Lands of Red and Gold #100: Eighty Years After
Reminder: Scarecrow has prepared a map of south-eastern Aururia at this point in the timeline, which is available
here.
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“To understand a state, you must first understand the true source of its government’s authority.”
- Pinjarra,
Majura Namatji (1717)]
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“No matter what the soil beneath his feet, no matter what the flag flying above his head, wherever a Congxie goes, he is still a member of the Congxie Nation.”
- Myumitsi Makan, better known in English as Solidarity Jenkins, addressing a Congxie labour rally in Irving [Columbus, Georgia]
* * *
In 1619, Europeans first made contact with Aururia when the ships of Frederick de Houtman encountered the Atjuntja. In 1699, as the world nears the eighteenth century, much has changed in the Third World.
The starkest change in Aururia has come about due to the grim parade of introduced diseases which struck the continent. The pox [syphilis] and the red breath [tuberculosis] appeared with de Houtman’s second expedition to Aururia in 1620. Swelling-fever [mumps] soon followed in 1626, and blister-rash [chickenpox] appeared in 1632. The most severe disease so far, light-fever [epidemic typhus], first appeared in 1643 and then spread over the continent over the next few years.
While the previous plagues had taken a severe toll, the worst period for foreign diseases was the era which the Aururians called the Time of the Great Dying, from approximately 1660 to the early 1690s. This was when the grimmest wave of new plagues struck, together with recurrent outbreaks of previously-seen epidemics.
The first disease to strike in this era was the worst; what the Aururians called the Great Death [measles] first appeared in about 1660, spread quickly, and claimed a quarter of the surviving population of the continent. Other epidemics followed. Bloat-throat [diphtheria] took a considerable toll in the early 1670s, while death-cough [pertussis / whooping cough] inflicted much deadly suffering as it spread more slowly through Aururia in the second half of the decade. The one stroke of (relative) good fortune which the Land of Gold had during the Time of the Great Dying was that the epidemic of scar-blister [smallpox] which appeared in the early 1680s was the milder version of the disease [alastrim,
Variola minor]; while it claimed some lives, the alternative [smallpox,
Variola major] would have been much worse.
Lightless-fever [typhoid] had been present in parts of Aururia since at least the early 1670s. Records survive of Tjibarri physicians who described localised outbreaks in the ports of Jugara [Victor Harbor] and Taparee [Port Pirie]. The physicians recognised the similarities to the earlier epidemic which they called light-fever; this new disease lacked the sensitive to light, but otherwise had similar symptoms of delirium and fever, and hence they named it lightless-fever [1].
Other outbreaks must have been present in other Aururian states around this time; lightless-fever does not spread as quickly as most of the previous plagues to strike the Third World, so it must have been present for some years. However, the lack of suitable medical personnel, plus confusion with light-fever epidemics, meant that most regions did not have clearly-documented outbreaks recorded until the 1680s.
The first major outbreak that was unambiguously lightless-fever appeared in Gurndjit [Portland, VIC] in 1679, but other outbreaks appeared in the Five Rivers, Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula], Cider Isle [Tasmania] and Sunrise Lands [east coast] too rapidly to have been directly connected to the first outbreak in Gurndjit. In fact, lightless-fever spread so far simply because the disruption of the Great Dying saw many people displaced from their homes and moving into new lands, which included many asymptomatic carriers of lightless-fever.
Lightless-fever took its toll on the population of Aururia, but on the whole much less than the plagues before it. The disease was spread by contamination of food and water from the faeces of an infected person, and spread fastest in crowded regions with poor sanitation. Aururian cities on the whole had good sanitation – particularly the Yadji cities – so lightless-fever did not spread as readily as in some other parts of the world. In the Five Rivers, the physicians had long prescribed a primitive form of oral rehydration therapy for any diarrhoeal diseases – in their case, using a mixture of salt and wattle-gum mixed with water – and this treatment worked reasonably well against lightless-fever.
After lightless-fever, the last great plague to strike Aururia was great-sleep [influenza]. Aururia had its own form of this plague, blue-sleep, which had struck the Old World about a decade after contact with the Third World. Great-sleep, however, was much slower in moving the other direction. This was because great-sleep was an extremely quick-spreading respiratory illness and in longer voyages usually spread through a ship’s crew and burned out before the ship reached its destination.
The first transmission of blue-sleep to Asia had come from a short Portuguese missionary-exploratory voyage from Timor to north-western Aururia and back again; quick enough for blue-sleep not to burn out before reaching Old World shores. European voyages to Aururia were generally aimed at the agricultural regions, which required much longer voyages, and so great-sleep inevitably burned out. The Portuguese explored northern Aururia occasionally over the next few decades, and established a few missions. Great-sleep in time came to these missions (the first in 1655), and occasionally to Nuttana outposts, but the lower population density in already plague-ravaged Aururia meant that these epidemics did not spread south to the main agricultural regions.
Improving sailing technology and the ever-increasing volume of ships meant that, in time, outbreaks of great-sleep lingered in some ships long enough to become established in Aururia’s agricultural regions. The first such outbreak was in Tiayal [Atjuntja realm] in 1686, where the disease then became endemic, since its rapid evolution each year was enough to prevent the Atjuntja from developing immunity. From there, great-sleep inevitably spread east; the speed of Nangu trade-ships in the strong winds of the Southern Ocean meant that in 1692, a Nangu vessel carried the disease to the Island, from whence it spread rapidly across the agricultural regions of south-eastern Aururia.
Being both fast-spreading and highly contagious, once great-sleep had reached the agricultural regions, it infected the large majority of the population and inflicted a substantial death toll: later estimates ranged between 6-10% of the population. Severe as this toll was, in comparative terms, the Aururian peoples had fared better than most peoples who were exposed to virgin-field epidemics in other parts of the world; the presence of the related blue-sleep meant that there was better resistance than in entirely unexposed peoples.
Although Aururians did not know it, great-sleep marked the last virgin-field Old World epidemic that would appear during this era.
