A Horn of Bronze--The Shaping of Fusania and Beyond

[Arkenfolm]

Below is the promised map of Oasisamerica, Aridoamerica, and South Fusania in the 13th century. The shaded areas highlight the cultural regions found in the area.

 

[Arkenfolm]

-LXXXIV-
"Down the River and Towards the Dawn: The Pathfinder"

From T'ashatlinhl Qwinishtis, Saga of the Lands of Dawn (1470)

The warriors of Ohisi and the lands of the Wutucha​

One year to the day after burying my father in these lands far from home, I finally departed the rude winter shelters my men established in the land under the great lord of Ohisi [Ohese]. We met once more with a Hillman warmaster who cautioned against traveling south, for there lay the many warlike tribes called Wutucha or Patuka [1] and beyond them the worst enemy of all, the great prince of Mihitika [Mihithega]. We explained we could not return, for we still had our mission in proclaiming every mountain and coast lay under the dominion of the Pillar King.

The warmaster lent me 400 warriors, all men of rude quality and led us to a river his people knew as the "Great River". Yet this river was not the same as the White Imaru [2] we traveled the previous year. I am sure to these Hillmen it is no different than the situation in the Lands of the Center [3] where there is the Red Imaru in the north, Grey Imaru in the center, and Yellow Imaru in the south. It was truly a river worthy of its name, so vast and wide with many boats and villages by its banks, so we deemed it the Dawn Imaru [4].

We set down the Dawn Imaru in the late spring, our hearts joyful as the coldest winter faded fast. The country grew more deserted each day. Around the start of the 6th month, we entered battle against a tribe of Hillmen as they attacked our encampment at the shore. They slew many of Ohisi's Hillmen and drove off the rest but their clubs proved futile against the axes of our warriors. We captured a man I believe led this war party (for in battle he wore a fine red cloak, copper helmet with eagle feathers, and wielded a great copper mace) and to my surprise, my Hillmen allies I recruited the year prior far to the west informed me he spoke their language [5]! I examined this fact myself and found even I could interpret traces of what he spoke from my command of Yatupahen.

I later learned in my journey the truth of this matter. These Wutucha, who call themselves "Tahushkanitina" (meaning in their tongue "people of the hills"), are much like the Hillmen of our homeland and settled their homeland from further beyond. They claim that many generations ago, this land was empty for its people fled wars between Mihitika and those Hillmen principalities further north. Wanderers for all time, they were granted this land at the behest of their gods, but only under the condition they abandon their old ways and learn the ways of this land. This is why the Wutucha worship at the old temples built by the former people of this land, dance the same dances, and keep eternal flames burning as is this country's custom, for if they do not, they will suffer famine, drought, and disease and surely be driven out.

We attacked a village of Wutucha days later and replenished our stocks of food and pack animals, although curiously, these Hillmen owned only a single reindeer, a fat, lame beast they told me they would offer to the lord of their country on the solstice. We slew every adult male and woman in the village and took the children as slaves. The Hillmen of Ohisi lingered much in this village as they unearthed the dead, looted graves, and extinguished every flame. So long did they linger we scarcely escaped the arrival of far more enemies. Five brave men of our homeland perished so our journey might continue, their corpses no doubt desecrated by our foul foes [6].

For the Hillmen of Ohisi, I realised I must punish them, lest they prevent the Pillar King's light from spreading to this dark and distant country. As we approached the country under the great ruler of Mihitika, I recalled the enmity between that prince and the prince of Ohisi. I devised a brilliant plan where I held a feast for my party and gave the Hillmen nearly much remaining salal wine. In their intoxication I took their weapons and armour and placed them in chains and set them under watch by men and dog alike.

At Nishikuta and the first meeting with the Anakutatkhs​

How fortunate I was, for the next morning the canoes of Mihitika's vassal prince appeared, full of warriors with sails emblazoned in red. Even if my superior canoes and warriors would have defeated them, I was happy I did not have to fight for I drew their attention with the many slaves from both Ohisi and the Wutucha and received an invitation to the city of Niskikuta [Niskigoda]. There I witnessed the first market of the Anakutatkh people, a powerful and wealthy nation. Here surrounded by tall walls of earth and wood lived thousands of people, guarded by fierce and veteran Hillmen warriors [7].

At their market gathered many other Anakutatkhs who eagerly looked over the salt, slaves, bison pelts, and livestock. I saw many reindeer, which I am told the Anakutatkhs capture from the Hillmen further upstream. These were the main trade goods of Niskikuta. While I sold the children of the Wutcuha into slavery, the merchants refused to take the men of Ohisi into slavery. They called upon the warriors of the town who at once arrived and dragged them to the great plaza of the city where their scalps were sliced off by priests. There they affixed them to poles decorated with red coppers which their warriors danced around. I was informed that enslaving adult men produced useless slaves.

I suffered another setback, for the nobles of Niskikuta treated me as a mere merchant. I was not able to meet with the ruler of their city, who lived behind great wooden walls atop a high hill of earth the people raised for him. It resembled those great earthen pyramids once raised by the Amims centuries ago, yet unlike those old Amims he held his palace atop this hill, resplendent with strings of shining coppers and shells.

I gambled and feasted with the merchants of Niskikuta, where I first encountered the great sport of the Anakutatkhs and many other peoples of these lands. Their gamblers play the stickgame with the most peculiar rules[...] [8]. I did not wish to learn this barbarian code, so I waited several days until the ruler of the city held a great feast. He emerged from the roof of his palace atop the high hill, the sun gleaming off the many coppers and golds he wore on his cloak and summoned the people to play the hoop game [9]. The teams rolled their stones and threw their sticks as great throngs cheered them on. I gambled the night away with my men, yet lost nothing for I promised I would give the gamblers of Niskikuta much the next morning, yet before the sun rose I fled with my men.

At the greatest city of the east​

We sailed downstream for two days and excitement built in my heart, for I knew Mihitika must be a grand city. The people of the villages we stayed at claimed it the mother of cities and the greatest of all in the world. Few had ever been to Mihitika, for it is a city of pilgrims. One cannot merely travel to Mihitika, for one must prove themselves worthy before entering its walls. I ordered my men to abduct the wives and children of a village headman so we too might be seen as wealthy. As the headman raised his warriors, we killed him and seized his possessions and distributed them amongst ourselves and his warriors who we pressed into service as guards.

On that clear summer afternoon, I witnessed Mihitika for the first time. Two small hills, one on either side of the Dawn Imaru, grew larger and larger as it became apparent these were the earthen pyramids of Mihitika. Yet before I might stand at their feet, I witnessed two great rivers colliding for here at Mihitika, the White Imaru meets the Dawn Imaru. How much water from how far away must end up at this site, where it might take half a morning for a man to swim across! There are no convergences of water so grand in the Lands of the Center, for only in the greatest floods might the Irame and Kuskuskai join the Imaru at such enormous volumes of water.

Mihitika lays on the western side of this river. It is a truly grand city that fills the river bank some distance inland with a myriad houses. The oldest families have their homes atop earthen pyramids of various sizes from the height of a man to the height of a tree according to their rank--I must have counted dozens of these [10]! Myriads of people must live in this city, for it is as large as Tinhimha, Matlnumakh, or Wayam.

At the chief plaza, a great myriad of people thronged in the marketplace in which we noted the goods of countless lands. I gained access with the slaves I took and the rare goods of my homeland I possessed to which I exchanged for the shells they use as currency. I saw few shells from our land, which these Hillmen consider among the rarest and finest shells. I was amazed when the merchant selling the single abalone shell demanded as his price twenty knives of bronze and twenty shells from the Eastern Sea.

They sold all sorts of livestock at the market, from the scrawny reindeer beloved by the Hillmen upstream alongside many breeds of towey goats, ducks, geese, and turkey. I saw goods from lands far to the south such as clothing dyed the finest colours, incense of strange colours, and jades and turquoise of all sorts. They sold great crystals and powders of realgar and cinnabar and all manner of gold and silver. I even encountered great orbs of jasper set in gold, laid inside a fine ivory case, a manufacture of the likes favoured by the wealthiest notables of Shonitkwu far away in the Lands of the Center.

I heard a great diversity of tongues in the marketplace, for although the people of Mihitika conduct their business in Anakutatkh, they come from many days beyond. I even saw men who came from across the eastern sea, their skin worn from the fierce sun of their homeland and their tattoos and manner of dress unusual. They wore bright feathers from their heads and shining earrings of gold. I inquired on their homeland to which they replied they come from a land called Maayap [11]. I wished for my ships to accompany them home, but these merchants refused my offer, accepting only the ivory I offered them in exchange for a strange powder they sold, which they claimed granted one endless strength to prevent desire from sleep.

All commerce in this marketplace is observed by the city council, who appoint a man to watch from a high earthen pyramid. He summons warriors who resolve all disputes in the market. I witnessed a man steal from a merchant caught by the guards not long after. They inspected the man for his goods and upon not finding them, they gave him away in slavery to the merchant he wronged. The merchant refused to own this man and sold him to another man in exchange for three live geese.

Although this earthen pyramid is quite tall, it is far shorter than the earthen pyramid beside it. It is a true mountain forged by men, much higher than anything ever made by the Amims and indeed more akin to a smaller version of the great buttes rising from their valley. I had to lean my neck back to see the grand palace sitting atop, surrounded by high columns decorated with strings of coppers and discs of silver that stood over a palisade that shone from all the metals hanging from it. It gleamed as the sun, the seat of the perhaps the greatest Hillman prince of all.

I was told that when the prince of this city stands atop his palace, he might see the palace atop the other great earthen pyramid across the Dawn Imaru [12]. He might use his powers of sight to see the palace even on foggy days so he might spiritually communicate with his counterpart. Such is the power this man has, and I endeavoured to meet him.

At the site of many shrines​

I left Mihitika and crossed to the eastern side so I might encounter more noblemen. There I found many farms, and temples where few but farmers and priests live. They call it Numihitika, which in their language means "Ancient Mihitika." I showed them my wealth so I might enter unmolested. I learned from this man the old town was once called Mihitika as well. People from innumerable nations lived in this city and chased after its spiritual wisdom. But one day the priests lost their wisdom and for this they suffered divine punishment, for the spirits cursed them with floods, disease, earthquakes, and dischord. Myriads died and all but a few people returned home. Yet one day the people received new wisdom and revived their city.

Here there are innumerable earthen pyramids, home only to shrines dedicated to ancestors. The nobles of Mihitika tend these shrines and I heard many different tongues spoken among them, not just those of the Anakutatkh. I ventured into one such shrine and saw great flames burning producing fragrant smoke and chains of gold and copper dangling, yet nothing more. I was nearly killed by the men guarding this shrine, but I left my life and freedom to the spirits governing the stickgame, in which I was victorious even with the strange code used in this land.

There in Numihitika we came to the foot of a pyramid as equally great as the one across the river, where we had to lean our heads back to even perceive the top. There overlooking many pyramids (large in their own right) on which stood shrines and temples sat the grandest temple of all. Hanging coppers and discs of gold and silver shone all about this building and its palisade. I felt so many spirits call out to me in the eerie silence of this plaza, the wind whispering from the copper-clad columns at each corner.

First sight of the precious stones​

I stayed in Mihitika for several days until the summer solstice, after which I had been told I would receive a meeting with the nobles of the city. Thousands and thousands of people filled Numihitika as they crossed the river in great fleets of canoes. They danced and celebrated and feasted in that once empty plaza, barbaric dances which might only be found in a Namal winter dance house [13]. Yet they shameless conduct these dances and festivities in the summer, drinking great quantities of a poisonous dark drink until they vomit it out.

As the sun began to set that evening, I brewed the powder the men of Maayap gave me. The earthy-tasting medicine gave me strength and focus as my spirit awoke and chased the sleepiness from my body. I celebrated the solstice with my own men and raised our spirits so we might spread light in this dark land. To my horror, I learned this was the same drink consumed by the dancers of Mihitika, made safe by not including the mixture of herbs they use. I pray this did not darken my spirit, and from there on I ordered my men to treat this drink as they might alcohol and beware of its evil nature.

As the night drew on, a great cloud of smoke erupted from the palace atop this pyramid. Nobles in brilliantly dyed robes with much shining jewelry of the city entered the gate and congregated in the yard of the plaza atop the first tier of the pyramid. They sang and danced in tandem with the audience below and summoned the high priest of the city. He was an ancient man with such grand finery, carried from the temple on a litter by subordinate priests.

Then the nobles parted, lifting a litter they carried to the high priest as the prince himself emerged. He was a surprisingly tall and handsome for a Hillmen, not like the stubby people of this country who practically starve on their diet of Hillmen grain [maize], and wore so many rich gems and silver and copper on his robes.

Yet the grandest of his adornments were the shards of the moon itself, set into a bronze scepter embedded with red gems embellished with gold. Every source of light that struck these shards danced about as if this stone nourished the spirits of our world. It looked as large as my thumb with each smaller stone the size of the tips of my finger. I have never seen stones so pure and beautiful in this world. The prince of the city handed the scepter to the high priest, who waved it about as he blessed the people and their land, but I was too transfixed on the stones to notice the ritual.

When I saw that piece of the moon, my spirit grew heated and frenzied out of its desire to serve my master the Pillar King. My breathing became sharp and only the knowledge we would all surely die held me back from ordering my soldiers attack the congregation of nobles and seize that scepter. I know braver men than me would have tried, for those stones must be the finest artifact in existance, the grandest gift possible for the Pillar King who upholds harmony in this world.

As the ceremony ended, I finally received my audience with the nobles. Before I even tried getting them to acknowledge the Pillar King as their ruler, I inquired just what those stones were. They called them moonstones and told me there was no rarer stone in existance. The prince of Mihitika owns the rarest of all, the largest moonstone in existance which his ancestors seized from the prince of the great city of Uhushetak [Ohoshetak] far to the south, who claimed it from its owner in the greatest match of the hoop game in history [14].

They are found in a single place in the world, the Moonstone Meadow far to the south at the border between the mountains and the plains. The stones are so hard they might only be cut with other moonstones. The only men who know how to cut these stones are the household servants of the prince of Awakai, who holds sway over the Moonstone Meadow and much other land [15].

As I learned these things, my heart became heavy, for I knew my destination. The moment I reached the eastern sea, I would set out for Awakai so I might seize the moonstones for myself and grant them to my master the Pillar King. I knew my spirit might slay me on the spot should I dare abandon my journey.

---
​

Of all indigenous American primary sources, few are more valuable than T'ashatlinhl Qwinishtis, Saga of the Lands of Dawn for reconstructing North America before the arrival of Europeans. Writing in a straightforward and self-aggrandising manner, Qwinishtis describes the many countries and people he passed through on his journey to reach "the eastern sea" at the behest of the Pillar King.

Saga of the Lands of Dawn traces Qwinishtis's journey from 1432, when he set out past the American Divides under his father, the military leader T'ashikwihl Nanaashwayik, to his eventual return to Fusania some thirty years later. He describes practically all of North America besides Central America and the northeast, recounting the customs of dozens of different ethnic groups along with the fate of his own expedition and his misadventures.

Like nearly all indigenous Fusanians, Qwinishtis was illiterate, so he dictated the book in his native Atkh language to a scribe who wrote it down in his native Coastal Script. The original Atkh text survives only in fragments but it was translated into Lelemakh, Classical Wayamese, and Namal no later than 1480. The Lelemakh text is also lost beside fragments, but the Wayamese and Namal survive.

Each text of Saga of the Peoples of Dawn differs slightly, editing the details of some figures involved (likely related to worries about restating stories of the ancestors of prominent people without ample permission, a legal issue in parts of Fusania) and at times adding new details. The Namal text in particular differs, leading to a once-common belief that Gaiyuchul himself translated it. However, Gaiyuchul was fluent in Atkh and clearly relied on the original as a source for Saga of the Peoples of the World. Likely the translation was produced by his fellow Katlamat School historian Akaimyakhust Qatlakhwakhkwala, whose own works that often centered on the Coastmen are largely lost.

The influence of the book began with Gaiyuchul's Saga of the Peoples of the World, among the earliest explicitly ethnographic work concerning Amerindians. For many educated Fusanians, it served as the foundation of their knowledge of the world. It reminded them of their cultural superiority as well as the central nature of their society, yet also told them about the wealth other lands had to offer. In particular, the spread of the book on the Imaru Plateau and in the Kuskuskai Plain likely resulted in increased trade toward the eastern Plains, although it is unknown if any tried following in Qwinishtis's footsteps as all archaeeological traces of Fusanians in the east can be attributed to trade and middlemen.

As a work of literature, it served as the template for future Fusanian travelogues (despite Gaiyuchul's critique of its style). It was dramatic, adventurous, and casual, not relying on the staid rationality of the Katlamat School and referenced a glorious past instead of the troubled political situation of the current era. It was among the first indigenous Fusanian works printed on woodblocks by native printers in the 16th century, retaining its popularity for many decades to come.

Foreign translations of Saga of the Lands of Dawn were just as important in East Asia. An anonymous translator produced a Japanese translation of the Namal edition around 1510, appearing as part of the wave of interest in Fusania among Japanese intellectuals spurred by the appearance of Jikken's commentaries and translations of Gaiyuchul's works. This translation and subsequent commentaries was one of the foundation works for East Asian interest in the New World. Translated into Chinese around 1515, it was believed to be a roadmap to unbelievable wealth. What started as the acts of adventurous merchants, eccentrics, and the politically disgraced became a flood of far more ordinary individuals seeking to make their fortune in the land. In particular, this was critical for the rapid growth of Nihonmachi and Chinese merchant communities in the New World that in time reshaped the economic and political situation of New World societies.

