-LXXXV-
Down the River and Towards the Dawn: The Splendor of the East
The densest population in all eastern North America lay in the valley of its greatest river, the Misebi and its tributaries. In these woodlands of the Midwest and South, a powerful civilisation emerged, with its rulers demonstrating their incredible might through the grand earthworks they constructed. Its wealth and might rivaled all but the greatest cities of the Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Fusania and helped drive the burgeoning economic and demographic expansion that characterised North America in the early 2nd millennium.
The population of Misebian civilisation exploded in the 12th and early 13th century, owing to the productivity of their land. The "three sisters" of maize, beans, and squash produced a bountiful surplus in the rich bottomlands they lived in. The spread of crops like prairie turnips and nutsedge added to this surplus while in some particularly flood-prone areas (especially toward the Gulf), Misebians conducted aquaculture of omodaka, river turnip, water amaranth, and tuckahoe, a native water plant. In the forests surrounding many of their lands, the people harvested acorns, chestnuts, pecans, and walnuts alongside many wild plants and berries. Domesticated ducks, geese, turkey, and towey goats provided additional protein. The latter animal in particular substituted for increasingly exhausted deer populations in providing bone, skins, and meat offerings given to the wealthy.
There seemed to be no limits on this demographic expansion beside the ability to clear land, something even the smallest village might do. Even earlier challenges like soil exhaustion were alleviated in this era as Misebian villages adapted to cycles of crop rotation. Dung from goats and fowl fertilised fields while pesticides from herbs and tobacco and new breeds of dogs kept away insect and rodent pests from stores. The great demographic expansion and productivity of agriculture permitted a great increase in the nascent specialisation of the 11th and 12th century, tying the Misebian world together like never before. At the demographic peak around 1210 (before the Norse-introduced plagues and 13th century drought), over 4 million people lived in the Misebian world [1].
Political and societal organisation
The political organisation of the Misebians lay within local kin groups who gathered into villages. The people of the village elected one of their own, typically someone successful in life, as ruler and entrusted him with resolving disputes, yet demanded he not interfere in their lives and continue to contribute to the community. Beneath the village ruler came his second-in-command, the war chief (among some Misebian groups, the war chief and peace chief ranked equally) and those wealthy, prestigious men (rarely women) who formed the council. The commoners considered themselves politically and spiritually equal to their chief, inferior to him only in moral authority and wealth.
Larger towns naturally dominated smaller communities, and it was these towns which formed the basis of the Misebian world. Each nearby village and its people claimed their origin in this town, serving as the center of their ethnic identity. Towns served as the seat of a local ruler, his war chief, and his council of clan leaders who were crucial for maintaining the social order of the region. Most importantly they acted as ritual centers, where the town ruler demonstrated his power through grand festivals and monumental architecture such as their famed platform mounds where the ruler gazed down at his people during ceremonies.
Misebian towns were not necessarily large--they often held less than 500 people and sometimes were practically empty but for the ruler, his household, and his chosen retainers. Yet because they commanded such spiritual power, they swelled with worshippers during ceremonies and intervened in the affairs of larger communities. Their ruler might be frequently gifted rare goods from as far away as Mesoamerica or Fusania, dined on the finest meats, and walked on carpets of expensive towey goat wool.
A particularly prestigious and wealthy town often became the nucleus of a paramount center which headed a confederation. The wealth in these towns justified their claims to religious authority and thus political power. Often they had multiple large platform mounds, including one on which a sizable temple sat. Paramount centers dominated the landscape, drawing people from hundreds of kilometers away on the basis of wealth and prestige. While the ruler of the paramount center nominally served as head of the confederation, he and his council possessed no authority over subordinate towns beside familial ties and skill at persuasion.
The Misebian world can thus be politically divided into town-states and confederations. A town-state (or chiefdom) usually dominated a stretch of river and was around 400-700 km2 in area containing around 6,000-15,000 people. It occasionally united with several other towns into a small confederation, but the largest and most powerful political unit were true confederations based in the paramount centers. These might dominate several towns and innumerable villages across thousands of square kilometers.
Misebian polities were fragile. Because the ruling lineage installed relatives as authorities in smaller towns and villages, these posed potential threats to the dominance of the center should citizens choose to follow these relatives instead. When this occurred, it inevitably sparked a war unless the relative and his followers were appeased through words or gifts. Should the central town or city lose the conflict, the victor sometimes removed all symbols of ruling power to his own town, resulting in political rearrangement and decline of the once-central town.
Whether they served as rulers of a small town or the most prestigious city, Misebian rulers possessed remarkably little authority. They were religious figureheads consecrated by the high priest as a representation of the sun god and elected from the ruling family, typically the son of the previous ruler's sister. They made practically no decisions on their own, always relying on oratory, persuasion, and ridicule to rule through their council (which included the war chief and high-ranking nobles). The ruler was expected to display rich adornment and grant the people with goods from afar as well as to preside at ceremonies which included fertility rituals as well as a great sacrifice of towey goats, where the ruler would be the first to dine. In death, their slaves were often sacrificed for them.
Qwinishtis commented on this in his
Saga of the Lands of Dawn:
"The escaped slave thanked me profusely, for I spared him a grim fate at the hands of the barbarians. As in our land, slaves often follow the ruler into death yet the barbarians of the lands of dawn conduct a great orgy of violence in their ignorance toward proper balance. The prince of a city takes his slaves with him, I am told. At the greatest cities, those magnificent plazas I witnessed are drowned in the blood of slaves and herds alike whenever a great ruler or priest perishes."
As war chiefs likewise held little authority, the Misebian system thus centered on town councils. The ruler appointed some of these seats from high-ranking nobles (often his own kin), but the most important were reserved for the heads of individual clans who represented their lineages (which included the town's commoners). The council directed daily life in a town by pressuring the clan heads to control members of their own lineage to act as needed.
