Building a Longhouse: Iroquois Empire
[FONT="]Moved to another thread.[/edit]
This is something of a preview thread. The only catch is, I haven’t really decided where I’m going to actually go from here yet. Maybe I’ll stick with the “In the Beginning” storyline, maybe I’ll jump ahead a few centuries, maybe I’ll even go back a little and deal with the formation of the Haudenosaunee. Critiquing is requested.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha stood before the assembled men—the first official meeting of the Great Council of the Haudenosaunee—and spoke. “Brothers, chances are that you have already guessed the topic on which I have chosen to speak. After all, along with the allegory of the bundle of arrows to symbolize the strength we could achieve if we became one mighty nation, Deganawidah and I also used the Norse as evidence of how weak we were when we stood apart.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“The Norse, while powerful warriors with superior weaponry, were few in number and very far from home in the Dawn Lands, and so would never have been able to conquer territory here in the natural course of events—their story of Vinland proves that!—but, fortuitously for them, they did not have to conquer anything! In the days of my grandfather Chief Agetshahnit of the Mohawk, upon seeing their fantastic weaponry and the ferocity of their warriors, offered them land in exchange for fighting for him against the Oneida.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And so for years the Norse have been fighting for the highest bidder, gradually accruing more lands and more favorable trade agreements, and we let them get away with it because they are just so damn useful! They are the only known people who can make iron things, their warriors are decked out in it, and even if they weren’t their skinwalkers are terror to behold in battle. They have also brought us the goats, sheep, ponies, pigs, and, most recently, cows.” This last elicited odd looks; obviously, it was true, but it wasn’t where these men had thought Ayenwatha was going with this. The great orator must have appeared to be rambling, but the truth was he wanted these men to be thinking of the good that had come of the Norse presence as well as the bad.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And so we are here to make war on them,” Tadodaho said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“No,” Ayenwatha said, “or at least, not at this juncture. It may become necessary to go to war with the Norse, and that war, while being one that will cost us dearly in the blood of young men, is one that we would ultimately win, but it would not be good in the long run. We do not have the secrets to the Norse ironmongery, nor to their ship-building. And while we can do without these, perhaps, the Norse would still be out there, and it is only a matter of time until someone somewhere else in the Dawn Lands is as foolish as old Agetshahnit, and then our great nation will have a powerful rival, one with a grudge.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Or perhaps they won’t have to wait. There are more Norse in the Dawn Lands than ever before, and they know the strengths and weaknesses of all our neighbors at least as well as we do; it would perhaps be easier for them to conquer one of the smaller neighbors than it would be for them to go home.” [/FONT]
[FONT="]“So what do you propose?” Tadodaho asked.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Good of you to ask. It’s actually quite simple…”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Two men rode ponies along a trail. The sky was overcast that morning and drizzeling on and off, so they wore Norse-style overcoats.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I really hate having to deal with that man,” Ayenwatha complained, his eyes not leaving the trail in front of his mount.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“You hid it quite admirably,” Deganawidah commented. He didn’t need to look to see the expression on his truest friend’s face. “You were quite calm and composed, and never missed a beat.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I nearly choked on bile every time Tadodaho spoke,” Daganawidah said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“One wouldn’t have known it from looking at you.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Oh, really?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Great Peacemaker grinned. “One who wasn’t me, at any rate.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha snorted. “Heh.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah looked at his friend. “It truly is admirable that you can stand to deal with that man. They say that I am touched by Haghwediyu, but you are the one who is truly, I think.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yeah, well, even if I strangled him, it wouldn’t bring my daughters back. All it would accomplish would be to create a whole lot more grieving fathers and mothers. The cycle of violence ends now, or it will likely never end. Well, it’d end when the Norse end up owning everything, I suppose.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The two men rode in silence for a while.[/FONT]
[FONT="]A Norse village came into view. “So, you plan on causing another eclipse any time soon? It might be advantageous,” Ayenwatha teased.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I told you I didn’t cause it. I just used my foreknowledge to take political advantage of it.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Right, because knowing when there’s going to be an eclipse is normal.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It would have been obvious to you, too, if you had studied the movements of sun and moon in the sky,” Deganawidah chided.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Right.” They dismounted and approached the edge of the village. Ayenwatha shouted in Norse: “Thorkill Bjornsson! We are Deganawidah and Ayenwatha! Come out and greet us to your village!”[/FONT]