European translations were more limited in their influence yet still important for Western understanding of the Americas. The Spanish likely first encountered the book in their campaigns in Pacific Mesoamerica in the 1530s, but it was only translated in portions in the 1540s and not fully translated until the Jesuits produced a complete edition in 1582. This was joined by translations from Japanese a decade later produced by Portuguese missionaries. Unsurprisingly, this led to a new wave of conquistador expeditions aimed at the Misebi Valley and even Far South Fusania, some of which ironically repeated the exact folly of Qwinishtis's bloody and fruitless hunt for the Caddoan diamonds or those pursuits for cities of gold like elsewhere in the Americas.

Numerous myths of Eastern North America and its natives exist as a result of Saga of the Lands of the Dawn, such as fields where diamonds grow like wildflowers and great cities of gold whose rulers once commanded vast armies of Indians clothed in finely dyed cotton and wielding shining bronze weapons. These myths inspired innumerable expeditions and searches into the interior of the continent and rose to folkloric proportions. Qwinishtis himself became a legendary figure, a foremost leader of Indians whose life and status was exaggerated into being an "exiled son of the great Indian Emperor of the West." Despite being a barbarian to East Asians and a heathen to Europeans, he was often held out as the most brilliant and intellectual of his race, a stark contrast to the "wild Indians" or ignorant Indian peons most frequently dealt with.

Qwinishtis himself was, of course, no such person. He was the lesser son of Atkh nobleman and military leader T'ashikwihl Nanaashwayik, with his mother likely a Namal woman (although not a freed slave, as some have suggested). He was trained as a sailor, whaler, and hunter, as many youth, and fought alongside his father in the Pillar King's campaigns. One of these campaigns was the dramatic effort to subdue the entirety of the Plains using the "White Imaru" (Fusanian name for the Nisacha River) due to the religious zeal of the Pillar King and the mistaken belief in the inferior numbers and skills of the natives and size of the land. While this expedition was abandoned, T'ashikwihl Nanaashwayik refused to return, persisting with his attempt to reach the great eastern sea that in the Fusanian worldview logically existed to balance out the great western sea (i.e. the Pacific Ocean).

His life after his return to Fusania is little known. His wives had left him, for he was believed to have died 30 years before, but one of his sons still recognised him and cared for him until his death sometime in the 1470s. His reputation was poor, for he was deemed an eccentric who merely wrote a collection of tales he heard from sailors and merchants interspersed with fictional stories of battles, gambling, and exploration. It is likely he only enjoyed any credibility at all through the efforts of Gaiyuchul, who participated in the same expedition to the Plains (albeit he turned back with the bulk of the force) and himself explored parts of South Fusania.

Since serious scholarship began in the 19th century, Qwinishtis is often described as the "Marco Polo of the New World" for his frequent exaggerations. For instance, he describes the scale of Mesoamerican pyramids, sacrifices, and cannibalism as one where "rivers of blood begin on these mountains of stone as rivers of water begin on our own mountains" in order so that "the nobles of these lands might dine on human flesh each night." In addition to encounters with deities like Coyote, Qwinishtis describes meetings with fantastic creatures like the "furred dwarves" of the south who commanded "naked and ignorant peasants", "naked fish-men" of the islands, or the walking, man-eating bundles of reeds. The former appears to represent encounters with monkeys in the Caribbean and the latter Antillean and Gulf Coast peoples who inflicted slavery and brutality on Qwinishtis and thus were attributed a subhuman reputation.

Others describe him as "Marco Polo the conquistador", for like Spanish narratives, Qwinishtis presents himself as full of religious zeal, greed for precious stones he sought to present to the Pillar King, a tendency toward self-aggrandisement, belief the peoples he encountered were violent, uncivilised, and incapable of and frequent deceit and backstabbing. Psychologically, Qwinishtis seems to have been so devoted to the Pillar King and Fusanian concepts of civilised vs barbarian as a means of establishing the Atkhs as a civilised people, a concept of crucial political importance in his era as the Atkhs became more integrated to the "civilised" core of Fusania in the Imaru Basin.

Many of the deadly situations he found himself in were self-inflicted, in particular his constant struggles against Misebian cities, including those Caddoan cities he spent years fighting against to find diamonds (thus destroying his expedition) or his time spent as a galley slave to the Antillean pirates or porter to Olmec merchants. However, he was a talented fighter, skilled gambler, and brilliant deceiver, and this let him become master of an Aztatec ship and eventuallly return home.

Modern scholarship relies much on Saga of the Lands of Dawn, for Qwinishtis is practically our only source on the indigenous history of Eastern North America. He collected numerous stories, recorded many placenames and even phrases in indigenous languages. Without Qwinishtis, much of the history and even the very names of countless places in Eastern North America would have been lost, for little Misebian writing survives north of the Gulf. Qwinishtis paints a picture of a healthy, thriving civilisation, albeit one often torn by warfare and petty feuds, one far different than the cold, analytical descriptions favoured by Maya merchants or the dying lands portrayed by Spanish conquistadors. These are thus invaluable for modern reconstructions of the way of life of these cultures in their golden age.

---
Author's notes​

I intended to write this as a short vignette to start the chapter on the Misebians, but it grew more and more elaborate until I had several chapters of a travelogue from Qwinishtis, who I introduced several chapters ago as a contemporary of Gaiyuchul. I plan on featuring more of these travelogues since they're great ways of showcasing different areas. I annotated the different toponymy Qwinishtis himself uses, which is because the Atkh language doesn't really have a sound for the "o" vowel and sounds spelled "r", "l", "b", "th", or "ng" so would be heard in a particular way.

Note that Qwinishtis is traveling in the 1430s, about 150 years further than I plan on describing (for now), but things are still broadly similar. The description on Qwinishtis and his text at the end is written from the perspective of a modern scholar. I tried hard to avoid spoilers for events I want to show later, but it should show the general direction of how and where I want to take this TL.

As noted, the next entry is the proper one on the Middle Misebians, which I have finished writing but instead of cleaning it up and arranging it, I wrote out all this instead.

[1] - "Patuka" is cognate with Padouca, the French term from Dhegihan Siouan that was used for hostile tribes (especially the Apache and Comanche). Given these are Athabaskan speakers, it seems fitting. "Wutucha" is an Atkh form of the Chiwere Siouan cognate "worucha".
[2] - Term for the "civilised" portion of North Fusania centered on the Imaru [Columbia River] Basin and Furuge [Salish Sea]
[3] - Both the Imaru [Columbia] and Shisutara [Fraser] had names meaning "great river" to the people who lived there, which is extremely common in indigenous North American toponymy. I have never disambiguated because I use later TTL Japanese names, but I imagine it would be distinguished "Red Imaru" ("red" symbolising "north") for the Fraser and Grey Imaru ("grey" symbolising "center") for the Columbia
[4] - This Imaru is the Misebi [Mississippi] River
[5] - Some mutual intelligibility exists between Athabaskan languages, which are not much more separate than the Germanic languages. However, Qwinishtis's knowledge of Yatupahen (an ATL Athabaskan language spoken northwest of OTL Campbell River, BC) isn't as useful since it diverged much earlier and has a heavy Salish substrate.
[6] - The attested Mississippian custom of grave desecration among defeated foes, where sacred flames would be extinguished and bodies of ancestors disinterred and strewn about. IIRC it's referenced by the Spanish and has associated archaeological evidence. While the Upper Misebians have different worship customs, they know enough about Middle Misebian groups (including the Tahushkanitina who have borrowed it) to desecrate temples as a sign of dominance. The five men who give their lives are ethnic Atkhs i.e. warriors Qwinishtis trusts far more
[7] - Qwinishtis uses the term "Anakutatkh" (an Atkh version of the Dhegihan for "us" or "ourselves" plus -"atkh" meaning "people") as a name for their ethnic group. As in 2019, I have arbitrarily assigned Dhegihan Siouan speakers to live in this area based on some evidence, although we don't know for certain since it was very multilingual in Mississippian--it may have been other Siouan groups, Muskogeans, or a now-extinct group akin to the Tunica, Natchez, Yuchi, etc. Niskigoda is Louisiana, MO at the confluence of the Salt River with the Mississippi.
[8] - The stickgame (a sort of guessing game popular among premodern Indian gamblers, nothing to do with various Indian ballgames called "stickball" aside from those also being associated with gambling) existed among some Siouan groups, but it was not the same as the form played in the Pacific Northwest (which I will call slahal as it is sometimes called today).
[9] - Chunkey, a popular Mississippian game OTL. It also occurred on the Plains and the Oneota culture, which is where Qwinishtis has seen it before.
[10] - OTL St. Louis had over 40 mounds which gave the city its old nickname "the mound city", all but one of which were demolished for farms and buildings.
[11] - Mayab is sometimes used as a synonym for Maya lands, or the Yucatan. It appears to be postcolonial in origin, but perhaps the Maya colonies in the Mississipi Basin used it to refer to their ancestral land in the Yucatan. Qwinishtis of course does not know much of the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic.
[12] - IOTL, one can see the Gateway Arch in the distance from atop Monks Mound in Cahokia. As Qwinishtis is seeing an ATL counterpart in St. Louis (the OTL highest mound was likely much smaller) which is located several blocks north of the Gateway Arch at about 10.5 km away, it seems plausible someone with very sharp eyes could make out Monks Mound even from this distance
[13] - As noted many chapters ago, Namal winter dances often involve temporarily inverting taboos as a sign of the darkness near the winter solstice. Most civilised peoples consider it scandalous, but not necessarily a barbarian Hillman custom
[14] - That is, the Uncle Sam diamond, a 40 carat stone and the largest diamond ever found in the United States. Ohoshetak is the Winterville site in Washington County, MS
[15] - The Moonstone Meadow is Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas, while Awakai is very near Murfreesboro, AR. For the purpose of TTL, I am identifying a decently-sized archaeological site in the region as the Caddoan town of Aguacay visited by the De Soto expedition.

 

[Arkenfolm]

-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.

---
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

 

[Arkenfolm]

-LXXXVI-
"In the Shadows of Only the Sun"​

Much as the great cultures of Europe and Japan were but peripheries to the great cultures of Mesopotamia and China, the same held true in North America. While the Mayan cities and Teotihuacan raised great pyramids to the sky and advanced culture as none had before, all of North America beyond the Bravo River from Fusania to Leivsland [1] lived in small villages. Centuries later, as Fusanians built great cities like Wayam or Koru and the people of the Misebi raised higher and higher earthen pyramids, those of the eastern portion of the continent far from centers like the Imaru Basin or Valley of Mexico lived much as they had for centuries, yet even their own lives began changing by 1200 thanks to external influences seeping into their society.

Divided into hundreds of tribes, there were countless villages scattered throughout this eastern land from the Outer Banks to just south of the Arctic Circle. The total population likely numbered no more than 1 million people at its height around 1200. All but the northernmost tribes practiced agriculture, some quite intensively, although no true cities existed. Maize, squash, and beans gradually spread north in the 1st millennium AD as Fusanian crops such as river turnip, bistort, omodaka, and water amaranth crept in from the west. Fusanian crops were fairly marginal, as all were either labour intensive or took more than one year to grow, but in colder regions such as the area north of the Great Lakes or the mountain meadows of Appalachia served as a valuable supplement to the diet.

The most important change in their cultures came with animal domestication. Domestication arrived in the east by the 11th century and accelerated during the subsequent two centuries as locals developed new breeds of reindeer and towey goats suitable for the local environment (moose herding never arrived in eastern North America). Domesticated animals granted perpetual access to valuable tools, meat, and skins, removing the need to undertake uncertain hunting expeditions. They served as valuable stores of wealth, reorienting the dynamics of individual groups. The need to find new grazing areas for these animals increased the territoriality of each group, forcing social institutions to evolve to mediate disputes and enforce claims.

Reindeer and towey goat herding served as the basis for regional economies. Because lowlanders often lacked these animals (especially reindeer which only thrived at higher altitudes), the people of the highlands gladly sold them reindeer and towey goats in exchange for all manner of goods. The lowland peoples often processed the animals for them, "returning" them as leather, blankets, and cloaks.

Aside from these larger animals, the most important and widespread were dogs and turkeys, for only a few groups at the fringes of this region raised ducks or geese. Dogs served in hunting and defense and often were ritually sacrificed among some groups. Domesticated turkeys arrived from the Misebians around 1150--by 1300 they spread across the entire region and were an important source of protein and feathers. Like in Oasisamerica, priests commonly sacrificed turkeys at festivals.

The pastoralist lifestyle impacted the patterns of land use. Forests became meticulously maintained, with destruction of white-tailed deer (carrier of brainworms fatal to reindeer) populations common as well as methods of maximising populations of preferred animal feed such as lichens and nut-bearing trees. Agriculture was kept to limited areas near riverbanks and swamps, fertilised by animal dung, dead fish, and slash and burn agriculture.

In the east, most villages and towns shifted generationally. Because of the buildup of pests from mites to rodents and gradual depletion of soil fertility, villages and towns would be abandoned every 30-40 years and left to revert to forest, reinhabited perhaps another few decades later. Villages lasted longer by the 13th century compared to the past where 10-20 years was the norm, for nicotine, a pesticide, was increasingly employed and fertilisers employed more efficient and widespread. Typically the population was no more than 500 people, clustered into several longhouses.

Regardless, a few larger commercial centers emerged at strategic trading points. In the southernmost and westernmost regions, these are likely influenced by Misebian cultures, but other developments are truly local. Nearly all of these were located along major rivers on the Fall Line where portages were necessary and distances not too far from the mountains. Supported largely by shifting farms and villages nearby, these centers thrived on trade in livestock and metals.

The largest of these commercial centers might have up to 2,000 people, but without knowledge of sanitation and because of local exhaustion of resources, they rarely lasted more than 25 years before their abandonment in favour of a nearby location. Despite their ephemeral nature, these centers served as the seats for powerful rulers and attracted trade from hundreds of kilometers away. The advancing technology ensured that by 1300, there were far more of these larger centers than ever before.

The Appalachian region, largely unsuitable for agriculture, was dominant among the eastern peoples for their livestock, mining operations, and the rich goods they received or raided from peoples to the west. Those east of them who wanted access needed to pay the exhorbitant prices with their own livestock, metals, or sometimes slaves. Nowhere else, besides perhaps among the middlemen traders living along the Kanada River [2], did such wealth exist in eastern North America.

The many valleys of Appalachia kept the region ethnically diverse, particularly in the southern areas where the climate was best for agriculture and thus lifestyles other than pastoralism. From north to south, the peoples associated with the region were the Andasti, the Massawomeck, the Shawanoki, the closely linked Tottero and Ofo Confederacies of Mountain Siouans [3], and the Chisca. Each of these groups spoke different languages and practiced distinct yet related customs, united only by common economies and their relation with the lowlanders.

The Appalachian tribes vigorously protected their hunting and grazing grounds, a problem for the western peoples whose population growth forced them closer to them. They also clashed with eastern peoples over the same issues, in particular tribes who sought to supplant them as masters of the mountains. Livestock raids were common in their culture--any youth who sought to become a warrior was typically required to steal at least one or two reindeer or towey goats before the older warriors would even consider training them further.

The 13th century saw these peoples take part in increasing numbers of wars, a result of the epidemics, increasing conflicts with lowlanders (especially the Misebians), drought, and the onset of the Little Ice Age. Towns in river valleys were progressive abandoned and moved into increasingly inaccessible locations of the mountains and fortified with all sorts of palisades and watch towers. While this reduced the threat from reprisal raids, it ironically led to the decline of their strength. They now grew less food and their food required more transport in the form of their livestock. With more effort devoted toward gaining food, populations stagnated and they sold fewer and fewer reindeer, towey goats, and other goods, resulting in a decline of their influence regionally by 1300.

The coastal region was relatively unpopulated and backward. Those at the at the Misebian periphery based their economies on bringing coastal goods (including shells, preserved fish, shark leather, turtles, and yaupon, whose northern range was just south of Chesepeake Bay) to the mountains. The latter was a luxury good as far north as Cape Code, drank during ceremonies yet often not in the form of the "black drink". They also ran a strong coastal trade, bringing luxury goods to other coastal towns with their large canoes. The Maya may have visited some of these towns before 1300 and their goods often appear, but these groups would trade with intermediaries or occasionally travel all the way to Zama, the furthest north port frequented by the Maya.

Aside the Arctic, the least developed region of North America was perhaps the Mid-Atlantic, sparsely inhabited by perhaps no more than 25,000 people of the related Algonquian Renappi tribes. Even in the 13th century, towey goat herding had only recently arrived in the northern areas and was unheard of around Chesepeake Bay, with their only domestic animals being turkeys and dogs. The people did not know metal smelting unlike those to the south or north and planted no Fusanian crops. They concentrated in defensive alliances centered around trading centers on the coast to protect what they had from the aggressions of the powerful mountain confederations. Their lives were almost entirely coastal, centered around fishing, farming, and harvesting shells.

