Lands of Red and Gold #58: Preparing A Head Of Time
Lands of Red and Gold #58: Preparing A Head Of Time
“The Bunditch [Bungudjimay] keep their heads during trouble. That’s good. The problem is that they keep other people’s heads too.”
- Quote attributed to William Baffin (possibly apocryphal) during his time in Daluming, 1636
* * *
Time of the Closure [August 1636]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming
Dawn in the Land of Gold; a time when the colour of the light matches the wealth of the land.
William Baffin kneels on the first level of the pyramid, as he stares upward at the towering levels of above him. Each holds niche after niche filled with skulls and sealed in with glass. A testament to a savage people. This is no Egyptian-built pyramid. Have some Mexicans brought their pagan human sacrifices across the Pacific?
He hears his sailors climbing up the stairs to join him, but another set of footsteps approach from the east. Someone new. A native.
Baffin stands, but finds that the newcomer is silhouetted against the dazzling sun. He cannot see much of the man, save that he is tall and has the dark skin of a native Aururian.
The native speaks quickly in his own language, of which Baffin cannot understand a word, or even anything close to it.
His confusion must be apparent, for the native speaks again. This time in the Islander language, of which Baffin knows but a little. Enough, though, to understand the few words the native speaks.
“Greetings, you who come at the end of the world.”
*
“Be diligent. Observe everything. Remember all. Report all that is important,” said Ilangi the priest. He sounded as if he were hissing. But then he always sounded like that. Most priests did.
“I will,” Keajura said simply. Worthless to argue. The priests expected a miracle, but they should have asked one of the ancestral heads at the Mound of Memory or in the western mountains. Keajura was merely a still-living man.
Oh, he had a gift, one the priests knew about, but they always expected that gift to be greater than it was.
Keajura had a talent for learning languages quickly. A son of a minor chieftain of the Jubula people, he had been born in Anaiwal [Armidale] to the west. As a young man he had been among the hostages brought to Yuragir to ensure the good behaviour of the newly-conquered subjects. While a hostage, he had demonstrated his gift by learning the Bungudjimay language so fluently that he was often mistaken for a member of that people.
Bungudjimay priests were sharp, in some ways, and they soon recognised his gifts. While still young, he had been given duties as an interpreter. Duties which endured as the weeks turned into months and now into years. No longer was he quite a hostage, but nor was he permitted to return to his homeland. A priest much like Ilangi had said, in his usual hissing way, that someone of his gifts and rank could not be allowed to return to threaten Daluming rule with revolt.
In truth, Keajura found that he preferred life here in Yuragir. He would inherit no rank, but there were many other benefits. Comfort, food, wealth, all were here in abundance in the heart of the kingdom. Best of all, Bungudjimay women favoured those who had a gift for words. So long as he was careful never to touch a weapon, then his gift and reputation ensured his safety even from the even most challenge-mad Bungudjimay warrior.
He still served as an interpreter. He had learned the Kiyungu language from a couple of their women who had been brought from the north as captives, and who found his protection useful. Of course, many interpreters had learned the Kiyungu language. More recently, and with more difficulty, he had learned the Islander language from their sporadic visits.
Now, the priests expected him to understand the pink men’s language simply by hearing a few words of it. A gift he had, but miracles were not his forte.
“What tongue do they speak?” Keajura asked.
“Some few words of the Islander tongue,” Ilangi said. “So say those who met them at the Mound of Memory, where they came with the dawn. But they speak another language amongst themselves.” He did not quite say you will learn their language immediately, but his expectations were clear.
“I will go to them,” Keajura said. No point to staying longer and letting the priest make his demands for a miracle more explicit.
The pink men had been brought to the largest feast hall in the palace. A place filled with large tables occupied by a swirling, rowdy mixture of warriors, priests, and other royal hangers-on. On occasion the king would even come here himself, though not when outlanders were present. Even most of his own subjects would rarely get such a close glimpse of their revered monarch.
The pink men were easily recognised, and not just from the odd unfinished colour of their skins. In a hall filled with noise and celebration, the outlanders were almost silent. Keajura took a vacant seat close to them – left empty by priestly order, no doubt – and studied them more closely.
Their clothing was distinctive: white ruffled collars that covered half their shoulders and overlaid tight-fitting clothes of black and red, made of some strange fabric, and which covered arms and legs entirely, leaving only hands unclothed. Their hair was remarkable too, some brown, some the colour of sand, and some, strangest of all, nut-red in hue.
