Lands of Red and Gold
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
- Status
Okay, folks, I'm semi-sorta back after a short absence (to paraphrase Jasper Fforde). Catching up with everything is taking me a while, but hopefully within the next couple of days I can complete a final edit of the next instalment and post it.
In the meantime...
Sure. Good luck!
Merci. Someday I have to get around to reading anything Lovecraft wrote, but I digress.
Just call them "resonances" and you don't need to worry about it.
It's certainly not stopped, but life has been getting in the way for a long while. I'm now pursuing a different tack of what will hopefully be shorter but more frequent updates.
There's about a half-dozen nearly ready to go, but I'm not posting them all in one go because:
i) they all still need final edits;
ii) I may amend the later ones based on comments on the earlier ones; and
iii) then it would be back to a long wait between updates.
But they should be more regular updates for a while - probably every two weeks or so, although if I get further ahead in preparing instalments, I may post some of them more often.
While it's not impossible, I think it's fairly telling that Egyptology as a systematic study seems to have been pretty much an Occidental idea. For whatever reasons - and I'm no sociologist - the various Arabic scholars don't seem to have focused on it in quite the same way. (At least as far as I'm aware of.)
Mind you, the Nuttana may take up the idea of Egyptology too, amongst other things, but that's probably getting ahead of things.
Emus have very good uses as food animals, for meat and eggs and so forth. They're big enough to be good sources of fertiliser - something that New World civilizations mostly lacked, except in the Andes. And they produce some useful
That said... I have my doubts about emus as draft animals. Emus aren't that big, really, so their use as draft animals is rather limited. They only average about 35kg, and I'm not sure what percentage of their bodyweight they can carry - it would have to be a very small child. In practical terms, I'm not sure how that would add much as a draft animal that humans or dogs don't already offer.
I'm not sure how sociable emus are in terms of herding and guiding, either. Something like sheep or cattle can be moved around between fields by getting them to follow each other. Emus pretty much lacked that instinct - more solitary and tended to go their own way - so getting teams of emus to pull large loads is difficult. Dogs would do that part better.
In terms of feeding them, they're omnivores - unlike most draft animals - so relying on grass is more of an issue. In regular farming, emus would pick up most of what they need in terms of animal protein from insects and similar sources. That doesn't really work if you're running them as draft animals all day - they'd need more time to forage during the day. (They can't forage at night.) If you're feeding them human food, well, then humans or dogs (the other omnivores) could do equally well as beasts of burden. Probably better, since humans can carry bigger loads and dogs can be run in teams.
In the meantime...
Sure. Good luck!
Merci. Someday I have to get around to reading anything Lovecraft wrote, but I digress.
Just call them "resonances" and you don't need to worry about it.
It's certainly not stopped, but life has been getting in the way for a long while. I'm now pursuing a different tack of what will hopefully be shorter but more frequent updates.
There's about a half-dozen nearly ready to go, but I'm not posting them all in one go because:
i) they all still need final edits;
ii) I may amend the later ones based on comments on the earlier ones; and
iii) then it would be back to a long wait between updates.
But they should be more regular updates for a while - probably every two weeks or so, although if I get further ahead in preparing instalments, I may post some of them more often.
While it's not impossible, I think it's fairly telling that Egyptology as a systematic study seems to have been pretty much an Occidental idea. For whatever reasons - and I'm no sociologist - the various Arabic scholars don't seem to have focused on it in quite the same way. (At least as far as I'm aware of.)
Mind you, the Nuttana may take up the idea of Egyptology too, amongst other things, but that's probably getting ahead of things.
Emus have very good uses as food animals, for meat and eggs and so forth. They're big enough to be good sources of fertiliser - something that New World civilizations mostly lacked, except in the Andes. And they produce some useful
That said... I have my doubts about emus as draft animals. Emus aren't that big, really, so their use as draft animals is rather limited. They only average about 35kg, and I'm not sure what percentage of their bodyweight they can carry - it would have to be a very small child. In practical terms, I'm not sure how that would add much as a draft animal that humans or dogs don't already offer.
I'm not sure how sociable emus are in terms of herding and guiding, either. Something like sheep or cattle can be moved around between fields by getting them to follow each other. Emus pretty much lacked that instinct - more solitary and tended to go their own way - so getting teams of emus to pull large loads is difficult. Dogs would do that part better.