Yet even this region benefitted from the wealth found elsewhere in North America. As tributaries of the powerful Massawomeck, they adapted towey goat herding and in the north, even reindeer herding by the end of the 13th century. Their reliance on a maritime lifestyle led to increasing connections between the various Renappi peoples. As Massawomeck power declined, the Renappi took advantage and reversed the situation, allying with the Andasti to crush Massawomeck power in coastal regions and supplanting it with the new Renappi Confederation.

Villages stood by lakes like this in Northeastern America. Villagers created water gardens in the shallows, take fish and birds nearby, and herd reindeer and towey goats in the nearby forest​

The peoples northeast of the Mid-Atlantic were wealthier, maintaining large herds of reindeer and goats since the 12th century. The many ponds and lakes of this region gave them access to easy trade routes and grounds for fishing and raising ducks and geese and most crucially, aquaculture. Unlike the Upper Misebians who lived in a similar environment, the northeastern peoples did not intensively farm or modify their environment. As a result, only the more tolerant river turnip, omodaka, and water amaranth were present, yet these produced far greater harvests than the marginal strains of maize, beans, and squash.

By 1300 as the climate cooled, land crops were abandoned, for the growing season was too unpredictable, the soil too rocky, and farming the land took potential forest land away. No doubt some part of it was for the safety of the women and children who maintained those fields in a time of increasing war--it was easier to hide in the water among the lilies and reeds than hide in a field. Neighbouring peoples found this lack of maize cultivation strange, as did English travelers such as John Smythe [4] who in 1614 remarked with astonishment that the natives of this area "knowe not the taste of corne but only the plants of their lakes and streames."

West of these peoples lived the various Iroquoian-speaking nations. These tribes were notoriously warlike, often clashing with each other or nearby Algonquians for captives and animal herds. Mixed cultivators of maize, beans, and squash as well as aquaculture of Fusanian origin, they were skilled reindeer herders. Their large reindeer herds, fertile lands, and occupied a strategic location, making them wealthier than the groups along the coast. Their largest towns, temporary as they might be, held up to 2,000 people.

The strongest among them were the Kanadiers, the Vændat, and the Haudenosaunee, each divided into several separate nations [5]. Their greatest trading partners were with those Innu tribes in the north--from them they imported much copper, tin, bronze, and gold to become the most important supplier of those metals in the northeastern woodlands. In exchange, they sold them their agricultural surplus, salt, and slaves who would be worked to death in the mines.

Their most notable trade good was perhaps maple syrup, taken from the sap of the sugar maple. All peoples of the northeast and Great Lakes gathered maple syrup and produced maple sugar, which they exported as far north as Markland and as far south as the lower Ohio. Widespread adoption of copper pots by 1200 aided in making maple sugar feasible to produce in large quantities compared to prior birch bark equipment.

In the 13th century Iroquoian nations discovered a unique property of maple syrup--it might ferment like anything else, and if managed correctly, this fermentation was both potent and delicious. The discoverer is unknown, although stories of its origin seem to point to it being discovered by merchants. The Iroquoians thus produced the first maple mead in the world, which like palm wine in Africa was a celebrated drink for rituals and feasts, consumed at winter and spring ceremonies and exported widely as a ritual drink for this purpose.

Unfortunately, maple mead was occasionally abused among the Iroquoians, who unlike groups to the west did not drink anything beyond very light alcohol. Conventionally around 15% ABV, some drank it heavily at feasts, ceremonies, and even daily life which naturally brought addiction and violence. Iroquoian nations were reputed as drunkards by outsiders, for they were the main producers of the drink. Traditional history claims it became such a problem that wars were started by drunkards--for this reason, in later centuries consumption of maple mead would be strictly regulated by the Great Law of Peace.

West of them, the Great Lakes Algonquians were marginal and diverse peoples living in the shadows of the wealthier Misebians to their south and west and Innu to their north. Their economy centered on reindeer pastoralism, although they also conducted much aquaculture (especially of Vinland rice) and served as middlemen in the metal trade. Somewhat influenced by the Misebians to their south, they frequently raided them over access to grazing ground, retreating into their dense forests to avoid reprisals.

The strongest confederation in the area was the Council of Three Fires, traditionally founded in the 8th century, but whatever ancient alliance existed did not fully assemble until around 1300, when the three nations represented united to oppose increasing encroachment from the raids of the maritime Tejana nation of Upper Misebians. In particular this concerned the city of Kechangkhetera, located on an island in the Straits of Mackinac the people of the Three Fires considered the birthplace of the world.

Oral history tells the Three Fires sacked Kechangkhetera around that date, but the local warriors put up a fierce resistance and killed many warriors of the Three Fires. However, the rulers of the Tejana refused to believe their feats in battle, so the Tejana warriors defected and made peace with the Three Fires, becoming the Teagra. In return for their bravery, the Three Fires permitted them to occupy the island on the condition the Teagra never make war on them again and give them perpetual access to the island. While the Teagra never joined the Three Fires, their island served as its meeting place and the Teagra themselves acted as mediators.

Other groups in this area were no less effective. The Mascouten, Menominee, and other groups were equally effective at navigating the diplomatic situation regarding the Ohio Misebians and the Upper Misebians. Each group was more agricultural than the Three Fires to their north, farming much Vinland rice, yet their reindeer herds were in constant need of expansion. To the Upper Misebians they were among the most dangerous enemies.

On the Atlantic Coast, lay peoples such as the Migmak and Havnaki. They lived similar lifestyles centered around aquaculture and pastoralism, although never adopted maize agriculture to begin with. They were somewhat wealthier, deriving their wealth from both trade with various Iroquoian nations and especially contact with the Norse. This periodic trade gave them access to many exotic goods and led to reputations of wealth.

Norse traders largely focused on this northeastern fringe of this region. While the Norse are recorded to have explored the lower reaches of the Kanada River in the early 13th century at the height of their early trade in North America, they rarely sailed this far from their bases in Markland. Most Norse goods in this region likely passed through the hands of the local Migmak people or especially the Ilinu people of Leivsland, the closest major society to the Norse who practically monopolised trade with them.

While the trade was small-scale and sparse compared to later standards, Norse goods reshaped native societies. Beads, jewelry, and Norse fabrics served as prominent luxury goods among the peoples of the Kanada and northeast coast. The Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples of the St. Lawrence region developed increasingly complex art and aesthetics thanks to this wealth, with rulers in particular wearing richly ornamented and dyed robes and fur turbans gleaming with beads. The Migmak and Havnaki further adopted sails from the Norse, the southernmost groups to do so.

Sailing technology was fairly primitive yet functional. Dugout canoes and birchbark kayaks were still widely used and only the Innu and northeastern peoples used sails, the latter almost certainly borrowed from the Norse. Innu sails were flamboyant in colour and attached to the largest ships that cruised inland rivers. Originating from similar sails among the interior Dena peoples, these likely were used as prestige symbols by wealthy men. They offered little mechanical benefit, and their main role in history was their inspiring of the far more productive sailing technology of the Misebian peoples.

Before the 14th century, the only other group in Eastern North America employing large sailing ships were those north of Cape Cod [6], whose origins date to around 1200. Their ships were larger and more seaworthy, with larger sails of tehi. Because traditional ship designs superficially resembled a Norse knarr, it is speculated these ships were at the very least inspired by Norse designs although claims they were introduced by Norse merchants are inaccurate. These ships were ocean-going vessels capable of making long journeys and were used primarily to exploit the rich fishing waters of the Grand Banks and Georges Bank. Coastal peoples caught cod in bulk and preserved them with salt they produced from seawater or at salt springs, while other fishing boats operated lobster traps.

The increasing wealth and population in the 12th and 13th century prompted complex political organisations among the eastern peoples. The chief, termed a sachem [7], was a hereditary position elected from the village nobles by his council of nobles from among the sons of the previous chief's sisters. They held little actual power and was responsible for settling disputes and keeping his people prosperous by persuasing through words and gifts. The council itself consisted of the heads of each clan, one or two senior warriors also who commanded military operations and defense, and occasionally other men respected for their services.

The war chiefs were the only exclusively male positions--powerful women (nearly always the widows of powerful sachems) were occasionally elected to the council or to position of sachem itself. Among the Iroquoians, the seniormost woman of each clan were even responsible for nominating the sachem and at the same time, removing him from office if necessary.

A sachem's territory consisted of only a single village or town of rarely more than 500 people. However, because people had relatives in other towns and villages, these sachems often worked together in councils and assembled into greater confederations, centered at either a religious site or local trade center. They helped negotiate with other powers, although rarely held the power to make war, that power granted only to the entire tribe. Each sachem was typically equal in rights to the others at these great meetings, yet might differ in roles or prestige.

The specifics of these groups varied. Among the southerly groups, Misebian influence no doubt led them to crown a single sachem (there often called names like weroance) as a supreme ruler (there termed names like mamanatowick [8]), although his influence over towns in the confederation limited to only persuasion. Among Iroquoians, the confederations acted democratically, with chiefs appointed to the council representing their entire nation. As warfare grew more intense by the end of the 13th century, these confederations even began tentatively uniting into broader assemblies through alliances with nearby confederations [9].

Among most peoples, the decision to declare war required consent of the all men and women. It arose out of petitions to sachems, who in turn summoned the people and asked them if they wanted to fight. If enough warriors volunteered, then war was declared. Once war was declared, warriors who refused to fight would often be shamed into joining the conflict. Conflicts were led by dedicated war chiefs--sachems were generally forbidden from spilling blood.

Warfare in eastern North America was similar to that among the Misebians, where men fought in small groups from the same clan and avoided lengthy sieges. Warriors focused on feats of bravery that included capturing or scalping opponents. These captives would be ritually tortured, sacrificed and then cannibalised with jewelry made out of his skull, as the main justification for war was avenging one's tribe. Women and children taken prisoner would almost always be adopted into the tribe as replacements for deceased kin, yet this was not universally the case. A small number of people were for varying reasons never adopted, either because of their continued rejection of their new society or for future trade to other groups--the latter was especially common among Norse-influenced groups.

Weapons consisted of the bow and arrow, axes, and maces. These copper headed maces replaced war clubs of wood, bone, and stone by 1200 and served as symbols of prestige. Poorer warriors occasionally still fought with stone weapons, but by the end of the 13th century, copper or bronze weapons were nearly universal and among some northern peoples, even iron weapons, traded from the Norse. Tomahawks made of bronze or iron were popular close-quarters weapons. Asymmetric access to these weapons allowed northerly peoples to make many successful raids against those who lacked them. Armour included long tunics made from leather and wooden rods and wicker shields, but some men eschewed armour entirely, fighting mostly naked for mobility out of belief in their strength.

Religion was highly diverse in the eastern woodlands. In the southern and northwestern regions, Misebian-derived cults prevailed. The high priest tended eternally-burning fires and made offerings to spirits while conducting rituals that connected people to their ancestors and ensured proper passage to the afterlife. In contrast, the Iroquoians and some Algonquians were sky worshippers, who worshipped an ancestral deity (often personified as an old woman) and controlled the infinite spirits of nature by conducting proper rituals to the lesser deities and spirits by following correct conduct, dances and offerings.

Like Fusania, acquisition of guardian spirits was common in this region, as were secret religious societies, not the least among them the Midewiwin ("Medicine Society"). These societies controlled religious rituals and constituted a network of ritualists who helped unite the tribe as one, although unlike South Fusania they never usurped public power. Qwinishtis mentions these beliefs in Saga of the Lands of Dawn:

"It was no surprise the Marukhatkhs [Algonquian] [10] warriors saved our expedition against Yits'iniit for their leader called out to me with his guardian spirit, a spirit from the same family as my own. I had not felt a spirit of this intensity among these Hillmen in some time and indeed so many of his people possessed these strong spirits, not just their priests. Yet I became wary, for the spirits who aid the Hillmen are corrupt even if they speak to their brothers among us civilised people [11]. The warrior refused to speak more of his people's rituals, for they are the property of priests who wander the land and gather in secretive lodges, much as the fanatics of those lands far to our country's south."

These secret societies used birch bark scrolls replete with simple depictions of natural objects as devices for passing down their teachings. Reading these scrolls was a carefully guarded secret. Their origin is unknown--some claim Norse origin, but the tradition appeared among even societies with little contact with the Norse. To what degree they function as writing is unknown, but their system was simpler than either Mesoamerican codices or Fusanian totem writing.

Shamans played a crucial role in governance, especially in the north. They were always consulted in decision-making and presided over healing and divination ceremonies, ensuring their connections and wealth. They were feared and respected for their supernatural powers, valuable traits for a sachem to have. In the northeast and north, shamans and sachems were often one and the same. Yet there were always those wary of shamans holding too much influence over society, and the distinction between the traditionalist "shamanistic" faction and the more innovative "secular" factions was a mainstay of indigenous politics in Eastern North America.

The Norse tried and failed to introduce Christianity among the natives. St. Jon Hallgrimsson, a Greenlandic saint famed as the Apostle to Vinland, is recorded to have sent native acolytes to the south accompanying merchants. Likely these men appeared among the Innu, and Migmak peoples. While religious syncreticism was common in some areas of Markland and Helluland frequently by the Norse, in Vinland it failed entirely. The Norse way of life, including Christianity, seemed to be at odds with native religion.

However, traces of Christianity were present. The Salmon Clan, present among the Innu, Migmak, and Havnaki preserved aspects of Christianity in heavily distorted form. A few Salmon Clan members were of Norse descent, although the majority were descended from baptised natives or mixed-race people assimilated into other native groups. Their beliefs centered around headless winged spirits each person was born with that observed everything one said, did, and thought. They report to their master, the sky god, who after consulation with his nephew and heir chooses to either damn the soul forever or permit it to pass into paradise based on one's conduct. Those chosen by the sky god as his workers on Earth are granted the power to heal, control natural spirits, and predict the future.

The Salmon Clan's religion was just as secretive as the medicine societies. Members used cross iconography, Christian-inspired hymns, a local variety of incense and annointing oil, and crossed themselves in their rituals and worship. It was not popular outside their clan and those who married into it, with much of its knowledge restricted to members they baptised and bestowed new names (often of Christian origin or symbolism) upon, names kept secret to outsiders. Yet it carried much sway, for the Salmon Clan were sailors and merchants and often quite wealthy. Among fishermen throughout the eastern woodlands, their incense was famed for its ability to drive away bad weather and lure fish while the sign of the cross was made before fishing expeditions to ensure spiritual success.

Small, limited, and remote as their operations were, the Norse and their legacy would be the dominant force acting on Eastern North America from 1200-1500. The Leivian exchange brought both rats and cats to this region. The former posed a greater threat to food reserves than native rats, while the latter ironically helped spread introduced rats as cats preferred slower, ecologically naive American rodents. Cats especially spread by trade, acquiring a reputation as the animals of merchants and especially shamans for their ability to eliminate rodent pests--allegedly cats were only able to hunt rats because a benevolent shaman controlled their actions, for rats were ranked among insect pests as a spiritual curse against humans.

The greatest impact of the Leivian exchange was of course the three epidemics of chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough, all of which first struck Eastern North America in the first decade of the 13th century. At least 10% of the population died and practically every major town was burnt and abandoned by its residents. Because so much territory was left abandoned and unused, warfare sharply increased as tribes fought to establish new boundaries. In addition to these epidemics, strains of seal flu arrived from Fusania that although not as deadly as the initial outbreak still produced death rates of up to 5% once a generation.

Yet for the average person of the Eastern Woodlands, those valuable trade goods and skills brought by the Norse would continue to play an undue role in society for centuries to come. Long before the vast majority of people ever saw a European man, their societies already fell under Europe's influence in the form of iron and beads. Had they been able to trace it to the source, perhaps they would have been much more wary of the changes coming their way in 1500. Those few societies in contact with the Norse, at the remotest fringes of the eastern woodlands, certainly knew that, for they were to inherit far greater gifts from those European interlopers.

---
Author's notes​

This entry covers primarily Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples of the east coast and Great Lakes, perhaps the groups most often thought of as the typical "Indian." Much of the society encountered by the Pilgrims, Puritans, Jamestown colonists, etc. is the product of increasing European influence in the form of greater wealth and shifting economies since even before the first European settlement. I suspect reindeer pastoralism plus access to Norse trade goods would more or less cause these societies to look uncannily similar to the typical post-contact natives of the late 17th century, yet far more advantaged as this shift is on their own terms.

I'm breaking from my usual orthographic conventions for this entry as many languages of Eastern North America are incredibly poorly attested (usually just badly transcribed word lists, if that) and their phonology uncertain. I also don't know what my plans for the East Coast are TTL aside from some things with the Norse.

I decided to cover Newfoundland [Leivsland] along with the Norse in my next chapter, since its society becomes rather Norse influenced thanks to constant interaction and the emergence of a particular Metis group.

As ever, thank you for reading. As this entry comes out on (American) Thanksgiving, please have a happy and understanding holiday.

