Lands of Red and Gold #89: Words Yet To Come
“The Tjagarr Panipat was first gathered in Tapiwal [Robinvale] in 1646 as a colloquy of physicians to assess and consider the first typhus epidemic to reach the Five Rivers. Initially the term Tjagarr Panipat referred to the conference rather than the location, with several such colloquies being called in other places in the Five Rivers over the next two decades to assess disease outbreaks.
The Tjagarr Panipat became a permanent institution under the auspices of Lopitja Dalwal [Lopitja the White]. In 1666, he donated his family’s residence in Tapiwal to serve as a permanent library for physicians’ texts, and to provide a meeting hall for physicians to discuss and review cases. That building became the first great hall of the Tjagarr Panipat. It was later demolished to be replaced by the Grand White Hall, which still stands today as one of the central buildings of the Tjagarr Panipat.”
- From the English-language version of a plaque which stands near the entrance to the main Tjagarr Panipat compound
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“The Kurnawal are in rebellion. The Yadji armies are busy in the east. If we declare war on the Yadji now, we will have victory over them. We just must ensure that we do not have complete victory.”
- Lopitja the White (son of Wemba of the Whites), addressing the Tjibarri Council in the Hall of Rainbows, 1673
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“The League’s pleasure, glory and profit are all more advanced by sugar than by any other commodity we deal in or produce, gold and jeeree [lemon tea] not excepted.”
- Titore, An Account of the Growth of the Nuttana, 1715
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“The seemingly endless bounty of Aururia provided a lesson to those who had the wit to learn: mining gold is not the same as mining money.”
- Archibald Simpson-Green: The Foundations of the Modern World, ch. 6 “A Surfeit of Currency”
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“But since the time of Queen Elizabeth there has been only a continual fluctuation in the conduct of England, with which one could not concert measures for two years at a time.”
- Johan de Witt; 1659
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“The Devil hath made too many Dutchmen.”
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and former Duke Regent of England, 1665, speaking after the successful Dutch raid on the Royal Navy anchorage at Harwich
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“The Fronde began by breaking windows, but ended by breaking Liberty.”
- Charles de Batz
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“England: the land where every man has as much democracy as he can afford.”
- Antimony Bryant, 1871
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“The history of seventeenth-century Central Europe can be summed up as follows: everybody hates Poland.”
- Lars Løvschøld, The Development of Early Modern Europe
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“In the ride, there is truth.”
- Attributed to the Hunter
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“The Sawtooth revolutionaries speak of making one nation of many. What a travesty of absurdism! Mere vapid slogans cannot unmake the natural order. The nation is the sum of the character and the history of each man. It cannot be altered by a storm of words and a new rectangle of dyed cloth. A new government can declare a new state; it cannot declare a new nation.”
- Lincoln Derwent, from a letter written to Aurelia Swan
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“What misbegotten declaration, that dishonourable fiction propounded in the Commonwealth that all men are equal before the law! The Revolution established that a man could not claim privilege by right of birth, but replaced that with privilege by right of gold. For the fundamental truth is that an advocate, by endless rhetoric, is permitted to rewrite the law in favour of privilege. Just as gravity distorts space, so gold distorts the law. A black hole is where light dies; a gold hole is where justice dies.”
- “Steelfoot” Barker, Battle Call
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“Whereby it is confirmed by His Majesty Nyiragal that the laws of the League [Nuttana] stand in concert with the laws of the land. In all judgements pertaining to men of the League, His Majesty or his chosen judge will take counsel together with a representative of the Nuttana, to jointly determine the proper course.”
- From the treaty signed in 1658 between the Nuttana and the kingdom of Ngutti [Yamba], a breakaway state formed during the Daluming civil war
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“I claim this land in the name of the League and the Six Lords.”
- Karnama Nyawala, after planting the Coral Flag on what he called the Bleak Islands [Kerguelen Islands] in 1692
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“Easy to change a flag. Hard to change nationality.”