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Eighty years after, the cumulative effect of the plagues has been horrific. Aururia had a pre-European-contact agricultural population of about 10 million. The waves of epidemics, together with wars, famines and introduced pests such as rats, have reduced the agricultural population of the Land of Gold to about 4 million people. Worse, the population is still declining, due to recurrent epidemics striking those who are too young to have immunity from previous outbreaks, or who were otherwise missed during the first waves of these new diseases. There has been some population recovery in between waves of epidemics, but the overall trend in population growth remains negative, and will remain so for some decades until enough of the population develops natural resistance to the imported plagues [2].
The population decline has been severe across all of the 1619-vintage agricultural regions. The hardest-hit areas include Tiayal, where the epidemics were exacerbated by population concentrations in the White City, a road network which allowed wide dispersal of the diseases, and regular post-epidemic revolts which caused further death. The Cider Isle [Tasmania] suffered badly too, with most of the population crowded into the agricultural regions of the northern and eastern coast, which meant epidemics spread rapidly.
Of the existing agricultural regions, the Five Rivers states (Tjibarr, Gutjanal, Yigutji) fared best. Their medicine was amongst the most advanced in the world, allowing effective imposition of quarantine that reduced the spread of some diseases, and a couple of their treatments (most notably oral rehydration therapy) reduced the mortality rates for some diseases. The advantages of geography and relative political stability also meant that the Five Rivers heartland has been relatively unaffected by destructive warfare, with the notable exception of Prince Rupert’s destructive raids into Gutjanal during the 1640s.
One significant exception existed to the demographic disasters of seventeenth-century Aururia. One society which not only maintained, but grew in population over this period: the Nuttana.
The Nuttana’s survival was in part because very few epidemics were genuinely virgin-soil for them. Since their sailors were often exposed to those diseases while visiting overseas, and they had some foreign workers who were already either immune or resistant to the new plagues, the Nuttana had people around to provide care to the sick during the critical days, which saved many lives. So, too, to the Nuttana’s effective imposition of quarantine, which limited the progress of some (though certainly not all) epidemics.
The greatest factor in Nuttana population growth, however, was simply that the Nuttana continued to recruit more people to work for them, whether willingly or unwillingly. The founding Nuttana had used Kiyungu as farmers, and many more Kiyungu were recruited over the course of the seventeenth century. Some further Nangu émigrés from the Island also boosted the Nuttana’s numbers. So too did Papuans as slaves, guest workers or permanent migrants, a great many Māori slaves, and smaller numbers of slaves and recruits who were Flesh-Easters [Solomon Islanders], or from Kanakee [New Caledonia] or further-afield Pacific islands. The Nuttana included a smattering of Bugis recruits, and even had the occasional European or Bengali joining them.
Apart from the Nuttana, the massive population decline and associated warfare severely weakened the social fabric of most Aururian societies. Some societies were annihilated completely, either completely destroyed by plagues or with a few traumatised survivors absorbed into other societies. This fate befell several smaller eastern coast societies and various hunter-gatherer peoples; they simply ceased to exist as distinct groups, as their few surviving inhabitants sought refuge amongst their neighbours, or occasionally were simply conquered by them.
For instance, the English established a trading outpost at Port Percy [Sydney, NSW] in 1646. Over the early 1650s, English agents ventured inland, seeking out potential trading partners and allies. In the region they called the Blue Highlands [3] to the southwest of Port Percy, they found three farming peoples living there: the Naimurla, the Brataumunga, and Daroogatta. These peoples grew small numbers of sweet peppers, but the ruggedness of the terrain and better sources elsewhere meant that the English did not bother to maintain trade contact. Four decades and several plagues later, returning English agents found only the Brataumunga; the other two peoples had vanished or been absorbed.
In some cases, the displaced peoples fled into regions where there was still relative stability. Take the ancient Kingdom of the Skin [Hunter Valley]. Apathy about outside matters lent the Kingdom stability; the European companies found it difficult to interfere in the internal politics of a state which simply granted equal trade to all visitors and refused any other form of contact.
So the Kingdom remained relatively stable in its own borders, but had to manage the ever-growing numbers of migrants into their lands as first light-fever and then the Time of the Great Dying displaced so many people. Despite their traditional scornfulness of outsiders, particularly amongst the priestly caste, the severe shortage of labour meant that the Patjimunra, the People of the Skin, found a place for the new migrants at the bottom of their social hierarchy.
So, in a smaller way, did the Dutch colony of Hammer Bay [Jervis Bay]. The colony was initially established as a resupply station in 1649. The VOC soon became more heavily involved because they backed their local allies, the Yerremadra, to conquer their neighbours in what came to be called the Tea-Tree War. When the VOC developed an interest in exporting what they called “lemon tea”, and which was known in English as jeeree, Hammer Bay was selected as the principal area of cultivation. The VOC invested considerable effort in keeping the region secure and stable during the Proxy Wars and Anglo-Dutch Wars. This stability was also attractive to displaced peoples who would accept the indignity of working as a Nedlandj jeeree farmer in exchange for safety from other displaced raiders, privations, or uncertain migration into less welcoming lands.
Elsewhere in the Sunrise Lands, the English took advantage of the disruptions to use their trading post at Port Percy as a base for the colonisation of the surrounding plains [Cumberland Plains / Sydney basin]. The English aim was to use their new lands for the cultivation of the same kinds of spices that were grown slightly further north in the Kingdom of the Skin. This effort largely failed, since much of the soil was not suitable, and the climate around Port Percy was just far enough south to be vulnerable to occasional frosts, which killed many of the young spice trees (except sweet peppers). Despite this, the English have retained control of their Port Percy colony, and keep actively searching for other ways to turn a profit from the land.
The disruptions also gave the
Compagnie d’Orient [French East India Company] their first opportunity to establish their influence on the Aururian mainland. The homeland of the Jerrewa people [Batemans Bay NSW and environs] was in the more southerly part of the Sunrise Lands; too cold to grow the most attractive eastern spices. The climate was still suitable for jeeree and sweet peppers, but those spices could be grown equally easy in many other places. So neither the Dutch nor English had shown more than a cursory interest in the region.
