Lands of Red and Gold
- Thread starter Jared
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What do these ships look like?
Say triremes
You wish!
These are Polynesian-based, ergo...
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Not to beat a dead horse,...
but the people of Kangaroo Island could live in Earthen Berms.
These houses could be made of the readily available granite from the south of the island, then covered over with soil for gardens and farming. This could also be a reason for the *Kang-islanders to trade with the mainlanders. They would need bronze to make files to abrade the stone, along with bone, wood, and stone tools. When iron or steel comes available, this would readily speed up the working of the stone.
Stone jetties would also aid in their sea trade by protecting their ships in bad weather.
but the people of Kangaroo Island could live in Earthen Berms.
These houses could be made of the readily available granite from the south of the island, then covered over with soil for gardens and farming. This could also be a reason for the *Kang-islanders to trade with the mainlanders. They would need bronze to make files to abrade the stone, along with bone, wood, and stone tools. When iron or steel comes available, this would readily speed up the working of the stone.
Stone jetties would also aid in their sea trade by protecting their ships in bad weather.
Mon Dieu! It is a berm!
Are the Kangas likely to get iron or steel before the Dutch ship them off en masse to plantations in the East Indies?
Are the Kangas likely to get iron or steel before the Dutch ship them off en masse to plantations in the East Indies?
Given they are the middlemen traders between the Atjuntja and everyone else, I would assume that if anyone else knows how to work iron, it will be them.
Why would the Dutch do that?
There was a large indiginous population available in the East Indies to provide the spices the VOC wanted.
If the Dutch do perform population transfers, it will be the other way around: Javans to Autralia to replace the Aboriginals that experience mass deaths due to the Eurasian diseases (like the Spanish did with Africans in the Americans).
But given the absence of valuable spices, I don't see that happening.
Just because Jared has the Dutch discovering *Australia in TTL, doesn't mean he will have the Dutch actually be the European power to claim/colonize it. After all they claimed it as New Holland in OTL, but it was the English who would go onto claim and colonize Australia.
No, they didn't. Slavery was a reprehensible practise, but I can't think of any culture that used the process of enslavement as a passtime. Slaves performed entertainement in some cultures (like Rome), but that's not the same thing.They're 17th century Europeans. Don't they enslave for fun as well as profit?
What do these ships look like?
Say triremes
Triremes - or any other sort of galleys - in open seas is always risky. The relatively sheltered waters of the Mediterranean were much more suitable for galleys than elsewhere - galleys have such a low freeboard that they're vulnerable in anything but the calmest weather. In the stormy weather of the Roaring Forties, well...
You wish!
These are Polynesian-based, ergo...
Interesting set of photos. And yes, those are the general sort of ships which would be adopted. Although the Islanders do know how to build ships using nails; the main things which they pick up from the Maori are sail-making and navigational techniques.
Yes. See post #13.
Ducks and geese and mice
Mice only to feed to quolls, though.
I didn't have berms in mind, although granite will be a common building material for the Islanders. The Islanders will trade a lot for bronze, in particular. They use more bronze than iron, although they are aware of both metals. It's just that bronze is much more use than iron for anything being used near salt water; iron rusts away much too quickly.
They definitely would.
The Islanders have iron; they're the ones who spread it from WA to the rest of the continent. Well, those parts of the continent which know about iron at all.
No-one in *Australasia really has steel. Not for making reliably, anyway. There is actually a bit of steel made as part of any bloomery iron-working. Ironworking in *Australasia is only four or five centuries old, and I think it would take longer than that to figure out useful steel-making techniques.
If there is any population transfer, it's likely to be that way. Although Javans will be vulnerable to Australian diseases, so they may not be so useful.
There are some spices in *Australia which will be of some interest overseas, but I don't think that they'd be considered valuable enough to start up a major slave trade.
They're 17th century Europeans. Don't they enslave for fun as well as profit?
Profit, yes. Fun, no. Slaves were enslaved because they were useful, much more than any other reason.
Or not the only one, at any rate. It may well be a case of Australis est omnis divisa in partes tres.
True, although that was because there was nothing in OTL Australia that the Dutch could use to turn a profit. They were perfectly willing to colonise somewhere if they thought it would make them a lot of money.
Indeed. Outside of a few very specialised tastes, people don't usually enslave others simply for the joy of having slaves.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
Dang, don't know how I could have missed thatYes. See post #13.
Question, will emus go feral in New Zealand? If so would the occump the ecological niche left by the moas?
Lands of Red and Gold #12: Men of Blood and Iron
Lands of Red and Gold #12: Men of Blood and Iron
The south-western corner of Australia is a complex mixture of fertile coastal land gradually melding into an arid interior. Around the coast, frequent rains fall, creating what is by Australian standards a well-watered climate. Before European arrival, this land sustained forests of towering 90-metre karri trees, among the tallest trees in the world, and abundant jarrah trees, whose timber was so reminiscent of New World mahogany trees that European colonists would call it Swan River Mahogany. Moving inland, the climate becomes gradually drier, although there is enough fertile land to produce half of modern Australia’s wheat harvest. Moving even further inland, the wheat-producing regions gradually fade into more arid desert, although the dry interior contains abundant mineral resources, including large deposits of iron and nickel and a third of the world’s known gold reserves. Although possessed of abundant resources, this region is extremely isolated from the rest of Australia; the state capital Perth is closer to Indonesia’s capital Jakarta than it is to the Australian national capital in Canberra.
In allohistorical Australia, the fertile south-western corner was for long isolated from the rest of the continent. Although the climate was suitable for growing the native crop package, the separation of desert barriers meant that it took millennia for crops to be transported further west. Fortunately for the peoples of the south-west, the isolation was not complete. Traders and travellers sometimes crossed the deserts, and they brought food back with them. Since any careful desert-crosser brings more food than they need, this sometimes meant that samples of domesticated crops reached south-western Australia.
From this source, farming slowly developed in the west. Small-scale growing of red yams started around 550 BC, and other crops followed. The Yuduwungu people around modern Esperance became the first farmers of the south-west, adopting red yams, bramble wattles, and native flax from the east. Their isolation from the east remained quite substantial, enough that murnong, one of the key staple crops in eastern Australia, was not grown in the south-west until carried by Islander ships in the fifteenth century [1]. However, the Yuduwungu farmers developed some new crops of their own, such as the tooth-bearing wattle, manna wattle, warran yam, and bush potato [2].
Pre-farming south-western Australia was occupied by a group of eleven peoples who spoke related dialects and shared a common cultural heritage. The Yuduwungu were just one of these peoples; collectively the eleven groups referred to themselves as the Yaora [3]. Eight of these peoples lived along the coast. Moving clockwise, these were the Yuduwungu, the Wadjureb, the Pitelming, the Atjuntja, the Madujal, the Djarwari, the Inayaki and the Binyin. Three other related peoples occupied the inland “wheat belt” regions; the Nyunjari, the Wurama and the Baiyurama. Unlike in the east, where farmers displaced hunter-gatherers, amongst the Yaora, farming spread quickly enough that the individual peoples adopted crops and technologies rather than being displaced. By about 300 AD, the eleven Yaora peoples had all taken up farming and sedentary lifestyles.
The Yaora peoples occupied an area which in terms of modern Australia comprises everything west of a line roughly from Geraldton to Esperance. They called their home country Tiayal, meaning “the Middle Country.” In their early religion and worldview, their homelands were the only important fertile country in the universe; to the south and west were endless seas and to the north and east were hostile desert wastelands. They were only vaguely aware of any peoples beyond the Middle Country; trade routes to the north brought pearl shells from the northern coastline of Australia, while trade routes to the east had brought a few crops and decorative items, but with only very sporadic contact.
The isolation of the Middle Country meant that many of the fundamental elements of Gunnagalic civilization further east were only slowly transmitted to the western outlier. Ceramics were spread relatively early, since storage jars and other containers were among the goods transported across the desert. Domesticated ducks were brought directly across by a returning traveller (and cross-bred with their wild relatives), and this became inspiration for an independent domestication of the emu. However, many other ideas and technologies did not spread until much later. Sometimes this was to the detriment of the Yaora; knowledge of writing took a long time to spread across the desert. Sometimes the slow transmission of knowledge would turn out to be to their advantage. Nowhere would this be clearer than in metallurgy.
The basics of metallurgy were known to the Yuduwungu and other early Yaora peoples, but only in limited form. They were broadly aware of the process of smelting metal, enough to create copper tools of their own. Yet while they received a few bronze tools and weapons, these came through very long trade routes; the source of tin was not just across the desert, but at the other end of Gunnagalia. This meant that the early Yaora peoples never learnt to recognise tin ore, and in any case they had only one source of tin (near modern Bunbury). The developing Yaora civilizations knew how to smelt and work copper, but their only other metal tools were made from a metal which fell from the sky: meteoric iron.
In the end, this would be an inspiration.
* * *
In the traditional chronology of prehistory, technology progressed from the Stone Age (Neolithic) to a Copper Age (Chalcolithic), to a Bronze Age, and then finally to an Iron Age. Each of these developments provided some advantages over the preceding age. Copper tools gave more flexibility without replacing stone tools. Bonze was a stronger and more useful metal than unalloyed copper, although it required higher smelting temperatures and a functioning trade network to supply tin. Early ironworking techniques did not provide a stronger metal than bronze, but allowed for much more widespread use of metal; iron ore is much more abundant than the components of bronze, especially tin.