Misebian religion focused on the priestly caste, whose members were selected on the basis of spiritual power and ancestry. Often the high priest of a town was a relative of the ruling lineage. These priests tended the most important rites of Misebian religion, that of ancestor worship involving great images of divinities and tending of sacred fires that represented their primary god, the Sun itself. While they did not control day to day worship and ceremonial dances, the wealthy men who sponsored them always approached the priests for advice. Similarly, they legitimised the ruler's power by public rituals that tied him to his ancestors.
By the 13th century, platform mounds declined in importance and constructed slowed. It is speculated this is due to the sheer proliferation of large platform mounds in the Misebian world and challenge in constructing larger mounds without the structures slumping over time from their large mass combined with flooding or earthquakes [2]. While they still built large mounds in their paramount centers, they also surrounded them with tall palisades often guilded in copper to form ornate walls meant to demonstrate the wealth and prestige of the ruler who commissioned the ornamentation.
Although mound construction slowed, what mounds they constructed were far more grand and impressive, often being constructed in two or even three tiers or having multiple mounds atop a single mound. The average height swelled to 15-20 meters, with a few isolated examples nearly 25 meters tall. This mound typically stood in opposition to a second, slightly smaller mound hosting the temple. Practically all newly founded towns and paramount centers from the 13th century onward featured construction like this while older centers were renovated to match this style, with the partial exception of the Gulf Misebians in the Lower Misebi Valley.
Economy
As in every other premodern society, agriculture served as the main Misebian economic activity. Yet the portion of farmers had decreased from practically the entire population in the early 11th century to allow for greater specialisation. Much of this is due to increases in agricultural efficiency and technology. Simple ploughs hitched to towey goats or dogs let farmers more efficiently till their fields, while their dung (along with that from domesticated fowl) served as fertiliser. The diversity of crops grown alleviated shortages in the event of local crop failure and replenished the soil of nutrients.
Like elsewhere, towey goat herding expanded in the late 12th and 13th century and reached south to the foothills of the Appalachians. Especially at the southern end, the towey goats in this region were smaller and mostly hairless, with male goats weighing around 90-100 kg and carrying around 15-20 kg. They were animals of crucial cultural importance and frequently offered as sacrifices at important ceremonies. The herds were the communal property of entire clans, with size and quality of the herds a means for the clan heads to display status.
While there was not a great diversity of breeds, the famed Indian fainting towey breed derives from Misebian times. Originating in the hills between the Tennessee and Choyaha drainage, the "fainting towey" fell to the ground when excited or startled, the product of a hereditary condition called congenital myotonia likely caused by a small founder population in that region. They were often used as meat animals, but their use as entertainment was known in the Misebian world, where they became symbols of jesters among some groups. Qwinishtis described an encounter with these goats, which was formerly used as evidence to attack the veracity of his stories:
"In that village, I came across a flock of towey goats, hairless and colourful from their time beneath the harsh summer sun and unpleasant air. I watched over my men confiscating these goats from the villagers when to my astonishment, a goat simply fell over! We fled the village at once without a single goat for we knew the spirits deemed those goats unfit to eat."
Misebian economies thus expanded with the massive increase in specialisation and urbanisation the food surplus permitted. Lineages working all trades from pottery to metalsmithing to merchants to farming to artisanry emerged. In some societies these were associated with particular clan groupings, yet in others clans tended to hold lineages within many professions. Specialisation resulted in the blossoming of trade and increasing connections in the Misebian world, even if such levels of trade remained well below that seen in Fusania or Mesoamerica.
Misebian trade routes ran primarily on water, and these water links resulted in the two great Misebian axes. The first ran down the Misebi River to its inland delta and then west toward the cities of the Caddoan Misebians at the border of the Plains. In the east, it ran down the Tennessee and Choyaha rivers, where locals fished out innumerable pearls from the rivers, to the lands of the South Appalachian Miseebians were rich mines where producing gold, silver, and copper and from there south along the rivers to the Gulf. This route is known as the Road of Pelts by Mesoamericans who imported the skins of towey goats, reindeer, and bison from this region.
The second axis was much more scattered, spanning numerous running along the Lower Misebi and the sheltered waterways of the Gulf, the most important trade route in the region. ran all the way in the east to the delta of the Apalachicola and north to the Fall Line and in the south extended toward the lands of the Coahuiltecans. The people of this culture, known as the Gulf Misebians, were latecomers to the Misebian world and differed in many respects culturally as a result.
Boundaries of the Misebian World
The Misebian world in the 13th century roughly divided into two factions. Those of the Middle Misebi, parts of the Ohio Valley, and the Tennessee, Choyaha, and Chattahoochee as well as many Caddoan towns were friendly due to their Mihithegan ties. On the other side were their historic rivals, the Natchez Misebians and many Gulf Misebians, the culturally separate Upper Misebians, and some groups of Caddoan Misebians whose closest trading partners were the Natchez and Gulf peoples. The Mesoamericans played a neutral role, their allegiance shifting to those who benefitted them most.
The borderlands where these cultures collided was a zone of small polities and frequent wars. Slave raids were common and ironically became a key form of cultural transmission when slaves were employed in arts such as pottery or farming. At times, it lay completely abandoned even in the ongoing expansion of Misebian agriculture. The heavily fortified towns in this area tended to be colonies led by refugee returnees or the adventurers from larger cities who gained influence over these people.
Astride the Misebian world lay the expanses of the Plains and the forested, less developed woodlands of the north and east. Here the Misebians traded their fine wares in exchange for bison skins and the pelts of towey goats, along with entire reindeer they slaughtered at feasts. The Plains in particular were important for the trickle of rare Fusanian goods such as the unusual shells of the Pacific or strange artifacts of silver (a rare substance in much of the Misebian world), whalebone, ivory, jasper, and jade.
Misebian peoples considered the natives of these regions as backwards and primitive, but skilled hunters and herdsmen. They were occasionally recruited as mercenaries or bodyguards for traveling merchants. Clashes between them and Misebian confederations occasionally occurred as one group sought to claim the pastoral land or herds of the other. As the climate cooled and Misebian lands suffered deforestation, wars increased in frequency and intensity.