With the spread of the plagues through the Sunrise Lands, by the 1680s the much-reduced Jerrewa were fighting amongst themselves and suffering from migrations by other displaced peoples from further south fleeing the establishment of Māori colonies at Mahratta [Mallacoota, VIC] and Maliwa [Eden, NSW]. The CDO used the disruption to establish a factory [trading post] there, which they called Yerowa [Batemans Bay] in a mispronunciation of the name of the local people. Thus far the trading outpost has not returned any significant profit for the CDO, but French prospectors venturing into the surrounding countryside have become the first Europeans to see the very large flightless birds which the Jerrewa call
muwa.
Even the larger agricultural societies were not immune to disruption. The population collapse meant that frontier and marginal agricultural lands were largely abandoned by farmers, as the remaining agriculturalists concentrated on the more productive lands. The empty lands were attractive to hunter-gatherers who were themselves often displaced, and who saw the now-vacant lands with a boom in animal life as nature reclaimed them. Hunter-gatherers moved into the frontier areas of Tjibarr, Yigutji, the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] and Tiayal. While none of these societies stopped claiming this territory, in practice their states were now shrinking.
* * *
When Europeans first reached Tiayal, the Middle Country, they found the Atjuntja ruling the second-largest empire in Aururia. Inventors of ironworking, master road builders, rich in gold and sandalwood, in Tiayal the King of Kings had absolute power of life and death over all his subjects.
Eighty years after, Tiayal has been broken, the King of Kings reduced to a puppet. A series of plague-inspired revolts and the breakdown of the old economic system led to increasing Dutch influence over Middle Country, culminating in the sack of the White City in 1694 and the effective puppetisation of the Atjuntja monarchy.
The sack and subsequent Dutch suppression of the Atjuntja cult of human sacrifice means that both the King of Kings and his royal governors have lost any semblance of authority. The Middle Country still has a large class of merchant-aristocrats, many native Atjuntja, some from the semi-assimilated subject peoples. These aristocrats stepped into the vacuum of power left after the sack, and started exercising local authority. Many of these aristocrats had been Dutch-backed rebels in the days before the sack; others simply took advantage of the opportunity.
For their part, the Dutch exercise effective rule over the White City, the gold mines, and a few key trading hubs. The rest of the Middle Country is effectively ruled by the aristocrats. The Dutch tolerate this, because even if they could break all the aristocrats successfully – an uncertain proposition – it would be more expensive than it is worth. Provided that the aristocrats sell their cash crops – spices and dyes – to the VOC and do not openly revolt, the VOC governors are minded to leave well enough alone.
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At the time of European contact, the greatest empire on the continent was the one which called itself the Regency of the Neverborn, after their prime deity, or sometimes Durigal, the Land of the Five Directions, but which its neighbours named after their ruling family: the Yadji. This was an autocratic and theocratic state which regimented and planned most aspects of its citizens’ life via its priestly hierarchy. Pioneers of aquaculture and hydraulic engineering, they made effective use of the arable land in Durigal; a quarter of Aururia’s farmers lived and died under the Regents.
Eighty years after, the Yadji state still endures, but it is beleaguered, much-diminished, and surrounded by enemies. The plagues have cost them much, as did the civil war which they called the Year of the Twisted Serpent [1629-1638] and would-be conquistador raid of Pieter Nuyts. Highlander and Pakanga raids have inflicted considerable damage, as has some subject peoples’ rebellions.
Yet the biggest threat has been its northern rivals, the kingdoms of the Five Rivers, particularly the largest state, Tjibarr. The Regency has fought many wars with the Five Rivers’ kingdoms over the centuries, but had always been fortunate that those kingdoms fought almost as much amongst themselves. Since the 1640s that has no longer been the case; fear of the Yadji and their foreign backers, plus access to imported European weapons, allowed Tjibarr to establish a triple alliance with Gutjanal and Yigutji. This alliance has creaked occasionally, but so far has not broken, to the great detriment of the Regency.
The war which the Yadji called Bidwadjari’s War (1645-1650) saw them gain territory off both Tjibarr and Gutjanal. Unfortunately, that marked the last significant territorial gains for the Yadji during the seventeenth century. Pakanga and highlander raids weakened the authority of the Regents, and matters worsened when the subject Kurnawal in the east launched a major rebellion in 1671. The Five Rivers states declared war again in 1673, and the resulting War of Night and Day (1673-4) saw the Regency lose its gains from Bidwadjari’s War, and worse, forced to unofficially recognise the independence of a new Kurnawal state in the east.
Since the disasters of the 1670s, the Regency has tried to rebuild its much-damaged social and political fabric, with some success, and to restore its external prestige, with little success. Internally, the long-lived Regent Gunya Yadji (reigned 1638-1683) and then his son Djirbal Yadji (reigned 1683 to the present day) have implemented a variety of administrative reforms, most notably a massive restructure of the priest-governor hierarchy, and an expansion of their road network and post system using imported horses to facilitate transport. The Church of England has been permitted a small presence in the Yadji capital Kirunmara [Terang, VIC], including religious advisers to the royal family, but the ban on proselytisation remains.
The Pakanga raids subsided during the 1680s, which the Regents proclaimed a sign of their power but which in truth was due to changing internal circumstances in Aotearoa cutting off the supply of fresh Pakanga. Other external threats remained. Twice the Regency has tried to reconquer the Kurnawal, but on both occasions, when events moved past a border war, the Five Rivers intervened, and the death toll forced the Regency to abandon the efforts at reconquest.