However, the historical record is more complex than a simple progression between ages. Some cultures never went through a copper age, and some cultures did not go through a bronze-working period before they started working with iron (such as in West Africa). It is still an open question as to whether a civilization needs to progress through bronze working before it develops ironworking techniques. Sub-Saharan may well have developed ironworking independently without ever having a bronze-working period; sources disagree as to whether the West African ironsmiths learnt ironworking on their own or whether they were inspired directly or directly from ironworking in the region of present-day Sudan. Ironworking in western Eurasia came later than bronze-working, but the techniques involved in Western ironworking (in bloomeries) are quite distinct from those used in bronze-working [4]. It seems that rather than being based on previous knowledge of bronze-working, the development of early western Eurasian ironworking was an independent development. Or, at the very least, it was based on indirect inspiration; the earliest west Eurasian blacksmiths may well have known that their neighbours heated and worked bronze, but did their own experimentation with iron and produced the first wrought iron [5].
The metalworkers in the Middle Country were in a similar situation with respect to the main metallurgists further east. They knew enough about metal to know how to smelt it, but they did not know the full bronze-working techniques, and were forced to develop other methods. Apart from copper, they had much rarer meteoric iron, which they could work into useful tools. The techniques needed to work meteoric iron are exactly the same as those used to work iron once it has been created in a bloomery. Meteoric iron was available in the Middle Country, but so were earthly forms of iron ore. In particular, magnetite ore is abundant in several sources near Albany. Magnetite ore is easily recognisable as being related to meteoric iron; lumps of magnetite have a close enough resemblance to meteorites that they can mislead meteorite hunters. In time, smiths around Albany started to experiment with magnetite, and discovered techniques of burning it with charcoal, which gave them an abundant source of iron which they could work using already familiar techniques. The Middle Country had entered the Iron Age.
* * *
With the spread of farming, the Yaora peoples developed into a distinctive cultural zone. While they had some differences in speech – not all of their dialects were mutually intelligible – they remained in close contact with each other. They shared the same broad religious beliefs, including a few concepts which were transmitted from the older Gunnagalic cultures further to the east. These concepts had been changed considerably through travellers’ misunderstandings, the difficulties of translation, and the tyranny of distance.
To the Yaora, the universe comprises three “substances,” which can be broadly translated as solid, liquid, and gas. All solid objects are only separate flavours of the underlying substance, and liquids and gases are similarly flavours of a separate underlying substance. Each of these substances is mutable into each of the other forms, but through the actions of the universal symbol of eternity: water. To the Yaora, water is the driver of the cycles of eternity, the physical manifestation of time. They acquired the old Gunnagalic belief of the universe being eternal, but they adapted it into their observations of the properties of water. The Yaora know that water can transform from solid to liquid to gas, even though their knowledge of solid water is limited to a few rare instances of snow and frost, and they think that clouds are formed of gaseous water, not liquid water drops. The Yaora believe that the transformation of water between its three forms is what drives the movement of time and eternity.
The Yaora religion is based in part on their understanding of the role of water as an agent of erosion. Living in a flood-prone land, they know how the actions of water can remove soil and stone. They recognise sand as rocks which have been worn away from solid hills, and believe that this sand is in the process of being transformed into liquid over a very long time. In their cosmology, the sun is viewed as the Source which drives the actions of water through evaporation from the oceans and precipitation when rain falls onto the land. They also believe that the Source acts on solid rock, heating the water within it and causing it to expand, which means that hills gradually rise from the earth over time. These hills are then eroded away by water, turned into part of the oceans, and then eventually solidify beneath the waves to be carried back to join the land. All of this is viewed as part of the same underlying cycle of eternity; they believe that the world has always been and will always be.
The Yaora as a whole do not have a concept of a creator deity, although some of the individual peoples will later develop such views. Instead, the Yaora believe in beings called kuru, a word which originally meant “reflection,” since kuru were thought of as reflections in the ever-ocean. Kuru are not considered to be eternal beings in themselves; it is believed that they will eventually dissolve back into the ever-ocean. Still, some of them have lifespans long enough that they may as well be immortal, from a human point of view.
Kuru are perceived as varying greatly in power; some are powerful and can be worshipped or appeased, whereas others are weak or mischievous and simply cause trouble for people. Phenomena such as thunder and lightning are thought to be the actions of particularly transient kuru which are soon going to dissolve back into the ever-ocean. Some kuru are associated with particular concepts such as growth, fertility or courage, and are called on for blessings or favours for people who are in need. One quality which all kuru have in common is that they cannot stand directly in the light of the Source without being slowly weakened. Greater kuru might be able to withstand sunlight for hours, while lesser kuru would be dissolved in seconds. This means that all worship is conducted out of direct sunlight, whether indoors or just under trees or some other covering.
* * *
For centuries after the adoption of farming, the Yaora lived in small communities, and had no larger political entities than city-states. Over time, a few of these developed into small kingdoms. While they occasionally went conquering over large areas, none of them successfully held onto their conquests.
Things changed with the discovery of ironworking in the twelfth century. Ironworking spread rapidly, with the new technology allowing much greater access to metal tools than anything in previous Australian history, even more than the abundant bronze of the Cider Isle. Iron tools allowed more clearing of land and more effective farming techniques. Iron weapons could be cheaply supplied to armies in a way which had never before been seen in the Middle Country. The result was a rapid social and political transformation, particularly amongst the Atjuntja, the first people to work iron, and the ones who would put it to the greatest use.
Writing was unknown to the Atjuntja at the time when iron was discovered, so the early history of the Atjuntja conquerors was preserved only in oral form, and only transcribed many years later, when memory had faded and exaggerations and distortions became commonplace. It is known that the Atjuntja had long dwelt in the country around historical Albany, around the shores of King Georges Sound, which formed the largest deepwater harbour in the Middle Country. They were divided into three main city-states: the White City [Albany], Warneang [Denmark] and Fog City [Walpole], along with several smaller towns and settlements.
The Atjuntja drew much of their food from fishing, while inland much of their country was covered in trees which were difficult to clear with copper and stone tools. The Atjuntja were less numerous than many of their neighbours, until they discovered how to work the magnetite iron in their territory. With iron tools, they started to clear the forests and plant yams and wattles to feed a burgeoning population. Disputes over this land led to wars between the three main Atjuntja city-states, which were ended when King Banyar of the White City defeated both of his rivals and proclaimed himself the Kaat-kaat (King of Kings) of the Atjuntja. His heirs would go on to conquer much further...
* * *
In 1618, the Atjuntja rule an empire which controls all of the Middle Country. The Kings of Kings have even expanded further than the old Yaora lands. The region around Geraldton is the northernmost area where large-scale agriculture is sustainable, but the rule of the Kings of Kings stretches further; they have a penal colony and salt-harvesting works on the shores of Shark Bay. In the eastern frontier of their territory, they have pushed into the semi-arid region around Kalgoorlie. The land there is poorly watered, but it holds something of great value: gold. The Atjuntja esteem gold; they call it ‘sun’s blood’ and view it as the solid form of the Source. The harsh environment of the desert does not make for long life amongst the miners, but the Kings of Kings care little for that.
Within this vast expanse of territory, the Atjuntja rule over everything, but not always directly. The Atjuntja are only one people amongst many in their empire, by now the largest single ethnicity, but still a minority of the overall population. The nature of their rule varies from region to region, reflecting both the duration of their rule in each region, and the form of its conquest. The Atjuntja began their expansion in the thirteenth century, acquiring writing only when they conquered around the Wadjureb people around Ravensthorpe in the mid-fourteenth century, and completing their expansion with the conquest of Geraldton in 1512. There is no longer any need for armies of conquest; the remaining military forces are used as garrisons to preserve the peace.
Rebellions are hardly an unknown occurrence, although they have been growing less frequent in the last half-century. Their empire includes a patchwork of individual regions, some with explicit privileges established as part of their conquest, and some peoples who have been displaced entirely from their original homeland. The general practice of the Kings of Kings has been to leave local institutions in place unless threatened by revolt. Some peoples have been more accepting of Atjuntja rule than others. The Pitelming rebelled one time too often and were forcibly deported from their homelands and resettled in small groups across the empire, except for those who were sent to the mines. In some regions, the non-Atjuntja populations are gradually assimilating to the dominant culture; the prestige attached to the Atjuntja dialect means that many of the related dialects are being abandoned. In other regions, the other Yaora peoples still remain attached to their own culture and heritage even if they are quiescent under Atjuntja rule.
Imperial administration is based on a combination of Atjuntja aristocrats and local potentates who have been integrated into the ruling class. They have established a number of garrison-cities which serve both as bastions of imperial military power, and as centres of trade and administration. Most of these garrison-cities have turned into local metropolises, with attached towns developing outside the walls of the main garrison. Among the largest garrison-cities are Lobster Waters [Jurien Bay], Spear Mountain [Merredin] – where an ingeniously-built dam collects most of the water that falls on the mountain – Corram Yibbal [Bunbury], Archers Nest [Redcliffe, a suburb of Perth], and Red Eye [Ravensthorpe]. Trade focuses on these centres, and travels along the well-maintained roads which the Atjuntja have built between the garrison-cities. This is the most extensive road network anywhere in allohistorical Australia, thanks to the use of iron tools which makes construction much easier.
From the garrison-cities, the imperial administrators oversee the collection of the yearly tribute from the subject peoples. This is rigorously gathered, in a variety of forms depending on the region, imperial requirements, and the preferences of the subject peoples. Some tribute is collected in local produce, such as dyes, timber, oils, incense, lorikeet and cockatoo feathers, copper, or iron. Sometimes the tribute is collected in staple crops and foods, particularly to feed the garrison-cities and the imperial workforce. Sometimes the tribute is collected in labour drafts.
