Thule 1600 - Alaska
The sleeping giant, the original homeland of the ancient Thule people. There are somewhere between two and three million Thule occupying the Alaskan homeland.
Unlike other Thule Realms, Alaska has not experienced dramatic transformation. The Agricultural revolution was more of a slow transition creeping over the Alaskan peoples. Plants and animals, microclimate engineering, toggle harpoons, pycrete, copper and bronze, have filtered in gradually. They’ve expanded gradually but steadily, absorbing or overrunning the Dene, embracing the Yupik before they had really begun to diverge fully, and swallowing the Aleut. Each have left their traces, a smattering of loan words, particular tools, styles of dress here and there, some facial features, a smattering of DNA, while being lost in the Alaskan pool.
The Alaskans have grown, but not really changed. The Alaskan Thule have maintained more social continuity, and more of their traditions, than any other Thule culture. Indeed, the Alaskan Thule are the repositories of tradition and continuity. This focus on tradition and continuity has slowed the adoption of innovation, but not halted it.
Nevertheless, change does come, gradually, unevenly. Population doubled, and doubled, and doubled again, generation after generation. People left. Alaska fueled the great continuing diaspora east all the way to Greenland and Labrador. And the population kept on increasing, generation after generation.
After a while, the direction of emigration shifted west, into Siberia. Innovations and agriculture made the land more productive, supporting ever greater populations. And still, the population grew, emigration shifted south into the more heavily populated regions better able to defend themselves, mingling with the Tlingit and creating a hybrid society.
Despite growth and evolution, the governance of Alaskan society has not changed. Authority is dispersed among a mixed asssembly of Shaman’s and elders, family heads, clan leaders. There is no formal mechanism of authority, success and ambition can be raise one up, but also drag one down. The Alaskans hold councils of every sort, discussing every issue of consequence endlessly and without conclusion, until someone gets fed up and leaves, which is accepted and encouraged, or until someone tries to force a decision, which is not. Consensus is not an easy thing for Alaskan society, feuds and generations old rivalries are a way of life. Alaska might rule the Thule world...
But as it is, they will not even rule themselves.
The pandemics will almost come as a relief to Alaska. Elders and headmen will smile as their rivals die of the pox, even as they scratch their own sores. A thinning of the population will ease the constant pressure. The consequence, of course, will be panics and mania, outbursts of mysticism. For the first time, Alaskan society will face revolution and transformations.
Sir Francis Drake has sailed up the Pacific Coast to the southern reaches of Alaska in 1579, encountering the local Thule. Around 1648, a handful of Russians will end up on the shores of Alaska, washed there by a storm. They will not be allowed to return home. Alaska will another century before the Europeans make themselves a physical presence.
The giant sleeps. What form will it take when it wakes?
In the meantime, the Alaskans will live as they always have, and send their excess into the bottomless well that seems to be Siberia.