In terms of feeding them, they're omnivores - unlike most draft animals - so relying on grass is more of an issue. In regular farming, emus would pick up most of what they need in terms of animal protein from insects and similar sources. That doesn't really work if you're running them as draft animals all day - they'd need more time to forage during the day. (They can't forage at night.) If you're feeding them human food, well, then humans or dogs (the other omnivores) could do equally well as beasts of burden. Probably better, since humans can carry bigger loads and dogs can be run in teams.
I think any animal could, given enough time, turn into a domesticated version of itself so herding emus might have become something normal given a long ago enough POD. That being said, I realy dont see them either as draft animal.
As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single native australian animal that could serve that purpose which in itself is a bit of a problem for a sedentary society unless they have eating habit that don't require yearly sowing.
Lands of Red and Gold #57: Long White Clouds
Lands of Red and Gold #57: Long White Clouds
Lands of Red and Gold #57: Long White Clouds
“Ka pu te ruha ka hao te rangatahi.” (As an old net withers another is remade.)
- Maori proverb
* * *
Eagle Day, Cycle of Bronze, 398th Year of Harmony (12.5.398) [19 May 1637]
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]
With gently undulating waves in front of him, and a steady breeze blowing behind him, Tjirubal of the Kalendi felt as if he could sail forever. Which would be a welcome prospect, right now. On board a ship, surrounded by his fellow Kalendi sailors, he felt truly safe. No danger, here, of a knife in the back.
The Dawn Hunter – as he had renamed the vessel – was a fine ship, and this had been a pleasant voyage. Still, the coast of Aotearoa was close ahead of him, a reminder that all voyages must end. At least the end of this voyage would be amongst the Maori, who posed their own dangers, but ones which could perhaps be managed. Not like back on the Island, where it seemed that any man he did not personally know might be a man of the Nyumatta bloodline seeking to deliver the next blow in the vendetta.
Ahead, a bank of white clouds awaited. A long bank of clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon. Clouds which formed above land, and which would inform even the youngest and most stupid sailor that a shore was nearby.
Tjirubal was young, he knew, one of four young sailors raised to captains by the new Kalendi elder two years ago. Only one day after the elder himself was raised. All five of them, elder and captains, had been chosen as replacements for those killed in a few particularly bloody months of the vendetta. That elder was dead now too. His replacement, Bunban, was now the fourth elder to lead the Kalendi in seven years; unless Bunban himself had died in the time since the Dawn Hunter let the Island.
Young or not, Tjirubal had been given his opportunity, and he would make every use of it. His first efforts had been with the Atjuntja in the far west. Regrettably, these had accomplished little. The Kalendi’s strongest trade ties had been with the Atjuntja, but of late those ties had been weakened. The new Raw Men, these Nedlandj, brought marvellous new goods, but traded with whom they wished, breaking the old trading hierarchies amongst both Atjuntja and Nangu.
Worse had followed. The long-serving elder of the Kalendi – who had been nicknamed the Beard for so long that Tjirubal struggled to recall his true name – had been the man with the vital contacts within the Atjuntja nobility. With his death, major revolt amongst the Atjuntja, and the coronation of a new monarch, new trading relationships needed to be established. The Kalendi had lost their foremost place in the western trade. Tjirubal’s best endeavours in the west had won only small quantities of gold, and none at all of the more valuable sandalwood [1].
Bold action was required, and after some thought, Tjirubal had decided to strike far to the east. To a land where few Nangu ever successfully visited. The land of long white clouds. The land of the Maori. Aotearoa.
One thought led to another. He was still a young captain, with only a ship, not a great-ship [2]. He could not carry a large cargo, so he needed something small, valuable, and to which the Maori would not already have easy access. Kunduri would normally have been the obvious choice, but the price for that drug was now beyond the means of a minor captain. Nedlandj and Nangu bid against each other to buy kunduri.
Nor could he use spices. Most spices worthy of the name came from the east [i.e. east coast of Aururia] anyway, where the Maori could trade for them as easily as any Nangu. Bronze would be similar: the Maori welcomed it, but they could trade directly with the Cider Isle. Tjirubal doubted that the Maori would accept a price for bronze which would still let him turn a profit [3]. He had considered dyes, so many of which were grown on the Island itself, and indeed he had some of those on the Dawn Hunter.
Tjirubal’s great moment of inspiration – perhaps Turnong the Glider had granted it to him – came from one of the stories he was told when he made inquiries about Aotearoa. According to the story, the Maori were inordinately fond of a kind of sea shell called paua [4], which had an iridescent, multi-hued interior shell which the Maori used to adorn themselves or their goods.