The Atjuntja have developed a methodical system for managing labour and the workforce throughout their empire. Most of this labour is used in public works and major engineering projects, such as roads, buildings, earthworks, and the like. Most of the labourers are required to work only at certain times of the year. This is usually in the winter and early spring, which coincides both with the least wearying part of the year for heavy labour, and with the timings of harvests. After the yams have been harvested and the wattles pruned, and before it is time to replant them or collect the first wattle seeds, the imperial administrators demand the labour of tens of thousands of people for a fixed period of time. These labour drafts are widespread, but permanent slavery is much rarer, used mostly for the gold mines in the interior. For regular subjects, the labour draft is a wearying but predictable part of their yearly life. While they may serve on a variety of projects, the single largest use of drafted labour is working in the imperial capital, the White City.
* * *
The White City, some call it, or the City Between The Waters, or the Place of Twin Peaks, or the Centre of Time. Another history would call it Albany, the first deepwater port in Western Australia, located on a large mostly sheltered harbour called King Georges Sound, which contains two completely sheltered harbours inside, Princess Royal Harbour and Oyster Harbour. To the Atjuntja who live in the White City, the Sound is simply the Sea Lake, and they call the two interior harbours West Water [Princess Royal] and North Water [Oyster]. It is the centre of their universe, the largest city in the known world, the dwelling place of the King of Kings. Most of its residents would prefer never to live anywhere else; those who are appointed elsewhere as governors or soldiers treat it as an exile, no matter how important the duty.
The oldest part of the White City was founded between two mountains, the Twins, Un Koit [Mt Clarence] and Un Bennan [Mt Melville]. Strong walls once protected this city, but the walls have long since been torn down, their stone going to new buildings. No foreign army has threatened the White City in over two centuries, and the inhabitants have many uses for building material.
The core of the White City is still in the land between the mountains, including most of the public buildings. Many drafted labourers have worked over long years to produce the great monuments and public buildings of the White City, and their work continues. Here, in the old heart of the White City is the Palace of a Thousand Rooms, for the private use of the King of Kings, his many wives, administrators, and honoured guests. Here is the grandeur of the Walk of Kings, the great avenue which runs between the two mountains. Most of the other public buildings adjoin the Walk of Kings: the Garden of Ten Thousand Steps is halfway along; the public temples to the Lord and the Lady are here, along with smaller shrines to a dozen well-known kuru; the public arena of the House of Pain is at the western end, with the private rooms built into the mountain; the House of the Songs adjoins the Walk, where the greatest of musicians in the Middle Country come to study their craft; and so does the Mammang, the great school where the sons of Atjuntja nobility come to receive military and religious schooling.
Everything about the heart of the White City is built to impress. The Walk of Kings runs in a straight line between the two mountains, with fountains every hundred steps, towering jarrah trees planted to shade the walkers, and columns and statues to depict imperial accomplishments and religious figures. The Garden of Ten Thousand Steps is where the Atjuntja indulge their love of the natural world. It is said that with every step there is a new marvel to see, a new flower or tree [6], or a new arrangement of stones and trees, artificial waterfalls, or flocks of sacred ducks bred for bright colours. Disturbing the ducks is punishable by eventual death. Everywhere in the Garden is the sound of water, flowing, bubbling, or cascading down rocks.
At the eastern end of the Walk is the Palace. Most of it is private, but at the appropriate season visitors can walk up the limestone steps, past statues of cockatoos, lorikeets, and goannas carved so that they appear to be about to jump into the air. At the top, there is a large covered balcony where the King of Kings sits to watch public events. He sits on the Petal Throne, symbolic of the Atjuntja veneration of all flowering plants, which has been carved in a shape of forty petals opening as if part of a very large flower.
The grandeur of the public buildings is what most visitors to the White City remember, but this is a much larger city. The outlying districts extend much further than the old heartland, filled with houses and markets, storehouses, smaller shrines, and the three schools for common Atjuntja men, women, and foreigners. Two hundred thousand people live here at the busiest times of the year, although many of those are drafted labourers who return to their homes outside of draft times. The storehouses are full of the wattleseeds and yams needed to feed the burgeoning population, and the main imperial roads are always busy with traffic bringing in food, other tribute, and trade goods. The people, the gardens and the fountains are watered by several aqueducts which come from the mountain ranges to the north [7].
The White City includes a foreign quarter, built on the eastern side of North Water, to keep outlanders and their influences away from the royal city. This is where Islander ships and merchants visit in regular fleets, and a few of them have settled permanently. They have their own small temples where they complete the rituals of the Sevenfold Path in accordance with the teachings of the Good Man, but strictly-enforced imperial law forbids them from proselytising within the White City.
* * *
As a ruling class, the Atjuntja are divided into noble families and commoners, although even common Atjuntja are believed to outrank all but the most favoured of subject peoples. Governors and military commanders are chosen exclusively from the Atjuntja aristocracy, although there are protocols whereby high-status nobility from the subject peoples can be adopted into the Atjuntja ruling class. This adoption is subject to acceptance of Atjuntja ways, including learning their dialect and adopting a proper mode of dress and appearance. The most visible mark of this acceptance is the full beard which all Atjuntja men are expected to wear; a man’s beard is regarded as a sign of strength and virility.
The Atjuntja system of nobility includes a variety of ranks and offices, the highest of which can be roughly translated as “king.” In keeping with long-standing tradition, the heads of the thirteen greatest noble families are accorded that title. Each of them is officially a king of a particular place, such as the other ancient Atjuntja city-states of Warneang and Fog City, or the newer garrison-cities. The link of these titles to geographic locations has long since been broken; the leading members of the nobility prefer to live in civilization in the White City and let lesser family members deal with the bothersome business of administration. In any case, governors to the garrison-cities are appointed by the reigning emperor without any regard to which noble family claims the royal title for that city.
Overseeing the whole empire is the emperor, the King of Kings, the Voice of Divinity. The emperor is chosen from among the members of the imperial family, and in theory each King of Kings is confirmed (elected) by the kings of the noble families. In practice most emperors have appointed their own successor from amongst their sons or other kin, and the kings have simply acclaimed the new monarch. In a few cases of disputed succession, or where the King of Kings has died without an appointed heir, the decision of the kings has mattered.
The protocol surrounding the King of Kings is elaborate, based on his divine status. The title of Voice of Divinity is no mere formality, but given in recognition of this status. Only those who are “blessed” are permitted hear the Voice speak; this naturally includes the nobility of all ranks, and palace servants and the like, but otherwise is a rare honour bestowed on those who have performed exceptional service to the empire. Apart from this, people may come in audience before the Voice, or the army may march past his balcony while he sits on the Petal Throne, but they do not hear his voice. The Voice uses a range of gestures to indicate his intent, with meanings such as “tell me more,” “you have done well,” and “you may leave me.” A few Voices have developed their own forms of sign language and use an interpreter to convey more precise meanings, although most Voices have thought that commoners have little to say that is worth hearing.
In 1618, the imperial dignity is held by a man named Kepiuc Tjaanuc. He is the Voice of Divinity, but to be honest, the blessed often wish that they did not have that status, so that they would not have to hear him speak. He can talk, can the Voice. Too many bright ideas, too many questions, and too many whims for the nobles to feel comfortable hearing him speak. Not to mention too many wives. There is no restriction on the number of wives which a man of noble blood can take – commoners are permitted a maximum of three, of course, and then only if they can pay for a separate house for each wife – but the Voice married his 101st wife last winter solstice, far more than any other nobleman in living memory. Some less charitable gossip, carefully repeated out of the ears of any untrustworthy listeners, is that the Voice can no longer remember how to do anything with his wives other than talk to them; certainly, he has not fathered as many sons as would be expected for a man with so many wives. Perhaps he only married them so that they have to listen to him.
* * *
Writing is not a native concept for the Atjuntja, but something which they acquired in the process of expanding their dominions. The first people in the Middle Country to develop writing were the Yuduwungu, who acquired it by stimulus-diffusion from across the desert. While direct contact with the east was limited, some trade flowed across the desert. This included a variety of decorative objects such as pendants and bracelets which were inscribed with messages. Some of the containers for trade goods had labels of their contents. Travellers to the east rarely learned writing themselves; literacy in the Gunnagalic script took years to acquire, due to its complexity. Still, they were aware of the existence of writing, and their tales percolated throughout the Yuduwungu lands.
In the eleventh century, a Yuduwungu artisan named Nuneloc developed a writing system based on what he had heard of the system to the east, and using examples which he had available. Many of the symbols which he used were borrowed from the Gunnagalic script, but used for completely different sounds, and some of the symbols were invented outright [8]. The script was fundamentally syllabic, although also proto-alphabetic because related signs were used for syllables with the same initial consonants but different vowels. Nuneloc had his name immortalised, since it became the root of the Yuduwungu word for writing, and which in time would be passed on to the Atjuntja.
By the time the Atjuntja started conquering, writing had spread as far as the neighbouring Wadjureb people. The Atjuntja adopted the system of writing, finding it extremely useful in maintaining their empire, but its use is limited to preferred purposes. They keep some religious texts and have some of their epic poems and songs written down. They keep detailed records to support their administration of the empire, included lists of tribute collected from each region, the number of people present, and so on. The last Atjuntja census revealed just over 1.5 million people live under the rule of the King of Kings. They have public inscriptions announcing the glory of their rulers, but even then they rely as much on the carvings and sculpture as on the content of the inscriptions. For the Atjuntja like everything to be a spectacle or festival. Ideally both. Sports, military parades and triumphs, and celebrations of the harvests are all conducted in the most ostentatious manner possible.
As are religious experiences.