From the east, Algonquian-speaking peoples pressed into Misebian lands seeking new lands for hunting and raising their livestock. Likewise, Caddoan-speaking pastoralists such as the Sahnish and Paani pushed from the west, as well as those from even further beyond like the Plains Salish, Kiowa, Nahisha Apache, and Plains Dena. The most notorious of these were those Dena bands who raided as far east as the Misebi itself, settling in a depopulated borderland and absorbing the survivors to become the sedentary Paduca peoples. Although they farmed, built mounds, and kept rites involving maize ceremonialism and eternal fires, they were starkly different in other regards and largely kept to themselves.
To the north lay the hated Northern Misebians, bitter rivals of the Middle Misebians. While some traded occurred, the Misebians preferred purchasing needed goods like copper, tin, or precious metals from the middlemen of the Eastern Woodlands. Much warfare occurred between these peoples, leaving a large buffer of depopulated lands. By the late 13th century, drought and cooling climate caused much of these lands to revert to prairie, whose hard earth proved nearly impossible to farm, yet war still continued as these lands became important grazing lands and particularly hunting grounds, where bison migrated from further west in increasing numbers
Mihithega, the Middle Misebian heartland, and the Mihithegan Diaspora
An archetypical example of Misebian civilisation was Mihithega [3], the greatest city in all eastern North America, crowned by its towering Great Mound, for centuries the tallest and largest structure in the Western Hemisphere north of the Bravo River. In 1200, Mihithega had a population at least as large as Wayam at its height and politically dominated a large area, albeit the city commanded a typical Misebian confederacy instead of a centralised empire.
Like the Wayamese Empire, Mihithega commanded the allegiance of a large confederation of towns and cities, using its monumental agriculture and powerful religious cult. Its political system centered around the redistribution and display of exotic goods from foreign lands, presented and displayed to the people at religious ceremonies. Yet unlike Wayam, Mihithega did not pursue the development of a complex bureaucracy to legitimise its central rule, instead relying solely on its religious influence and strength of its rulers' prestige. People came from far away bearing gifts for the priests of Mihithega in hopes they might purchase the privilege of living there. These gifts strengthened the prestige of Mihithega, which produced a feedback loop that powered Mihithega's economy.
This system started collapsing in the mid-12th century. Their allies and kin far to the north by the Great Lakes suffered revolts and conquest from the local people (such as the Pasucha who destroyed Aztatlan), cutting off a key source of copper, precious metals, exotic Fusanian shells, and imported reindeer. This decreased people bringing tribute to Mihithega, including crucial supplies of livestock, game, and salt, thus further imperiling the city's finances. The decrease in prestige proved most disastrous, however. Being less able to resolve disputes, the Mihithegan ruling class lost influence over outlying towns. These towns were more likely to go to war with each other to increase the own prestige, causing a regional economic decline and outmigration.
As Mihithega declined, clans exited from the city and returned to distant relatives or trade contacts they made elsewhere. The most important links lay toward the southeast, from where Mihithega increasingly imported much copper mined at Shaneha near the powerful city of Akatalla, gold from Chatolanochi, salt from Tabiahe, and yaupon imported from the Atlantic and Gulf [4]. This trade catapulted the basin of the Choyaha and Tennessee Rivers into the wealthiest section of the Misebian world by the early 13th century. Although this trade temporarily reinvigorated the fortunes of Mihithega, the decline was terminal. Pilgrims instead traveled toward the increasingly wealthy towns of the southeast, ensuring Mihithega possessed less and less to trade in exchange.
The final collapse of Mihithega came with the epidemics of the 1210s. Mumps, chickenpox, and whooping cough were novel illnesses among the Misebians and no doubt interpreted as signs of divine disfavor. Perhaps 10% of the people of Mihithega died of illness alone and many others fled the city for good. A civil war broke out, one in which rival centers intervened. By 1230, Mihithega lay absolutely abandoned.
That region would remain marginal in the Misebian world until around 1300, when the name Mihithega was transferred across the Misebi to a new city, suggesting even the elites wished to make a new start from Mihithega's troubles [5]. Old Mihithega, sometimes called Numihithega ("ancient Mihithega") became a religious center used as a vast complex for ancestor worship and public rituals.
The "Mihithegan diaspora" formed from this collapse continued to play an incredibly important role in the history of the Misebian world. As the city attracted people from around the Misebian world, Mihithegans back to their homelands or areas they had connections. There they married back into their communities and brought home new techniques and styles of art, pottery, farming and other technology, and religion, bringing about great cultural shifts wherever they went.
The bulk of these were in areas of strongest Mihithegan influence, drawing Mihithega's people southeast toward the basin of the Choyaha and Tennessee River. Here they reinforced local traditions and brought rulers great prestige, bringing about a golden age for the towns in this region. For several decades in the 13th century, Tabiahe with its productive metalworking, salt production, and weaving practically served as a successor of Mihithega. Its 8,000 residents lived below a great 26 meter two-tier pyramid constructed atop a high hill overlooking the Choyaha [6]. In the fashion of the 13th century, a subsidiary two-tier pyramid at 20 meters for the high priest was positioned opposite.
Typically, these Mihithegan exiles were revered in their new communities as purveyors of hidden wisdom and spiritual truths about the world. They arrived in a time of upheaval due to drought and especially epidemic, and the arrival of people bringing such wisdom was welcome to the Misebian peoples. Others clearly rejected them, perhaps viewing their arrival as proof of spiritual chaos or simply out of opportunism. This sparked numerous conflicts throughout the Misebian world, evidenced by the spate of palisade building and expansion of moats.