[1] - Leivsland is Newfoundland, TTL eventually renamed for Leif Eriksson with Vinland coming to mean all of Norse America
[2] - The Kanada River is the St. Lawrence, "Kanada" of course the same root as "Canada", which was the river's name at one point
[3] - TTL term for Ohio Valley Siouan languages. Despite their name, many speakers of these languages lived in the Appalachians before they were largely destrouyed/absorbed into other groups in 17th century wars with whites and other Indians
[4] - I'm not sure yet if I want this to be OTL John Smith (who sometimes spelled his name like this) or someone else by that name, but given the sheer number of 17th century Englishmen who spelled their name "John Smythe", another explorer having a name like that isn't implausible
[5] - I will use the native names (although the conventional colonial names such as "Huron" and "Iroquois" are still widely used in the literature), as these nations will be most described by the Norse rather than the French. The Kanadiers correspond to the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, the Vændat the Huron, and the Haudenosaunee the Iroquois--each group was historically a confederacy divided into several nations, but this arose later so the Mohawk, Seneca, etc. would still be far more separate.
[6] - This area, OTL Upper New England and the Maritimes, seems to have been culturally distinct even in pre-contact times from Lower New England. Naturally trade with the Norse makes this even more the case.
[7] - I'll use "sachem" for this office as it is the most common English term besides "chief" ("sagamore" is just a variant, although I should make the long belated note that I've done the same thing some writers in the past have done with sachem vs sagamore with my own alt-Sahaptins and miyawakh vs miyuukh--for now I don't plan on retconning this)
[8] - The title Chief Powhatan of Jamestown fame likely used, often translated in English as "paramount chief".
[9] - This appears to be the system the League of the Iroquois (which had analogues among the Wyandot and some other Iroquoian nations) evolved out of
[10] - Qwinishtis calls them Marukhatkhs, a corruption of "woruha" (a generic term meaning "enemy" in Dhegihan Siouan).
[11] - Generally Fusanians believe guardian spirits are related to each other, like for instance two people with otter guardian spirits inherited sibling or cousin spirits.

 

[Arkenfolm]

-LXXXVII-
"To Sail Between the Worlds"

Venarfjord, 1225​

Something shook Asgrim Jonsson worse than the shaking of any boat. He jolted awake in panic, afraid those men in suits of wood with their faces painted red from ochre and blood might have returned. To his immediate relief, it was just his mother, Halldora, yet his breath still came quickly. He wondered if the Skraeling man rowing the oar in front of him might be one of them, those monsters who took everything from him.

"It's okay, Asgrim. We're here in a safe place now." She patted his head, but her hand was unusually bony. She must have been even hungrier than he was.

"We're gone, right? We're in Greenland now, or Iceland, or Norway, or..."

"Venarfjord, where your uncle lives. He is both the chief and the priest of this town."

Asgrim's face went pale as he sighed in defeat. He was never going to leave this land until he met Christ. Memories of that village in the south he had lived his entire life at filled his mind as he gazed at the entrance of the fjord in front of him. The trees were much smaller and the mountains more bare, yet it looked the same as Grenholt.

"I-is he better than that man who killed Dad?" Asgrim clutched his knife, recalling the face of his father, Jon Ulfsson, still with a fresh scar from the last battle he fought. He had handed him that knife before he departed under that Icelander bastard Viga-Haukr to fight the Innu. He promised us victory, yet we lost so much.

"Of course he is, dear. Venarfjord is safe. We'll gain so much from being here...just like our family always has."

He wanted to scream, or even jump over the side of the ship in hopes the oceans claimed him and not the skraelings, yet as he saw the high mountains rising out of the fog, he suddenly felt calm again. It felt as if those mountains embraced him, keeping him safe from the terrifying world outside. Some in front of him muttered about Venarfjord.

This fjord was a lot more rugged than Grenholt. The trees grew like shrubs or had long since been stripped of all their wood, and the Skraeling huts near the mouth of the fjord reminded Asgrim that he wasn't totally safe. Two tall Skraeling man glared at him from the shore as they worked on butchering a seal. Yet as they traveled deeper into the fjord, passing islands and the mouths of creeks, cheers in the boat turned his attentioned to distant smoke rising--a town!

"Venarfjord...is this it?" Asgrim thought to himself.

Asgrim had never seen any town this large, for he was born and lived his whole live in and around Grenholt. The smoke of the houses seemed to fill half the fjord as the green sod of their roofs rose out from the ground. The high palisade studded with the occasional platform for watchmen signaled a security found nowhere else. In the middle of the town he saw another tall tower with a cross alighting it. If even these walls aren't enough, then that church will protect us! The Lord would never let those heathens destroy something so grand!

His mother noticed Asgrim's sudden change in mood.

"See, Venarfjord isn't so bad. We'll definitely be safe here. It's a town nearly as great as the biggest in Greenland or even Iceland."

"M-Maybe you're right. Maybe we really can start our lives over in this land."

A newfound optimism filled Asgrim as the ship pulled closer and closer to a dock. Not only was he safe, but he was going to start a new life to gain that prosperity his father always promised him.

---
Venarfjord, 1236​

"You would really give this up, Uncle Magnus?" Asgrim Jonsson asked. "You're really leaving this land with everything we need?"

"You know I've wanted to go back to Greenland since I was a boy. And now I finally have that option." Magnus gestured his staff toward the shifty man standing at the door, his garb the strange patterns of the cloaks the skraelings wore. It was clasped by a crude brooch which still bore traces of some bizarre skraeling art style.

"Who will be priest if you're selling it all to Audun Eriksson, that half-skraeling!?"

Audun smiled at the conversation before him as Magnus put a wrinkled hand on his nephew's shoulder. He is like me when I was his age.

"I told you to marry his daughter while you still could. But I told you a lot of things, didn't I?"

"Worry not, Asgrim Jonsson," Audun said, "The chieftainship will be in good hands with me. And we're going to need it." A sudden worry came over that man's face.

"You see the coming chaos, don't you?" Magnus said. "Fitting for a survivor of Grenholt who still resides in Markland."

"Anyone with a clear mind might see it, Magnus Ulfsson. One day we will outlive our welcome with the Skraelings. The Ölurskraelings welcomed us for 15 years before destroying us. They are more ill-natured than the Skraelings of this land, but all men reach a point when they grow tired of each other [1]."

"That doesn't matter, all I care about is my uncle making these decisions for me," Asgrim said. "This beautiful country and its people are my inheritance!"

"If you think like that, then go to Norway and join King Haakon's hird and pray he names you ruler of one of his lands." Audun advised. "Markland is a free land, more free than Iceland or Greenland. Be they skraeling or Norse, we follow only those who provide for us."

Asgrim clenched his fist as he knew the truth of Audun's words. He looked to his uncle once again for advice, but his uncle simply shook his head.

"Uncle, why?"

"I am old and finally wanted to see Greenland. And more importantly..." Magnus looked to Audun, who produced a string of small gold plates from his cloak. Asgrim's eyes went wide as he gazed upon the horrific art of the skraelings, full of crude engravings of animals and birds. So much gold in one place! Impossible...

"I see the stories of your gambling prowess are true," Magnus said approvingly. "Yet one disc is missing. I want to see the one they say you took from that Ölurskraeling lord."

"If I part with that one, I'd be like my namesake, that Audun who sold everything he had when he bought that polar bear from my father."

"No matter. I've heard rumours it is unlike any other medallion these Skraeling lords wear. They say it came from far to the west, as far as the west meets the east, proof the Skraelings trade with Prester John's kingdom and knew of Christ even before ourown Jon Hallgrimson arrived."

"Gaze upon it for yourself then." Audun took from his cloak one last amulet, larger and thicker than the others. In the flickering candlelight its texture seemed different, as if forged from a different sort of gold. Engraved on the surface was a cross within a circle where at each end strange animals glared out at him, animals drawn in a distinct style from the typical Skraeling art. Their eyes unnerved Asgrim, as if angered they had been brought so far from their homeland.

"Fascinating...I could study this the remainder of my life," Magnus noted in awe. "Yet that in the center appears like Yggdrasil, the tree I believe our ancestors worshipped before reached by the light of Christ. Yet I have never heard of an eagle perched atop it, nor seen an eagle with such a strange look."

"Some of the Skraelings believe in such trees, yes," Audun said. "Yet what of those beasts? That looks like another eagle, a more normal one I suppose, and I suppose that's a raven. Maybe the other two are a wolf and a bear? I wonder whatt his Skraeling"

"Typical Skraeling heathenry," Asgrim said. "It looks almost like the devil's craftsmanship."

"Maybe it is," Audun replied, putting the medallion away. "I've seen the Skraelings torture people to death and devour their bodies in the most horrifying rituals. It's good I'm not selling it to a man of God."

"It is God's will you do sell it to me, though," Magnus said. "I cannot leave for Greenland without it."

"That'll cost you much more than a chieftainship then," Audun said. He looked around, examining a Skraeling vase by the window where a purplish sweetvetch flower grew, a Skraeling gift. "Looks like you don't have much else."

"I don't understand either of you," said Asgrim. "Just what do you need so much gold for, uncle? A chieftainship in Greenland?"

"I'm buying something greater than a chieftainship. I will buy the highest seat in the church, a bishopric. Right now, there is no bishop in Greenland. If I put myself forward to the chiefs of Greenland, then surely they will select me as a compromise for I am old and will be with the Lord soon [2]."

"You, a bishop!?"

"I've wanted it the moment I understood what this land was and what it meant to me. I once despised this country and chased after nothing but riches, then I learned the true value of wealth is ruling over the hearts of men in the name of our father sitting in heaven. That was the only way I tamed the savage Skraelings."

Audun clapped his hands.

"Wonderful I am dealing with such a good Christian then!"

"A good Christian? The Lord forgives, but sometimes I do not..."

He tapped his staff on the floor three times and in an instant a chunk of the wall gave way as a man Audun recognised as his cousin Olafr jumped out and put Audun at knifepoint. In the confusion, Audun dropped the medallion onto the ground, where it rolled and came to a rest at Asgrim's feet. Asgrim hesitated for a moment, but put his boot on it as Audun knocked Olafr away from him and drew a hatchet from his cloak.

He backed up, preparing for a fight as he stashed the remainder of the gold in his cloak.

"Heh, what the hell do you think you're doing, priest? You'll be lucky to buy a chieftainship with that gold, let alone the holy seat of bishop!"

"Olafr put down the knife and show him what you found," Magnus commanded.

"Yes, father." Olafr, a short, wiry man of mixed descent, produced a gold medallion identical to that they had just looked over.

"Asgrim, what is that there?"

"Asgrim grabbed the Skraeling medallion from underneath his boot, suddenly confused why there are two of them."

"You must have a very good reason to carry around these fake gold medallions. God looks poorly on defrauding his ministers. Was the rest of your gold fake as well?"

Audun lowered his hatchet, keeping a close eye on Olafr, but kept silent. Magnus pointed to a shiny candlestick on his wooden table and shrugged.

"I'm a wealthy chief and man of the church. I am around gold more than all but the merchants of Hafnarfjörður. Melting a trifle amount of gold and mixing it with copper might fool the usual chief, Skraeling or Christian, but it will not fool me."

"You're very insightful even in your last moments!" Audun charged at Olafr, but Magnus swung his staff at Audun's legs, knocking him to the ground. Asgrim immediately helped his cousin restrain the swindler.

"This sort of fraud and forgery against the church might make you an outlaw if the Greenland Althing hears about it," Magnus said. "Should my kin kill you here to spare you the grief?"

"Tch..." Audun spat on the ground beneath Olafr's sturdy boot. "Sending that man to search my ship for that disc is also a crime. And you won't want to kill me. There will be an army of Skraelings on Venarfjord by the next moon."

"Is that true, Uncle?" Asgrim asked, suddenly worried.

"I believe it, which is why I want him to hold up his end of the bargain and give me actual gold so he can have the chieftainship."

Audun frowned, annoyed at the course of the situation.

"It's all in my ship. Just go there and you'll find my gold...if you can."

"Wonderful," Magnus said. He motioned to Olafr and Asgrim to get off Audun, although Asgrim took the man's axe just in case. Magnus helped Audun to his feet, glaring directly at him.

"You are a dishonest, wicked man, but talented in every aspect. For that alone I am confident you'll lead Venarfjord well."

Audun smiled.

"Against those dishonest, wicked Skraelings, our people need nothing less. Good luck dealing with the church, Bishop, I will be dealing with a situation far worse."

---​

Far across the ocean to the east lay the Old World, the cradle of humanity where the oldest civilisations developed. Contact between Old and New World occurred very rarely and went unknown and unrecorded for countless centuries. Yet the 1st millennium saw the increasing integration of the northwestern fringe of the Old World into society as a whole. This economic and cultural integration gave rise to Norse society, their legendary Viking raids, and an unprecedented era of exploration that led the two worlds into their first collision.

The source of this exploration goes back to the roots of the so-called Viking Age in of itself. Northern Europe's increasing integration with the world under the Frankish Empire and wealth from the Islamic world's trade routes provoked great social changes in Scandinavia that prompted increasing centralisation. In addition, the Medieval Warm Period helped spur a population increase. Large numbers of men readily followed those with ambition in expeditions that varied in purpose from trade, raiding, and eventually even settlement. The beneficial climate produced a less stormy North Atlantic with reduced sea ice. These conditions permitted the Norse conquest of islands such as Orkney, Hjaltland, and the Faroes.

The greatest settlement of all of these was Iceland, settled at the end of the 9th century. It was not an appealing place, even in medieval times, for it was a cold and volcanic island in the midst of the ocean. The soil was poor and vegetation sparse, particularly after its rapid deforestation, while the interior was an uninhabitable land full of glaciers and volcanic desert, lacking sustenance even for livestock. Even so, it offered free land (for the initial settlers) and even for later settlers, a place of refuge and a place to make oneself, for it was a place of social mobility of the sort which was declining back in Scandinavia.

Here the Norse set about reproducing society both adapted to the conditions of their new land and repudiating the perceived excesses of their homeland [3]. Traditional rights found in Norse society were expanded and codified into a system of courts, while chiefs were expected to be generous and attentive to the needs of their followers and nigh-incapable of coercing them. While violent feuds were a common factor of Icelandic life, the courts--and Iceland's own social system--mitigated the worst of it, for few of Iceland's free farmers cared to follow those constantly quarreling with neighbours. Iceland was thus never governed by a king, but only its courts and freemen, a society highly unusual in medieval Europe but a commonly found one in North America.

Naturally, people still fell afoul of this system. Powerful chiefs and those freemen allied to them might bend the justice system in their favour, and some individuals were simply disliked for their personal conduct. These people might be driven elsewhere, as was the case of Erik the Red, banished from Iceland in the late 10th century for killing men out of vengeance for murdering his slaves.

To maintain his livelihood, Erik led men to settle the poorly known lands to the west known as Greenland. He established the manor of Brattahlid, inviting settlers from Iceland and Norway to his new land. The new society in Greenland replicated Icelandic institutions such as an Althing and a code of law inspired by both Iceland and Norway. Although the coast of Greenland was barren and mostly treeless and the interior incredibly steep, for Norse farmers it represented free pastures for their livestock and in years of fortunate weather, fields for growing rye, barley, and oats.

While violent feuds and no center of power dominated Iceland, in Greenland matters were different. Feuds were less common and more easily resolved thanks to the dominance of the chief seated at the manor of Brattahlid from both prestige as heir to Erik the Red (even after Erik's line died out in the 11th century) and from the manor's size and prosperity. Brattahlid's chief had many followers and helped resolve disputes even beyond his region thanks to his prestige at the Greenlandic Althing, held nearby at Gardar. Undoubtedly this more peaceful society owed itself to an increasing fear of the harsh environment, reflected in the literature of the Greenlanders.

The settlement of Greenland and the discovery of Vinland occurred within a generation and were inextracibly linked. The efforts of Leif Erikson (son of Erik the Red), Thorfinn Karlsefni, and later settlers produced little luck in Leivsland, but did open up new fortune in Markland. In Markland, Greenland's settlers found a crucial good--timber--essential for replenishing their increasingly deforested homeland. What's more, they found the rarest of all goods--oxwool.

Domesticated centuries before by the Inuit along the Strait of Ringitania, the muskox accompanied the Inuit on their migrations that by the 11th century sent them all the way to Markland. The muskox produced a soft and strong inner fur from which was spun the warm luxury fiber termed "oxwool." The Norse discovered this for themselves in the 11th century, and this immediately reoriented their explorations west of Greenland into searching for new sources of this. This culminated in the settlement of Venarfjord in 1120, a permanent Norse colony intended to act as a base for trading with the natives they termed skraelings along with cutting timber. As Venarfjord gained success and importance to Greenland, its ruler acquired a chieftainship for himself [4].

Oxwool first found great value among the elite of Iceland and Greenland. A son of Magnus Thorgrimsson, founder of Venarfjord, purchased a chieftainship in Iceland for himself in 1130 with only a few shirts of oxwool. Iceland's elite took notice and sent their followers on expeditions to Greenland--or sometimes even further to Markland--to purchase oxwool for themselves. Those who went to Venarfjord ended up successful, while others met mixed results. Over the next few decades, many died at sea or at the hands of the skraelings although a few found success outside of Venarfjord.

In Greenland, oxwool upended the local economy. The trading port of Herjolfsnes in the far south became more important, as did Sandnes in the north due to its port having less ice [5]. These chiefs became increasingly competitive with those at Brattahlid due to their newfound wealth from timber and oxwool, with associated feuding generally carried out in Markland.