* * *
The Atjuntja share the same ancestral religion as all the Yaora peoples, but their beliefs have evolved into an overarching dualism. They believe in the same kuru and water-cycles as their kin, but they also worship two divine beings, whose names translate roughly as the Lord and the Lady. Theological interpretations differ (sometimes violently) as to the underlying nature of these beings. One school of thought can be approximately translated as literalists; its adherents consider the Lord and the Lady to be literal beings which have a tangible existence, personalities and so forth. The other main school of religious thought can be roughly translated as abstractionists; they hold that that the designations Lord and Lady are merely a convenient shorthand for what are underlying principles and basic nature of the universe itself.
Regardless of which theological viewpoint individual Atjuntja hold – and the last four Kings of Kings have been careful never to take an official position on the matter – the consequences of these beliefs are similar. The Lady is given a number of titles to represent her essential nature: She Who Creates, the Lady of Goodness, the Patron of Beauty, the Giver of Wisdom, the Incarnator. The Lord is given a corresponding set of titles: He Who Destroys, the Lord of Evil, the Unmaker, the Bringer of Pain, the Harvester of Souls. The Atjuntja believe that the two deities (or principles) act in dynamic unison over the course of eternity. Both are necessary; goodness cannot exist without evil to define it. All that is created will eventually be destroyed; from the shards of what has been destroyed, new things will be remade.
Worship of the Lord and Lady takes many forms, most of them public and ostentatious. Yet the rituals which make the most vivid impression on outside visitors are those associated with some of the more negative aspects of the Lord. Visiting Islanders and other occasional Eastern guests are disgusted by them; later European visitors will be similarly appalled.
In Atjuntja theology, a certain amount of misery, pain and death are demanded by the Lord. It is unavoidable, either as part of His wishes (according to literalists) or a fundamental aspect of the universe (according to abstractionists). Since misery, pain and death cannot be prevented, it is best to arrange for them to happen in a form which minimises the effects on the world. Better to inflict pain in a carefully-controlled manner than to leave it to run wild throughout the Middle Country; better to appease the Lord with appropriate ritual torture and bloodletting rather than to allow death to strike where it wishes.
The rituals involved with these aspects of the worship of the Lord are conducted in a building whose formal name translates as the House of Absolution, but which is colloquially and more widely known as the House of Pain. Its priests are titled Appeasers. The House includes both public and private sections, including one large public arena where the major rituals are conducted. The arena can seat over twenty thousand, and it is regularly filled by people who have come to bear witness.
The House hosts two main kinds of rituals, the sacrifices conducted by the Appeasers themselves, and blood bouts performed entirely by guests. The sacrifices are conducted using a variety of techniques which are best not described too closely, but which fall into two basic classes, “to the pain” or “to the death.” In either case, the Appeasers work as slowly as possible, gradually increasing the intensity of their efforts. When a person is sacrificed to the pain, the ritual will continue until they signal for it to stop; a sacrifice to the death is self-explanatory.
Sacrificial victims are all volunteers. In theory, at least. The Atjuntja hold that a sacrifice from a person of noble blood is far more effective at appeasing the Lord than that of a commoner. A certain number of members of each noble family are sacrificed to the pain every year. The longer the sacrifice continues without the victim calling it to a halt, the more efficacious it is judged to be. Human nature being what it is, the noble families compete with each other to win the greatest spiritual rewards – to say nothing of public acclaim and honour – by how long their children can last in the sacrifice. Stoic endurance is deemed a major virtue, since there is no better method to appease the Lord. The Appeasers are rarely short of volunteers, both from noble and common stock.
Sacrifices to the death are rarer; in a normal year the standard number is thirteen. In bad years, such as those afflicted by diseases or extended droughts, it is common for the King of Kings to request more volunteers. Such requests are usually honoured; a large part of a region’s annual tribute can be in the form of people to be sacrificed to the death. However, this is one instance where the imperial administrators will never demand tribute in this form; such offers must always come from the individuals concerned. This is not out of any sense of squeamishness or even out of any fear of alienating their subjects, but simply a result of their religious beliefs. A forced sacrifice will not appease the Lord; if anything, it will simply invite His attention and risk Him taking a more direct hand in worldly affairs.
Or so commoners and subject peoples believe, at any rate. Many of the upper classes have fewer scruples when it comes to their own kin. It is not unknown for less favoured members of a noble family to volunteer to take the ultimate sacrifice. Even the royal family are not above such requests; being a surplus prince is not an indicator of a long life expectancy.
The other form of religious ritual in the House of Pain is the blood bout. This is a contest between (usually) two volunteers, fought with the objective of inflicting pain, loss of blood, and eventual death. Volunteers for these bouts are usually from the lower classes; most noble families prefer to win honour through sacrifices instead. Blood bouts are usually held only once a year, as part of broader religious ceremonies involved with the start of the new year. Blood bouts are fought using a number of stylised weapons, or (rarely) bare-fisted. Armour is not permitted, beyond basic clothing for modesty. Weapons are designed to make it difficult to inflict a single killing blow. The blood battlers are expected to kill slowly; the most favoured contest is one where the loser dies from slowly bleeding through a large number of small cuts. It is quite common for both contestants to die in a blood bout, although some particularly gifted duellists have survived bouts for several successive years.
* * *
The House of Pain will attract most early attention when Europeans first discover about Atjuntja religion. Still, the Atjuntja beliefs are far more complex than this, a combination of their own special interests and older traditions which have been subsumed into their theology. One older belief which has become integral to Atjuntja religion is their study of the heavens. Several Yaora peoples interpreted the constellations and other heavenly bodies in terms of movements in the great water-cycles, and believed that a proper study of celestial events would yield detailed knowledge of signs and omens to guide the decisions of men. Of the various groups who held these beliefs, none would take them further than the Yuduwungu.
Before the invention of writing, Yuduwungu astrologers established an observation point far inland. They chose a plateau which they called the Heights of Heaven, although it would later come to be called Star Hill [Boorabin]. From this inland vantage, they had much clearer skies to watch the heavens and study the signs and omens. They established a tradition of picking the keenest-sighted people in the land and sending them to Star Hill to become apprentices to study the craft of astrology. The astrologers of Star Hill became dedicated to studying the heavens, and built up a detailed oral system which described the known constellations, stars, planets, and some records of meteors and comets. The sect became known as the Watchers, and the Yuduwungu gave them the same veneration which classical Greeks would give the Oracle of Delphi.
When Nuneloc developed his script, it did not take long for the practice to spread to the Watchers. They added their own system of signs for numbers, and transferred their oral knowledge into written form. The Watchers began to keep a very detailed record of constellations, stellar movements, and new celestial bodies such as comets, novas, and the like. Living in a plateau in the desert, with clear skies and no distractions, they became very good at watching. With much time for contemplation, they discovered a variety of astronomical truths, although these were wrapped up in astrological terms and incorporated into their system of predictions. When the Atjuntja conquerors came, they did not interfere with the Watchers; indeed, several of the Kings of Kings have allocated labour to construct expanded buildings for the Watchers.
Over the centuries, the Watchers have accumulated a detailed body of astronomical knowledge. They have very thorough records of the constellations and individual star, and their observers are astute enough to have recognised the precession of the equinoxes over the five and a half centuries in which they have been keeping records. They have a detailed record of every comet, solar and lunar eclipse which has been visible above the Middle Country since 1076, except for a twenty-year gap between 1148-1168 where several records were lost due to flooding. They keep a calendar of meteor showers, and have recognised most (but not all) novae which have been visible since their records began.
In common with European and other astronomers, they know of the supernova which occurred in 1604; brighter than any other celestial body apart from the Moon and Venus [9]. The Watchers are still arguing over exactly what that new star meant, although most of them agree that it was ominous. On their advice, the then-King of Kings requested fifty volunteers to be sacrificed to the death in 1605, to appease the threat contained in this new sign in the heavens. They are aware that the world is round, although they have no particular interest in calculating its size. Their star catalogues and their dedicated observations have allowed them to recognise Uranus, which they include in their list of wandering stars (i.e. planets).
In short, if European astronomers gain access to the Watchers’ records, they will find much to interest them.
* * *
[1] The crops which are brought overland across the desert are only those which travellers would bring them, and which would survive replanting. Red yam tubers were often taken back by traders, since they were a large and valuable source of food. Red yams are also useful since they do not need to be planted intact; like other Australian yam species, only the top part of the tuber needs to be planted in the soil to regrow. Western Australian peoples already knew how to harvest and replant a local yam species (the warran yam), although they had not fully domesticated it. Travellers who brought red yams back with them to the west would cut slices off a yam tuber as they travelled, using it as food. If the top part of the yam tuber survived the trip, they would sometimes replant it. With their familiarity with harvesting warran yams, this meant that they could apply those techniques to a new crop which was more suitable for full domestication.
The other crops which were brought over were seed crops (wattle seeds, flax seeds), which traders also brought with them as food. Seed crops were ground into flour and cooked as seedcakes, much as Aboriginal peoples did in historical Australia. Since the seeds were not ground until they were used, this mean that surplus seeds were also available for replanting if they were brought back west. Some other eastern crops were not suitable for transport in this manner; the tubers of murnong are too small to be useful to bring back intact, and the seeds of nettles were not harvested.
[2] The tooth-bearing wattle (Acacia dentifera) is a small shrub which provides a large seed yield for its size, and manna wattle (A. microbotrya) produces abundant quantities of wattle gum. The warran yam (Dioscorea hastifolia) is a real yam species which was historically used by the Noongar and other peoples of south-western Australia. Warran yams were harvested with the upper part of the tuber being replanted to allow it to regrow and collect a fresh tuber the next year. Warran yams are not quite as well-suited to arid conditions as red yams, and do not provide as large yields per acre, although their taste will be preferred by some Yaora peoples. Australia includes a large number of plants which have been called “bush potatoes”; the species described here is Platysace deflexa, whose potential as a domesticable crop is being explored in recent plantings. The main role of the warran yam and bush potato is as secondary staple crops which do not yield as heavily in nutritional terms as red yams, but add variety to the diet, and offer some security for food supply if disease or other misfortune affects the red yam harvest.