The Kurnawal have established their independent homeland, which they call Tiyanjara, and for all that the Regents refuse to admit it, in fact this is a sovereign state. Tiyanjara has the unofficial backing of the Five Rivers states, who like the leverage which an independent Kurnawal state brings them. The capital is at Gwandalan [Bairnsdale, VIC], a port that has been built on one of the several interlinked lakes and rivers on the coast [Gippsland Lakes]. The Kurnawal had long grown jeeree for their own consumption, and have now turned to extensive cultivation of that crop along those lakes and rivers, where bulk production can be conveniently exported. They sell the jeeree to Europeans, mostly Dutch and sometimes French, in exchange for weapons.
For the Yadji, with external prestige restricted, they have done their best to maintain stability in their remaining territories. The state-directed economy has allowed them to adopt some new crops and European technology on a large scale, although the best efforts of the Regents have still failed to produce significant supplies of home-produced gunpowder, largely due to difficulties with effective saltpetre production. With the still-declining population, the Regency relies ever more on its English allies. For the English, in turn, their alliance with the Yadji is central to their position in Aururia. The Regency’s gold and other resources are valuable, and it is also the best Aururian market for English-shipped textiles, both woollen broadcloth made in England and cotton textiles from India.
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The Cider Isle looked mostly inward for centuries before Europeans came. Divided into proud warrior Tjunini, crafty Kurnawal and hunter-gardener Palawa, the peoples of the Cider Isle fought each other and did not trouble themselves too much with the world beyond their island. They welcomed trade, exporting tin, bronze and gold, together with their famous gum cider, but that trade was largely conducted by foreigners, the Nangu and Māori.
Eighty years after, the Cider Isle is broken, at near-ruin. Proportionately, the plagues have taken the heaviest toll here of any of the farming peoples of Aururia. Warfare continued amongst the three peoples even in the midst of the time of the Great Dying. The Cider Isle was the greatest Aururian target for Pakanga raids, and those came close to overwhelming the native peoples.
The Cider Isle still remains under the rule of the local powers, but ever more precariously. Both Tjunini and Kurnawal were forced to grant land to some Pakanga in exchange for fending off other raiders, but now there are established Māori on the Cider Isle; while they acknowledge the rule of the native kings for now, Māori in other lands have been known to overthrow their rulers if they deem those rulers too weak. The Tjunini are effective VOC clients, albeit with some recent murmuring due to the sack of the White City, while the Kurnawal are mostly backed by the EIC, and partly by the CDO.
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For long before European contact, the Sunrise Lands were divided by geography into many smaller polities; unification was much more difficult with the rugged terrain and smaller population base. Only two states arose on the eastern coast, the head-hunting Bungudjimay created the kingdom of Daluming, while the insular Patjimunra created the Kingdom of the Skin. The laidback Kiyungu further north had a common cultural area and a loose confederation, but did not form a full state. Each of these peoples, and several less numerous ones, cultivated the spices which were about the only eastern products that interested more westerly peoples.
Eighty years after, the spices of the Sunrise Lands are desired by powers based far beyond Aururia, and the eastern coast is now the main ongoing battleground. Throughout much of the continent, the Dutch and English have tacitly recognised spheres of influence where each would find it difficult to displace the other. The Sunrise Lands, with their smaller and more fragmented population, and highly desirable spices, are another matter; conflict between European powers – and others – is ongoing.
Daluming was the most populous state on the eastern coast, but was also a prime target for European invasion. The toll from the plagues was only worsened when the EIC launched an expedition in 1648 with two-fold purpose: to avenge the earlier death of Englishmen and to force open access to the spice markets. This expedition was co-opted by the Prophet, who precipitated a three-way civil war within Daluming. This ended with the majority of Daluming back under the rule of an English-backed monarch, but with a breakaway kingdom at Ngutti [Yamba] that was Nuttana-supported. The Dutch attempted invasions of Daluming during the Anglo-Dutch Wars, often using Pakanga mercenaries, but never successfully dislodged the EIC. In 1699 Daluming, much reduced in population, remains under English influence, and is subject to ever-increasing demand to produce more spices with fewer workers.
The Kiyungu were the most numerous people in the Sunrise Lands, if never united, and were expanding northward themselves during the first few decades of the seventeenth century, thanks to the introduction of new tropical crops. The plagues curtailed the direct expansion, but many more Kiyungu have continued to migrate north nonetheless. At first these Kiyungu came as farm workers for the Nangu who had established their own outpost in the far north, but in time, the migrant Kiyungu and Nangu merged to create a new people, the trading syndicate called the Nuttana. A steady stream of Kiyungu have continued to head northward to join the Nuttana.
Warfare took longer to touch the Kiyungu; their location at the fringe of Aururian agriculture gave them some protection from raiders both over land and over sea. So too did the Nuttana supply of firearms (mostly Japanese-made) and gunpowder (mostly of Indian origin). While there were some occasional Daluming raids and pressure from displaced peoples, the Kiyungu were largely safe from foreign intervention until Pakanga raids stepped up during the late 1660s. The main Pakanga raids had largely subsided by the mid-1680s, but peace did not remain for long, since the horse-riding Butjupa and Yalatji began to raid from across the western mountains.
The single greatest threat to Kiyungu sovereignty came in 1692. The
Compagnie d’Orient had repeatedly tried to gain preferential access to the eastern coast spices, without much success. The CDO’s only exclusive trading port on mainland Aururia, Yerowa, was too far south to grow the most desired spices. French traders were able to buy some spices from the Kingdom of the Skin, but there they were merely one trading company among many.
Despairing of gaining any trade monopolies via diplomacy, the CDO resorted to force. They did not dare to strike directly at the Nuttana, since that would bring swift Dutch and English intervention. Instead, the French decided to attack the Kiyungu and try to force open their markets for spices. Using a large mercenary force, mostly Pakanga, the French attacked the Kiyungu city-states around Quanda Bay [Moreton Bay]. The attack was bloody, but eventually repulsed; the Kiyungu defeated the mercenaries while the Nuttana burned the supply ships. All the CDO accomplished for their efforts was to push the Kiyungu further into the Nuttana orbit, and allow the Nuttana more opportunity to sell firearms to the Kiyungu.