The craze for oxwool reached Europe a generation later. Oxwool is recorded as a commodity purchased in Bergen, the key Norwegian port, by merchants from continental Europe around 1180, and records discussing "kiffet" (an alternative name, clearly derived from Inuit qiviut) appear in Scotland by 1200. Medieval descriptions portray it as the most soft and warm fabric fit for kings, lavishing it terms such as "Greenland silk."

Its source was not known--some speculated Greenland was so remote the cows grew thick coats they lacked in warmer climates, or that Greenland had a specific sort of native cattle species. By 1300, however, educated Europeans called the animal terms derived from its Old Norse name sauðnaut [6] such as English "sannolt", although in many languages such as English that term is now an archaic one.

Markland's amount of oxwool wasn't inexhaustible. The muskox herders lived only in the northernmost areas above the treeline, and the Norse only encountered these herders when they migrated to the coast. They were fierce enemies of the reindeer-herding Innu, for muskox carried diseases mostly harmless to them but lethal to reindeer. The Norse thus favoured the expansion of the Inuit through alliances--they feasted with the Inuit and gifted them weapons, most notably the iron swords that came to form a symbol of tribal leadership among the Inuit. This alliance let the Inuit push far to the south and turn all of coastal Markland north of the Naskappenfjord [7] into a hunting ground for their own needs, driving the Innu further inland.

The Norse understood well that Skraeling politics functioned similarly to their own. The sagas show they conceived indigenous leaders like one of their own chieftains, knowing he was prestigious yet reliant on being able to provide for his followers. They did not reduce the Inuit or Innu to a single group under the command of one leader, but instead tried discerning prominent individuals among them to deal with them.While an imperfect method spoiled by their own cultural biases, it worked far better than later European practices of treating native rulers in the decentralised east as kings.

Even so, the Norse had difficult relations with the Innu even in the best times, for the Innu associated them as allies of the hated Inuit. The Norse relied on the Innu for timber cutting, as quality timber around Venarfjord so close to the treeline quickly diminshed from demand. The Innu extorted great sums of goods from the Norse, which sometimes resulted in the Innu chief being overthrown by an ambitious follower who attacked the Norse anyway.

This kept almost all Norse settlements and trading posts temporary, seasonal affairs. Even in country claimed by the Inuit, Innu war parties regularly attacked Norse who tried to support their trading posts there in hopes of claiming their valuable goods. Despite their more primitive weapons, the Innu held the advantage with their mobility. This kept alive a martial tradition in Greenland, for Greenlanders often joined raids retaliating for slain kin.

A few Norse tried settling this region anyway. In 1210, Viga-Haukr Ormsson, an exile from Iceland, won support from the chief of Hvalsey to claim land in the south along the Naskappenfjord. With allies among the local Inuit, he lured Greenlanders from Venarfjord and established a farm/trading post/manufactory hybrid in the vein of Venarfjord called Grenholt. With its palisade, it survived several initial attacks. Haukr claimed a gold medallion from a fallen Innu sachem, and acquired another in a peace treaty he signed with a second Innu band along with some silver beads [8].

This reignited Norse interest in these southern lands, for gold and silver were exceptionally rare commodities in Iceland and Greenland. It became the key base for trading with Leivsland and the growing settlement of Straumfjord, home to a community of mixed Norse-natives. Haukr's relative Magnus Markusson travelled even further south, exploring the Gulf of Kanada and traveling up the Kanada River and reporting the natives owned gold and silver, which he purchased from them by selling his sword and several knives.

This colony lasted only 15 years. Warfare with the Innu reignited, and this time the Innu came in greater numbers and besieged the town in winter. As long as snow was on the ground, the Innu kept the Norse confined with their reindeer-pulled sleds that gave them frightening mobility. Dozens of Norse died in skirmishes (including Viga-Haukr himself) or from disease, and their livestock herds completely wiped out. The Norse held out until the summer, when they evacuated on the scheduled trading ship, although the next year the Norse returned, killed Innu reindeer and towey goat herds, and won a favourable peace settlement that permitted them to retain a smaller camp.

The Norse trade in this region focused on obtaining walrus tusks, timber, and iron. Likely they had been denied access to the walrus hunting and iron gathering on Bjørneøen by manipulations of hostile chiefs. This brought them south to Leivsland, where relations with the Innu were complex at best and occasionally even beyond there to lands as far south as Kanada Bay. These Norse traders (often exiles from Greenland) acted independently, attempting to gain wealth from trade, prestige in battle (capturing the gold or silver medallions of indigenous leaders was common), or new followers.

The latter often involved the Norse permanently settling among the natives. Although to the Norse they were swarthy pagans who spoke alien languages, the fact they were farmers who tolerated Norse individuals to settle among them was more than enough. These men, perhaps only a few dozen at most in the 1100-1500 period, married into the community and often were thoroughly assimilated, their legacy remaining as the Salmon Clans found in Eastern North America. For the natives, they brought knowledge of new agricultural techniques, connected them to Norse trading links, and introduced sheep into their communities.

In the north, the Norse quest for oxwool took them back to Helleland by around 1080, but their presence didn't become permanent here until 1105. Less connected to the Norse trade and still at war with the last Kinngait culture people, the Inuit of Helleland gladly accepted Norse goods and weapons in exchange for their muskox pelts and the privilege to hunt walrus and gather bog iron.

It was still too cold for the Norse to settle, however, so the Norse stayed only during the warmer months. Even at its economic height, only those Norse who married Inuit women or were exceptionally unfortunate, overwintered on Helleland--the majority returned home before the ice floes stopped travel. Their camp was well-provisioned by the standards of either Norse or Inuit and maintained inhabitation year-round--Norse in summer, Inuit in winter.

With the exception of Venarfjord and Grenholt, no real attempts at settlement in the New World were made in the 13th century beside an attempt on Leivsland rapidly destroyed by the Innu. Therefore, no organised land-taking occurred [9]. Grenholt consisted of a single farm, while Venarfjord had five farms at its height. At no time did more than 800 Norse stay in Markland, and over half stayed only seasonally. Markland remained under the control of Greenland's Althing and its parish priest under the spiritual authority of Gardar, seat of Greenland's bishop.

Ten Norse trading posts operated in these golden years from 1150 to 1300. Venarfjord with its 200 permanent residents was the undisputed center of these settlements, commanding a network of small farmsteads across the eponymous fjord. Others existed to cut timber, hunt walrus, and trade with the natives. At its southernmost, the trade reached Leivsland, while adventurers ventured even further south to lands in Kanada Bay and up the Kanada River itself in search of gold and silver artifacts. The temporary Norse expeditions in Markland and Helleland became called the vestrsetr, or "the stay in the west" in contrast to the nordrsetr, the walrus hunting expeditions to Bjørneøen [10].

All of this Norse trading activity produced a commercial revolution in the North Atlantic, and key among this was shipbuilding. Venarfjord and Markland as a whole provided the essential ingredient--timber. At first the Norse brought this timber back to Greenland and Iceland to supplement their local stock of wood (predominantly driftwood), yet increasingly they built large, ocean-going knarrs with it right there in Markland. Wood was cut and brought to Venarfjord and assembled into large ships as needed, although in its short existence, Grenholt had a shipyard as well.

There were not many ships--Venarfjord's chief owned one, and in all of Greenland there existed no more than 5 or 6 knarrs at a given time. In Iceland, there similarly was a small number. Yet even these small numbers proved revolutionary, for they freed the people of both islands from the hassle of dealing with merchants from Norway. A mutual interdependence was fostered--although they produced similar trade goods, Greenland's merchants enriched Iceland's chiefs with Markland's goods in exchange for additional cattle or grain (necessary for beer).

By the end of the 12th century, Iceland's economy being increasingly focused on the trade with Greenland and especially Markland. Walrus ivory, reindeer antlers, and above all timber and oxwool arrived in their shores alongside a few gold and silver trinkets. Icelanders received both increasing numbers of foreign merchants and themselves even sent out a few merchants. Those chiefs who promoted this trade grew increasingly wealthy and increasingly monopolised Iceland's system of leadership (although this was by no means the only factor).

The ships allowed Greenland and especially Icelandic merchants to make their own trips to Bergen or very rarely Scotland, where they reaped sizable profits for themselves instead of selling it cheaply and letting the Norwegian merchants gain the profits in their home ports. This aroused the anger and jealously of local merchants who in 1200 complained to King Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway. Sverre ruled in their favour, needing to keep Bergen allied to him during the instability in Norway as Bergen was regularly attacked by his rivals. In response, Icelandic and Greenlandic merchants either turned to smuggling or risked trade in Denmark or Scotland. However, Sverre's edict seems to have been short-lived, for within a decade the Icelanders and Greenlanders returned to Bergen.

In Iceland itself, power had become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few chiefs who owned the majority of the chiefdoms. These chiefs and their clans were universally ship owners involved in the trade with Markland and Norway who derived their wealth from large farms by the sea and increasingly from influence over the church. They often enlisted Norwegian aid (in exchange for their legal power over the church), which as Norway recovered its stability from its civil war, intensified conflict within Iceland. In Greenland, a similar process occurred as conflict emerged between the chiefs of Sandnes, Brattahlid, Hvalsey, and Herjolfsnes.

These wars, conventionally termed the Sturlung era after the name of a prominent clan, lasted around 20 years and saw shifting alliances between the parties in question as well as the Norwegian king (by this time the vigorous and clever ruler Håkon IV, Sverre's grandson). Håkon purchased the titles of chiefs himself and enlisted Icelandic and Greenlandic nobles who frequented his court to lead their allies to victory in the name of the Norwegian crown. The powerful chief, Þórðr kakali Sighvatsson came out on top thanks to his involvement in the oxwool trade, alliance with the Norwegian king, and especially his skill at intrigue--he burnt to death his rival Gissur Þorvaldsson alongside his wife and their three sons at their own farmstead in Flugumýri.

By the standards of the region, battles might be quite large and even involve naval action (invariably involving the trade ships converted for war). In Iceland, a few battles had hundreds of men on either side, while in Greenland, the final battle of the war between Einar Sokkisson, chief of Brattahlid, and Bardr Bjarnesson, chief of Herjolfsnes, involved 200 Greenlanders on either side (almost 15% of Greenland's male population), a contingent of skraeling allies on Bardr' side brought by his ally Pall Audunsson, chief of Venarfjord, and 15 ships, including two knarrs as flagships. Bardr won due to the contribution of his skraeling archers with their powerful bows.

Håkon IV found it easiest to control his North Atlantic domains from a single point. Naming Þórðr kakali ("the stammerer") as Jarl of Iceland, he ordered his administrators to set up their base at the trading village of Hafnarfjörður. In Greenland, Håkon named Bardr his jarl and set up administration at Herjolfsnes. Both Hafnarfjörður and Herjolfsnes were declared kaupstad (market towns), granting them royal permission to hold markets and fairs among other privileges. Competing ports lost their status as fishermen, shipwrights, and most importantly merchants permanently relocated to Hafnarfjörður in Iceland and Herjolfsnes in Greenland. Norwegian law guaranteed eight ships arrived each year to Iceland and two ships arrived to Greenland.

The jarldom in Greenland died out with Bardr Bjarnesson's death in 1271, but in Iceland it persisted even after Þórður's death in 1265. Håkon's successor as king, Magnus the Law-Mender, wanted a strong local force to bring Norwegian customs to the "lawless" land, yet at the same time wanted to avoid provoking the Icelanders, so Þórðr's younger brother and close ally Tumi Sighvatsson the Younger (also known as Tumi Jarl) thus succeeded to the jarldom.

Greenland instead became governed by the local lagmann, all of whom came from the group of nobles who lived much of their life in Norway. While not officially subordinate to Iceland, it defacto held less autonomy and was governed by two lagmann. One lagmann lived at Brattahlid and supervised the Althing, the other at Herjolfsnes. These men were usually Greenlanders elected by the Althing, but required royal assent to assume their position. Such assent came from the Norwegian king's emissary who captained one of the two ships sent every year (hence his common title "Captain of Greenland").

Urbanisation became such a problem for landowners that the jarl strengthened existing prohibitions against landless farmers leaving their fields [11], but at the same time, urbanisation was the source of each jarl's strength. Athough by law agents of the Norwegian king were permitted to buy goods first, in Iceland Tumi Jarl's effectively controlled these men in Hafnarfjörður and thus continued the traditional Icelandic practice of the chief buying first and setting prices on goods. Because there were no other kaupstad in Iceland, the jarl used this traditional law to exercise great influence over Iceland's economy to the benefit of himself and his allies.

Hafnarfjörður and Herjolfsnes were not large, even by medieval standards. In 1300, Hafnarfjörður had no more than 1,000 people, a fraction that of Bergen or other true medieval centers. Herjolfsnes had only 300 people, yet that was almost 10% of Greenland's population. Most people in these cities lived there temporarily--they would be farmers sent by their landlords to fish, foreign merchants, and the small retinue of officials from Norway (who lived there with their families).

Hafnarfjörður functioned as the center of Norway's empire in the North Atlantic. Ships from the Faroes, Orkney, and Hjaltland occasionally made stops there, although trade with Norway remained the dominant factor. After the ships from Bergen, those from Greenland were most valued, for they brought oxwool and walrus ivory, the most valuable trade goods. As it eclipsed all other communities on the island, in 1290 the Bishop of Skalholt Arni Thorlaksson (one of Iceland's two bishops) ordered the seat of his diocese relocated to Hafnarfjörður.

Problems lay on the horizon. The climate of the entire planet was cooling in the late 13th century due to volcanic activity. Ice sheets expanded and with them reshaped weather patterns in the North Atlantic. The number of storms increased and ice floes hindered trade, particularly with Greenland. Sailing off the east coast of Greenland became particularly hazardous to the point fewer and fewer sailors dare make the journey, instead heading directly to Norway [12]. At the same time, these storms led to the nigh-abandonment of trade with Helleland, ending that region as an independent source of oxwool. Only Markland now supplied Iceland with its oxwool.

Markland suffered numerous troubles of its own related to epidemics among the natives and increasing amounts of warfare. The cooling climate made journeys more difficult and dangerous.Worse, the main settlement at Venarfjord became increasingly deforested. Icelanders themselves mitigated this by trading directly with Markland instead of relying on Greenlander intermediaries. Arrival of these unfamiliar Norse only added to the tension with the natives, as well as the Marklandic Norse who viewed them as foreigners seeking to exploit them compared to their Greenlandic kin.

This marked the beginning of Iceland's attempt at dominating the entire North Atlantic. To Iceland's increasingly influential merchants, let alone Iceland's jarl, Hafnarfjörður should be the center from which all politics from the Faroes to Hjaltland and Orkney to Markland orbited about. In 1297, Sighvat Tumasson (son of Tuma Jarl) petitioned Norwegian king Eric II for authority over Greenland (which included Markland), using the pretext of an Icelander murdered in Greenland [13]. Although the petition went unanswered, it boded ill for relations between the two islands.

Ilinu and Utameknisat

Norse interaction dramatically changed the Amerindians they interacted with, and the Leivslander Innu, conventionally termed the Ilinu, were perhaps the most dramatic of these. This culture originated on the mainland but migrated to Leivsland in the 10th century, first absorbing remnant Paleo-Thuleans of the Kinngait Culture before conquering the other native group of the island, conventionally termed the Red Skraelings for their characteristic use of red ochre.

As the Kinngait Culture and Red Skraelings lacked livestock, agriculture, or advanced tools and numbered no more than 1,200, they were quickly defeated by the Innu with the last survivors wiped out by the end of the 12th century, leaving the Innu in control of Leivsland [14]. The Ilinu population rapidly increased as they maintained fields of river turnip, bistort, and sweetvetch and converted much of the land into pasture for their reindeer and towey goats. By 1300, it reached an equilibrium of almost 30,000 people, mostly concentrated in the river valleys.

The Ilinu were fiercely territorial of their land and violently repelled Norse settlement efforts in the 11th and 12th centuries, believing outsiders sought to deprive them of their home. Traditional law held no outsider might spend more than four days on the shores of Leivsland nor lose sight of the coast, with the exception of those married to an Ilinu woman and accepted by her male relatives. This law did not deter Greenlandic traders from sailing there hoping to make money off of trade with the Ilinu, who desired their tools, blankets, beads, and iron weapons. Straumfjord, the former site of the Norse colony, grew into the largest town on the island with a population of about 800.

Norse traders readily found brides in Straumfjord thanks to their wealth and the Ilinu coveting Norse goods. Families who lacked herds sent their daughters to Straumfjord in hopes of marrying these men, although often they were disappointed for rarely did more than a dozen Norsemen operate in the area at any given time. These men were the ancestors of the ethnic group later called the Utameknisat ("sons of the hammer", referring to their association with iron and craftsmanship), a Metis people who played a pivotal role in the region in later times.

Even in the late 13th century when the Utameknisat numbered only a few hundred, they already played a important role in local trade networks as merchants and sailors. They introduced Norse technology such as harpoons which combined with their sailing skills resulted in the introduction of whaling to the region, bringing a valuable source of meat, bone, and oil. Other Utameknisat ventured as far inland as the Kanada or as far south as Cape Cod as middlemen for Norse goods. Aside from Straumfjord, other Utameknisat communities lay on Natikyst, Ministikyst, and Sanutsimøen, the latter becoming a notable producer of salt by 1300 [15].