[FONT="]There was much activity, and then the gate opened. A large, heavily bearded man stood in their path. “Deganawidah and Ayenwatha. Your exploits are legendary in your own time. I welcome you to my village.” [/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill greeted the legendary Skraeling ambassadors and lead them into his village. “How goes your quest?” he asked.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It goes well,” Deganawidah said. “Tadodaho has joined with us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill’s heart sank. Tadodaho had been the last holdout, the last potential ally of the Norse in these lands, and now that he was with the Haudenosaunee…They are here to deliver a declaration of war. “I congratulate you on the completion of your quest.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Who said my quest was complete?” Deganawidah asked. “Though I have high hopes of completing it soon; there is but one more tribe of people in this land whom I need to convince to join with us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Another tribe? They already had the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. “Who, if you don’t mind my asking?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah smiled. “You.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill’s eyes widened. “You want us to join the Haudenosaunee?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And why not? If we expelled you, we’d lose much of your iron and trade; it would be unfortunate to see it go to our enemies.” Ayenwatha said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“So it’s better to have the Norse inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in, is what you’re saying,” Thorkill said dryly.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yes,” Deganawidah said. “Taking the offer would be…somewhat beneficial, shall we say?…for you as well.” He glanced around meaningfully. “This is a nice village.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yes, it is, and well-defended; taking it by force would not be cheap,” Thorkill said darkly.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“For anyone; yet another good reason for you to join us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha pulled a scroll out of his satchel. “You will be a full and equal member of the Haudenosaunee. At least read the Great Law before you make your decision.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill scanned the document; it was written in Norse, which was convenient of them. It was a surprisingly good deal. Until he got to how sachem were chosen. “You think I’ll get people to agree to this?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah smiled. “Your people have been living alongside ours for two generations and change; I think it’ll be easier than you think.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Notes:[/FONT]
[FONT="]I’m thinking of naming the Norse colony “New Vinland” but went out of my way to avoid mentioning it in-story because I’m not sure whether or not I’m going to go with it; the Norse might consider it a bad omen. I also briefly considered having the Norse refer to the proto-Haudenosaunee as the Kone-Iro, which would be a delicious allohistorical allusion to those who would get it, but I decided against it because (1) I can’t assume those words would have remained static in the Iroquois language for six centuries and (2) it’s doubtful that they’d have a reputations for oratory before they had as much need for oratory, which is to say, the formation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.[/FONT]
[FONT="]As for the seemingly out of place skinwalker comment, Norse bear-shirts and wolf-coats (which are usually called berserkers, on account of that being where the word comes from) are classified as a type of skinwalker by the people who study these things for a living; they believe they are literally channeling the spirit of their totem animal. I don’t think the Iroquois “had” any of their own, but they were probably at least aware of the concept from their neighbors.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The structure of the Great Council will be different than it is IOTL; for one thing, it is designed from the beginning to include a potentially hostile minority who may end up having to be coerced into joining, so the unanimous consent rule is gone, which in turn means that the constituent powers can’t have wildly varying numbers of sachems. Also, Deganawidah is aware of and has studied the structure of the Althing, so may have incorporated features that he likes.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Speaking of Deganawidah, is it realistic that he and Ayenwatha still exist despite everything that’s been changed in their homeland over the last approximate century? Frankly, no. But how do you know that these aren’t completely different people who just so happen to have the same names and do the same things at the time that they’re reported to have done them? (That’s also my excuse for any unique quirks I give my version of these guys—such as Deganawida’s Holmesian skills at deduction only without his fear of astronomy (I wanted to keep as close to the legend as I could and this is the only way I could account for such convenient timing of the eclipse). So tempted to write a murder mystery now…)[/FONT]
[FONT="]IOTL the colonies had a major problem with people running off to join the Indians. I figure that the tendency would be less strong in the Norse, coming from a less restrictive background, but also there would be fewer colonists so they’d still have to adapt to survive.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Did I forget anything? Oh, right—the year is 1142, that being the year of the aforementioned eclipse. But you already knew that, right? [/FONT][FONT="]Also, the title comes from the literal translation of Haudenosaunee—“People Building a Longhouse”. [/FONT][FONT="] Once again, critiquing and suggestions would be welcome.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Moved to another thread.[/edit]