Southeast from Tabiahe, the Mihithegan diaspora revitalised the southern Appalachian region, long a backwater. They had sent many of their own people to Mihithega on pilgrimages, yet received precious little in return. Now hundreds or even thousands of Mihithegans returned to this area and brought not just wisdom, but practical methods, tools, and livestock. Towey goat herding became firmly established in the northeastern hills. The region expanded in population and wealth in the late 12th century, with cities like Italwa becoming important trading centers [7].
he Misebi Valley south of the Ohio, the Gulf Misebians largely rejected these Mihithegan immigrants out of their lengthy rivalry. The reasons for this rivalry likely originated in the past from Mihithega and other Central Misebian towns frequently raiding lands downstream. The great city of Yetshedi did as well based on their historic rivalry, although made little effort to excise Mihithega's influence from their more distant allies. Yet even here, the influence of the Misebian heartland appeared. Mihithegan slaves, as well as those who had once been slaves in Mihithega, brought new styles of architecture, pottery, and art to this area and even established rituals related to maize cultivation (as opposed to those centering on omodaka cultivation) as dominant.
Gulf Misebians
In the humid southern lowlands north of the Gulf of Mexico lived the cultures known as the Gulf Misebians. Their environment that permitted them no towey goats and resulted in frequent flooding led to a mode of life that prohibited full adaption to Misebian culture. They spoke a much greater diversity of languages, which gave rise to the Misebian trade language, the so-called Mobilian Jargon [8] based on the prestigious Muskogean languages.
The Gulf Misebians raised no animals besides waterfowl, turkeys, and dogs, owing to the hot climate of their land and were generally poorer due to their distance from the copper trade. However, they were wealthy for their agrarian economies which let them purchase the needed metals along with towey goats for ceremonies. They farmed large plantations of tehi and wove it into richly dyed clothing, while they controlled innumerable sources of yaupon, the main ingredient of the "black drink" crucial to ritual. This plantation labour was made possible by their extensive skill at earthworking in the swamps of their land.
Their greatest city was Ohoshetak [9], located at a strategic bluff along the Misebi. Ohoshetak's prestigious ruling lineage and impressive temple permitted it to dominate a substantial stretch of the Lower Misebi. With a population of around 7,000, they commanded an army of slave labour that tamed the local wetlands, built a complex system of levees, and even built a canal directly from the foot of the ruler's platform mound to the Misebi River over 5 kilometers away.
They extensively traded with the Caddoan Misebians, especially those outside of their largest centers in Nakuhmitsa and Nateshu [10]. The paramount chiefdom centered on Awakai was allied to many Southern Misebian cities. Located in the mountains not far from the Pahateno River, here in the high hills they raised towey goats and mined cinnabar, otherwise very rare in southeastern North America. Ethnic Tunica merchants, who controlled many of the trade routes in the Caddoan world, transported these eastwards to the Misebi.
By the 12th century, Awakai mined diamonds at the only pre-modern diamond mine in the Americas, the famed Moonstone Meadow. These were termed "moonstones" for their white color and sheen, a widely spread calque in Misebian languages. Although diamond cutting and polishing did not develop in the Misebian world until around 1350 when the art spread from Maya traders, even by 1200 these stones were prized for their incredible hardness and value in drilling beads and thus were the exclusive property of the wealthy. Diamonds, among other mined products, brought the city of Awakai great wealth and cemented its position of regional leadership.
Of the other Gulf Misebian cities, Okaholla perhaps equalled Ohoshetak, especially in militancy [11]. A city of perhaps 7,000 people with numerous mounds, it was often at war with Italwa to its west due to its constant raids on the trade routes. Okaholla's merchants derived a great profit from the goods seized on these raids while its rulers enjoyed much prestige. The greatest success of Okaholla came around 1215 when alongside its allies, Okaholla's warriors defeated those of Italwa, taking advantage of the Norse epidemics.
Subsequently they successfully besieged Italwa, razed the town, and plundered its temple. In typical Misebian fashion, they extinguished the sacred flame, murdered the priests and ruling family, and disinterred their ancestors, desecrating their bones and melting down the goods they were buried with. Italwa fell abandoned for nearly fifty years, inhabited again only after wandering Mihithegans resettled the land.
Ruins of Italwa in the present. It may have looked similar in the 13th century during the period of abandonment. The ruler's palace sat on the mound to the left, the city's foremost temple sat on the mound toward the right.
This sack marked the beginning of a great enmity between Okaholla and Italwa, one famous enough in the Misebian world to be mentioned in Maya chronicles. Italwa took revenge for their earlier defeat around 1275 as their new rulers raided Okaholla's hinterlands, killing the enemy's war chief and taking his scalp along with much plunder back to Italwa. The plunder and prestige from this event revitalised the newly re-established city, marking its return to power and restarting the endless war between the two cities.
Arrival of the Mesoamericans
Most crucially, this region benefitted from the arrival of Mesoamerican traders. As the Maya expanded their trading activities in the Caribbean, they arrived in increasing numbers to the Southeast along with occasional ethnic Nahua or Huastec merchants. The initial Maya efforts focused primarily on obtaining sources of tehi fiber, slaves, and gold, but by the latter part of the 13th century, Maya traders penetrated far deeper into the interior, searching for deals on slaves, gold, pelts of wild animals, reindeer, bison, and towey goats, and eventually yaupon, the ritual black drink of the Misebian culture. The Mesoamericans called the land Tikoot (in Maya) or Ehuatlan (in Nahuatl), both meaning "Land of Pelts".
This trade started what the Maya called the Ootbe, translating to "Road of Pelts", that stretched alongside the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Tennessee Rivers, reaching to the city of Yetshedi near the mouth of the Ohio River. Several great centers sprang up on this road, such as Pakanahuili, known for being a key portage site, and Italwa, known as great center of trade for copper and gold mined far upstream. Each of these cities had over 5,000 people and commanded sizable confederacies. Northwards, a powerful new confederation emerged at Taski, which increasingly dominated the copper trade, while Akatalla at the mouth of the Hiwassee grew further [12].
