleeping on his mat one day. In his dreams he saw a thunderstorm, only the clouds were white and the lightning bolts were black. Ca tlatlīlpetlāni, he said. Black lightning is striking. Lightning without light.
The thunderstorm began in a vast flatland and swept over the heavens, and blood streamed like rivers on all the lands darkened by the shadows of the clouds. The pyramids fell to rubble and the palaces were littered with dust in every shaded country. Chīmalpāin saw villages where not a single voice was heard. The people had gone mute. When they did speak, their voices were unclear [ahmo nāhuatl]. And all the cotton ever twisted in every cloth ever woven unraveled into strands, even the very thread being woven by the women—it unraveled as it was woven.
An eagle was perched on a prickly pear plant. Then the pear plant seemed to grow feet and run away. Having lost its roost, the eagle sailed into the thunderstorm. For a moment, the black lightning seemed to abate. Then a snarling jaguar emerged from a steep cavern, pounced on the eagle, and tore off its wings. Four hundred Nahua warriors emerged as if from thin air and clubbed the cat to death. But it was too late. The eagle’s feathers were already red and wet. The warriors watched it die and gave it the cremation due an emperor.
And under all this, Chīmalpāin was carrying his shield over his head, hoping it would protect him from the hailstones and lightnings that swept across the world.
“Are you not ashamed,” asked a voice, “of your shield?”
“I am ashamed,” Chīmalpāin said.
Then the Viceroy saw in his dream three mighty cities. One was built over a lake crisscrossed by cross-bridges; another built its walls with a hundred and sixty thousand skeletons; the last, he realized, was Tiho, only different.
And all three cities were peopled as anthills are ant-ed, but in all three of them the citizens were naked, and their houses and temples were full of urine and excrement. Chīmalpāin saw people carry the droppings of birds from outside the city gates and bring them into their houses, venerating them as if they were the excrement of gods—how repulsive it was!
“Surely all these people will die of sickness!” Muttered Chīmalpāin.
“And the world will die with them,” said the voice.
“What must I do?”
“Cast down your shield! And remember what you have seen in dreams [in ōtictēmiquittac].”
“Will I live or die?”
“Do you not know the answer?”
The next day, Chīmalpāin told of what he had seen in dreams and declared independence from Ah Ek Lemba, whose name meant “He of the Black Lightning” in Maya. He knew he would die. But the people of Hullubtaca remembered him, and have called him Tēmiquittac ever since.
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