The first servants appeared, bringing food for the guests alone, while the others simply spoke and drank. An odd practice, but then Keajura was not exactly sure what status the priests were giving these new pink men. Honoured guests? Captives? Warriors about to be blooded? Even the priests did not know, he suspected. Looking forward to the Closure for your whole life was one thing. Reaching it was another altogether.
Keajura had planned simply to observe the pink men for a time while they ate, to learn what he could. Yet before the outlanders started eating, one of them looked over at him and made an unmistakable come-here gesture. Odd to see that some things remained common no matter where men came from; he had seen the same gesture made both by Kiyungu and Islanders.
The outlander who had called him over was one with the nut-red coloured hair. Clean-shaven, or almost so, with perhaps a day’s growth. His clothing had the same ruffled collar and full sleeves and leggings as the rest, but with more decoration than most of his fellows. Their priest, perhaps, or maybe their lord.
The outlander spoke in the Islander tongue. Awkwardly, with hesitations and mispronounced words, but his meaning was usually clear. “You here to... watch us?”
“To guide you,” he said. He almost added and learn your language, but restrained himself.
“Good. I name Wilyembatin.”
“Keajura son of Ngamunda.”
“What this land called?” the outlander asked.
“Daluming. The lands of King Otella.”
Wilyembatin frowned, as if he had not understood such simple words. However much of the Islander tongue this man thought he had learned, it was not adequate.
“What land do your people come from?”
“Inglund. We serve... Company.” Keajura repeated the foreign word, the first he had heard of the Inglund tongue.
Wilyembatin had a brief discussion with one of his neighbours, who looked as if he spoke more of the Islander tongue. Yet it was Wilyembatin who spoke again. “Association.”
“Does your association forbid you from eating?” Keajura gestured to the still untouched food.
“No. Not sure what food is or... rules when men eat,” Wilyembatin said.
That showed more cunning that most visitors; any Kiyungu brought to Daluming would immediately any food put in front of them. “Others will not eat at the same time as you. They are not sure yet what rank you have, so will not know whether to eat at the same time or later.”
Wilyembatin started to speak, stopped, then had another colloquy with his neighbour, repeating Islander phrases a couple of time between themselves. “What rank do we have here?”
“You are outlanders. I cannot say.” The priests would have to decide that. Let them make whatever choice pleased them. It was them who believed in the Closure, in that time when all that was needed would be completed. However much Keajura enjoyed life in Yuragir, in his own heart he still prayed to Eagle and Goanna, not to the heads of other people’s ancestors.
Wilyembatin still looked perplexed, so Keajura gestured to the food. “Eat. It is for you.”
Wilyembatin spoke briefly to his companions again in their own language. It was too long simply to be an instruction to eat. Which also meant that, for now, Keajura had still only learned one word of their Inglund language.
The pink men started eating, almost as one. Wilyembatin stopped after the first mouthful. “This good. Very good. What it?”
“Fish fried in linseed oil [1],” Keajura said. The fish was flathead [2], but he did not know the Islander word for it, and he doubted the name would mean much to the Inglund people. “Spiced with sweet peppers and lemon myrtle.”
“Very good,” the outlander captain repeated, then went back to finishing the fish, with obvious relish.
Keajura stayed quiet while they ate the first course, listening to their occasional chatter amongst themselves. He was not learning words, yet, but it let him familiarise himself with the sounds of their language. And it was alien; it had sounds which no other tongue contained. He suspected that Wilyembatin was not exactly how that man said his own name, either, but learning to pronounce it properly would take time [3].
The next course arrived in due time. He announced without being asked. “Noroon [emu] meat, roasted and flavoured with lemongrass and white ginger [4].” He started to explain that the hot drink being served with it was jeeree [lemon-scented tea], but stopped when he saw that Wilyembatin already knew what it was.
Wilyembatin ate a little, and his face spoke for itself of his regard for the food. This time, he got his more fluent neighbour to ask questions. The other outlander said, “This food is splendid.”
“The palace has some fine cooks,” Keajura said. Most of them were in fact captives like himself, brought in from the western highlands or from the north. The Bungudjimay appreciated fine food, even if they often did not know how to cook properly.