Despite claims of Maya explorers by the Great Lakes, few pochteca ventured beyond the main port of Kojche, founded around 1280, and even fewer, if any traveled past Akatalla. Those who did might pass the great city of Wewoka at the crossroads between the Misebi and the Choyaha, the city of Tihalenehe and its famed guilds producing stone goods (most especially hoes), and finally the greatest city along this route at Yetshedi [13]. Qwinishtis describes an alleged encounter with a Maya trader near Yetshedi in the mid-15th century:
"The Maayapatkh [Maya] hold presence in all great cities of this land, Yits'iniit [Yetshedi] no exception. These Mayapatkh in addition to their usual exotic dress and wares carried a great vase full of strange dark seeds from their homeland. I inquired as to the nature of these seeds and they said it was to be ground into a beverage. This I learned was the custom among the nobles of countless cities on the roads leading south from Yits'iniit, but not one popular in Yits'iniit for reasons I am unaware."
The Mihithegan diaspora linked itself into this trade, settling as far south as the coasts of the Gulf and the Atlantic. In addition to bringing their culture to emerging centers like Chuuj Ha or Zama, they brought the Maya fabulous stories of the interior of the country. The Maya hired these Mihithegans as guides, where they assisted in recruiting local porters to carry goods and most crucially, introduced them into local trade networks.
The Road of Pelts was the most famous place of Maya influence, but the Misebi was equally important to Maya trade, albeit contested by Nahuas and Huastecs. Upstream from the mouth of the Misebi River, the Maya settlement quickly led to the small native village gaining the name P'ol [14], a reference to the trading activities there. Bringing rare goods from Mesoamerica in exchange for tehi, slaves, and bison pelts, the Maya attracted a great number of merchants that were quickly followed by all number of people. From a small village, P'ol grew into a city of 5,000 people by 1300, the largest city in the Gulf and one which was increasingly Mayanised.
Outside of this region, Mesoamerican influence was more sporadic, but near the mouth of every major river system on the Gulf, Mesoamericans showed up to trade. These trading settlements rapidly expanded in size from the wealth brought in attracting migrants, resulting in the establishment of a Mesoamerican quarter in the city or an adjacent village. The Maya influenced the politics of these places, bringing with them their political culture and elements of their religion and architecture, yet the Maya preferred indirect control over direct rule.
The Atlantic coast largely lacked Maya settlements north of the Florida Peninsula. Although rich in yaupon and very near reindeer and towey goat herding, this area was plagued by storms and worse, piracy. Local fishing tribes, impoverished and cut out of the great commerce further west, turned to piracy against Maya merchants to fund their towns and internal conflicts. Worse, by 1280 the infamous Antillean pirates sailed even this far north. Even with these factors, the Maya still ventured here through alliances with local chiefs, with the northernmost Maya settlement at Zama on the Savannah River [15], established as early as 1300.
Chuuj Ha in the Alabama Delta serves as case study of Maya influence on the Misebians. The appearance of the Maya at the delta of the Alabama River inspired great commotion and interest. Most of the population relocated to a subsidiary settlement nearby called Chuuj Ha, leaving the old center (simply called Talwasi or "old town") serving as a ceremonial site. Here on this site deep in the swamp accessible only via manmade canals, the religious ceremonialism centered around worship related to trade and seafaring. Both Maya and local Misebian people are recorded to have both worshipped here and even been interred here and the city became richly decorated with goods from distant lands [16].
Ohio Valley Misebians
The largest city of Middle Misebian lands during the 13th century was Yetshedi, which grew rapidly from a typical town into a true regional settlement. Located across from the mouth of the Tennessee River just upstream from the mouth of the Ohio, this site served as the terminus of the Road of Pelts. Historically, the city was a rival of Mihithega, worshipping different gods and practicing different rituals. The confederations led by both cities occasionally clashed in great wars, of which Mihithega had the upper hand, at least until its decline.
Yetshedi's rulers in the mid-13th century built great monuments, likely to cement their status as the greatest city in the world. They raised what later explorers termed the Sun Mound and Moon Mound, which by 1300 stood as the second and fifth largest mounds in the Misebian world respectively at 30 meters and 26 meters. Both were incredibly wide at their base and held two tiers and in typical Misebian fashion served as residence for the ruling family and the city temple. Like other Misebian cities, they erected a great plaza, standing tall wooden columns covered in hanging copper plates to reflect light from the sun and moon.
Not as large as Mihithega at its height, the depopulation of many cities north of the Rio Bravo from warfare, epidemic, and drought brought Yetshedi to the status of largest city north of Mesoamerica in the late 13th century. As many as 10,000 people lived there, with the city ruling many smaller settlements spread over over 9000 km2 of land, totaling at least 150,000 subjects. Wares from Yetshedi were famed as far northwest as the Rumahkaki towns and as far south as the Gulf Coast. Yetshedi was so large, wealthy, and prestigious that it choked off the development of any comparable center for hundreds of kilometers and held substantial influence over lesser confederations.
The city-state often clashed with the nearest comparable confederation, Tabiahe over 180 km south (and over 300 km by river travel), over control of towns along the Choyaha and its tributary. This rivalry seeminglu lay rooted in Tabiahe's perceived assumption of Mihithega's mantle and Yetshedi's longstanding dislike of Mihithega. As a result of numerous wars, much of the area between the Choyaha Basin and the Ohio lay deserted in the 13th century due to frequent conflict. At times however, raiding parties penetrated far deeper, striking nearly at the heartland before retreating. Several towns ended up totally destroyed by these lightning raids that often employed trickery that was warriors attributed to spiritual intervention.
Ruins of Yunenekho [17], a town of Tabiahe's confederation. Raiders allied to Yetshedi sacked this town around 1295
The influence of Yetshedi spread up the Ohio River to the foothills of the Central Appalachians. Misebians from both Yetshedi and Mihithega settled in this area, fusing with local peoples and a later influx of Algonquian speakers. These Misebian peoples, who called themselves Kimaha in their language or later Acansa by later European settlers [18], seem to have gained leadership over local groups, perhaps from their ability to mediate disputes as the population increased. In the long-term, they culturally assimilated the western half of this society.