Tjirubal’s inspiration came when he remembered something else iridescent: opals. By themselves, opals were reasonably common gemstones; they had been mined in the desert since time immemorial and brought to Dogport [Port Augusta, South Australia]. However, some of the rarer opals were translucent and iridescent, too; rainbow opals [crystal opals] which showed every hue known to man.
If the Maori valued paua, surely they would revere rainbow opals all the more.
Better, as far as he was concerned, the Nedlandj did not seem to care at all for opals. Their price remained largely unchanged since before the coming of the Raw Men. Trading for opals – especially rainbow opals – still demanded a price, but not an impossibly high one.
Tjirubal had taken the Dawn Hunter to Dogport and secured some opals, a few rainbow, the rest solid, for his ship’s cargo. Then to Dabuni [Hobart] in the Cider Isle [Tasmania]. War still raged there between Tjunini and Kurnawal, but that mattered little for his purposes. Tjirubal had recruited a Maori-speaking Kurnawal to serve as an interpreter. He had to pay a stiff price to find someone willing to visit Maori in Aotearoa, but that had been as he expected.
What he had not expected was for a priest to ask to join the voyage to Aotearoa. Priests visited the Cider Isle fairly regularly, of course, and would regularly claim right of passage on any visiting Nangu vessel to come home. Yet it was a rare priest who would want to visit further afield, especially to a place as distant as Aotearoa.
Whatever his reasons, the priest had claimed a place on the Dawn Hunter, and what true Nangu could refuse such a request? Having a priest on any voyage was a blessing.
The priest was an odd fellow: tall, bearded like the Atjuntja or the Beard himself, and who said little apart from leading the crew in the dawn and dusk prayers. Who had ever heard of a quiet priest? Still, the priest had a sense of humour: whenever asked his name, he just said “Call me Bana [Nameless].”
As if called by Tjirubal’s thoughts of him, the priest came to the front of the left prow, just behind Tjirubal. True to form, Bana said nothing for a time, just watched the white clouds ahead build in size as the Dawn Hunter neared Aotearoa.
Soon enough, land appeared off the right as the ship sailed further east. Tjirubal did not need to order the helmsman to come closer and follow it; he had made sure that he recruited decent sailors before beginning his voyage.
“How will you know when you reach Ngamotu?” the priest asked.
Polite as always to a priest, Tjirubal said, “The port has four or five small islands just off the coast [5]. Coming from the west, we will see them just before we reach there.”
Bana smiled. “Then you need only convince the Maori themselves to welcome you.”
“It can be done,” Tjirubal said. Any Nangu knew of the Maori reputation for bellicose hostility to outsiders, but trade still happened. He did not trouble himself to explain to the priest that he had chosen Ngamotu because the Maori here were said to be more open than most; some of them even followed the Seven-fold Path.
Bana shook his head. “With boldness comes reward. If others have not already claimed the reward. Will they know your bloodline?”
“I don’t know,” Tjirubal said. The Dawn Hunter announced his bloodline to the world, of course. The triangular sail was dyed in Kalendi colours: a base of scarlet, divided into four uneven quarters by two crossed lines of undyed white. But who could say how much the Maori here knew about the Island and its bloodlines? “If they don’t, I’ll gladly tell them.”
Bana chuckled, then went back to watching the coast.
Before much longer, the first of the promised islands appeared: pyramids of dark rock rising out of the sea, partly covered in trees, with waves breaking against their shores. “We draw near,” he said, then whispered a quiet prayer of thanks to Turnong for the inspiration that brought him here.
Past the islands, the Dawn Hunter tacked into Ngamotu. A small town had been built up along the harbour. Most prominently, a wharf had been built out to sea.
Could that be a bad sign? Maori boats were designed for hauling straight up onto the beach. So were standard Nangu ships. The only vessels large enough to require a wharf were Nangu great-ships or Raw Men fluyts. And yet the Maori had built a wharf here. Were foreign visitors a regular sight at Ngamotu?
The sight of the wharf almost made him wish that he had earned the right to command a great-ship. That would let him carry larger cargoes, and, of course, profits. Still, that was not a good wish to make. The only way he would be given a great-ship now would be if the vendetta which consumed the Kalendi had claimed yet another high-status victim, and that he had been promoted despite youth and without due accomplishment.
Perhaps if his voyage here succeeded, and he turned this into a regular trade route, that might be enough to earn him a promotion.