The Kingdom of the Skin, too, suffered a European-inspired Pakanga assault. The Kingdom had been mostly stable during the long eight decades after European contact, principally because they refused to make any exclusive trade pacts. Change came when word spread of the Dutch sack of the White City. Dimbhula, King of the Skin, then swore that he would never make a commercial pact with the Dutch. This proclamation was largely for his internal audience – as with all such Patjimunra matters – to assure them that he would not invite destruction at Skinless hands.
However, the VOC took Dimbhula’s proclamation as a sign that they had little further to lose. So they bribed a group of Māori to attempt a conquest of the Kingdom of the Skin. The VOC never openly admitted involvement, hoping that if the invasion succeeded, then they could establish a monopoly on Patjimunra trade in the aftermath. The conquest failed, largely because of the advantages of geography. The Māori raiders were not familiar with the treacherous sandbar that blocked the mouth of the main river in the Patjimunra lands [Hunter River], and several of their ships were trapped on that sandbar. The remaining ships tried to launch an invasion by using a nearby sea-connected lake [Lake Macquarie], but they had lost the element of surprise. The Māori overland assault failed, and so the Kingdom of the Skin remained sovereign eighty years after.
* * *
At the time of European contact, the Neeburra [Darling Downs] was a backwater by Aururian standards. With relatively low rainfall and north enough to be marginal for Aururian agriculture, its population density was always low; unlike most farming peoples, the Butjupa and Yalatji still hunted game as a significant part of their diet. Like the Kiyungu to their east, the Butjupa and Yalatji had also started migrating north with the introduction of new tropical-suited crops.
Eighty years after, Butjupa and Yalatji society has been transformed almost beyond recognition. The plagues have not struck them quite as badly as most, due to the lower population density. The Neeburrans have taken up European domestic animals with great enthusiasm; horses let them hunt across their rangelands for kangaroos, while herding cattle required less labour than farming noroons [emus]. There are fewer Neeburrans left, but they can now move around much more rapidly; while they have not given up agriculture completely, they are mobile much of the year as they move their cattle from one pasture to another. They also fight with each other; the Butjupa and Yalatji are adherents of the Tjarrling sect, related to Plirism, and the disruption of the plagues has produced an endless series of visionaries who seek to persuade the Neeburrans to follow them.
The northward expansion meant that in 1626, the Neeburrans discovered the gemfields around Namala [Emerald, QLD]: an abundant source of rubies, sapphires and emeralds. These allowed extremely profitable trade, at first with the Five Rivers to the south, but in time with Europeans to the north. For the Dutch and English had both spurned the northern Aururian coast as holding nothing of interest, but the Portuguese had set up a series of missions there. In time, Portuguese explorers started venturing into the Aururian interior, on horseback and then on camelback. They reached Namala in 1670. Here, the Butjupa and Yalatji were not all interested in Catholic missionary efforts, but they were keenly interested in European goods, particularly firearms. A small but extremely profitable trade has developed, with occasional Portuguese camel caravans travelling between Namala and their northern port of Rramaji [Karumba, QLD]. Firearms are now commonplace in Neeburran society. The Butjupa and Yalatji often use those weapons on each other – as a kind of punctuation in their religious arguments – but they sometimes raid their neighbours, too.
* * *
At the time of European contact, the northeastern coast of Aururia was inhabited only by hunter-gatherers, while the forefathers and foremothers of the Nuttana still lived amongst the Nangu of the Island and the Kiyungu of the Coral Coast.
Eighty years after, the Nuttana have emerged in the region which they call the Tohu Coast [Sugar Coast]. In a sense they are a product of European contact; awareness of European existence was what inspired the first Nangu explorers to venture out into the broader world. The Nuttana have developed their own form of shipbuilding and navigational technology – based around large catamarans rather than single-hulled vessels – which gives them ships capable of sailing around the world. And they have done this; first circumnavigating the southern hemisphere in 1683, and then venturing into the Atlantic during the 1690s. The Nuttana have visited North America and Europe, in search of prospective trading partners, although thus far they have had only limited success. A more profitable though still-infrequent Nuttana voyage is to collect kunduri or spices from southern Aururia and then sail directly around the Southern Ocean until they arrive in Cape Town, and trade there with the Dutch.
The Nuttana trade in a great variety of commodities – spices, kunduri, jeeree, dyes, slaves, textiles, and firearms, among others – but the foundation of their wealth was sugar. Slave-grown sugar, produced in their new tropical homeland. On a continent where the best natural sweetener was wattle-gum, sugar was highly desirable, and allowed them to purchase many other Aururian (and Aotearoan) commodities that were so desired in the wider world.
The Nuttana have a considerable trade network of their own, throughout Aururia, Aotearoa, New Guinea, Oceania, India, Japan, and China. The main reason why they have thrived, however, is their role as intermediaries in trading with European companies. The Nuttana sell many spices, kunduri and jeeree to the Dutch in Batavia (and occasionally the Cape), and considerable quantities to the English in Indian trading ports. This is valuable from the European perspective because it saves sending as many ships through the longer voyages to Aururia (particularly eastern Aururia), and gives them indirect commercial access to some markets which are otherwise closed to them. This also means that the Nuttana are valued enough trading partners that both the English and Dutch prefer leaving them independent than attempting to conquer them, since any failure would certainly drive the Nuttana into the hands of their rival. Similarly, the English and Dutch both have an interest in preventing any other European powers from conquering the Nuttana; this has helped dissuade the French and Portuguese from any thoughts of direct conquest.
While the Nuttana do not have a colonial empire in the same sense as the European companies, they do have growing informal influence over a wider area. In the Sunrise Lands Ngutti [Yamba] is a Nuttana protectorate in all but name, and the Kiyungu are likewise part of their sphere of influence. The Nuttana have a lesser degree of influence over several Aotearoan states, and trading posts further afield, such as Hanuabada [Port Moresby], Tulagi [in Solomon Islands], and Chandernagore [Chandannagar, India]. The Nuttana have also established Plirite missions in some areas that they do not find it worthwhile to trade with, such as the Tanimbar Islands.