In contrast to later times, the early Utameknisat were more Norse. They practiced Christianity as opposed to the syncretic religion of the Salmon Clan (whom they considered kin due to their common ancestry) and are recorded to speak the Norse-Innu trade language as opposed to their unique dialect of Ilinu. However, some Norse traditions survived far longer, like elements of their governance such as chiefdoms called kwoti that could be bought and sold or writing in runes. They often used Norse or Christian names, although occasionally innovated unique names found among no other culture based on calques of native names or peculiarities in their religion--true to their matrilineal culture inherited from their Ilinu mothers, the Utameknisat almost universally used matronymics instead of the Norse patronymics [16].

They contributed greatly to the small "Leivian exchange. [17]" Some Utameknisat herded sheep they inherited from their Norse fathers who voluntarily exiled to offshore islands so their sheep would not harm reindeer populations with the diseases they carried. This started a custom among those few peoples such as the Havnaki and Migmak who also herded sheep, as they would tend their flocks on offshore islands or especially on islands in lakes. Sheep were never widespread because reindeer were culturally preferred, but their wool made a valuable good. They were most prominent among the animals the Salmon Clans herded, no doubt because of their syncretic Christianity.

Other livestock never established themselves. Chickens were viewed as redundant when many in Eastern North America raised ducks or even geese, so were only found among the Ilinu, Utameknisat, and Markland Innu. Goats brought from Greenland were viewed similarly when compared to sheep and towey goats and totally died out by 1400. Pigs were rare in Greenland so never gained a foothold outside of feral populations in Markland that were prevented from spreading far by the mountains, harsh climate, and frequent hunting. Horses were also rare--although occasionally sold to native leaders, there was never enough stock for a breeding population and therefore they often ended up sacrificial offerings.

More valuable were the cats owned by the Utameknisat. While many the Christian Norse shared the common negative attitude toward cats found in medieval Europe, they still brought their cats to Greenland and Markland and from there to their sons and daughters among the Utameknisat. These were large cats--adult males weighed up to 8 kilos and could be almost 1 meter long (including their tail)--and their cold-adapted bulky bodies and thick coats made them look even larger. Their tame nature compared to wild bobcats fascinated Amerindians, and the Utameknisat often sold these cats. Uniquely, many cats were polydactyl, to the point the modern breed of Leivsland cats is entirely so. Among some groups they were skinned for their pelts or eaten for their meat, yet often they were associated with shamans or agriculture due to their unique nature and tendency to hunt rodents and other small pests.

Norse dogs also spread, but these found less appeal. Although traded as exotic dog breeds, their small number left little mark on the domestic dog populations of the region, although the Markland Sheephound, a medium-sized spitz-type breed, was bred by Utameknisat sheep herders. They were common on the offshore islands in the Gulf of Kanada.

Among crops brought by the Leivian exchange, only barley proved popular, as Norse agriculture in Markland was sparse at best and redundant compared to the Arctic-adapted agriculture of the Eastern Woodlands. The Utameknisat brewed ale from it which became a regionally popular drink. The Ilinu and Utameknisat drank it nearly as much as the Norse at all occasions, while among the Havnaki and Migmak it was the second most important ceremonial drink after maple mead.

The Utameknisat were literate and wrote their language in runes, but writing was rare. Runes mared ownership, passed secret messages (often against hostile non-literate enemies), and above all, recorded religious traditions. These include oral stories that are a mix of Innu mythology, Norse folklore, and Biblical passages. The Utameknisat kept these writings private and regarded them as sacred treasures to be known only by community leaders. As a result, only the elite of their society were socially permitted to read, restricting what they might record, a tradition that appeared among the Ilinu as well and spread to other Algonquian societies [18].

Most crucially, a blacksmithing tradition appeared as the Utameknisat began turning the bog iron of Vinland into rough but functional iron goods. At the same time, some Utameknisat married Norse women from Venarfjord who settled on the island and introduced Norse-style warp-weighted looms and weaving, more efficient technology than native looms. These two events involving just a few individuals would revolutionise the entire regional economy and severely endanger the Greenlander position in the Americas.

Greenlander Decline in the Americas​

If anything brought down this Norse colonial system in the North Atlantic, it was its own success. Their trade network relied heavily on their monopoly over textiles and iron goods for which natives were always eager to trade for. Yet once the Utameknisat broke this monopoly by making Leivsland a new center of iron and textile production, decline set in. Norse goods no longer fetched the high prices they did before, and worse, the Norse now had competitors who far better understood the nuances of trade in Amerindian societies.

The southerly migration of the Thule Inuit in Greenland likewise doomed the system. By 1250, the seasonal Norse trading post at Bjørneøen began purchasing oxwool in exchange for locally mined iron, fabrics, and Norse beads. By 1300, the Greenlandic Inuit had migrated far enough south to seasonally trade with the Norse of the Western Settlement. Naturally, the lack of a lengthy and potentially dangerous sea journey greatly appealed to the Norse who eagerly accepted the chance to locally obtain oxwool.

The impact of this was drastic for the Norse in Venarfjord and Helleland. In the latter, the Norse trading post fell abandoned 1300, no doubt as the voyage was viewed as too risky. In Venarfjord, the Norse purchased less and less oxwool, breaking generations-old trading links that no doubt caused confusion among the natives. Fewer ships arrived from Greenland, down to only 2 ships by 1300. Woodcutting, the secondary industry of Venarfjord, resumed its former importance as the dominant economic activity.

A secondary factor likewise damaged the Norse trade--epidemic disease. In the early 13th century, Norse-introduced chickenpox, measles, and whooping cough killed at least 10% of the population of eastern North America, sparked wars and famine, and kept populations declining throughout that century. A fourth disease, seal influenza, spread from Fusania in the late 13th century with similar effect. Smaller populations demanded fewer goods and demanded goods with military value such as tomahawks and especially swords, recognised by natives as weapons of the elite. As the Norse were always more loathe to part with these goods for fear they'd be turned against them, this further crippled trade.

The decimation of tribes due to disease led to new tribal migrations which led to war with those who already lived in the area. Unlike the local muskox herders for whom reindeer herding was secondary, these newcomers were primarily reindeer herders, and like all reindeer herders, they strictly controlled muskox herding lest the deadly diseases carried by muskox decimate their herds.

These natives viewed the Norse as allies of those they sought to displace, sparking destructive wars and murders of Norse woodcutters and merchants that reduced the amount of muskox pelts for trade. Further, the Norse refusal to trade weapons to their allies gave them a reputation as stingy, leading to sporadic conflict even there.

This same factor occurred in Greenland. The initial wave of Thule culture migrants fragmented into two tribes based on their stance toward the Norse. The pro-Norse Thule group abandoned reindeer herding entirely, concentrating only on muskox for the sake of Norse trade, while the remaining tribes abandoned muskox. Neither group acquiesced to the Norse hunting in their land, which made relations between all three peoples difficult at best and shifting depending on political circumstances.

Politics in Iceland similarly affected Greenland. As climate change stopped much of the Greenland-Iceland trade, the Icelanders began to send expeditions directly with Markland. Most of these were timber cutting expeditions, although some traded with Venarfjord directly. Semi-permanent Icelander camps even appeared. The Icelanders were not well-liked by the Inuit (whom they held no pre-existing relation with), nor the Marklanders of Venarfjord for their supposed stinginess.

As the chief of Venarfjord set the price of goods in Markland, he was a hated figure among the Icelanders for charging exhorbitant prices for oxwool and timber. In 1293, an Icelandic merchant assassinated the elderly chief of Venarfjord, Pall Audunsson, leading the Greenlandic Althing to ban Icelanders from Markland. This decree was often ignored, including by some Marklandic trading posts, yet when enforced it was met with violence and feuding. This was the beginning of what some historians term the Marklander Wars, memorialised in sagas written in Greenland and Iceland, a lengthy period of feuding between Greenlanders and Icelanders.

All of this brought about the collapse of the Norse trading empire in the New World. The first region to suffer Norse abandonment was the Gulf of Kanada as well as those further east such as the Migmak and Havnaki. Trade with those peoples was abandoned by 1285 after a particularly severe epidemic depopulated their villages. The one ship every year or so that ventured this far south stopped coming, with the Ilinu and Utameknisat taking up the trade instead.

Norse trading posts in Markland followed. Of the four that existed, each faced a serious decline in Norse activity. They became almost exclusively used for timber cutting, with timber shipped directly to Greenland or Iceland. Icelanders took over one trading post in 1295 following the murder of the Greenlander captain heading the expedition, but in 1300 the Innu burnt the post and massacred 16 Icelanders.

Venarfjord itself faced difficulties thanks to the decreasing local supply of timber. Even in the Medieval Warm Period, it was fairly close to the tree line in Markland, yet as the climate cooled severe blizzards increased, killed many mature trees, and stunted the growth of new trees. Further, the population of the entire area numbered over 1,000 year-round and over 2,000 seasonally when accounting for both Norse and Skraeling, a number maintained for over 150 years. This population had consumed a massive amount of wood for tools, firewood, repair, and export, rendering the area bereft of trees. This forced the population to travel further and further to get wood, rendering them vulnerable to opportunistic murder or capture from roaming enemies or wild animals.

Far to the north, the Norse trade in Helleland survived somewhat longer, but epidemics and the cooling climate forced an end to regular Norse visits by 1300 (although sporadic visits occurred as late as 1350). Although once famed by the Norse for how cheaply the Skraelings sold oxwool, even this wasn't enough, for an increase in storms and sea ice ensured the Norse could not even reach the island.

The end result of this was the consolidation of the oxwool trade in Greenland, a factor that reinvigorated the Norse in that region. The Western Settlement in particular benefitted, stopping a decline that had begun in the mid-13th century, yet even the Middle Settlement benefitted. As Greenland's other major good, walrus ivory, declined from an increase in the elephant ivory trade from Africa and Asia, oxwool became practically the sole export.

Even Greenland's dominance of the oxwool trade good not halt their difficulties. The cooling climate and expanding glaciers ruined farms on the fringes, while Inuit raids prompted a further consolidation. Farmsteads became increasingly fortified, especially around the Western Settlement's capital Sandnes. Herjolfsnes was not given to listening to complaints from this region and often carried out their own Inuit policy independent of what the local chiefs in the Western Settlement desired. Beset with enemies from within and without, Greenland was to face repeated disaster in the centuries to come.

---
Author's notes​

This chapter primarily covers Greenland and Iceland, with a brief glimpse into Europe TTL. Aside from a few ATL Norse (I guess the result of butterflies caused by the difference in the Vinland expeditions of Leif and Thorfinn and the oxwool isssue) figures, I'm keeping the Old World mostly OTL for now. Things are still mostly unchanged since Iceland being a bit richer isn't going to much affect Norwegian policy. I've provided a lot of context on the functioning of Greenlandic and Icelandic society which is all OTL--they were very unique for medieval Europe and indeed closer to how many eastern Amerindian societies functioned both OTL and TTL.

The Icelandic and Greenlandic characters are a mix of historical and fictional characters. I should note that Þórðr kakali died in Norway before he could return to Iceland on behalf of the king, but he seems to have stood a chance of bringing Iceland under Norway's rule so I have him living another decade. His brother Tumi was killed in the 1240s, but he survives TTL. His son Sighvat is historic as well. A wealthier Iceland, combined with a competent heir (OTL it seems Gissur jarl, who is killed with his sons TTL, had no real heir), makes the position of Icelandic Jarl survive TTL. In Greenland it does not, perhaps because of Greenland's insignificance even with the oxwool trade.

This chapter comes out right before Christmas and the start of winter and covers suitably northern and cold lands. Or perhaps not so cold since as I post this, much of North America as far south as Florida is colder than Greenland. Have a happy holidays and New Year, since the next entry (or map) won't be out before then. This entry is the last of those covering the rest of North America outside of Fusania, so the next entry will return to Fusania, specifically the Ringitsu in the late 13th century and their continued exploration. Thank you for reading!

[1] - Ölurskraeling is the Norse term for the Innu and other Algonquian speakers
[2] - Chiefs often served as priests in Iceland, much to the consternation of the Norwegian church. A few even became bishops, although as time went on this became increasingly outrageous to the Archbishop of Nidaros. Priests committing simony and other crimes like fathering illegitimate children or being married was extremely common in Iceland and Greenland. Yet because of the reform of the church in Norway, Magnus Ulfsson (same man as the boy in Chapter 61, now obviously well-matured) will face an uphill battle to gain Greenland's episcopate.
[3] - No matter the truth of the supposed founder of Norway Harald Fairhair, his conquests, and his rule (all of which are shrouded in legend), it's clear the Icelanders came to view him as a tyrant figure by the 13th century
[4] - Like in Iceland, in Greenland there were a set number of chiefdoms which were not based on geography (outside of the ability of the goði who held it to attract followers to his seat). One chief relocating to Markland thus reduces the number of chiefs in Greenland, since there doesn't seem to have been a mechanism for creating new chiefdoms (which was a weakness in the system)
[5] - Sandnes was the largest farm of the Western Settlement and was noted in Norse times for its port having a longer sailing season. However, it was further away from Iceland and Norway than Herjolfsnes, Hvalsey, or other ports of call in the south.
[6] - "Sauðnaut" ("sheep-cattle") is the modern day Icelandic term and an obvious calque of the muskox's scientific name "ovibos", but had the Norse really exploited muskox to the degree they do TTL it seems like a logical name. "Sannolt" seems like one potential modern English spelling
[7] - Naskappenfjord is Groswater Bay/Lake Melville, a very long fjord in Labrador
[8] - Grenholt is Rigolet, NL. Both Viga-Haukr and his ally Magnus are historical figures named in the Sturlung saga as convicts who fled to Greenland. I edited a previous chapter to add a reference to Magnus Markusson earlier ITTL as it fit better.
[9] - Sometimes left untranslated as "landnám", referring to the manner by which the Norse divided up the free land in Iceland and Greenland
[10] - Bjørneøen ("Bear Island") is the modern form of the name likely given to Disko Island in Greenland by the Norse, who did indeed have a trading post there. Nordsetr is an actual term, but expeditions to Markland seem to have been rare enough (unlike the seasonal expeditions to Disko Island) that the Norse never used a contrasting term
[11] - It was not true feudalism where peasants or even tenant farmers were tied to their land, but effectively all tenant farmers were required to work the fields of a landowner and follow his choice of chief since early in Iceland's history, and this system survived for centuries even after Norway and then Denmark took over the island. Thus, urbanisation will be limited at best.
[12] - Part of the failure of Greenland OTL was no doubt its failure to maintain communication with Iceland, but this was logical given the lack of good shipbuilding material and the fact that sailing to Iceland was not particularly shorter and rather more dangerous due to ice floes than sailing to Bergen. Worse, there weren't really many goods in Iceland worth trading for. TTL somewhat mitigates that, but the danger factor is still present.
[13] - I believe this would be possible under medieval Scandinavian law. A lot of Greenland seems to have had an independent parliament (unnamed IIRC, but highly likely it was also called the Althing as in Iceland) and its own bishop which seems to be because connections with Iceland were sporadic at best. Not the case TTL (and especially not with Markland, whose status is unclear) so I believe Iceland (which remains under a local jarl TTL much like Orkney) could plausibly try and include Greenland as a vassal
[14] - These would be the Beothuk, who had a distinct use of red ochre body paint compared to other groups. The Kinngait culture are the Dorset, who had an offshoot present on Newfoundland at one point
[15] - This was occasionally found in Norse culture, but is common among some matrilineal societies like those found in India. As the majority of East Coast natives, including the Innu/Ilinu, are matrilineal, it seems logical that this hybrid culture would adopt this naming practice
[16] - Natikyst is Anticosti Island, Ministikyst is St. Pierre, and Sanutsimøen is the Magdalen Islands, all island groups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
[17] - The Leivian exchange is so named for Leif Eriksson. These animals would most closely resemble modern Icelandic landraces of sheep, dogs, chickens, cats, etc., although the cats are also partially based on the Maine Coon (the polydactyl nature) and Norwegian forest cat. A small founding stock and the natural conditions of that corner of North America would probably mean the cats would evolve to look like one of those two modern breeds.
[18] - A similar system is found among the Ojibwe and Mi'kmaq OTL and appears to derive from petroglyphs and was used for mnemonic purposes. Most of the information recorded is sacred knowledge and is thus restricted in use and knowledge. While the writing are pre-Columbian in origin, it's unclear to what degree missionary writing influenced their evolution

 

[Arkenfolm]

-LXXXVIII-
"Chasing the South Wind"

Off Cape Kaburi, 1280​

Yoqt'aawu cursed his miserable luck. By this time, he should be nearly home, his ship full of timber, ivory, and iron as his crew dined on freshly dried salmon and all the foods of the land. Yet thanks to what the relatives of the mangy man he bounded to the ship did, he was left with nothing but diminishing provisions and an increasingly hungry crew. Worst of all, the winds kept blowing him south, driving him further and further from home.

He took out a lump wrapped in seaweed, the typical sailor's food, and motioned to an oarsmen to pass him some seal oil. After pouring the oil on it, Yoqt'aawu bit into it. The consistency was the worst, at once dry yet with lingering remnants of its past life as whale skin and blubber punctuated with all the dried berries inside. It would keep him alive, but was nothing his crew wanted to eat. For all they knew, they'd never eat anything else again.