If the wharf was there, though, he would use it. A brief order saw that the Dawn Hunter was brought alongside the wharf. The Maori must expect visitors to use it, if any came. Certainly, they kept a watch on the sea, for a group of Maori had gathered at the end of the wharf.
Tjirubal was first onto the wharf, Bana right behind, and the interpreter third. As he walked closer, he saw that the Maori were clearly warriors. All men, with curving black lines tattooed onto their faces, and carrying spears or similar weapons.
“Now we find out if they will welcome us or kill us,” Tjirubal said.
* * *
[1] To Europeans and other outsiders, gold is a more valuable commodity than sandalwood, particularly Aururian sandalwood (which is viewed as inferior to the Indian variety). To eastern Aururians, though, the reverse holds true; sandalwood, used by Gunnagal perfume makers amongst others, is harder to obtain than gold which can be mined in abundance in several locations.
[2] The Nangu word which is best translated ship refers to the older style of Nangu vessels: twin-hulled, lateen-rigged, shallow-draft vessels with a steering oar rather than the newer rudders. The Nangu mostly use these ships for shorter voyages between the Island and nearby destinations like the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] or Jugara [Victor Harbor, the main trading port for the Five Rivers], while the larger great-ships are used for longer distance voyages. Even the basic Nangu ships are still quite seaworthy, though, and capable of undertaking a voyage to Aotearoa.
[3] As it happens, Tjirubal is wrong about that. Bronze is still in sufficient demand amongst the Maori, and the voyage across the Gray Sea [Tasman Sea] sufficiently challenging, that any trader who can bring bronze to Aotearoa can still earn a decent profit. The real difficulty is in establishing a trading relationship with the Maori, who are so often hostile to outsiders.
[4] Paua is the Maori name for several species of abalone (principally Haliotis iris) which have particularly iridescent mother-of-pearl inside their shells. Both historically and allohistorically, the Maori favoured paua for adornment and other decorative purposes.
[5] Historically, these are called the Sugar Loaf Islands, just offshore of New Plymouth.
* * *
Thoughts?
Lands of Red and Gold #57: Long White Clouds
“Ka pu te ruha ka hao te rangatahi.” (As an old net withers another is remade.)
- Maori proverb
* * *
Eagle Day, Cycle of Bronze, 398th Year of Harmony (12.5.398) [19 May 1637]
Ngamotu, Lands of the Ngati Apa iwi, Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa [New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand]
With gently undulating waves in front of him, and a steady breeze blowing behind him, Tjirubal of the Kalendi felt as if he could sail forever. Which would be a welcome prospect, right now. On board a ship, surrounded by his fellow Kalendi sailors, he felt truly safe. No danger, here, of a knife in the back.
The Dawn Hunter – as he had renamed the vessel – was a fine ship, and this had been a pleasant voyage. Still, the coast of Aotearoa was close ahead of him, a reminder that all voyages must end. At least the end of this voyage would be amongst the Maori, who posed their own dangers, but ones which could perhaps be managed. Not like back on the Island, where it seemed that any man he did not personally know might be a man of the Nyumatta bloodline seeking to deliver the next blow in the vendetta.
Ahead, a bank of white clouds awaited. A long bank of clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon. Clouds which formed above land, and which would inform even the youngest and most stupid sailor that a shore was nearby.
Tjirubal was young, he knew, one of four young sailors raised to captains by the new Kalendi elder two years ago. Only one day after the elder himself was raised. All five of them, elder and captains, had been chosen as replacements for those killed in a few particularly bloody months of the vendetta. That elder was dead now too. His replacement, Bunban, was now the fourth elder to lead the Kalendi in seven years; unless Bunban himself had died in the time since the Dawn Hunter let the Island.
Young or not, Tjirubal had been given his opportunity, and he would make every use of it. His first efforts had been with the Atjuntja in the far west. Regrettably, these had accomplished little. The Kalendi’s strongest trade ties had been with the Atjuntja, but of late those ties had been weakened. The new Raw Men, these Nedlandj, brought marvellous new goods, but traded with whom they wished, breaking the old trading hierarchies amongst both Atjuntja and Nangu.
Worse had followed. The long-serving elder of the Kalendi – who had been nicknamed the Beard for so long that Tjirubal struggled to recall his true name – had been the man with the vital contacts within the Atjuntja nobility. With his death, major revolt amongst the Atjuntja, and the coronation of a new monarch, new trading relationships needed to be established. The Kalendi had lost their foremost place in the western trade. Tjirubal’s best endeavours in the west had won only small quantities of gold, and none at all of the more valuable sandalwood [1].