The Acansa disliked the overbearing demands of Yetshedi's powerful rulers and created a remarkably egalitarian society, as attested by Qwinishtis's description of them in
Saga of the Lands of Dawn.
"As I searched for allies to punish the bandits of Yits'iniit [Yetshedi], I met the sturdy men of the Kimaatkhs [Acansa], yet they refused to enter my service. I inquired and discovered that the Kimaatkhs zealously guard their independence and serve no ruler they do not all appoint. They are much like the siyams of the Furusattsu yet even more free-minded, for all but the slaves of their nation hold this attitude."
While hereditary positions existed among the Acansa, they held even less power than the town rulers of the Misebians. The entire community (barring slaves) elected these men from hereditary nobles in great public elections held in the plazas of their community. These elections extended to high priests, war chiefs, ruling councils of towns, leaders in war, and practically any position of authority.
Economically, they herded towey goats and farmed maize, but extensively traded with the Massawomeck and the Shawanoki to their east [19]. They obtained timber, reindeer (a commonly sacrificed animal), and copper and bronze from further north in exchange for grain and Misebian goods. The Acansa traded these goods to both Yetshedi but also to those centers like Chiyaha [20] far to the south in the Upper Tennessee Valley.
Among other Misebians, they were famed for not just this "ungovernability" but their astronomical knowledge as well. While "woodhenges" and other circles of posts used to plot seasonal alignments were common throughout the Misebian world, the Acansa advanced this art even further. They utilised earthworks and mounds built by pre-Acansa peoples for their observations, tracking the 18.6 year metonic cycle that predicted lunar eclipses as people of this region had for nearly a millennium.
Their largest observatory, termed the Acansa Labyrinth, was a new earthwork built in imitation of the centuries older earthworks to their north. Its earthen walls marked the positions of the moon as well as the sun on the solstice. Its centerpiece contained a narrow window that illuminated a chamber with four sacred fires only on the solstice. These monuments gave the Acansa priests their famed astrological knowledge.
Warfare
Misebian warfare proceeded as it had since the 11th century. It held a strong emphasis on ambush, where warriors were expected to demonstrate bravery in killing and scalping their foes. After outmanuevering and destroying their opponent's warriors in the field, the war parties besieged towns. Misebians used a variety of clubs, bows, and axes for their fighting weapons, manufactured from either stone or rarely bronze. Because of the hot, humid climate of their region, they rarely wore much armour outside of padded leather or wicker shields, decorated with red dyes, feathers, and polished copper to denote rank and status.
Misebian armies assembled on the basis of clan and town. Unlike the Northern Misebians where warfare was practically the solely domain of societies dedicated to warfare and hunting, a Misebian commander selected from all fit and capable men. Men were assigned roles and positions based on the number of enemies they scalped, ideally by clubbing an enemy into submission and scalping him while still alive. Special roles were afforded to those who carried sacred regalia such as the ceremonial maces, axes, or plates, often forged from is termed red gold, a reddish alloy of copper and gold [21] or otherwise painted with realgar or cinnabar.
Each town had their own war chief, responsible for organising raids and defense. In larger confederations, he acted as a local intermediary for the highest-ranking war chief at the confederation. His position was achieved by merit, selected from the highest rank of warriors (who in turn obtained their rank through collecting enemy scalps) by the council and clan heads.
Like peace chiefs, the war chief lacked in authority, for they were not permitted to raise forces without the consent of the council and the clan heads. They were expected to answer to the council and clan heads for all discipline they meted out to their troops (which might result in their removal, banishment, or even execution), hence a general reluctance to enforce order among their soldiers. Qwinishtis (himself a military leader) describes this as follows:
"I punished my auxiliaries for that premature attack against the Sutsiatkh [Caddo], as anyone might punish overeager warriors, but they showed no shame. They protested I was but a mere outsider who lacked permission from their clan chiefs to carry out such deeds. I protested to their war chief but he implored me to reduce their punishment for he might fall into disfavour among his nobles. When I flogged their leader, confiscated his sacred mace and plates, and withheld food from the rest for four days as any good commander might, a great mass deserted and promised I might receive their kin's punishment."
While Misebians venerated the war club as a symbol of courageous warriors, among outsiders their most famous weapon of the Misebians were their longbows produced from the Osage orange tree. These developed from the famed bows of Osage orange acquired from the Caddoans by the Tunica people of the Lower Pahateno River [22]. The Misebian longbow was prized for both the quality of its construction, its long range, and its stopping power against armoured opponents such as Northern Misebian raiders. They were most common on the Lower Misebi River and areas west, where the wealthy used these longbows in warfare and for hunting large game such as bison.
Longbowmen often vexed Qwinishtis in his expedition and contributed to his final defeat at the Battle of Nawitash [23], although his first encounter came in a skirmish against a war party from Yetshedi. "Most accursed of the enemy's forces are their bowmen, for the wealthiest among them use a bow as tall as a man. The arrows flew such distance we hardly saw our attackers as they cut our ranks down. So strong is this bow it pierced my flagbearer's bronze helmet and killed him instantly. I learned from a nobleman I captured that these powerful bows came from a people far to the southwest called the Sutsiatkh [Caddo], who trade them to all nations, for the people of this land prize these arrows so they might kill a bison in a single shot."
A so-called "borrow pit" at Italwa. Dirt from here became the great platform mounds of that city while the pit itself was filled with water to serve as both a moat and pond to raise fish
Because of the population density and frequent warfare, the Misebian world proliferated in fortifications. Towns and cities often had a steep earthen wall on which sat a palisade marked with even taller watch towers for defense. Most of these settlements also had a moat, constructed out of the pit which they dug the earth they processed into mud bricks or their great mounds, with an inner palisade surrounding the central mound or mounds. Even small outlying settlements had these walls and towers.