"Lawukhwaaq, where are we? What does the sunstone say!?" he shouted to his navigator.

"It's hopeless! The clouds are too dark, we'll never see the sun through there," the youth replied back.

"Do it anyway, dammit!" Yoqt'aawu gestured toward the bentwood box Lawukhwaaq used as a seat. He's completely useless, riding on nothing but being an heir to the famed Aankaanchi of all people. No wonder his house are nobles in name only.

The man did as he was told, grabbing a dull green stone from the box and holding it up to the sky. He winced as droplets of rain leaked into his eye, but remained alert as he peered all around the sky looking for anything. At last he found something right over Yoqt'aawu's shoulder and after some time carved a mark on a wooden board with a rusty knife.

"We're incredibly far south," he informed. "Further south than anywhere in the Manjimas even." Crewmen who overheard him shook their heads in despair.

"Unbelievable..." Yoqt'aawu sighed. "And we've been blow out to sea at that by these frigid winds." Options faded view as he weighed his next move. It would take days to sail north to any Tanban village he knew of and by that time they'd be out of food, assuming the storm didn't get worse. And would the Tanban even help them? Some Tanban would simply kill him, others would rob him of everything he had and he'd return home a poor, broke man.

"What should we do now, captain?" Lawukhwaaq asked. "We could always throw him overboard as an offering. If the Land Otters take him, they might leave us alone for a while," he said, pointed at the mangy Tanban man they abducted.

"Don't even mention their kind here!" Yoqt'aawu said, throwing the uneaten half of his rations overboard to distract the Land Otters. "Let me think for a minute."

As the wind gusted against him, he weighed Lawukhwaaq's words. Land otters live on both sea and land...land, heh, we lack other options.

"Keep sailing southeast, let's ride the wind to the coast," he ordered, gesturing wildly to his crew. They looked at each other with tired, despaired glances.

"Captain, is there even land there? No one has sailed this far south before," Lawukhwaaq cautioned.

"Of course there is! If we're south of the Manjimas, then we'd be finding all sorts of land had we set out from Old Ringitania."

The crew kept rowing and rowing, and sure enough the rocky coast of Sheiyiiq'aani returned to view. Yet it looked distinctly forboding. Despite being so far south, the land looked barren and desolate, with not a single tall tree anywhere in site. Yoqt'aawu sighed--this miserable coast would have to do for now. Finding a sheltered beach, he and his crew left their sturdy ship and hauled it out of the water, preparing to establish a campsite on land before the sunset.

The next day, the weather completely cleared, with not a single hint of fog or clouds. He grabbed his cloak and climbed through thickets of vegetation on a nearby hill to get a better view of the land that sheltered him that night.

What he saw stunned him beyond belief. He discovered their camp was located on a narrow spit of land, surrounded by ocean on all sides but the north. In the distance, he saw a large island rising out of the mist and to his surprise, what looked like a campfire.

"No option but to trade with whatever Tanban live there," Yoqt'aawu muttered to himself.

---
Shumushu Island, 1280​

"Repunkur, Repunkur!" the old man screamed. Kapkaram ran out of his tent, knife drawn, to investigate. Sure enough, the old man pointed in terror at an approaching ship.

"That's not a Repunkur ship, old man," Kapkaram replied. "That's...I've never seen anything like it." He ran back inside the triangular hut made of reeds to grab his bow and arrow he hoped he'd never have to use.

As the ship approached, Kapkaram squinted at it. It looked closer to the largest itaomacip, rather than anything he ever heard the Repunkur sailed in, let alone the kayaks paddled by the villagers who lived on that peninsula to the north. Yet the colours and patterns on the bow looked otherworldly. In straight lines punctuated by swirls was outlined a grim depiction of what looked like a shark or an orca. A similar creature appeared on the sail.

Kapkaram heard of rumours of people who owned ships like this. Perhaps it was the people far to the south, the same men who made his uncle's fine sword. Just what was he about to encounter.

After the old man put out the campfire, the two crouched in the bushes as the ship landed at a beach. At least a dozen people stepped out and beached the ship, proceding to head right toward them. Kapkaram shook his head--they must have seen the campfire they cooked their breakfast on and were here to investigate.

As they neared, Kapkaram noticed how alien they looked. Their skin was as tan as those men from further north. The ones who bared their hands had tattoos on them like a woman might and the rings in their noses and ears gleamed in the sun. All seemed armed--no doubt men hid their hands in their cloaks to avoid revealing their knives and daggers, while a few carried sealing spears and clubs. The man at the front, their leader no doubt by its size and the number of metal plates attached to it, carried a large mace with a shining head that right now he used as a walking stick.

"Run, boy, run and warn the village! I'll stay here and head them off," the old man said. He raised his bow, ready to shoot, but Kapkaram shook his head and grabbed his arm.

"We'll face them together. If we ambush them, they won't know what hit them. Don't worry, I'll carry you on my back if I have to." Kapkaram hated the idea of his father-in-law's brother dying alone in such a place.

Suddenly, the leader's associate pointed at Kapkaram and all men turned toward them, grasping their weapons for battle. The leader shouted something in an unintelligible and harsh language. Kapkaram drew back on his bowstring until the old man of all people stopped him.

"Oh, I know what they're saying. They are northern men, not here to fight at all. Let's trust them for now."

Kapkaram and the old man stood up, bows pointed at the ground as they stared down the foreigners. He had only seen the men from the northern mainland a few times, but these men looked and dressed nothing like them.

"They're asking us if we have food," the old man said. "They are lost."

The leader of the man took out a bronze knife from his cloak and handed it in offering.

"They seem wealthy enough," Kapkaram said. "Should we bring them to the village?"

"If they aren't Repunkur, perhaps they are friends. Let us bring them back there and see what they have for us."

---
Mairup, 1280​

"These are strange people," Lawukhwaaq said over the noise of the feast. Yoqt'aawu could only agree. They were not Tanban, Tangitsu, or any other group of people he had ever heard of. Their men had completely unblemished skin, lacking any piercing besides their earrings. Many of them had incredible beards and thick builds, looking unlike any human Yoqt'aawu had ever seen. The ones lacking that seemed to be slaves or lower class individuals of some sort, perhaps people they conquered in battle--he saw at least one Tanban slave, proving his point. Their women looked even stranger--from the glimpses he caught, every single one of them had dramatic tattoos around their mouths.

Their knives purchased the necessary food and supplies. Much of it was typical fare--preserved salmon, seal meat, and other meats. The feast was delicious, even if the locals kept the brains of the birds and animals for themselves and the milky, foul-smelling liquid that got their men drunk too odd to dare drink.

The next day, Yoqt'aawu saw their gardens, yet the plants they grew totally different than any he had ever seen. They grew an assortment of very tall grasses, akin to the sheaves of water amaranth some Ringitsu villagers maintained, but these plants grew on dry land. Seeing a man who looked like his family owned the plot, Yoqt'aawu pointed at it, gesturing a picking motion. The man looked at him quizzically before picking a sprig of the grass that Yoqt'aawu inspected carefully before concealing it in his pocket.

Handing the man a fang-shaped dentalium shell in thanks, he caught up with his navigator Lawukhwaaq, talking with the same old man from the village they saw the previous day. The old man seemed obsessed over the oxwool pelt and handed him a real treasure--his quiver full of arrows with heads made of iron. As Lawukhwaaq thanked the man, Yoqt'aawu gazed in awe at what he found as the two men walked back to their ship.

"Iron arrowheads? Just how wealthy are these people?" Yoqt'aawu never even heard of such a thing, assuming it to be the stuff of exaggerated stories and legends of men so wealthy they might use such a rare substance the way one used stone. Lawukhwaaq held up an arrow, twirling it around in awe.

"I have no idea. It's not even a large village and the land is miserable, but they own so much iron and bronze. You collected much yourself, I heard."

Yoqt'aawu held up three pairs of earrings with shiny metallic beads on them, clearly iron.

"The Tanban slave fetched this much. I'd be lucky to get a few ducks or a reindeer calf had I sold him to his own people. Just what is this place?"

"They call it Mairup in that strange and smooth tongue they speak," Lawukhwaaq answered. "I don't know what it means, but it's fortunate a few of them speak Tanban, lest we be out of luck."

"We should thank the Tanban for it. If not for the rude greeting that man's kin gave me, we'd have hauled back only the usual."

"Precisely. Every spirits worked upon the world in our favour and brought about this meeting."

At their ship, the crew checked the hull for any damage or leaks as they warmed themselves up for another day of rowing. The sea looked fairly placid, and Yoqt'aawu hoped it might remain so until they reached their home village.

In the ship lay the treasure of trade, stuffed into every compartment possible and even sitting in empty nooks near the oarsmen. Much of it was food for the voyage--they'd eat like the grandest of house chiefs on their voyage home. So laden was their ship that Yoqt'aawu was almost thankful these people didn't have even more iron. Bags full of silvery beads, knives, axes, and even arrowheads were everywhere amidst a few larger items like braziers and iron pots and utensils. A few other odd goods such as bundles of incredibly soft clothing, supposedly from a land far south and east of here, sat alongside them. A few strange animals he heard were called meko that resembled lynx kittens poked around at the bags of food.

"I say we made a good haul here," Yoqt'aawu announced to the crew with pride. "Shall we return to this place soon! There must be more villages like this!"

The crew raised their fists in affirmation. Once they made that trip home, they would become wealthy men indeed. In these lands so far south, a brighter future had opened before them.

---​

Like the Norse at the fringe of Europe, at the fringe of North America the Ringitsu set out to new lands to discover new opportunities for trade in their ever competitive society. From their ancestral lands in the islands of Old Ringitania, the Ringitsu expanded westwards along the coast and islands since the 9th century. A great trading network assembled in their wake populated by many feuding houses out to gain advantages for their kin at any cost. By the 13th century, they reached the shores of Asia, a land they called Diyaanakhaani, the "Land of the Other Side."

For a variety of reasons, the 13th century was the golden age of the Ringitsu. Beneficial climate produced large agricultural yields, while their technology and culture advanced further and further. In their travels, the Ringitsu discovered rare materials such as tin and platinum that fueled their increasingly far-flung trading networks. Challenges to Ringitsu hegemony such as timber shortages were overcome with increasingly sophisticated ship designs and importation of wood. In particular, the Ringitsu whalers, walrus hunters, and tin miners in the near-treeless islands and coast in the Sea of Ringitania demanded great quantities of wood.

The discovery of Diyaanakhaani, the southern portion of the land Sheiyiiq'aani--called in later times the Hidaka Peninsula--solved these problems. With its vast quantities of timber, sable pelts, rare birds and animals, and iron goods--of Japanese manufacture--owned by its natives, it was a keystone in the Ringitsu trade network. Much as Markland and Venarfjord were for the Norse, Sheiyiiq'aani was essential for the functioning of the most remote Ringitsu colonies. Sable and iron were rare goods found nowhere else, while the timber kept the Ringitsu lifestyle viable in the mostly treeless shores and islands of the Sea of Ringitania.

Second to only timber, iron was the most valuable good in Sheiyiiq'aani, and possessing iron goods brought one far. Most of these goods came in the form of beads or common household goods. The latter were used in wealthier households, but the most valuable form came in reshaping the iron for tools. Through heating in a fire, the Ringitsu softened the iron into a form suitable for reshaping into knives, spearheads, axes, and adzes. Even iron beads just as often found new life embedded as teeth in saws as they were used for ornamentation.

The region was widely known in the Ringitsu world for what it exported and those who lived there, but to most Ringitsu, it was considered a distant, paradaisical place despite being so close to the land of the dead. Iron goods from Sheiyiiq'aani were widely exported and used as status symbols, although ironically most were of low quality, inferior to bronze, and prone to rust in Ringitania's wet climate. It was famous for its salmon runs, believed to be the greatest in the world [1] and particularly for the cherry salmon. Native only to the Old World, the Ringitsu greatly valued cherry salmon when they discovered it. They exported it in dried form to other Ringitsu lands where it was said to be reserved only to nobles.

The cherry salmon were the privilege of nobles, leading to a particular sort of building adopted from the native Tanban around 1300. The nobles lived in towers with trademark pyramidal roofs (also adopted from Tanban construction) elevated by stilts 6 meters above the ground. If the noble could afford it, he hired a carver to create what is called "totem stilts", where the stilts served as prayers and invocations to elemental spirits for the protection of the house as well as those offering thanks to the salmon dried there. Commoners and slaves associated with that noble family surrounded it in dwellings barely elevated off the ground. A house chief's dwelling looked similar to a noble dwelling, but his stilts displayed the house's crest and other symbols he alone had the right to use.

The largest Ringitsu settlement in this region was Kiqhaiqh'akaan, established around 1223 by the explorer Khiatitkh. At the mouth of the Kikai River, this strategic post let the Ringitsu venture deep inland for trade with the native Tanban. In addition, other areas of the coast and inland were secured by the end of the 13th century--this land was called Qeiniyaa. The other center of Ringitsu settlement lay far to the north at Gunananuuw Island, a treeless island off the north coast of Sheiyiiq'aani. This land had been conquered by Khiatitkh's nephew Aankaanchi at great cost that led to the impoverishment of his house. Between the two, perhaps 2,500 Ringitsu total lived there in 1250, but by 1300 around 10,000 Ringitsu total lived in the area [2].

Because of Aankaanchi's impoverishment, Sheiyiiq'aani lacked a prestigious house to lead the local Ringitsu. Other Daakhaani Ringitsu houses such as the House of Khiatitkh on the Hiyatani Islands or even those in the Manjimas tried assuming power through potlatches, yet found themselves constantly competing against each other in occasionally violent contests. Attempts at uniting the Ringitsu via force or potlatch (as had been done in Kechaniya and elsewhere in the Ringitsu world) failed. The local Ringitsu and their Tanban allies vigorously rejected the authority of these external Ringitsu, preferring to pit them against each other [3].

The local houses, descendents of those poor nobles who traveled there as soldiers, sailors, hunters, and merchants, remained poor and unprestigious. They competed against each other strongly in potlatching, gambling, sports, and occasionally violent duels, but retained enough sense to prevent Sheiyiiq'aani from dissolving into chaos. They looked to Aankaanchi's descendents to lead them, yet with that house's lack of power, the ultimate authority lay within the house chiefs rather than a single elected ruler. By the early 14th century, this system crystalised into the establishment of a confederation centered at Kiqhaiqh'akaan historiographically called Qeiniyaa.

Qeiniyaa's social structure was unique among the Ringitsu. They were totally governed by a council of house chiefs without a single true leader, as had emerged everywhere else in Ringitania. The titles of Great Captain and Great Navigator, titles of leadership in the Manjimas, were greatly shifted. The Great Captain was merely the man the first among equals, with conducting the potlatch ceremony every year his only unique responsbility. This ceremony was in truth meant for the elite of the community rather than a symbol of his personal power, for the "tribute" he received was in actuality the leading houses competing to assemble the greatest stockpile of wealth. At the end of the year, the Great Captain conducted the ceremony and granted his title to the house which contributed the most money. Retired Great Captains served as Great Navigators who sat in a second "chamber" of Qeiniyaa's council.

Qeiniyaa functioned as a confederation--nearby Tanban villages were invited to participate in its affairs. Tanban rulers who accepted the authority of Qeiniyaa's Great Captain formed a third "chamber," which was responsible for foreign affairs, including the decision to go to war. In addition, it adjudicated disputes that involved Tanban individuals. Because Tanban tribes often benefitted from alliances with the Ringitsu, Qeiniyaa extended its rule, nominal as it often was, over dozens of Tanban villages and tens of thousands of square kilometers of land.

Increased social organisation likewise occurred among the Tanban. Because Ringitsu goods provoked jockeying for social status among Tanban elite, the Tanban moved their villages to fortified hill forts. The largest of these, centered around the wealthiest and most powerful chief, became the nucleus for larger towns. By 1350, the Tanban had coalesced into four tribal confederations, with the largest and most powerful located in the southeast of the Hidaka Peninsula centered around Subachi Bay [4]. Like Qeiniyaa, these Tanban proto-states also had rotating leadership and large councils, but their leaders came from only a select few families, usually those whose villages merged to form the confederation capital.

Houses sought to gain prestige at all costs, be it through war, alliances, whaling, religion, or wealth. Exploration proved an easy option for this, aided by the individualism of Sheiyiiq'aani's society. An enterprising captain might take a ship to wherever he pleased, as long as his crew believed something was in it for them. These explorers sought rare goods such as those East Asian goods made from iron and bronze. Others sought slaves for their household or animals not found elsewhere in the Ringitsu world such as the Stellar's sea eagle, the latter destined for the elite of Kechaniya. Exploration of Sheiyiiq'aani produced a rich volume of folklore and oral legend that often centered around dangerous encounters with savage Tangitsu, cheating the ignorant Tanban, or encounters with violent nature spirits.

A generation after the plagues struck Sheiyiiq'aani, these explorations picked up pace. The mountainous capes of the Hidaka Peninsula became common stopping places where Ringitsu villages formed, using isolation to protect against attack. The Ringitsu even crossed the narrow northern neck of the Peninsula around 1275 and reached the Chishima Sea, although its distance and lack of opportunities ensured it was never a focus. In addition, the Chishima Sea was often perceived as the legendary river of the dead--even being near it was deemed as bringing nothing but trouble [5].