Bold action was required, and after some thought, Tjirubal had decided to strike far to the east. To a land where few Nangu ever successfully visited. The land of long white clouds. The land of the Maori. Aotearoa.
One thought led to another. He was still a young captain, with only a ship, not a great-ship [2]. He could not carry a large cargo, so he needed something small, valuable, and to which the Maori would not already have easy access. Kunduri would normally have been the obvious choice, but the price for that drug was now beyond the means of a minor captain. Nedlandj and Nangu bid against each other to buy kunduri.
Nor could he use spices. Most spices worthy of the name came from the east [i.e. east coast of Aururia] anyway, where the Maori could trade for them as easily as any Nangu. Bronze would be similar: the Maori welcomed it, but they could trade directly with the Cider Isle. Tjirubal doubted that the Maori would accept a price for bronze which would still let him turn a profit [3]. He had considered dyes, so many of which were grown on the Island itself, and indeed he had some of those on the Dawn Hunter.
Tjirubal’s great moment of inspiration – perhaps Turnong the Glider had granted it to him – came from one of the stories he was told when he made inquiries about Aotearoa. According to the story, the Maori were inordinately fond of a kind of sea shell called paua [4], which had an iridescent, multi-hued interior shell which the Maori used to adorn themselves or their goods.
Tjirubal’s inspiration came when he remembered something else iridescent: opals. By themselves, opals were reasonably common gemstones; they had been mined in the desert since time immemorial and brought to Dogport [Port Augusta, South Australia]. However, some of the rarer opals were translucent and iridescent, too; rainbow opals [crystal opals] which showed every hue known to man.
If the Maori valued paua, surely they would revere rainbow opals all the more.
Better, as far as he was concerned, the Nedlandj did not seem to care at all for opals. Their price remained largely unchanged since before the coming of the Raw Men. Trading for opals – especially rainbow opals – still demanded a price, but not an impossibly high one.
Tjirubal had taken the Dawn Hunter to Dogport and secured some opals, a few rainbow, the rest solid, for his ship’s cargo. Then to Dabuni [Hobart] in the Cider Isle [Tasmania]. War still raged there between Tjunini and Kurnawal, but that mattered little for his purposes. Tjirubal had recruited a Maori-speaking Kurnawal to serve as an interpreter. He had to pay a stiff price to find someone willing to visit Maori in Aotearoa, but that had been as he expected.
What he had not expected was for a priest to ask to join the voyage to Aotearoa. Priests visited the Cider Isle fairly regularly, of course, and would regularly claim right of passage on any visiting Nangu vessel to come home. Yet it was a rare priest who would want to visit further afield, especially to a place as distant as Aotearoa.
Whatever his reasons, the priest had claimed a place on the Dawn Hunter, and what true Nangu could refuse such a request? Having a priest on any voyage was a blessing.
The priest was an odd fellow: tall, bearded like the Atjuntja or the Beard himself, and who said little apart from leading the crew in the dawn and dusk prayers. Who had ever heard of a quiet priest? Still, the priest had a sense of humour: whenever asked his name, he just said “Call me Bana [Nameless].”
As if called by Tjirubal’s thoughts of him, the priest came to the front of the left prow, just behind Tjirubal. True to form, Bana said nothing for a time, just watched the white clouds ahead build in size as the Dawn Hunter neared Aotearoa.
Soon enough, land appeared off the right as the ship sailed further east. Tjirubal did not need to order the helmsman to come closer and follow it; he had made sure that he recruited decent sailors before beginning his voyage.
“How will you know when you reach Ngamotu?” the priest asked.
Polite as always to a priest, Tjirubal said, “The port has four or five small islands just off the coast [5]. Coming from the west, we will see them just before we reach there.”
Bana smiled. “Then you need only convince the Maori themselves to welcome you.”
“It can be done,” Tjirubal said. Any Nangu knew of the Maori reputation for bellicose hostility to outsiders, but trade still happened. He did not trouble himself to explain to the priest that he had chosen Ngamotu because the Maori here were said to be more open than most; some of them even followed the Seven-fold Path.
Bana shook his head. “With boldness comes reward. If others have not already claimed the reward. Will they know your bloodline?”