The many waterways of the Misebian world ensured the vital role of ships in warfare. Everything from small canoes to large river boats were used for supplying sieges or making quick raids against villages. Powerful war chiefs assembled entire fleets of river boats capable of transporting over a thousand warriors into battle while crafty warriors of the Lower Misebi Valley carried small canoes to utilise the many swamps and bayous as ambush sites.
The religious dualism common in much of the Misebian world ensured a specialisation of ships for war and peace. From an early age, warships were narrower and with shallower draft and often used much red paint in the decoration of the hull and sail, giving them the nickname "red sailed ships". Merchant ships, fishing vessels, and pleasure vessels abhorred this colour, using white markings instead, hence the name "white sailed ships." This distinction even extended to small canoes, although these merely differed in the paint and decorations.
Changes of the 13th century
The sea trade brought by the Mesoamericans reoriented the economy of the Misebian world, drawing people increasingly toward the coast, a migration aided by drought, soil exhaustion, local deforestation, and onset of the Little Ice Age. Traditional manufacturing centers like Tihalenehe declined in the late 13th century, never recovering from disease, drought, and the reduced value of their goods. These manufactories must have seemed pedestrian and old-fashioned compared to the rich new goods brought by Mesoamerican traders. Their population departed, often to larger centers where the artisans and merchants hoped to make money in other means or even directly toward the coast.
Thus, the Mesoamericans began the process of overturning the established Misebian world order--the Middle Misebian heartland sank into decline, while the once outlying South Appalachian and Gulf Misebians became increasingly wealthy. Violence marked this economic transition, as Ohoshetak, the paramount center on the lower Misebi, devoted much manpower in repelling raids from desperate Middle Misebian leaders. Tens of thousands migrated south, founding new villages or joining existing ones.
The Misebians of the 12th and especially 13th centuries differed from their ancestors in large part because of great economic shifts. The emergence of specialist producers and artisans in the 11th century accelerated and long-distance trade changed from a trickle to a torrent. Much of this is due to the emergence of local gold mining in the southernmost areas of Appalachia around 1200 and especially the great increase in towey goat herding. From towey goats came tools, regalia, blankets, meat, and clothing that formed the focus of the regional economy while the towey goats themselves permitted traders to carry more with them. Traditionally traded goods such as salt continued playing their vital roles, especially as population increased.
The 13th century also saw much disaster. It was a century of drought, particularly in the lands near middle Mihithega. At the same time, the climate cooled starting around 1250 from volcanic eruptions in the Old World. This produced a feedback loop that resulted in the expansion of the prairies in the northern areas of the Middle Misebian realm with their thick, almost impenetrable soil. Forests became more sparse and limited in scope while farmed fields away from fertile bottomlands degraded into wilderness.
This spurred a trend toward urbanisation throughout the 13th century. Ongoing warfare resulted in isolated hamlets clustering into palisaded villages and towns, while the ever-increasing splendor of the paramount centers drew a constant stream of immigrants. Drought and soil exhaustion, both frequent occurences in the 13th century, always caused an additional stream of migrants, for serving as a poor labourer or porter in a larger community was preferable to starvation if it meant greater access to maize and other stored crops.
The mitigating factor in urbanisation was the emergence of epidemic disease (mumps, chickenpox, and whooping cough) that in the immunologically naive population produced deathtolls as high as 10%. Worse still came the emergence of seal flu in Fusania, which around 1270 produced a great epidemic in Eastern North America that likely killed 15-20% of the population. In northern areas, abandoned farmsteads and smaller towns were never repopulated, their fields reclaimed by the wilderness.
Contact with the Norse brought the spread of black rats from Europe by the late 13th century. More efficient at consuming human stores of grain than native rodents and capable of outcompeting them, they further stressed the Misebian population, particularly in the north where black rats arrived at earlier date.
Misebian centers declined or collapsed in droves in these decades, viewing the plagues, droughts, and severe winters as spiritual curses. While they gradually adapted and progressively developed the rudimentary knowledge of epidemiology found in practically all societies, in the meantime upheaval tore their land. Civil wars and violence increased, often tearing towns in two. For instance, Ohoshetak suffered a civil war in the 1270s (allegedly between twin brothers) but the result was inconclusive. Traditional legend states one brother and his followers departed south and founded a new city also called Ohoshetak, but later became better known by its Muskogean name, Foshiyasha ("place of yaupon") [23].
The shifting trade routes, the cooling of the climate, drought, overpopulation, and cultural shift of the epidemics all contributed to the decline of the Misebian culture as a unified phenomena. By 1300, each region was becoming more and more distinct on the basis of religion, societal practices, agriculture, and economy (in particular the growing influence of Mesoamerica) simply because of different adaptations. For this reason, the Misebian culture is said to end around this date, with "Late Misebian" as an imprecise grouping that truly only applies to the successors of the peoples of the Misebian heartland.
Cultures on the edge of the Misebian world fell into decline. The Caddoan Misebians and Central Plains Misebians suffered drought, a cooling climate epidemic, and invasion by hostile peoples. The Caddoan Misebians withstood these changes, although centers like Nateshu or Nakuhmitsa were never as large or wealthy again. The Central Plains Misebians suffered far worse, their society dividing between traditionalist confederation that worshipped at the increasingly vacant city of Arikiritsiki and a more migrant confederation that allied with the Plains Salish and several migrant tribes and adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle.
At the same time, those nearer the Gulf and southeast benefitted from increasing prosperity. They eagerly accepted Mesoamericans into their society and their rulers reaped the rewards of Mesoamerican cargoes. For Mesoamericans, this northern country was becoming increasingly important for their economic pursuits, especially for the Huastec and Olmec cities shut out of trade elsewhere. With this, the Misebian world was irrevocably tied to Mesoamerica, and North American affairs as a whole.