This is something of a preview thread. The only catch is, I haven’t really decided where I’m going to actually go from here yet. Maybe I’ll stick with the “In the Beginning” storyline, maybe I’ll jump ahead a few centuries, maybe I’ll even go back a little and deal with the formation of the Haudenosaunee. Critiquing is requested.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Building a Longhouse: In the Beginning[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha stood before the assembled men—the first official meeting of the Great Council of the Haudenosaunee—and spoke. “Brothers, chances are that you have already guessed the topic on which I have chosen to speak. After all, along with the allegory of the bundle of arrows to symbolize the strength we could achieve if we became one mighty nation, Deganawidah and I also used the Norse as evidence of how weak we were when we stood apart.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“The Norse, while powerful warriors with superior weaponry, were few in number and very far from home in the Dawn Lands, and so would never have been able to conquer territory here in the natural course of events—their story of Vinland proves that!—but, fortuitously for them, they did not have to conquer anything! In the days of my grandfather Chief Agetshahnit of the Mohawk, upon seeing their fantastic weaponry and the ferocity of their warriors, offered them land in exchange for fighting for him against the Oneida.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And so for years the Norse have been fighting for the highest bidder, gradually accruing more lands and more favorable trade agreements, and we let them get away with it because they are just so damn useful! They are the only known people who can make iron things, their warriors are decked out in it, and even if they weren’t their skinwalkers are terror to behold in battle. They have also brought us the goats, sheep, ponies, pigs, and, most recently, cows.” This last elicited odd looks; obviously, it was true, but it wasn’t where these men had thought Ayenwatha was going with this. The great orator must have appeared to be rambling, but the truth was he wanted these men to be thinking of the good that had come of the Norse presence as well as the bad.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And so we are here to make war on them,” Tadodaho said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“No,” Ayenwatha said, “or at least, not at this juncture. It may become necessary to go to war with the Norse, and that war, while being one that will cost us dearly in the blood of young men, is one that we would ultimately win, but it would not be good in the long run. We do not have the secrets to the Norse ironmongery, nor to their ship-building. And while we can do without these, perhaps, the Norse would still be out there, and it is only a matter of time until someone somewhere else in the Dawn Lands is as foolish as old Agetshahnit, and then our great nation will have a powerful rival, one with a grudge.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Or perhaps they won’t have to wait. There are more Norse in the Dawn Lands than ever before, and they know the strengths and weaknesses of all our neighbors at least as well as we do; it would perhaps be easier for them to conquer one of the smaller neighbors than it would be for them to go home.” [/FONT]
[FONT="]“So what do you propose?” Tadodaho asked.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Good of you to ask. It’s actually quite simple…”[/FONT]
[FONT="]# # # # #[/FONT]
[FONT="]Two men rode ponies along a trail. The sky was overcast that morning and drizzeling on and off, so they wore Norse-style overcoats.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I really hate having to deal with that man,” Ayenwatha complained, his eyes not leaving the trail in front of his mount.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“You hid it quite admirably,” Deganawidah commented. He didn’t need to look to see the expression on his truest friend’s face. “You were quite calm and composed, and never missed a beat.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I nearly choked on bile every time Tadodaho spoke,” Daganawidah said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“One wouldn’t have known it from looking at you.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Oh, really?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Great Peacemaker grinned. “One who wasn’t me, at any rate.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha snorted. “Heh.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah looked at his friend. “It truly is admirable that you can stand to deal with that man. They say that I am touched by Haghwediyu, but you are the one who is truly, I think.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yeah, well, even if I strangled him, it wouldn’t bring my daughters back. All it would accomplish would be to create a whole lot more grieving fathers and mothers. The cycle of violence ends now, or it will likely never end. Well, it’d end when the Norse end up owning everything, I suppose.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The two men rode in silence for a while.[/FONT]
[FONT="]A Norse village came into view. “So, you plan on causing another eclipse any time soon? It might be advantageous,” Ayenwatha teased.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I told you I didn’t cause it. I just used my foreknowledge to take political advantage of it.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Right, because knowing when there’s going to be an eclipse is normal.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It would have been obvious to you, too, if you had studied the movements of sun and moon in the sky,” Deganawidah chided.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Right.” They dismounted and approached the edge of the village. Ayenwatha shouted in Norse: “Thorkill Bjornsson! We are Deganawidah and Ayenwatha! Come out and greet us to your village!”[/FONT]