[3] Historically, most of the fertile regions of south-western Australia were similarly occupied by a group of thirteen related peoples who broadly considered themselves part of the same culture. They collectively called themselves the Noongar (although the name is transliterated into English in a variety of other spellings), and spoke related dialects (or related languages, depending on who you ask). The Noongar did not occupy an area quite as large as the allohistorical Yaora; the borders of their country were roughly everything south and west of a line from Jurien Bay to Ravensthorpe, Western Australia.
[4] Early bronze-working involved smelting of copper and tin, alloying those metals, and then casting them into tools or weapons. Early ironworking in bloomeries did not involve melting iron ore. Instead, it involved burning iron ore with charcoal so that the iron ore was reduced to iron without ever reaching its melting temperature, and then working the iron while it was heated, but still solid.
[5] Chinese ironworking techniques were quite distinct; they developed the blast furnace much earlier than in western Eurasia, and melted iron ore until it formed into cast iron.
[6] South-western Australia is a region of substantial biodiversity, with over seven thousand species of vascular plants. The Atjuntja don’t have every one of those kinds of plants in the Garden, but they give it their best shot.
[7] Two mountain ranges, the Stirling Range and Porongurup Range, north of modern Albany, are the source of the water for these aqueducts.
[8] There are historical instances of writing being developed in a similar method. The Cherokee writing system was invented by a similar method, and it appears that Scandinavian runes were similarly inspired by contact with the Latin alphabet.
[9] Northern hemisphere astronomers also recorded another supernova a generation before in 1572, but this was in the northern hemisphere constellation of Cassiopeia and could not be seen from where the Watchers operate.
* * *
Thoughts?
The south-western corner of Australia is a complex mixture of fertile coastal land gradually melding into an arid interior. Around the coast, frequent rains fall, creating what is by Australian standards a well-watered climate. Before European arrival, this land sustained forests of towering 90-metre karri trees, among the tallest trees in the world, and abundant jarrah trees, whose timber was so reminiscent of New World mahogany trees that European colonists would call it Swan River Mahogany. Moving inland, the climate becomes gradually drier, although there is enough fertile land to produce half of modern Australia’s wheat harvest. Moving even further inland, the wheat-producing regions gradually fade into more arid desert, although the dry interior contains abundant mineral resources, including large deposits of iron and nickel and a third of the world’s known gold reserves. Although possessed of abundant resources, this region is extremely isolated from the rest of Australia; the state capital Perth is closer to Indonesia’s capital Jakarta than it is to the Australian national capital in Canberra.
In allohistorical Australia, the fertile south-western corner was for long isolated from the rest of the continent. Although the climate was suitable for growing the native crop package, the separation of desert barriers meant that it took millennia for crops to be transported further west. Fortunately for the peoples of the south-west, the isolation was not complete. Traders and travellers sometimes crossed the deserts, and they brought food back with them. Since any careful desert-crosser brings more food than they need, this sometimes meant that samples of domesticated crops reached south-western Australia.
From this source, farming slowly developed in the west. Small-scale growing of red yams started around 550 BC, and other crops followed. The Yuduwungu people around modern Esperance became the first farmers of the south-west, adopting red yams, bramble wattles, and native flax from the east. Their isolation from the east remained quite substantial, enough that murnong, one of the key staple crops in eastern Australia, was not grown in the south-west until carried by Islander ships in the fifteenth century [1]. However, the Yuduwungu farmers developed some new crops of their own, such as the tooth-bearing wattle, manna wattle, warran yam, and bush potato [2].
Pre-farming south-western Australia was occupied by a group of eleven peoples who spoke related dialects and shared a common cultural heritage. The Yuduwungu were just one of these peoples; collectively the eleven groups referred to themselves as the Yaora [3]. Eight of these peoples lived along the coast. Moving clockwise, these were the Yuduwungu, the Wadjureb, the Pitelming, the Atjuntja, the Madujal, the Djarwari, the Inayaki and the Binyin. Three other related peoples occupied the inland “wheat belt” regions; the Nyunjari, the Wurama and the Baiyurama. Unlike in the east, where farmers displaced hunter-gatherers, amongst the Yaora, farming spread quickly enough that the individual peoples adopted crops and technologies rather than being displaced. By about 300 AD, the eleven Yaora peoples had all taken up farming and sedentary lifestyles.
The Yaora peoples occupied an area which in terms of modern Australia comprises everything west of a line roughly from Geraldton to Esperance. They called their home country Tiayal, meaning “the Middle Country.” In their early religion and worldview, their homelands were the only important fertile country in the universe; to the south and west were endless seas and to the north and east were hostile desert wastelands. They were only vaguely aware of any peoples beyond the Middle Country; trade routes to the north brought pearl shells from the northern coastline of Australia, while trade routes to the east had brought a few crops and decorative items, but with only very sporadic contact.
The isolation of the Middle Country meant that many of the fundamental elements of Gunnagalic civilization further east were only slowly transmitted to the western outlier. Ceramics were spread relatively early, since storage jars and other containers were among the goods transported across the desert. Domesticated ducks were brought directly across by a returning traveller (and cross-bred with their wild relatives), and this became inspiration for an independent domestication of the emu. However, many other ideas and technologies did not spread until much later. Sometimes this was to the detriment of the Yaora; knowledge of writing took a long time to spread across the desert. Sometimes the slow transmission of knowledge would turn out to be to their advantage. Nowhere would this be clearer than in metallurgy.
The basics of metallurgy were known to the Yuduwungu and other early Yaora peoples, but only in limited form. They were broadly aware of the process of smelting metal, enough to create copper tools of their own. Yet while they received a few bronze tools and weapons, these came through very long trade routes; the source of tin was not just across the desert, but at the other end of Gunnagalia. This meant that the early Yaora peoples never learnt to recognise tin ore, and in any case they had only one source of tin (near modern Bunbury). The developing Yaora civilizations knew how to smelt and work copper, but their only other metal tools were made from a metal which fell from the sky: meteoric iron.
In the end, this would be an inspiration.
* * *
In the traditional chronology of prehistory, technology progressed from the Stone Age (Neolithic) to a Copper Age (Chalcolithic), to a Bronze Age, and then finally to an Iron Age. Each of these developments provided some advantages over the preceding age. Copper tools gave more flexibility without replacing stone tools. Bonze was a stronger and more useful metal than unalloyed copper, although it required higher smelting temperatures and a functioning trade network to supply tin. Early ironworking techniques did not provide a stronger metal than bronze, but allowed for much more widespread use of metal; iron ore is much more abundant than the components of bronze, especially tin.
However, the historical record is more complex than a simple progression between ages. Some cultures never went through a copper age, and some cultures did not go through a bronze-working period before they started working with iron (such as in West Africa). It is still an open question as to whether a civilization needs to progress through bronze working before it develops ironworking techniques. Sub-Saharan may well have developed ironworking independently without ever having a bronze-working period; sources disagree as to whether the West African ironsmiths learnt ironworking on their own or whether they were inspired directly or directly from ironworking in the region of present-day Sudan. Ironworking in western Eurasia came later than bronze-working, but the techniques involved in Western ironworking (in bloomeries) are quite distinct from those used in bronze-working [4]. It seems that rather than being based on previous knowledge of bronze-working, the development of early western Eurasian ironworking was an independent development. Or, at the very least, it was based on indirect inspiration; the earliest west Eurasian blacksmiths may well have known that their neighbours heated and worked bronze, but did their own experimentation with iron and produced the first wrought iron [5].
The metalworkers in the Middle Country were in a similar situation with respect to the main metallurgists further east. They knew enough about metal to know how to smelt it, but they did not know the full bronze-working techniques, and were forced to develop other methods. Apart from copper, they had much rarer meteoric iron, which they could work into useful tools. The techniques needed to work meteoric iron are exactly the same as those used to work iron once it has been created in a bloomery. Meteoric iron was available in the Middle Country, but so were earthly forms of iron ore. In particular, magnetite ore is abundant in several sources near Albany. Magnetite ore is easily recognisable as being related to meteoric iron; lumps of magnetite have a close enough resemblance to meteorites that they can mislead meteorite hunters. In time, smiths around Albany started to experiment with magnetite, and discovered techniques of burning it with charcoal, which gave them an abundant source of iron which they could work using already familiar techniques. The Middle Country had entered the Iron Age.
* * *
With the spread of farming, the Yaora peoples developed into a distinctive cultural zone. While they had some differences in speech – not all of their dialects were mutually intelligible – they remained in close contact with each other. They shared the same broad religious beliefs, including a few concepts which were transmitted from the older Gunnagalic cultures further to the east. These concepts had been changed considerably through travellers’ misunderstandings, the difficulties of translation, and the tyranny of distance.
To the Yaora, the universe comprises three “substances,” which can be broadly translated as solid, liquid, and gas. All solid objects are only separate flavours of the underlying substance, and liquids and gases are similarly flavours of a separate underlying substance. Each of these substances is mutable into each of the other forms, but through the actions of the universal symbol of eternity: water. To the Yaora, water is the driver of the cycles of eternity, the physical manifestation of time. They acquired the old Gunnagalic belief of the universe being eternal, but they adapted it into their observations of the properties of water. The Yaora know that water can transform from solid to liquid to gas, even though their knowledge of solid water is limited to a few rare instances of snow and frost, and they think that clouds are formed of gaseous water, not liquid water drops. The Yaora believe that the transformation of water between its three forms is what drives the movement of time and eternity.