* * *
For centuries before Europeans arrived, the Five Rivers was the economic heart of Aururia, containing a quarter of the continent’s agricultural population and rather more of its economic activity. It was the exclusive producer of the drug kunduri, home to the best metalworkers on the continent, and with a good natural transportation network which facilitated internal trade. The three states of the Five Rivers exported a considerable volume of commodities across the continent; kunduri was the biggest export, but they also sold perfumes, incense, resins, dyes, jewellery, and fine metalworks.
Eighty years after, the Five Rivers is still the economic heart of Aururia, but a heart which beats much more slowly. Many of their old export markets have been shattered by the plagues and warfare, to say nothing of the heavy toll amongst the Five Rivers peoples themselves. At first the Five Rivers plutocrats reoriented much of their remaining agricultural production into kunduri, which was valued throughout most of the world. However, in the early 1660s the Dutch succeeded in smuggling kunduri seedlings out of Tjibarr, and began kunduri production at the Cape. It took the Dutch (and eventually others) several years to become familiar with the best methods of cultivating kunduri, and longer to expand their production, but by eighty years after, the Five Rivers now faced considerable competition in the kunduri export business.
Five Rivers aristocrats, particularly those of Tjibarr, had long experience in diversifying crop production, and did their best to seek out alternative crops to compensate for the declining kunduri revenues. One crop they turned to was jeeree. While jeeree was grown elsewhere in Aururia, European demand was booming; so too, in a smaller way, was Asian demand. Other new crops were not native to Aururia; the Five Rivers had already had considerable success importing European domesticated animals (horses, cattle, donkeys), and naturally experimented with European crops. Hemp grew well in the Five Rivers – but then, it grows well over much of the world – and became a good general-purpose plant fibre for textiles and cordage. Some Five Rivers merchants have also arranged the importation of cotton and silkworms, although the cultivation of both of these has proven troublesome so far.
In foreign and economic policy – the two often run together, in the Five Rivers – Tjibarr is considered by Europeans to be a Dutch client state. In practice, Tjibarr has fought wars when it suits their purposes, not the Dutch. They do sell the majority of their commodities to the Dutch, but they have also found endless excuses to sell smaller quantities to the Nuttana, English, French and occasionally Swedes and Danes. The inland Five Rivers kingdoms – Yigutji and Gutjanal – do not have any formal trade or political relationships with European powers. However, several Tjibarri factions make pacts to onsell Gutjanal or Yitgutji products to European powers – for a modest cut of the profits – and these deals can be with any European power who visits. Indeed, often those deals are the excuses which Tjibarri factions offer for selling to Europeans other than the Dutch.
* * *
In 1619, Europeans had only the vaguest notion that the continent of Aururia existed, and no knowledge at all of the agricultural peoples in the southern half of the continent. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) – itself only seventeen years old – had landed occasional ships on some parts of the continent, but nothing more. The English East India Company (EIC) – barely older than their Dutch rival – knew nothing of consequence. The Portuguese, who had been present in the East Indies for much longer, also had no meaningful knowledge of Aururia.
Eighty years later, Aururia has become one of the prime battlegrounds in the rivalry between the world’s first multinational corporations. The VOC and EIC have been involved most heavily in the Land of Gold, sometimes tacitly agreeing to divide the continent into spheres of influence, while at other times engaging in warfare (declared or undeclared) over the Third World. The
Compagnie d’Orient (CDO) [French East India Company] has grown into their strongest commercial rival in the agricultural areas of Aururia, while the Portuguese have established some influence over the northern fringe of the continent. The Swedish and Danish trading companies have no exclusive trading posts anywhere on the continent, but conduct occasional trade with some of the peoples, particularly Tjibarr and the Kingdom of the Skin.
The history of Anglo-Dutch relations in Aururia can be divided into tacit toleration (1635-1642), undeclared war (the Proxy Wars, 1642-1659), open warfare (the Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1660-1682), and limited competition (1683-onward). By the end of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the EIC and VOC had informally recognised that many parts of the continent were part of each other’s sphere of influence. While either the VOC or EIC would take advantage of a major opportunity which arose anywhere, if it meant displacing their rival, each was no longer actively seeking to undermine the other’s influence in those regions.
Thus, the Dutch were recognised as having Tiayal, the Seven Sisters and Tjibarr in their sphere of influence, while the English had Durigal. The Island was also considered under Dutch influence, although no formal protectorate had been declared. The Dutch restraint was purely to avoid needlessly angering the Mutjing of the Seven Sisters, who retained a strong affinity for their co-religionists on the Island, and had set one of their conditions of becoming a protectorate that the VOC would take no offensive action against the Island.
Outside of these recognised spheres of influence, the VOC and EIC – and, to a lesser degree, the CDO – continued to compete for control of regions, sometimes through negotiation with the local peoples, and sometimes through small-scale warfare. The Cider Isle was one zone of competition, but the main region was the Sunrise Lands.
Eighty years after, the European companies had done their best to obtain exclusive trade access and strong influence over all of the agricultural peoples of the continent, with considerable but not complete success. Several major societies still retained meaningful sovereignty: the Five Rivers states, Durigal, the Kingdom of the Skin, and the Nuttana and their allies. Others were under either effective European control or very heavily influenced: Tiayal, Daluming, the Seven Sisters, and the Tjunini and Kurnawal of the Cider Isle. Interior peoples, such as the highlanders and the Butjupa and Yalatji, retained their sovereignty simply because they were out of reach of the European powers. So did some of the coastal peoples in the southern Sunrise Lands, simply because they had none of the spices which attracted European interest.
Contact with Aururia had other effects on the operations of these multinational corporations, less obvious than the ongoing rivalry over particular markets, but more meaningful in the longer term. When the companies were first formed, particularly the VOC, they developed business models which relied on transporting high-value, low-volume goods; spices were the prime example. The immense value and low bulk of spices allowed the European trading companies to receive massive profit margins while using only a relatively small number of ships. This also meant that their relationship with the local peoples could often be one of building factories (trading posts) primarily, rather than seeking outright conquest. While certainly not averse to conquest if a profitable opportunity arose, their main focus was on profitable trading outposts and securing exclusive access to markets.