- Myumitsi Makan, better known in English as Solidarity Jenkins
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“From Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula] in the west to Kuki Airani [Cook Islands] in the east, from Papua in the north to Maungahuka [Auckland Islands] in the south, nowhere could be considered safe from Pakanga [Maori] raids.”
- Claude M. Overton, A Brief History of Merchant Venturers
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“This much I desire to accomplish in my life: to ride my horse into the sea to north and east and south, and know that I have brought harmony to all the lands through which I have ridden.”
- The Hunter
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“In a free government, we are told, the rulers are the humble servants and the people the proud sovereigns. Which means that under a free government, a man is free only to agree with the people.”
- “Steelfoot” Barker, An Enemy Called Freedom
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“Democracy bestows neither liberty nor sovereignty. If a government created by popular vote determines to tax a man of half his property, how is that different to a bandit robbing a man of half of what he owns?”
- Elliott Moreton (agitator and traitor, or revolutionary and martyr, depending on the perspective of the author), during a speech to the Arborist League
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“The reasons for slavery [1] are deed or contract; the former for war or punishment, the latter for term, life or blood. Plirites may be enslaved for punishment, term or life, while non-believers may be enslaved for any reason. The Flesh-Eaters [Solomon Islanders] are like other non-believers, whether they are Maori, Kiyungu, Bungudjimay, Christian, Motuan [Papuan], or any others who adhere to paganism and do not embrace the Seven-fold Path... This means there is no difference between the non-believers in this respect. Whoever is enslaved in a condition of non-belief, it is proper to own him, whosoever he may be, and no matter whether he may voluntarily embrace the Seven-fold Path afterward. The condition of slavery in the non-believer will continue in the believer, even in the blood if that is in the contract... But where manumission has been granted to a Plirite slave of the blood, it is not proper for any punishment to restore slavery of the blood to that Plirite or his progeny, except where they have forsaken the true path.”
- Wolya gan Moning [Wolya son of Moning], legal interpretation, c. 1696. Wolya gan Moning was a Nuttana priest and jurist, expressing his views on the emerging contract law and practices of Nuttana slavery.
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“Winning a popular vote does not make a tyrant legitimate. It merely makes him a popular tyrant.”
- Antimony Bryant, 1894
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“Old evils never die, they just take on new guises.”
- “Steelfoot” Barker, Battle Call
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“The secret ballot is a licence for men to harm their fellows. It is a breach of solidarity.”
- Spencer Jackson
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“In the world: order and discord. In the mind should be only order.”
- Pinjarra, Aururian social philosopher (among many other things)
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“As the blue gum is cut down but regrows, so must a man rise again after defeat.”
“That which is sprung from the earth will be returned to the earth.”
- From Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road], a text composed in Tjibarr in the fifteenth century, and widely respected by both Plirite and Tjarrling believers
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“Politics consists more in profiting from favourable circumstances than preparing them in advance.”
- Maximilian III, Grand Duke of Bavaria (among other titles), speaking on the eve of the Nine Years’ War
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“Bohemia is the portion of the Habsburg heritage to which we have the strongest claim and which is most suitable for the house of Wettin. It is consonant with justice to maintain one’s rights and to seize the opportunity of the death of Leopold II to take possession. The superiority of our troops, the promptitude with which we can set them in motion, in a word the clear advantage we have over our neighbours, gives us in unexpected emergency an infinite superiority over all other powers of Europe. If we wait until Sweden and Bavaria start hostilities we could not prevent the aggrandizement of the latter which is wholly contrary to our interests. If we act at once, we keep her in subjection...”
- Christian Albert I, Elector of Saxony, memorandum, 1740
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“Now at last we can reveal ourselves to the Raw Men.”
- Gurragang son of Lopitja (grandson of Wemba of the Whites)
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[1] The Nuttana word translated as slavery includes all forms of indentured labour, including that voluntarily entered into for a term of years.
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Thoughts?