The Yaora religion is based in part on their understanding of the role of water as an agent of erosion. Living in a flood-prone land, they know how the actions of water can remove soil and stone. They recognise sand as rocks which have been worn away from solid hills, and believe that this sand is in the process of being transformed into liquid over a very long time. In their cosmology, the sun is viewed as the Source which drives the actions of water through evaporation from the oceans and precipitation when rain falls onto the land. They also believe that the Source acts on solid rock, heating the water within it and causing it to expand, which means that hills gradually rise from the earth over time. These hills are then eroded away by water, turned into part of the oceans, and then eventually solidify beneath the waves to be carried back to join the land. All of this is viewed as part of the same underlying cycle of eternity; they believe that the world has always been and will always be.
The Yaora as a whole do not have a concept of a creator deity, although some of the individual peoples will later develop such views. Instead, the Yaora believe in beings called kuru, a word which originally meant “reflection,” since kuru were thought of as reflections in the ever-ocean. Kuru are not considered to be eternal beings in themselves; it is believed that they will eventually dissolve back into the ever-ocean. Still, some of them have lifespans long enough that they may as well be immortal, from a human point of view.
Kuru are perceived as varying greatly in power; some are powerful and can be worshipped or appeased, whereas others are weak or mischievous and simply cause trouble for people. Phenomena such as thunder and lightning are thought to be the actions of particularly transient kuru which are soon going to dissolve back into the ever-ocean. Some kuru are associated with particular concepts such as growth, fertility or courage, and are called on for blessings or favours for people who are in need. One quality which all kuru have in common is that they cannot stand directly in the light of the Source without being slowly weakened. Greater kuru might be able to withstand sunlight for hours, while lesser kuru would be dissolved in seconds. This means that all worship is conducted out of direct sunlight, whether indoors or just under trees or some other covering.
* * *
For centuries after the adoption of farming, the Yaora lived in small communities, and had no larger political entities than city-states. Over time, a few of these developed into small kingdoms. While they occasionally went conquering over large areas, none of them successfully held onto their conquests.
Things changed with the discovery of ironworking in the twelfth century. Ironworking spread rapidly, with the new technology allowing much greater access to metal tools than anything in previous Australian history, even more than the abundant bronze of the Cider Isle. Iron tools allowed more clearing of land and more effective farming techniques. Iron weapons could be cheaply supplied to armies in a way which had never before been seen in the Middle Country. The result was a rapid social and political transformation, particularly amongst the Atjuntja, the first people to work iron, and the ones who would put it to the greatest use.
Writing was unknown to the Atjuntja at the time when iron was discovered, so the early history of the Atjuntja conquerors was preserved only in oral form, and only transcribed many years later, when memory had faded and exaggerations and distortions became commonplace. It is known that the Atjuntja had long dwelt in the country around historical Albany, around the shores of King Georges Sound, which formed the largest deepwater harbour in the Middle Country. They were divided into three main city-states: the White City [Albany], Warneang [Denmark] and Fog City [Walpole], along with several smaller towns and settlements.
The Atjuntja drew much of their food from fishing, while inland much of their country was covered in trees which were difficult to clear with copper and stone tools. The Atjuntja were less numerous than many of their neighbours, until they discovered how to work the magnetite iron in their territory. With iron tools, they started to clear the forests and plant yams and wattles to feed a burgeoning population. Disputes over this land led to wars between the three main Atjuntja city-states, which were ended when King Banyar of the White City defeated both of his rivals and proclaimed himself the Kaat-kaat (King of Kings) of the Atjuntja. His heirs would go on to conquer much further...
* * *
In 1618, the Atjuntja rule an empire which controls all of the Middle Country. The Kings of Kings have even expanded further than the old Yaora lands. The region around Geraldton is the northernmost area where large-scale agriculture is sustainable, but the rule of the Kings of Kings stretches further; they have a penal colony and salt-harvesting works on the shores of Shark Bay. In the eastern frontier of their territory, they have pushed into the semi-arid region around Kalgoorlie. The land there is poorly watered, but it holds something of great value: gold. The Atjuntja esteem gold; they call it ‘sun’s blood’ and view it as the solid form of the Source. The harsh environment of the desert does not make for long life amongst the miners, but the Kings of Kings care little for that.
Within this vast expanse of territory, the Atjuntja rule over everything, but not always directly. The Atjuntja are only one people amongst many in their empire, by now the largest single ethnicity, but still a minority of the overall population. The nature of their rule varies from region to region, reflecting both the duration of their rule in each region, and the form of its conquest. The Atjuntja began their expansion in the thirteenth century, acquiring writing only when they conquered around the Wadjureb people around Ravensthorpe in the mid-fourteenth century, and completing their expansion with the conquest of Geraldton in 1512. There is no longer any need for armies of conquest; the remaining military forces are used as garrisons to preserve the peace.
Rebellions are hardly an unknown occurrence, although they have been growing less frequent in the last half-century. Their empire includes a patchwork of individual regions, some with explicit privileges established as part of their conquest, and some peoples who have been displaced entirely from their original homeland. The general practice of the Kings of Kings has been to leave local institutions in place unless threatened by revolt. Some peoples have been more accepting of Atjuntja rule than others. The Pitelming rebelled one time too often and were forcibly deported from their homelands and resettled in small groups across the empire, except for those who were sent to the mines. In some regions, the non-Atjuntja populations are gradually assimilating to the dominant culture; the prestige attached to the Atjuntja dialect means that many of the related dialects are being abandoned. In other regions, the other Yaora peoples still remain attached to their own culture and heritage even if they are quiescent under Atjuntja rule.
Imperial administration is based on a combination of Atjuntja aristocrats and local potentates who have been integrated into the ruling class. They have established a number of garrison-cities which serve both as bastions of imperial military power, and as centres of trade and administration. Most of these garrison-cities have turned into local metropolises, with attached towns developing outside the walls of the main garrison. Among the largest garrison-cities are Lobster Waters [Jurien Bay], Spear Mountain [Merredin] – where an ingeniously-built dam collects most of the water that falls on the mountain – Corram Yibbal [Bunbury], Archers Nest [Redcliffe, a suburb of Perth], and Red Eye [Ravensthorpe]. Trade focuses on these centres, and travels along the well-maintained roads which the Atjuntja have built between the garrison-cities. This is the most extensive road network anywhere in allohistorical Australia, thanks to the use of iron tools which makes construction much easier.
From the garrison-cities, the imperial administrators oversee the collection of the yearly tribute from the subject peoples. This is rigorously gathered, in a variety of forms depending on the region, imperial requirements, and the preferences of the subject peoples. Some tribute is collected in local produce, such as dyes, timber, oils, incense, lorikeet and cockatoo feathers, copper, or iron. Sometimes the tribute is collected in staple crops and foods, particularly to feed the garrison-cities and the imperial workforce. Sometimes the tribute is collected in labour drafts.
The Atjuntja have developed a methodical system for managing labour and the workforce throughout their empire. Most of this labour is used in public works and major engineering projects, such as roads, buildings, earthworks, and the like. Most of the labourers are required to work only at certain times of the year. This is usually in the winter and early spring, which coincides both with the least wearying part of the year for heavy labour, and with the timings of harvests. After the yams have been harvested and the wattles pruned, and before it is time to replant them or collect the first wattle seeds, the imperial administrators demand the labour of tens of thousands of people for a fixed period of time. These labour drafts are widespread, but permanent slavery is much rarer, used mostly for the gold mines in the interior. For regular subjects, the labour draft is a wearying but predictable part of their yearly life. While they may serve on a variety of projects, the single largest use of drafted labour is working in the imperial capital, the White City.
* * *
The White City, some call it, or the City Between The Waters, or the Place of Twin Peaks, or the Centre of Time. Another history would call it Albany, the first deepwater port in Western Australia, located on a large mostly sheltered harbour called King Georges Sound, which contains two completely sheltered harbours inside, Princess Royal Harbour and Oyster Harbour. To the Atjuntja who live in the White City, the Sound is simply the Sea Lake, and they call the two interior harbours West Water [Princess Royal] and North Water [Oyster]. It is the centre of their universe, the largest city in the known world, the dwelling place of the King of Kings. Most of its residents would prefer never to live anywhere else; those who are appointed elsewhere as governors or soldiers treat it as an exile, no matter how important the duty.
The oldest part of the White City was founded between two mountains, the Twins, Un Koit [Mt Clarence] and Un Bennan [Mt Melville]. Strong walls once protected this city, but the walls have long since been torn down, their stone going to new buildings. No foreign army has threatened the White City in over two centuries, and the inhabitants have many uses for building material.
The core of the White City is still in the land between the mountains, including most of the public buildings. Many drafted labourers have worked over long years to produce the great monuments and public buildings of the White City, and their work continues. Here, in the old heart of the White City is the Palace of a Thousand Rooms, for the private use of the King of Kings, his many wives, administrators, and honoured guests. Here is the grandeur of the Walk of Kings, the great avenue which runs between the two mountains. Most of the other public buildings adjoin the Walk of Kings: the Garden of Ten Thousand Steps is halfway along; the public temples to the Lord and the Lady are here, along with smaller shrines to a dozen well-known kuru; the public arena of the House of Pain is at the western end, with the private rooms built into the mountain; the House of the Songs adjoins the Walk, where the greatest of musicians in the Middle Country come to study their craft; and so does the Mammang, the great school where the sons of Atjuntja nobility come to receive military and religious schooling.