“No doubt,” the outlander said. “But even then, we have tasted these spices elsewhere in this land, and they have not been so flavoursome.”
“In the far west?” Keajura said, and the other man shook his head.
“What you have eaten in the west, that is what we trade to westerners after it has been dried for storage. That must be done with spices if they are to be traded. But those we use in the palace are fresh, grown in the highlands and brought quickly down the river. The taste is better when fresh.”
“So I must agree,” the outlander said, then he and his fellows went back to eating the meal.
The third course came in time. “Kumara [sweet potato] chunks, roasted with caramelised sweet gum [wattle gum] flavoured with cinnamon myrtle and strawberry gum leaves,” he said. The sweetest part of the meal, and his favourite.
Wilyembatin did not start on this part of the meal, though. He gave Keajura a long glance, then said, “If you guide us, what most important that we know?”
Keajura considered that for a moment, then lowered his voice. No telling if others around also knew the Islander tongue. “If anyone here asked you whether you have killed a man, say no. Always say no.”
* * *
[1] The Aururian linseed oil is grown from native flax (Linum marginale). Much like common flax, some cultivars of this plant have been grown for fibre, but others – particularly on the eastern seaboard – have been selected for large, oil-rich seeds.
[2] This species of fish is dusky flathead (Platycephalus fuscus), which lives in estuaries, of which there are several around Yuragir / Coffs Harbour.
[3] Keajura is experiencing difficulties because native Aururian languages, like their historical equivalents, almost entirely lack some classes of consonants which occur in most other languages (including English).
The main examples of these are fricative (and pseudo-fricative) consonants, which among others include sounds represented in English by “h”, “s”, “f” and “th”. Aururians tend to mishear these sounds as other consonants which are more familiar to them. For example, Keajura pronounces “Baffin” more or less as “Batin”.
[4] Lemon-scented grass (Cymbopogon ambiguus) is a relative of common lemongrass (various Cymbopogon species), and has similar flavour and culinary uses. Native ginger (Alpinia caerulea) is a plant whose various parts can be used for different spices. The one which has been used here is the crushed fruit and seeds, which has a pleasantly sour taste and is used in Daluming cuisine both for its flavour and for the visual effect of the red hue it adds to food.
* * *
Thoughts?
“The Bunditch [Bungudjimay] keep their heads during trouble. That’s good. The problem is that they keep other people’s heads too.”
- Quote attributed to William Baffin (possibly apocryphal) during his time in Daluming, 1636
* * *
Time of the Closure [August 1636]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming
Dawn in the Land of Gold; a time when the colour of the light matches the wealth of the land.
William Baffin kneels on the first level of the pyramid, as he stares upward at the towering levels of above him. Each holds niche after niche filled with skulls and sealed in with glass. A testament to a savage people. This is no Egyptian-built pyramid. Have some Mexicans brought their pagan human sacrifices across the Pacific?
He hears his sailors climbing up the stairs to join him, but another set of footsteps approach from the east. Someone new. A native.
Baffin stands, but finds that the newcomer is silhouetted against the dazzling sun. He cannot see much of the man, save that he is tall and has the dark skin of a native Aururian.
The native speaks quickly in his own language, of which Baffin cannot understand a word, or even anything close to it.
His confusion must be apparent, for the native speaks again. This time in the Islander language, of which Baffin knows but a little. Enough, though, to understand the few words the native speaks.
“Greetings, you who come at the end of the world.”
*
“Be diligent. Observe everything. Remember all. Report all that is important,” said Ilangi the priest. He sounded as if he were hissing. But then he always sounded like that. Most priests did.
“I will,” Keajura said simply. Worthless to argue. The priests expected a miracle, but they should have asked one of the ancestral heads at the Mound of Memory or in the western mountains. Keajura was merely a still-living man.
Oh, he had a gift, one the priests knew about, but they always expected that gift to be greater than it was.
Keajura had a talent for learning languages quickly. A son of a minor chieftain of the Jubula people, he had been born in Anaiwal [Armidale] to the west. As a young man he had been among the hostages brought to Yuragir to ensure the good behaviour of the newly-conquered subjects. While a hostage, he had demonstrated his gift by learning the Bungudjimay language so fluently that he was often mistaken for a member of that people.