The resources of Aururia challenged the VOC’s business model. Prior to Aururian contact, “true” peppers made up more than half of the spice trade by volume (though not always by value). The VOC practice had been to ship just enough peppers to keep the price sufficiently low that competitors did not find it worthwhile to break into that trade, without encouraging over-production and depressing prices further. Aururian sweet peppers broke this policy completely; they became more desirable than true peppers in Europe, and were even worthwhile shipping
into Asia, unlike most other spices. Sweet peppers were so widely available in Aururia and Aotearoa that it was impossible to monopolise their sale. In turn, this meant that the only way to make decent profits from them was on volume, and this required increased shipping both for the intra-Asian trade and back to Europe.
Shipment of other Aururian commodities, too, encouraged a shift in business practices. Jeeree was not a replacement for traditional tea – in fact, the two products were often complementary – but it also had growing desirability in both Asia and Europe. Kunduri was initially exported as a high-profit, low-volume commodity, but increasing supply and the impossibility of preventing English access meant that it moved to becoming more of a bulk commodity. Many of the commodities shipped
into Aururia were also bulk commodities, such as firearms, textiles of silk, cotton or wool (the first two mostly from India), raw cotton or wool, and (most horrifically) slaves.
European tastes were also changing. Spices (both traditional and new) were still desired, but other commodities were also being sought after: sugar, tea, coffee, finished silk and cotton textiles, raw cotton, and indigo dye. The EIC was the first of the trading companies to diversify into these commodities, and the VOC, somewhat reluctantly, followed [4].
Accommodating such a change in tastes required increased shipping, both in number and tonnage. In turn this required a substantial influx of capital. Each of the European trading companies looked for appropriate sources of capital. For the VOC, they used the vast gold reserves of Aururia, principally from Tiayal, with lesser amounts from the Cider Isle [5]. Any threat to this supply of bullion was deemed a mortal threat to the success of the VOC, which was why they over-reacted and sacked the White City. The EIC also relied on bullion from Aururia, in their case gold from Durigal and the Cider Isle. The Portuguese did not have any access to gold, and their network of missions across northern Aururia returned negligible wealth in themselves. However, the gems they traded in the interior paid for everything else.
The Swedes and Danes found the capital for expansion from royal revenues. In the aftermath of the Twenty Years’ War [*Thirty Years’ War] both the Swedish and Danish crowns had gained considerable new lands within the Holy Roman Empire, and control of several river mouths which won them considerable income from tolls. Much of these new royal revenues went into investment into each country’s trading companies.
The CDO obtained a small amount of gold from Aururia, thanks to some of its commerce with the Kurnawal on the Cider Isle. More came from Aotearoa, where the CDO’s Waitaha allies in Otago [southern South Island] discovered alluvial gold in 1688, and with some French input, set about exploiting it.
Unlike its competitors, the CDO also experimented with cultivating the rarer Aururian spices (verbenas) in other French colonies, hoping to establish production in regions which were both more secure and closer to Europe. These experiments were not notably successful; the spices proved harder to cultivate than the French had expected.
However, a former CDO employee noted the experiments, and made some rather more accurate inferences of his own. When he returned home to Brittany in 1695, he planted some sweet pepper seeds which he had obtained on his voyages. This proved to be a spectacular triumph: the common sweet peppers grew very well and very quickly [6]. The CDO was far from pleased to have sweet peppers growing outside of its jurisdiction, but by then it was too late. Breton sweet peppers were established as a new source of supply. Having production within Europe also meant that farmers could harvest both the pepper berries and the pepper leaves. The CDO and other companies had not bothered to ship the pepper-leaves from the Third World, using only the much stronger and more compact berries. With the sweet pepper trees within Europe, however, harvesting the pepper-leaves was viable, and this added even further to the supply.
Eighty years after, in 1699, the VOC has grown into the largest, richest multinational corporation in the world. It owns over 350 merchant vessels and 90 warships, employs over 100,000 workers, and maintains a private army of 20,000 soldiers and nearly 10,000 auxiliaries. The other trading corporations are neither as wealthy nor as large, but still extremely profitable, particularly the EIC.
All of the trading companies – though not the Portuguese – are by now diversifying into higher-volume, lower-margin commodities. This is accompanied by a massive growth in investment, both in seeking to store and ship the new commodities, and in some cases ensure production (particularly sugar, slaves [7] and jeeree). In turn, this also means that the companies are now seeking to ensure stability and firm control over their markets. They are moving from a system of trading outposts and warehouses to a preferred system of direct control or extremely strong influence over the local peoples.
In this push for control, the VOC has taken the lead, both in Aururia and in the East Indies, while the EIC is not far behind. In their planning, the trading companies look to each other as the rivals that they need to defeat to gain not just trade access, but control over the vital regions of Aururia.
It is unfortunate, perhaps, that the biggest threat to the Europeans’ position in Aururia will come from a direction that none of them expect.
* * *
Many days of questions and note-taking have passed since Carl Ashkettle first met the man who calls himself Clements. Many days of more facts and details – or perhaps, of creations by the world’s most accomplished imaginer – since Ashkettle first stood atop Gerang’s Falls and heard Clements proclaim a life that had reached the triple century, and a few famed men he had met.
Ashkettle has exercised patience in that questioning. In so far as he can, he has kept the tale in broadly chronological sequence. If he jumps around too much, the already-difficult-to-manage process will become impossible. So while he has found it frustrating, he has never brought up the most intriguing of those famed men, until they reach that event in its proper order.
Ashkettle says, “Today, let us talk about your time with the Hunter. As I recall, on our first meeting you said that you rode with him on the great crusades.”
Clements smiles. “Indeed. One of the more eventful times in my life, I must say.”