Everything about the heart of the White City is built to impress. The Walk of Kings runs in a straight line between the two mountains, with fountains every hundred steps, towering jarrah trees planted to shade the walkers, and columns and statues to depict imperial accomplishments and religious figures. The Garden of Ten Thousand Steps is where the Atjuntja indulge their love of the natural world. It is said that with every step there is a new marvel to see, a new flower or tree [6], or a new arrangement of stones and trees, artificial waterfalls, or flocks of sacred ducks bred for bright colours. Disturbing the ducks is punishable by eventual death. Everywhere in the Garden is the sound of water, flowing, bubbling, or cascading down rocks.
At the eastern end of the Walk is the Palace. Most of it is private, but at the appropriate season visitors can walk up the limestone steps, past statues of cockatoos, lorikeets, and goannas carved so that they appear to be about to jump into the air. At the top, there is a large covered balcony where the King of Kings sits to watch public events. He sits on the Petal Throne, symbolic of the Atjuntja veneration of all flowering plants, which has been carved in a shape of forty petals opening as if part of a very large flower.
The grandeur of the public buildings is what most visitors to the White City remember, but this is a much larger city. The outlying districts extend much further than the old heartland, filled with houses and markets, storehouses, smaller shrines, and the three schools for common Atjuntja men, women, and foreigners. Two hundred thousand people live here at the busiest times of the year, although many of those are drafted labourers who return to their homes outside of draft times. The storehouses are full of the wattleseeds and yams needed to feed the burgeoning population, and the main imperial roads are always busy with traffic bringing in food, other tribute, and trade goods. The people, the gardens and the fountains are watered by several aqueducts which come from the mountain ranges to the north [7].
The White City includes a foreign quarter, built on the eastern side of North Water, to keep outlanders and their influences away from the royal city. This is where Islander ships and merchants visit in regular fleets, and a few of them have settled permanently. They have their own small temples where they complete the rituals of the Sevenfold Path in accordance with the teachings of the Good Man, but strictly-enforced imperial law forbids them from proselytising within the White City.
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As a ruling class, the Atjuntja are divided into noble families and commoners, although even common Atjuntja are believed to outrank all but the most favoured of subject peoples. Governors and military commanders are chosen exclusively from the Atjuntja aristocracy, although there are protocols whereby high-status nobility from the subject peoples can be adopted into the Atjuntja ruling class. This adoption is subject to acceptance of Atjuntja ways, including learning their dialect and adopting a proper mode of dress and appearance. The most visible mark of this acceptance is the full beard which all Atjuntja men are expected to wear; a man’s beard is regarded as a sign of strength and virility.
The Atjuntja system of nobility includes a variety of ranks and offices, the highest of which can be roughly translated as “king.” In keeping with long-standing tradition, the heads of the thirteen greatest noble families are accorded that title. Each of them is officially a king of a particular place, such as the other ancient Atjuntja city-states of Warneang and Fog City, or the newer garrison-cities. The link of these titles to geographic locations has long since been broken; the leading members of the nobility prefer to live in civilization in the White City and let lesser family members deal with the bothersome business of administration. In any case, governors to the garrison-cities are appointed by the reigning emperor without any regard to which noble family claims the royal title for that city.
Overseeing the whole empire is the emperor, the King of Kings, the Voice of Divinity. The emperor is chosen from among the members of the imperial family, and in theory each King of Kings is confirmed (elected) by the kings of the noble families. In practice most emperors have appointed their own successor from amongst their sons or other kin, and the kings have simply acclaimed the new monarch. In a few cases of disputed succession, or where the King of Kings has died without an appointed heir, the decision of the kings has mattered.
The protocol surrounding the King of Kings is elaborate, based on his divine status. The title of Voice of Divinity is no mere formality, but given in recognition of this status. Only those who are “blessed” are permitted hear the Voice speak; this naturally includes the nobility of all ranks, and palace servants and the like, but otherwise is a rare honour bestowed on those who have performed exceptional service to the empire. Apart from this, people may come in audience before the Voice, or the army may march past his balcony while he sits on the Petal Throne, but they do not hear his voice. The Voice uses a range of gestures to indicate his intent, with meanings such as “tell me more,” “you have done well,” and “you may leave me.” A few Voices have developed their own forms of sign language and use an interpreter to convey more precise meanings, although most Voices have thought that commoners have little to say that is worth hearing.
In 1618, the imperial dignity is held by a man named Kepiuc Tjaanuc. He is the Voice of Divinity, but to be honest, the blessed often wish that they did not have that status, so that they would not have to hear him speak. He can talk, can the Voice. Too many bright ideas, too many questions, and too many whims for the nobles to feel comfortable hearing him speak. Not to mention too many wives. There is no restriction on the number of wives which a man of noble blood can take – commoners are permitted a maximum of three, of course, and then only if they can pay for a separate house for each wife – but the Voice married his 101st wife last winter solstice, far more than any other nobleman in living memory. Some less charitable gossip, carefully repeated out of the ears of any untrustworthy listeners, is that the Voice can no longer remember how to do anything with his wives other than talk to them; certainly, he has not fathered as many sons as would be expected for a man with so many wives. Perhaps he only married them so that they have to listen to him.
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Writing is not a native concept for the Atjuntja, but something which they acquired in the process of expanding their dominions. The first people in the Middle Country to develop writing were the Yuduwungu, who acquired it by stimulus-diffusion from across the desert. While direct contact with the east was limited, some trade flowed across the desert. This included a variety of decorative objects such as pendants and bracelets which were inscribed with messages. Some of the containers for trade goods had labels of their contents. Travellers to the east rarely learned writing themselves; literacy in the Gunnagalic script took years to acquire, due to its complexity. Still, they were aware of the existence of writing, and their tales percolated throughout the Yuduwungu lands.
In the eleventh century, a Yuduwungu artisan named Nuneloc developed a writing system based on what he had heard of the system to the east, and using examples which he had available. Many of the symbols which he used were borrowed from the Gunnagalic script, but used for completely different sounds, and some of the symbols were invented outright [8]. The script was fundamentally syllabic, although also proto-alphabetic because related signs were used for syllables with the same initial consonants but different vowels. Nuneloc had his name immortalised, since it became the root of the Yuduwungu word for writing, and which in time would be passed on to the Atjuntja.
By the time the Atjuntja started conquering, writing had spread as far as the neighbouring Wadjureb people. The Atjuntja adopted the system of writing, finding it extremely useful in maintaining their empire, but its use is limited to preferred purposes. They keep some religious texts and have some of their epic poems and songs written down. They keep detailed records to support their administration of the empire, included lists of tribute collected from each region, the number of people present, and so on. The last Atjuntja census revealed just over 1.5 million people live under the rule of the King of Kings. They have public inscriptions announcing the glory of their rulers, but even then they rely as much on the carvings and sculpture as on the content of the inscriptions. For the Atjuntja like everything to be a spectacle or festival. Ideally both. Sports, military parades and triumphs, and celebrations of the harvests are all conducted in the most ostentatious manner possible.
As are religious experiences.
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The Atjuntja share the same ancestral religion as all the Yaora peoples, but their beliefs have evolved into an overarching dualism. They believe in the same kuru and water-cycles as their kin, but they also worship two divine beings, whose names translate roughly as the Lord and the Lady. Theological interpretations differ (sometimes violently) as to the underlying nature of these beings. One school of thought can be approximately translated as literalists; its adherents consider the Lord and the Lady to be literal beings which have a tangible existence, personalities and so forth. The other main school of religious thought can be roughly translated as abstractionists; they hold that that the designations Lord and Lady are merely a convenient shorthand for what are underlying principles and basic nature of the universe itself.
Regardless of which theological viewpoint individual Atjuntja hold – and the last four Kings of Kings have been careful never to take an official position on the matter – the consequences of these beliefs are similar. The Lady is given a number of titles to represent her essential nature: She Who Creates, the Lady of Goodness, the Patron of Beauty, the Giver of Wisdom, the Incarnator. The Lord is given a corresponding set of titles: He Who Destroys, the Lord of Evil, the Unmaker, the Bringer of Pain, the Harvester of Souls. The Atjuntja believe that the two deities (or principles) act in dynamic unison over the course of eternity. Both are necessary; goodness cannot exist without evil to define it. All that is created will eventually be destroyed; from the shards of what has been destroyed, new things will be remade.
Worship of the Lord and Lady takes many forms, most of them public and ostentatious. Yet the rituals which make the most vivid impression on outside visitors are those associated with some of the more negative aspects of the Lord. Visiting Islanders and other occasional Eastern guests are disgusted by them; later European visitors will be similarly appalled.
In Atjuntja theology, a certain amount of misery, pain and death are demanded by the Lord. It is unavoidable, either as part of His wishes (according to literalists) or a fundamental aspect of the universe (according to abstractionists). Since misery, pain and death cannot be prevented, it is best to arrange for them to happen in a form which minimises the effects on the world. Better to inflict pain in a carefully-controlled manner than to leave it to run wild throughout the Middle Country; better to appease the Lord with appropriate ritual torture and bloodletting rather than to allow death to strike where it wishes.
The rituals involved with these aspects of the worship of the Lord are conducted in a building whose formal name translates as the House of Absolution, but which is colloquially and more widely known as the House of Pain. Its priests are titled Appeasers. The House includes both public and private sections, including one large public arena where the major rituals are conducted. The arena can seat over twenty thousand, and it is regularly filled by people who have come to bear witness.