Bungudjimay priests were sharp, in some ways, and they soon recognised his gifts. While still young, he had been given duties as an interpreter. Duties which endured as the weeks turned into months and now into years. No longer was he quite a hostage, but nor was he permitted to return to his homeland. A priest much like Ilangi had said, in his usual hissing way, that someone of his gifts and rank could not be allowed to return to threaten Daluming rule with revolt.
In truth, Keajura found that he preferred life here in Yuragir. He would inherit no rank, but there were many other benefits. Comfort, food, wealth, all were here in abundance in the heart of the kingdom. Best of all, Bungudjimay women favoured those who had a gift for words. So long as he was careful never to touch a weapon, then his gift and reputation ensured his safety even from the even most challenge-mad Bungudjimay warrior.
He still served as an interpreter. He had learned the Kiyungu language from a couple of their women who had been brought from the north as captives, and who found his protection useful. Of course, many interpreters had learned the Kiyungu language. More recently, and with more difficulty, he had learned the Islander language from their sporadic visits.
Now, the priests expected him to understand the pink men’s language simply by hearing a few words of it. A gift he had, but miracles were not his forte.
“What tongue do they speak?” Keajura asked.
“Some few words of the Islander tongue,” Ilangi said. “So say those who met them at the Mound of Memory, where they came with the dawn. But they speak another language amongst themselves.” He did not quite say you will learn their language immediately, but his expectations were clear.
“I will go to them,” Keajura said. No point to staying longer and letting the priest make his demands for a miracle more explicit.
The pink men had been brought to the largest feast hall in the palace. A place filled with large tables occupied by a swirling, rowdy mixture of warriors, priests, and other royal hangers-on. On occasion the king would even come here himself, though not when outlanders were present. Even most of his own subjects would rarely get such a close glimpse of their revered monarch.
The pink men were easily recognised, and not just from the odd unfinished colour of their skins. In a hall filled with noise and celebration, the outlanders were almost silent. Keajura took a vacant seat close to them – left empty by priestly order, no doubt – and studied them more closely.
Their clothing was distinctive: white ruffled collars that covered half their shoulders and overlaid tight-fitting clothes of black and red, made of some strange fabric, and which covered arms and legs entirely, leaving only hands unclothed. Their hair was remarkable too, some brown, some the colour of sand, and some, strangest of all, nut-red in hue.
The first servants appeared, bringing food for the guests alone, while the others simply spoke and drank. An odd practice, but then Keajura was not exactly sure what status the priests were giving these new pink men. Honoured guests? Captives? Warriors about to be blooded? Even the priests did not know, he suspected. Looking forward to the Closure for your whole life was one thing. Reaching it was another altogether.
Keajura had planned simply to observe the pink men for a time while they ate, to learn what he could. Yet before the outlanders started eating, one of them looked over at him and made an unmistakable come-here gesture. Odd to see that some things remained common no matter where men came from; he had seen the same gesture made both by Kiyungu and Islanders.
The outlander who had called him over was one with the nut-red coloured hair. Clean-shaven, or almost so, with perhaps a day’s growth. His clothing had the same ruffled collar and full sleeves and leggings as the rest, but with more decoration than most of his fellows. Their priest, perhaps, or maybe their lord.
The outlander spoke in the Islander tongue. Awkwardly, with hesitations and mispronounced words, but his meaning was usually clear. “You here to... watch us?”
“To guide you,” he said. He almost added and learn your language, but restrained himself.
“Good. I name Wilyembatin.”
“Keajura son of Ngamunda.”
“What this land called?” the outlander asked.
“Daluming. The lands of King Otella.”
Wilyembatin frowned, as if he had not understood such simple words. However much of the Islander tongue this man thought he had learned, it was not adequate.
“What land do your people come from?”
“Inglund. We serve... Company.” Keajura repeated the foreign word, the first he had heard of the Inglund tongue.
Wilyembatin had a brief discussion with one of his neighbours, who looked as if he spoke more of the Islander tongue. Yet it was Wilyembatin who spoke again. “Association.”
“Does your association forbid you from eating?” Keajura gestured to the still untouched food.
“No. Not sure what food is or... rules when men eat,” Wilyembatin said.
That showed more cunning that most visitors; any Kiyungu brought to Daluming would immediately any food put in front of them. “Others will not eat at the same time as you. They are not sure yet what rank you have, so will not know whether to eat at the same time or later.”