Ringitsu trading and economic activities in the southern Hidaka Peninsula produced global ramifications. The Tanban traded their goods south to the Mishihase people, often in exchange for Japanese goods [6], a tradition continued by the Ringitsu and augmented by their goods. With their access to rare pelts, reindeer antlers, ivory, live polar bears and eagles (including bald eagles and golden eagles, not native to East Asia), gold, and silver, both Tanban and Ringitsu became quite wealthy.

Yet the Mishihase were a declining people. Harsh conditions on the Sea of Okhotsk depleted their numbers, and the increased wealth from trade was unable to make up for it. In fact, it likely invited their disaster--epidemic (perhaps smallpox or measles) tore through their homeland in the northern Chishima archipelago in the mid-13th century. Faced with famine and few in numbers, they made easy prey for the enterprising Ainu tribes who had been settling the islands from the south in search of new opportunities. By 1270, the Ainu reached Paramushiro, the northernmost large island in the Chishimas, where they absorbed the few surviving Mishihase. While the Mishihase still persisted on the northern coast of Ezo (later Hokkaido) and on Karafuto, the Ainu tribes were clearly ascendent in North Asia.

The strength of the Ainu came in their diversified economy. The Ainu farmed millet, buckwheat, and other crops, although their main livelihood lay in hunting. An Ainu village hunted all manner of animals, and from this they traded goods to other Ainu who lived as far south as northern Honshu. This trade gave them access to prestigious Japanese goods and imported food. In contrast, the Mishihase were primarily a coastal people reliant on coastal resources. As the climate cooled and storms increased, the Ainu increasingly pressed the Mishihase for land and resources.

In 1280, the Ringitsu explorer Yoqt'aawu, later called Lukakaanish, sailed south from his main base at the town of Tlanakshuyei at Cape Torinaka. He intended to trade with the large Tanban town of Aushin in Subachi Bay, as he had done before, but political rivalries within the town forced his expulsion. He continued sailing south, determined to make something of his expedition, yet found only small, poor Tanban villages due to prior conflicts with the Ringitsu and other Tanban. Eventually Yoqt'aawu sailed so far south he reached the end of the peninsula itself at a narrow, bitterly cold spit of land later called Cape Kaburi, known in Ringitsu as Lukakaan [7].

Likely his crew would have mutinied then and there had the weather not cleared and a distant island--Paramushiro--revealed itself. Wagering his life on the people there being rich, Lukakaanish sailed to this island where he found a small Ainu village named Mairup [8]. To his surprise, even this small village was rich in iron goods ranging from beads to fishhooks, all products of Japanese manufacture. The Ainu gladly accepted his cargo of gold, silver, and reindeer antlers, and Lukakaanish returned to Kiqhaiqh'akaan as a wealthy and powerful man, taking his new name from the place he discovered. He would serve as Great Captain of Qeiniyaa a record eleven times (more than anyone in history would afterwards) before his death in 1313.

News spread of these people rich in iron in the south, and despite the House of Lukakaanish's best attempts, other merchants discovered sea routes to the Chishima archipelago. Each Ringitsu house traded with a particular group of Chishima Ainu. While the Chishima Ainu rarely involved themselves in Ringitsu disputes, only threats from Kiqhaiqh'akaan's legislature limited inter-Ringitsu bloodshed in this region.

The Chishima Ainu themselves gladly adopted their role as middlemen. They intermarried with the Ringitsu and the wealthier Tanban and even bought permission to live alongside their communities. Individual Chishima Ainu likely visited as far north as Kiqhaiqh'akaan itself. Among other Ainu, the Chishima Ainu became known by 1300 for their wealth and propensity to travel long distances to purchase East Asian trade goods.

This led to much cultural borrowing between the Ringitsu and Chishima Ainu in what is called the Ringitic Exchange, one of the four Great Exchanges between Old World and New World. Agriculture lay at the forefront of this, for the Ringitsu adopted the two Ainu crops--buckwheat and millet--by 1300. As foreign grains, the food carried a certain prestige and was rapidly adopted not just in Sheiyiiq'aani, but the broader Ringitsu world as a whole.

Both crops were ideal for the Ringitsu--as grains, they were very easy to store for long periods of time compared to omodaka and river turnip (only water amaranth held that property among Ringitsu crops, yet buckwheat and millet were easier to grow and produced greater yields). Their growth seasons were regular and the crops tolerant of cool, damp environments with excess salinity. As they spread back into the main Ringitsu homeland, their ease of storage enhanced food surpluses, reducing the risk of famine and permitting the Ringitsu to raise more livestock. This kept Ringitsu society vibrant even as the climate cooled at the end of the 13th century. These crops would end up spreading much further beyond Ringitania in the decades to come.

The Chishima Ainu themselves took to agriculture during the 14th century. While they never built elaborate aquaculture systems, or even the rudimentary ones the Tanban did, Far Northwest vegetables like bistort and sweetvetch were commonly raised in their gardens, river turnip cultivated in low-lying areas, and riceroot grown alongside millet, buckwheat, and barley. While in this era other Ainu gradually abandoned agriculture in favor of hunting, gathering, and trading, the Chishima Ainu intensified cultivation.

The greatest innovation was the introduction of livestock. Wealthy Ainu occasionally acquired reindeer in trade, where they butchered them as meat or even milked them, but the animals were not found in Ainu lands outside Karafuto [9]. The Tanban adaption to reindeer herding along with the arrival of the reindeer-herding Ringitsu completely changed this. Finding a source of reindeer and skilled herdsmen to teach them, the Chishima Ainu took up reindeer herding.

Over time, this art gradually filtered into other Ainu groups and by 1350 resulted in the formation of a reindeer herd on Ezo. The Chishima Ainu would come to regard reindeer with nearly the importance afforded salmon. Their meat, milk, and cheese sustained life, while their antler velvet proved extremely valuable in trade, especially to the Japanese.

Of other livestock, few were introduced. Towey goats were practically unknown among the Daakaani Ringitsu who settled Sheiyiiq'aani, thus only their pelts were sold. Likewise, moose were incredibly rare exclusively owned by Ringitsu elite and almost never traded, but archaeologists have found remains of moose in the great port of Tosa in northernmost Honshu. Of other animals, only ducks found adoption as domesticates by the Chishima Ainu.

In a parallel to contemporary events in Europe, oxwool found great value among the Chishima Ainu. Traded in small amounts by the Ringitsu, it became the only fabric able to compete with valuable Chinese silk in Ainu culture. The Ainu used it to line robes and make hats and gloves. Those few Japanese fortunate enough to obtain it regarded it as making the finest mats and blankets, although those elite of northern Honshu with Emishi origins also made it into robes. This represents the first appearance of gibyu, an important motive in future Japanese exploration and trade in the north.

Although the Ainu knew of cattle, pigs, and especially horses (a valuable trade good of Dewa and Mutsu provinces in the far north of Honshu) and traded them periodically to the Tanban and Ringitsu for use as meat or as novelties, those animals never were widely adopted. Perhaps their diets and behaviors were too unusual, or the Ringitsu and Tanban preferred working with the animals they knew.

One animal was adopted however--the housecat. Perceived as a smaller, tamer version of the semi-domesticated lynx, the Ringitsu obtained housecats from the Ainu by the early 14th century [10]. The Ringitsu found their pelts too allergenic, but their ability to kill rodents useful while their meat was valued by shamans. Like in eastern North America, cats spread along the trade routes as novelties and rodent killers.

These were bobtailed cats, commonly longhaired. This original founding stock resulted in the dominance of bobtailed cats practically everywhere west of the American Divides and North of the Rio Bravo to the point cats with long tails, found among the Plains Indians and later European explorers, were regarded as aberrant by indigenous Fusanians to the point of being considered a separate animal [11].

Technologically, the Ringitsu gained a crucial innovation--the wheel. While wheels were known to the Ringitsu (as all Fusanian cultures), they existed as mere toys. Examples of Ainu carts (no doubt themselves purchased from the Japanese) reshaped Ringitsu perceptions on the wheel. The Ringitsu initially used wheels for handcarts used to more efficiently move heavy objects around when reindeer weren't available, yet as time passed, the potential of the wheel was unlocked.

Contact with the Ainu brought religious exchange as well. Each group traded (sometimes literally) stories and legends, some of which imprinted themselves on mythology. The practice of iyomante "bear cub" rituals among the Sheiyiiq'aani Ringitsu, along with their kin in the Manjimas and elsewhere in Far Ringitania, is the most conspicuous and famous borrowing from Ainu culture, although some argue it emerged from shared heritage with the Mishihase. Among the Ainu, particularly the Chishima Ainu, many legends about Onnepaskur-Kamuy, a raven god, originate from the Ringitsu.

All of this trade resulted in the formation of a great emporium at Cape Kaburi, a town known in Ringitsu as Ikhkeihaan ("town of the far south"). Despite the fierce climate prone to gales as well as a lack of fuel, the area supported a thriving settlement fed by imported goods from elsewhere in Sheiyiiq'aani. Whalers and reindeer herders based themselves there, forming a mixed culture of Ringitsu, Tanban, and Ainu.

Gold and silver goods proved popular trade goods among both Ainu and Mishihase. From earliest times, the Chishima Ainu gained a reputation for their gold and silver, perhaps from a particularly prestigious trader or chief. Further, their imported reindeer found favour among the Andou clan, who employed Ainu reindeer herders. Ringitsu records suggest by this means the Japanese first encountered Fusanian peoples.

The earliest known Ringitsu in Japan was Lawukhwaaq (an heir of the more famous Aankaanchi). According to his family's chronicle, Lawukhwaaq traveled south with his Ainu kin sometime in the early 14th century and worked as a reindeer herder. One day he was given an offer to present his livestock before the great lord of "Tosaan", clearly a reference to Tosa, the major port city of northern Honshu. There he and his kin worked for several months and acquired great wealth, including fabulous robes and a fine katana (typical gifts given by the Japanese to wealthy Ainu) before returning to Ikheihaan on Cape Kaburi. He claimed the name Aankaanchi from his kin at potlatch, but would gift the name to an unimportant nephew, taking a new name Yaayanasnak'eikh ("he who chases the south wind") as the name for his family, founding a powerful local house.

Regardless of his success, almost no direct trade occurred. The Ainu of Ezo demanded expensive goods for permission to settle among them, making even traveling to Ezo difficult. There was often an underlying hostility between Ezo Ainu and Ringitsu, perhaps out of mistakenly associating them with the seafaring Mishihase (whom the Ainu called repunkur, or "sea people"). The Ringitsu could only obtain a limited amount of wares of Japan and China, and the Chishima Ainu abundantly fulfilled this demand. It can thus be said that the Ringitsu world reached its limits at Cape Kaburi. While the northernmost islands of the Chishimas, especially Shumushu and Paramushiro, saw regular visits, few ships traveled to the southern Chishimas and even fewer to even the closest parts of Ezo, let alone areas further afield.

Most practically, the Chishima Ainu themselves likely prevented Ringitsu trade from expanding south. As the Chishima Ainu had access to those most preferred Ringitsu goods--gold, silver, and bronze knives and tools, reindeer, oxwool, and exotic birds and animals--they themselves monopolised trade with their Ezo kin, making it challenging for the Ringitsu to find a market.

This trade effected a great increase in wealth among the entirety of the Ainu, driving them north to Karafuto in greater and greater numbers so they might replicate that success. This expansion caused intensified conflicts with the Mishihase. As tributaries of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the Mishihase already had enlisted Mongol aid in driving the Ainu back in 1264, yet the logistical difficulties of campaigning against semi-nomadic people in dense forest so far from civilisation posed a challenge.

While its unknown just how much the arrival of the Ringitsu shifted and strengthened northern trading networks, what is clear is that by the 1270s, they were increasingly coveted by the Mongol Empire, the most powerful state on the planet in that era. The late 13th century, beginning with the Mongol expeditions to Karafuto, would begin the process of the dramatic reshaping of Japan, North Asia, and eventually the entire New World. At long last, the Old and New World were coming together.

---
Author's notes​

This is follow-up chapter to Chapter 65, covering the next phase of the Ringitsu in Kamchatka (TTL Sheiyiiq'aani/Hidaka). The distinct resources of this land, as well as their demand in the intermediate area (Bering Sea area) and even further afield breathes new life into their trade network, but it's still at the edge of its logistical tether. There are distinct parallels with the Norse and their relation between Norway-Iceland-Greenland-Markland/Vinland, but keep in mind both were similar tribal societies centered around lineage operating in similar environments.

At one point I planned on having Ringitsu ships sailing directly to Japan, but given the incredibly harsh and unpredictable seas and the fact the Ainu themselves already maintained one hell of a trade network, it felt like too much of a wank even for me. A few Ringitsu might poke around there, but it's not going to amount to much since the Ainu would bring most everything to the Ringitsu.

Medieval Ainu society was very different than the more well-known Ainu encountered in later centuries. They farmed, made pottery and iron tools, and raised pigs, including the Ezo Ainu (I'm using ). Ainu culture radically evolved in the direction it did because of centuries of economic colonisation where the hunter gatherer lifestyle made more and more sense. But it is the former Ainu which the Ringitsu encounter and the Japanese--and Mongols--will contend with.

I noticeably did not cover the Inuit, including those Inuit muskox herders who I've mentioned are pushing north along the Arctic Ocean's shores. I will cover them in a later chapter that will specifically detail the Little Ice Age in TTL's Alaska/northeast Siberia. I may or may not have some interesting plans for the Chukchi, Yukaghir, and others in that region. This era appears to be a time of upheaval for them OTL, and overall they haven't been too affected by the butterflies of TTL.

The next chapter or two will cover the Mongol Empire and their invasions of Japan and surrounding areas. At this point, the butterflies will truly flap in the Old World.

[1] - Up to 20% of all Pacific salmon originate from Kamchatka, and its among the few places on Earth where all six species of Pacific salmon live. As the cherry salmon is not found in North America, it would likely be a curiosity among people like the Ringitsu whose culture prizes salmon
[2] - Kiqhaiqh'akaan is Ust-Kamchatsk, the Kikai River is the Kamchatka River, and Gunananuuw is Karaginsky Island.
[3] - The Manjimas are the Aleutians, the Hiyatani Islands are the Commander Islands, and Kechaniya is Kodiak Island
[4] - The Hidaka Peninsula is the Kamchatka Peninsula (I use "Sheiyiiq'aani" to refer to exclusively the Ringitsu cultural realm there) and Subachi Bay is Avacha Bay (on which sits Petropavlovsk)
[5] - The Chishima Sea is the Sea of Okhotsk (OTL it never had a native Japanese name, so I am naming it for its most extensive archipelago)
[6] - As before, I'm using Mishihase as the term for the Okhotsk culture people
[7] - Cape Torinaka is Kronotsky Point in central Kamchatka, near Kronotsky Volcano and Aushin is at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Cape Kaburi is Cape Lopatka (a late edit--I originally called it Cape Ropakka but "Kaburi" looks to be a more faithful rendition of its Ainu name "Kapury")
[8] - I'm using the attested name "Mairup" (sometimes found as Mairuppo) for this place on Shumshu, although the changes TTL makes it established earlier than OTL. IOTL, it was later called Kataoka under Japanese rule and Baikovo in Soviet times before being abandoned.
[9] - Although reindeer are long extinct south of Sakhalin and Kamchatka, there are references to the historic Emishi, some groups of Ainu, and their descendents such as the Kamakura-era Andou clan of Tohoku keeping reindeer and even milking them. If true--and I'm going to assume TTL it is--they may have traded from Tungusic-speaking peoples like the Uilta.
[10] - Cats were known among the Ainu due to Japanese influence, and I'm assuming that at least some were bobtailed, as such a mutation is very common among Japanese cats. Technically this is NOT the OTL Kuril bobtail breed which only appeared after 1945 with the hybridisation of long-haired Russian cats (akin to the Siberian breed) with Japanese bobtails, but the conditions of the islands pretty much guarantee such a cat would appear

 

[Arkenfolm]

Here is the map of the Misebian world TTL in the late 13th century. Refer to Chapter 85 for the details. This map includes the various regional cultures of Misebians, which is more or less similar to OTL. However, the Central Plains Misebian only became truly "Misebian" TTL because of the greater development in the region (OTL it was the comparatively simpler Steed-Kisker Culture). As always, cultural borders are approximate. Non-Misebian groups have their locations approximated on the map by simple labels in a different font.

I have also experimented with displaying various trade routes, which are intended to illustrate the connections between cities (or lack thereof). Even smaller trade routes exist too, of course, but are mostly not portrayed here. I would say they are broadly similar to OTL.

I will be posting a map of the Northern Misebians/adjacent groups and possibly one more of the past batch of entries before I do my next post.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Here is the promised map, this one covering the Upper Misebi [Mississippi] basin, the Great Lakes, and the northern Plains. It specifically focuses on the seven confederations of the Upper Misebian culture which because of their increasingly hierarchal, aquaculture-centered nature are becoming the first state societies in eastern North America. As before, other cultures are labeled on the map as are a few important trade routes (which are by no means the only trade routes). I added a few extra rivers and lakes to the map than previous basemaps just because it focuses on the Upper Midwest which is known for that.

Next update will probably take some time since I rewrote what I had written for my new TL. In any case, it will just be a Horn of Bronze-flavoured summary.