The House hosts two main kinds of rituals, the sacrifices conducted by the Appeasers themselves, and blood bouts performed entirely by guests. The sacrifices are conducted using a variety of techniques which are best not described too closely, but which fall into two basic classes, “to the pain” or “to the death.” In either case, the Appeasers work as slowly as possible, gradually increasing the intensity of their efforts. When a person is sacrificed to the pain, the ritual will continue until they signal for it to stop; a sacrifice to the death is self-explanatory.
Sacrificial victims are all volunteers. In theory, at least. The Atjuntja hold that a sacrifice from a person of noble blood is far more effective at appeasing the Lord than that of a commoner. A certain number of members of each noble family are sacrificed to the pain every year. The longer the sacrifice continues without the victim calling it to a halt, the more efficacious it is judged to be. Human nature being what it is, the noble families compete with each other to win the greatest spiritual rewards – to say nothing of public acclaim and honour – by how long their children can last in the sacrifice. Stoic endurance is deemed a major virtue, since there is no better method to appease the Lord. The Appeasers are rarely short of volunteers, both from noble and common stock.
Sacrifices to the death are rarer; in a normal year the standard number is thirteen. In bad years, such as those afflicted by diseases or extended droughts, it is common for the King of Kings to request more volunteers. Such requests are usually honoured; a large part of a region’s annual tribute can be in the form of people to be sacrificed to the death. However, this is one instance where the imperial administrators will never demand tribute in this form; such offers must always come from the individuals concerned. This is not out of any sense of squeamishness or even out of any fear of alienating their subjects, but simply a result of their religious beliefs. A forced sacrifice will not appease the Lord; if anything, it will simply invite His attention and risk Him taking a more direct hand in worldly affairs.
Or so commoners and subject peoples believe, at any rate. Many of the upper classes have fewer scruples when it comes to their own kin. It is not unknown for less favoured members of a noble family to volunteer to take the ultimate sacrifice. Even the royal family are not above such requests; being a surplus prince is not an indicator of a long life expectancy.
The other form of religious ritual in the House of Pain is the blood bout. This is a contest between (usually) two volunteers, fought with the objective of inflicting pain, loss of blood, and eventual death. Volunteers for these bouts are usually from the lower classes; most noble families prefer to win honour through sacrifices instead. Blood bouts are usually held only once a year, as part of broader religious ceremonies involved with the start of the new year. Blood bouts are fought using a number of stylised weapons, or (rarely) bare-fisted. Armour is not permitted, beyond basic clothing for modesty. Weapons are designed to make it difficult to inflict a single killing blow. The blood battlers are expected to kill slowly; the most favoured contest is one where the loser dies from slowly bleeding through a large number of small cuts. It is quite common for both contestants to die in a blood bout, although some particularly gifted duellists have survived bouts for several successive years.
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The House of Pain will attract most early attention when Europeans first discover about Atjuntja religion. Still, the Atjuntja beliefs are far more complex than this, a combination of their own special interests and older traditions which have been subsumed into their theology. One older belief which has become integral to Atjuntja religion is their study of the heavens. Several Yaora peoples interpreted the constellations and other heavenly bodies in terms of movements in the great water-cycles, and believed that a proper study of celestial events would yield detailed knowledge of signs and omens to guide the decisions of men. Of the various groups who held these beliefs, none would take them further than the Yuduwungu.
Before the invention of writing, Yuduwungu astrologers established an observation point far inland. They chose a plateau which they called the Heights of Heaven, although it would later come to be called Star Hill [Boorabin]. From this inland vantage, they had much clearer skies to watch the heavens and study the signs and omens. They established a tradition of picking the keenest-sighted people in the land and sending them to Star Hill to become apprentices to study the craft of astrology. The astrologers of Star Hill became dedicated to studying the heavens, and built up a detailed oral system which described the known constellations, stars, planets, and some records of meteors and comets. The sect became known as the Watchers, and the Yuduwungu gave them the same veneration which classical Greeks would give the Oracle of Delphi.
When Nuneloc developed his script, it did not take long for the practice to spread to the Watchers. They added their own system of signs for numbers, and transferred their oral knowledge into written form. The Watchers began to keep a very detailed record of constellations, stellar movements, and new celestial bodies such as comets, novas, and the like. Living in a plateau in the desert, with clear skies and no distractions, they became very good at watching. With much time for contemplation, they discovered a variety of astronomical truths, although these were wrapped up in astrological terms and incorporated into their system of predictions. When the Atjuntja conquerors came, they did not interfere with the Watchers; indeed, several of the Kings of Kings have allocated labour to construct expanded buildings for the Watchers.
Over the centuries, the Watchers have accumulated a detailed body of astronomical knowledge. They have very thorough records of the constellations and individual star, and their observers are astute enough to have recognised the precession of the equinoxes over the five and a half centuries in which they have been keeping records. They have a detailed record of every comet, solar and lunar eclipse which has been visible above the Middle Country since 1076, except for a twenty-year gap between 1148-1168 where several records were lost due to flooding. They keep a calendar of meteor showers, and have recognised most (but not all) novae which have been visible since their records began.
In common with European and other astronomers, they know of the supernova which occurred in 1604; brighter than any other celestial body apart from the Moon and Venus [9]. The Watchers are still arguing over exactly what that new star meant, although most of them agree that it was ominous. On their advice, the then-King of Kings requested fifty volunteers to be sacrificed to the death in 1605, to appease the threat contained in this new sign in the heavens. They are aware that the world is round, although they have no particular interest in calculating its size. Their star catalogues and their dedicated observations have allowed them to recognise Uranus, which they include in their list of wandering stars (i.e. planets).
In short, if European astronomers gain access to the Watchers’ records, they will find much to interest them.
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[1] The crops which are brought overland across the desert are only those which travellers would bring them, and which would survive replanting. Red yam tubers were often taken back by traders, since they were a large and valuable source of food. Red yams are also useful since they do not need to be planted intact; like other Australian yam species, only the top part of the tuber needs to be planted in the soil to regrow. Western Australian peoples already knew how to harvest and replant a local yam species (the warran yam), although they had not fully domesticated it. Travellers who brought red yams back with them to the west would cut slices off a yam tuber as they travelled, using it as food. If the top part of the yam tuber survived the trip, they would sometimes replant it. With their familiarity with harvesting warran yams, this meant that they could apply those techniques to a new crop which was more suitable for full domestication.
The other crops which were brought over were seed crops (wattle seeds, flax seeds), which traders also brought with them as food. Seed crops were ground into flour and cooked as seedcakes, much as Aboriginal peoples did in historical Australia. Since the seeds were not ground until they were used, this mean that surplus seeds were also available for replanting if they were brought back west. Some other eastern crops were not suitable for transport in this manner; the tubers of murnong are too small to be useful to bring back intact, and the seeds of nettles were not harvested.
[2] The tooth-bearing wattle (Acacia dentifera) is a small shrub which provides a large seed yield for its size, and manna wattle (A. microbotrya) produces abundant quantities of wattle gum. The warran yam (Dioscorea hastifolia) is a real yam species which was historically used by the Noongar and other peoples of south-western Australia. Warran yams were harvested with the upper part of the tuber being replanted to allow it to regrow and collect a fresh tuber the next year. Warran yams are not quite as well-suited to arid conditions as red yams, and do not provide as large yields per acre, although their taste will be preferred by some Yaora peoples. Australia includes a large number of plants which have been called “bush potatoes”; the species described here is Platysace deflexa, whose potential as a domesticable crop is being explored in recent plantings. The main role of the warran yam and bush potato is as secondary staple crops which do not yield as heavily in nutritional terms as red yams, but add variety to the diet, and offer some security for food supply if disease or other misfortune affects the red yam harvest.
[3] Historically, most of the fertile regions of south-western Australia were similarly occupied by a group of thirteen related peoples who broadly considered themselves part of the same culture. They collectively called themselves the Noongar (although the name is transliterated into English in a variety of other spellings), and spoke related dialects (or related languages, depending on who you ask). The Noongar did not occupy an area quite as large as the allohistorical Yaora; the borders of their country were roughly everything south and west of a line from Jurien Bay to Ravensthorpe, Western Australia.
[4] Early bronze-working involved smelting of copper and tin, alloying those metals, and then casting them into tools or weapons. Early ironworking in bloomeries did not involve melting iron ore. Instead, it involved burning iron ore with charcoal so that the iron ore was reduced to iron without ever reaching its melting temperature, and then working the iron while it was heated, but still solid.
[5] Chinese ironworking techniques were quite distinct; they developed the blast furnace much earlier than in western Eurasia, and melted iron ore until it formed into cast iron.
[6] South-western Australia is a region of substantial biodiversity, with over seven thousand species of vascular plants. The Atjuntja don’t have every one of those kinds of plants in the Garden, but they give it their best shot.
[7] Two mountain ranges, the Stirling Range and Porongurup Range, north of modern Albany, are the source of the water for these aqueducts.
[8] There are historical instances of writing being developed in a similar method. The Cherokee writing system was invented by a similar method, and it appears that Scandinavian runes were similarly inspired by contact with the Latin alphabet.
[9] Northern hemisphere astronomers also recorded another supernova a generation before in 1572, but this was in the northern hemisphere constellation of Cassiopeia and could not be seen from where the Watchers operate.
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Thoughts?
BRAVO!
Excellent update! I love the rich and visceral detail of the Atjuntja culture and the White City. I could practically see the Walk of Kings! I'm getting a real Maya/Aztec vibe here between the astronomy and the bloody worship of the Lord.
Excellent update! I love the rich and visceral detail of the Atjuntja culture and the White City. I could practically see the Walk of Kings! I'm getting a real Maya/Aztec vibe here between the astronomy and the bloody worship of the Lord.
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