[FONT="]There was much activity, and then the gate opened. A large, heavily bearded man stood in their path. “Deganawidah and Ayenwatha. Your exploits are legendary in your own time. I welcome you to my village.” [/FONT]
[FONT="]# # # # #[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill greeted the legendary Skraeling ambassadors and lead them into his village. “How goes your quest?” he asked.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It goes well,” Deganawidah said. “Tadodaho has joined with us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill’s heart sank. Tadodaho had been the last holdout, the last potential ally of the Norse in these lands, and now that he was with the Haudenosaunee…They are here to deliver a declaration of war. “I congratulate you on the completion of your quest.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Who said my quest was complete?” Deganawidah asked. “Though I have high hopes of completing it soon; there is but one more tribe of people in this land whom I need to convince to join with us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Another tribe? They already had the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. “Who, if you don’t mind my asking?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah smiled. “You.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill’s eyes widened. “You want us to join the Haudenosaunee?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“And why not? If we expelled you, we’d lose much of your iron and trade; it would be unfortunate to see it go to our enemies.” Ayenwatha said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“So it’s better to have the Norse inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in, is what you’re saying,” Thorkill said dryly.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yes,” Deganawidah said. “Taking the offer would be…somewhat beneficial, shall we say?…for you as well.” He glanced around meaningfully. “This is a nice village.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Yes, it is, and well-defended; taking it by force would not be cheap,” Thorkill said darkly.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“For anyone; yet another good reason for you to join us.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ayenwatha pulled a scroll out of his satchel. “You will be a full and equal member of the Haudenosaunee. At least read the Great Law before you make your decision.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thorkill scanned the document; it was written in Norse, which was convenient of them. It was a surprisingly good deal. Until he got to how sachem were chosen. “You think I’ll get people to agree to this?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Deganawidah smiled. “Your people have been living alongside ours for two generations and change; I think it’ll be easier than you think.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]: ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ :[/FONT]
[FONT="]Notes:[/FONT]
[FONT="]I’m thinking of naming the Norse colony “New Vinland” but went out of my way to avoid mentioning it in-story because I’m not sure whether or not I’m going to go with it; the Norse might consider it a bad omen. I also briefly considered having the Norse refer to the proto-Haudenosaunee as the Kone-Iro, which would be a delicious allohistorical allusion to those who would get it, but I decided against it because (1) I can’t assume those words would have remained static in the Iroquois language for six centuries and (2) it’s doubtful that they’d have a reputations for oratory before they had as much need for oratory, which is to say, the formation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.[/FONT]
[FONT="]As for the seemingly out of place skinwalker comment, Norse bear-shirts and wolf-coats (which are usually called berserkers, on account of that being where the word comes from) are classified as a type of skinwalker by the people who study these things for a living; they believe they are literally channeling the spirit of their totem animal. I don’t think the Iroquois “had” any of their own, but they were probably at least aware of the concept from their neighbors.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The structure of the Great Council will be different than it is IOTL; for one thing, it is designed from the beginning to include a potentially hostile minority who may end up having to be coerced into joining, so the unanimous consent rule is gone, which in turn means that the constituent powers can’t have wildly varying numbers of sachems. Also, Deganawidah is aware of and has studied the structure of the Althing, so may have incorporated features that he likes.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Speaking of Deganawidah, is it realistic that he and Ayenwatha still exist despite everything that’s been changed in their homeland over the last approximate century? Frankly, no. But how do you know that these aren’t completely different people who just so happen to have the same names and do the same things at the time that they’re reported to have done them? (That’s also my excuse for any unique quirks I give my version of these guys—such as Deganawida’s Holmesian skills at deduction only without his fear of astronomy (I wanted to keep as close to the legend as I could and this is the only way I could account for such convenient timing of the eclipse). So tempted to write a murder mystery now…)[/FONT]
[FONT="]IOTL the colonies had a major problem with people running off to join the Indians. I figure that the tendency would be less strong in the Norse, coming from a less restrictive background, but also there would be fewer colonists so they’d still have to adapt to survive.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Did I forget anything? Oh, right—the year is 1142, that being the year of the aforementioned eclipse. But you already knew that, right? [/FONT][FONT="]Also, the title comes from the literal translation of Haudenosaunee—“People Building a Longhouse”. [/FONT][FONT="] Once again, critiquing and suggestions would be welcome.[/FONT]
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