Wilyembatin started to speak, stopped, then had another colloquy with his neighbour, repeating Islander phrases a couple of time between themselves. “What rank do we have here?”
“You are outlanders. I cannot say.” The priests would have to decide that. Let them make whatever choice pleased them. It was them who believed in the Closure, in that time when all that was needed would be completed. However much Keajura enjoyed life in Yuragir, in his own heart he still prayed to Eagle and Goanna, not to the heads of other people’s ancestors.
Wilyembatin still looked perplexed, so Keajura gestured to the food. “Eat. It is for you.”
Wilyembatin spoke briefly to his companions again in their own language. It was too long simply to be an instruction to eat. Which also meant that, for now, Keajura had still only learned one word of their Inglund language.
The pink men started eating, almost as one. Wilyembatin stopped after the first mouthful. “This good. Very good. What it?”
“Fish fried in linseed oil [1],” Keajura said. The fish was flathead [2], but he did not know the Islander word for it, and he doubted the name would mean much to the Inglund people. “Spiced with sweet peppers and lemon myrtle.”
“Very good,” the outlander captain repeated, then went back to finishing the fish, with obvious relish.
Keajura stayed quiet while they ate the first course, listening to their occasional chatter amongst themselves. He was not learning words, yet, but it let him familiarise himself with the sounds of their language. And it was alien; it had sounds which no other tongue contained. He suspected that Wilyembatin was not exactly how that man said his own name, either, but learning to pronounce it properly would take time [3].
The next course arrived in due time. He announced without being asked. “Noroon [emu] meat, roasted and flavoured with lemongrass and white ginger [4].” He started to explain that the hot drink being served with it was jeeree [lemon-scented tea], but stopped when he saw that Wilyembatin already knew what it was.
Wilyembatin ate a little, and his face spoke for itself of his regard for the food. This time, he got his more fluent neighbour to ask questions. The other outlander said, “This food is splendid.”
“The palace has some fine cooks,” Keajura said. Most of them were in fact captives like himself, brought in from the western highlands or from the north. The Bungudjimay appreciated fine food, even if they often did not know how to cook properly.
“No doubt,” the outlander said. “But even then, we have tasted these spices elsewhere in this land, and they have not been so flavoursome.”
“In the far west?” Keajura said, and the other man shook his head.
“What you have eaten in the west, that is what we trade to westerners after it has been dried for storage. That must be done with spices if they are to be traded. But those we use in the palace are fresh, grown in the highlands and brought quickly down the river. The taste is better when fresh.”
“So I must agree,” the outlander said, then he and his fellows went back to eating the meal.
The third course came in time. “Kumara [sweet potato] chunks, roasted with caramelised sweet gum [wattle gum] flavoured with cinnamon myrtle and strawberry gum leaves,” he said. The sweetest part of the meal, and his favourite.
Wilyembatin did not start on this part of the meal, though. He gave Keajura a long glance, then said, “If you guide us, what most important that we know?”
Keajura considered that for a moment, then lowered his voice. No telling if others around also knew the Islander tongue. “If anyone here asked you whether you have killed a man, say no. Always say no.”
* * *
[1] The Aururian linseed oil is grown from native flax (Linum marginale). Much like common flax, some cultivars of this plant have been grown for fibre, but others – particularly on the eastern seaboard – have been selected for large, oil-rich seeds.
[2] This species of fish is dusky flathead (Platycephalus fuscus), which lives in estuaries, of which there are several around Yuragir / Coffs Harbour.
[3] Keajura is experiencing difficulties because native Aururian languages, like their historical equivalents, almost entirely lack some classes of consonants which occur in most other languages (including English).
The main examples of these are fricative (and pseudo-fricative) consonants, which among others include sounds represented in English by “h”, “s”, “f” and “th”. Aururians tend to mishear these sounds as other consonants which are more familiar to them. For example, Keajura pronounces “Baffin” more or less as “Batin”.
[4] Lemon-scented grass (Cymbopogon ambiguus) is a relative of common lemongrass (various Cymbopogon species), and has similar flavour and culinary uses. Native ginger (Alpinia caerulea) is a plant whose various parts can be used for different spices. The one which has been used here is the crushed fruit and seeds, which has a pleasantly sour taste and is used in Daluming cuisine both for its flavour and for the visual effect of the red hue it adds to food.
* * *
Thoughts?