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Author's notes
This is a HUGE entry, something I've always wanted to write since I've long been fascinated by the Mississippian culture, wanted to see them do better, and over the years have visited several of the sites discussed in the entry. I relied on numerous sources, but the most frequently referred to here were Cahokia in Context: Hegemony and Diaspora, Mississippian Chiefdoms in the Deep South, and Mississippian Political Economy (the latter I would recommend for a more critical view on claims made regarding Mississippian complexity that pop up in both archaeological and popular literature). Political details I largely borrowed from accounts and analysis of Muskogean-speaking peoples like the Creek and Choctaw and archaeological speculation.
Some of this partially contradicts previous work in Chapter 19 and Map 4, but that's because I'm much better informed now than I was 3 years ago when I wrote that and want to do it proper justice. Consider this the "canon" version. This is a very frequent thing I've noticed with this TL lately, but so far I think I've done decent handwaves on issues like dates of migrations (earlier Athabaskan migrations because of reindeer
Because I've recently completed a trip to (western) Oregon and Washington, I've decided to insert pictures I've taken into this TL (nothing nice, just simple cell phone pictures, sorry). I'll intersperse these pictures into older entries I've of course visited several archaeological sites I've written about in this entry as well. I must note that visiting and driving through locations I've spent hours staring at on Google Maps or researching or writing about was both surreal and wonderful.
I described a huge number of people and places in this and the previous entry, and I do plan on doing a map for the Mississippians. However, my next entry will be the East Coast (roughly the states of North Carolina north to the Canadian Maritimes), which I've so far only mentioned in passing. This one will cover how the Algonquians and Iroquoian peoples are doing TTL, and will also include a bit of discussion on the Norse (which will be the entry after that).
As always, thank you for reading!
[1] - Roughly Missouri, southern/central Illinois, southern/central Indiana, southern Ohio, all of Kentucky (besides the northeastern corner), Tennessee, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, South Carolina, and part of western North Carolina.
[2] - This problem was noticed at Monks Mound at Cahokia as early as the 13th century OTL--today's Monks Mound has been restabilised several times to preserve the structure.
[3] - Mihithega is my ATL name for Cahokia.
[4] - Shaneha is Ducktown, TN (a copper mining region since Mississippian times), Akatalla is the Hiwassee Island site upstream from Chattanooga, TN, Chatolanochi is Dahlonega, GA, Tabiahe is Nashville, TN (specifically Fort Nashborough/the French Lick, probably the largest Mississippian town in the Nashville Basin that would logically be even larger as salt production/trade is even more important TTL)
[5] - Transferring settlement names was common in the Mississippian world, as attested by the DeSoto expedition. The "new" Mihithega is at St. Louis, which was once nicknamed "the Mound City" for its enormous collection of mounds that were occupied for some time after the collapse of Cahokia. Likely the old Mihithega would still have the same name, but be disambiguated "Old" (or in Siouan "Nu-") Mihithega
[6] - That would be the hill the Tennessee State Capitol is situated on OTL. This mound and the palace atop would combined be about roughly half the height of the State Capitol building
[7] - Italwa is the Etowah Mounds in Georgia, one of the largest Mississippian sites OTL. It's history TTL is similar to OTL, where it was an important trade center that often traded with both polities on the Gulf and the Upper Tennessee River and had a rivalry with centers in modern Alabama that at one point succeeded in destroying the city
[8] - Mobilian Jargon existed in this exact role OTL. It seems likely that it existed in precolonial times but changed greatly as the most valuable trading partners in the Gulf became the French.
[9] - Ohoshetak is the Winterville site in Washington County, MS, just north of Greenville, MS
[10] - Nakuhmitsa is the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma and Nateshu is the Harlan Site in Cherokee County, OK
[11] - Okaholla is Moundville in Alabama
[12] - Pakanahuili is Atlanta, GA, Taski is near Cleveland, TN (identified by De Soto as "Tasqui"), Yetshedi is the Kincaid Site in Massac County, IL.
[13] - Kojche is Apalachicola, FL, Tihalenehe is Dover, TN and Wewoka is Florence, AL. In Mississippian times, this was the site of the Dover chert, famed for making widely traded hoes (although like many Mississippian-related claims, these are somewhat exaggerated by certain archaeologists).
[14] - P'ol is New Orleans, LA
[15] - Zama is Savannah, GA
[16] - Chuuj Ha is Blakely, AL (across from Mobile, AL) while Talwisi is the Bottle Creek Mounds, an isolated site in the Mobile Delta.
[17] - Yunenekho is Mound Bottom, a Mississippian-era ruin near Pegram, TN
[18] - "Acansa" is the root of the word "Arkansas", the Algonquian term for Dhegihan Siouan peoples and this would be an ATL Fort Ancient culture of Ohio/Kentucky/West Virginia which is fully "Mississippian" instead of laying at the peripheral like OTL. Fort Ancient was in all likelihood Dhegihan Siouan-speaking in the Mississippian era and only later did Algonquians (probably the proto-Shawnee) settle there
[19] - These are the people of the Monongahela culture in modern WV and PA who at least in part represent ancestral Shawnee (here called Shawanoki) as well as the Iroquoian-speaking Massawomeck (who OTL were destroyed as a people by the mid-17th century)
[20] - Chiyaha is at Dandridge, TN, the same as the town of Chiaha encountered by De Soto
[21] - Colonial accounts note Muskogean Indians (and many post-Mississippian natives of the South) carrying regalia like this in warfare, always made from copper. These seem to hold an antecedent in the Mississippian period. TTL, with the working and mining of gold common, the Misebians add gold to their copper to make a reddish metal (red a symbol of warfare i.e. the Creek "Red Sticks") akin to Japanese shakudo
[22] - The Pahateno is the Red River of the South. Osage orange, a very sturdy wood, was indeed a major trade good for the Caddoan and Tunica peoples OTL
[23] - Nawitash is the Battle Mound site in Lafayette County, Arkansas, reported by the chroniclers of the De Soto expedition as Naguatex
[24] - Foshiyasha is the Holly Bluff site (aka Lake George) in Yazoo County, Mississippi. Likely this was the great polity De Soto identified as the town of Quigualtam after its leader, but the Muskogean name I've given is my own