“I don’t know,” Tjirubal said. The Dawn Hunter announced his bloodline to the world, of course. The triangular sail was dyed in Kalendi colours: a base of scarlet, divided into four uneven quarters by two crossed lines of undyed white. But who could say how much the Maori here knew about the Island and its bloodlines? “If they don’t, I’ll gladly tell them.”
Bana chuckled, then went back to watching the coast.
Before much longer, the first of the promised islands appeared: pyramids of dark rock rising out of the sea, partly covered in trees, with waves breaking against their shores. “We draw near,” he said, then whispered a quiet prayer of thanks to Turnong for the inspiration that brought him here.
Past the islands, the Dawn Hunter tacked into Ngamotu. A small town had been built up along the harbour. Most prominently, a wharf had been built out to sea.
Could that be a bad sign? Maori boats were designed for hauling straight up onto the beach. So were standard Nangu ships. The only vessels large enough to require a wharf were Nangu great-ships or Raw Men fluyts. And yet the Maori had built a wharf here. Were foreign visitors a regular sight at Ngamotu?
The sight of the wharf almost made him wish that he had earned the right to command a great-ship. That would let him carry larger cargoes, and, of course, profits. Still, that was not a good wish to make. The only way he would be given a great-ship now would be if the vendetta which consumed the Kalendi had claimed yet another high-status victim, and that he had been promoted despite youth and without due accomplishment.
Perhaps if his voyage here succeeded, and he turned this into a regular trade route, that might be enough to earn him a promotion.
If the wharf was there, though, he would use it. A brief order saw that the Dawn Hunter was brought alongside the wharf. The Maori must expect visitors to use it, if any came. Certainly, they kept a watch on the sea, for a group of Maori had gathered at the end of the wharf.
Tjirubal was first onto the wharf, Bana right behind, and the interpreter third. As he walked closer, he saw that the Maori were clearly warriors. All men, with curving black lines tattooed onto their faces, and carrying spears or similar weapons.
“Now we find out if they will welcome us or kill us,” Tjirubal said.
* * *
[1] To Europeans and other outsiders, gold is a more valuable commodity than sandalwood, particularly Aururian sandalwood (which is viewed as inferior to the Indian variety). To eastern Aururians, though, the reverse holds true; sandalwood, used by Gunnagal perfume makers amongst others, is harder to obtain than gold which can be mined in abundance in several locations.
[2] The Nangu word which is best translated ship refers to the older style of Nangu vessels: twin-hulled, lateen-rigged, shallow-draft vessels with a steering oar rather than the newer rudders. The Nangu mostly use these ships for shorter voyages between the Island and nearby destinations like the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] or Jugara [Victor Harbor, the main trading port for the Five Rivers], while the larger great-ships are used for longer distance voyages. Even the basic Nangu ships are still quite seaworthy, though, and capable of undertaking a voyage to Aotearoa.
[3] As it happens, Tjirubal is wrong about that. Bronze is still in sufficient demand amongst the Maori, and the voyage across the Gray Sea [Tasman Sea] sufficiently challenging, that any trader who can bring bronze to Aotearoa can still earn a decent profit. The real difficulty is in establishing a trading relationship with the Maori, who are so often hostile to outsiders.
[4] Paua is the Maori name for several species of abalone (principally Haliotis iris) which have particularly iridescent mother-of-pearl inside their shells. Both historically and allohistorically, the Maori favoured paua for adornment and other decorative purposes.
[5] Historically, these are called the Sugar Loaf Islands, just offshore of New Plymouth.
* * *
Thoughts?
Kaiphranos
Donor
Interesting to see how the ripples of European contact spread through the trading networks. I wonder what the priest is up to, and I'm curious about the implications of the new wharf.
twovultures
Donor
I'm actually somewhat surprised that the Maori are hostile to outsiders from Aururia. Given that they Aururians have trade goods that they really want, and don't present that much of a threat to the Maori, why are they hostile?
I think they might stampede. Also, I'm not sure which breed they would use, the type used OTL is a cross between a dingo and some european type so with only the dingo, I'm not entirely sure how good that would be.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
Well, I know Jared has said that the Australians of this TL have developed the dingo into numerous breeds
I believe that Jared has established that they are extinct in their homeland but that a small population exists in a gamepark in one of the aussies states.
Read the timeline.
I don't think that there's any way to avoid Moa extinction in New Zealand. In OTL they got hunted out early. Contact with the Aurarians would introduce new crops and new domesticates, providing for larger populations and even more hunting pressure. The Moa would get hunted out earlier.
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