“So you rode with his armies against your homeland, then?”
“So I did. Among many other places that were targets during the crusades.”
“You thought it worth joining an army would besiege your home city, nay, destroy your home city?”
Clements gives him a long look. “At the time I believed it worthwhile, yes. With the vantage of years, it is harder to judge.”
“That is something I struggle to comprehend. Why would you, of all people, willingly risk your life in war? However long you might have lived, even immortality cannot protect you from a sword blow through your neck.”
“Because I have lived for three centuries. I have known a myriad of men, great and small, proud and humble, balanced and pagan, brave and cowardly. Yet in three hundred years, never did I meet anyone who had such a gift for making people follow him. For making life seem so much worth living.”
Ashkettle raises an eyebrow. “The Hunter had that much charisma?”
“Let me put it like this,” Clements says. “That era was ripe for heroes. A time of great troubles, such as never was since there was a nation, to borrow the Christian phrasing. Plagues, famine, and war were rife. No-one knew whether he would live to see the next summer. The old ways crumbled, everywhere.”
“I’d heard of the great plagues before I met you, but hearing your descriptions has opened my eyes all the same,” Ashkettle says.
“Quite. Now, consider. In times such as these,
of course there will be many visionaries who want to make men follow them. Whose dreams of divine inspiration or personal revelation lead them to proclaim their ambitions to the world. There were hundreds of such men in that era, if not thousands. Most of them failed so comprehensively that I never heard their names at the time. Even those I met, I would struggle to recall their names now. But where all of those men tried, the Hunter
succeeded. Men followed him gladly, and in great numbers.”
“He certainly attracted many followers.” As he has done for several previous time periods, Ashkettle has tried to read about the era before the time comes to discuss it with Clements. Historians argue endlessly about the Hunter, but his valour and piety in the crusades live on even in the popular imagination. “He called himself the Hunter, didn’t he? I mean, he chose the name, he did not inherit it as a title, nor did his followers ascribe it to him.”
“His choice, yes. He never explained to us his reasons for making the change, although some of them were easy enough to deduce.”
“For making the change? Wait... you knew his original name?” No history book which Ashkettle could find records the Hunter’s birth name, despite plenty of guesses.
Clements nods. “I know it, yes. Few men did, even at the time. Those of us who did honoured his wishes never to put it in writing or pass it on.”
“What was his true name?”
“The Hunter.”
“That is what he called himself, but what was his real name?”
“The Hunter.”
“He may have made that his title, but what was his birth name?”
“Once he chose the Hunter as his true name, then it became his birth name as well. You are a pagan. You would not understand.”
“I am a Christian, thank you,” Ashkettle says stiffly. “C of D, in fact.”
“A pagan, as I said.” Clements takes in his expression, and chuckles. “Never mind the religious arguments, then. You are not Plirite, not of any sect. The Tjarrling hold to that just as much as the orthodox schools, and even those half-Plirite Tametja in Teegal. You don’t realise how important the choice of a name is.”
“Enlighten me, then.” Ashkettle has heard this before, but has never understood it.
“The name a man chooses for himself
is his name. What came before does not matter; it does not exist any more. That tradition goes all the way back to the Good Man, who forsook his old name. Nameless was the same when he converted Aotearoa, and so are many others. So it was with the Hunter. The Hunter was not a name he chose, that was what he
became.”
“So he chose that name to symbolise his aims?”
“For more reasons that that, but if simplifying it that way makes it easier for you to understand him, then yes.”
“So if called himself the Hunter because of his aims, and from the vantage of two centuries later... do you think he succeeded?”
Clements shrugs. “It’s too early to tell.”
* * *
[1] The similarity in symptoms between typhus and typhoid gave the latter its historical name; typhoid means “typhus-like”. The Gunnagal physicians are simply noting the same similarities.
[2]
Some level of natural resistance, that is. Achieving a measure of natural resistance to a new epidemic disease typically takes about three generations of regular exposure, although it depends on the malady. So by 1700 the Aururians are starting to develop natural resistance to some of the earlier plagues (syphilis, mumps, tuberculosis), but not yet much to the later plagues (measles, diphtheria, smallpox). Great-sleep (influenza) will see natural resistance emerge more quickly, due to previous exposure to a related disease. However, such natural resistance is still far from complete; historically, indigenous Australians remain more vulnerable to most Old World diseases despite two centuries of exposure.
[3] This is the region which historically is called the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, around the historical towns of Mittagong and Bowral. It is called
southern with reference to historical Sydney. Allohistorically, the term
southern highlands, or more commonly
southern pepperlands, refers to the larger highland areas further south (the historical Monaro and Errinundra plateaus) whose inhabitants are so fond of raiding into nearby lowland agricultural regions.
[4] A similar shift in tastes and commodities happened historically (without Aururian resources, naturally), but the VOC took until the 1680s to start to transform its commodities, and did not make a thorough shift until the early seventeenth century. This delay was one of several reasons why the VOC went into stagnation during this period, historically. Allohistorically, the effects of Aururian contact have primed the VOC to make such a shift, and it starts earlier (1660s) and is better-funded, allowing the VOC to continue a significant expansion.
[5] Historically, the VOC managed their expansion because at this time there was an influx of capital which allowed borrowing at low interest rates, but this was still restrictive because they needed to repay the debt eventually. Allohistorically, the capital provided by so much gold is much better for the VOC’s purposes, although it has considerable broader consequences within Europe; in the short-term, the most notable effect is massive inflation.
[6] Brittany is not the only part of Europe which is well-suited to growing sweet peppers. Historically, common sweet peppers (
Tasmannia lanceolata) were imported into Cornwall and grown as ornamental plants. Some of them went wild and spread across much of Cornwall (particularly south-facing regions), where in time the local Cornish people forgot that they were imported. The leaves of sweet peppers were later adopted into Cornish cuisine as “Cornish pepperleaf”, without realising that they were in fact an imported plant.
[7] For a given value of
production, in the case of slaves.
* * *
Thoughts?
