Corn Fields and Longhouses

The next few updates might be a bit more spaced now, as I'm leaving on a jetplane.

Cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go


That's the first that that came to mind, damn you Jewel and your catchy tunes! Damn you! (Actually, who did sing that, I remember someone sang it, but I'll be damned if I remember who sung it... a woman I think?)

Have a nice trip, Dnapo!
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I don't think that coal are really worth the bother at this point, charcoal was cheaper to produce and in fact better to primitive iron smelting and if there was one thing North America didn't lack it was timber.

Beside that I like this timeline, through I'm not sure how big difference iron will make. Through if together with a early introduction of a alphabeth by the Jesuit and a few crops and domesticated animals may give them a good position to survive.
 
That's the first that that came to mind, damn you Jewel and your catchy tunes! Damn you! (Actually, who did sing that, I remember someone sang it, but I'll be damned if I remember who sung it... a woman I think?)

Wasn't Bjork? :eek:

Come on people! You're making me feel so very old.

John Denver wrote it. Peter, Paul & Mary sung the most famous recording of it. And all that was before I was born.
 
I don't think that coal are really worth the bother at this point, charcoal was cheaper to produce and in fact better to primitive iron smelting and if there was one thing North America didn't lack it was timber.

Problem: charcoal requires low-temperature fires to keep most of the carbon in. It was used by the Amazonian tribes to create terra preta, but I'm unaware of it occurring anywhere north of that. Besides, there is a large amount of coal just waiting to be used in Iroquoia and surrounding territories, and it's somewhat easier to imagine how coal would be used in fires (a few stones fall in, or somebody puts it in for the lols) than charcoal being made.

That's not saying, however, that charcoal won't be used. It will once gunpowder is going to be produced. All the main ingredients for gunpowder (saltpetre can be made from urine; sulphur is easy to find or can be replaced by coal, according to Wikipedia; and charcoal is easy to find) can be found in Iroquoia. Don't worry, though; the Haudenosaunee won't be getting gunpowder before the Europeans arrive. It's going to be European prisoners or paid engineers who will teach the Haudenosaunee to make gunpowder.

I know this seems like an excessive resurrection, but rest assured I am writing a new segment now. As far as I am aware the cutoff period for a thread is six months, and I am within a month with this. Consider CFaL officially reopened. (The minute I wrote this, the thread reached view number 1337 :D)
 
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Jolly good show! I had almost forgotten about this! Well, let's be honest, I did forget. Anyways, can't wait to see more!
 
CHAPTER SIX: THE STONE DRUMS


Agetshahnit walked back to the river; he could not bear to see his family today. He was not tired; indeed, it felt as though his body had only just awoken. He was a popular youth; he was respectful to his superiors, straightforward to his peers and kind to his inferiors. Perhaps he was not the most intelligent boy in the village; nevertheless, he was well liked by all his teachers and loved by his friends. He was a handsome youth and always a subject of the village girls’ fireside chatter. In all ways quantifiable, Agetshahnit should have been the happiest boy in the country; certainly he brought happiness to others, and the wise old men said that there was no greater joy in life.
But Agetshahnit was himself not happy. Though he looked about him and saw all the good things he had been blessed with, he could not look upon them with any more favour than one would look upon grey stones. And though his teachers told him his future was bright, he could not see the supposed radiance of that faraway world. Though he could gorge himself eternally on the material pleasures of life, Agetshahnit felt something missing. He felt it when he spoke with the oldest of the elders; he knew they saw it- it was in their smiles, those mocking smiles of old men looking upon their past.
It was that very smile that Agetshahnit despised so, that smile that had spoilt to now every joy that he could have felt, that smile that he so desperately wanted to smile himself. For it was from these old men who mocked him that he wanted respect and equality. Equality, equality- that beautiful word, that beautiful dream that he knew was both within reach and unattainable. He only wanted to be looked upon without mockery, without irony. His thoughts dived and flew; he was in a trance of alternating fear, anger, and earnest hope.
He kneeled down. Two perfectly rounded grey river stones sat on the sandy ground. He picked them up and placed them on a boulder. With a sudden gasp of anger, he struck one stone on another. It chipped; encouraged, he struck again. Again and again he hit the stone, settling into a rhythm. The beat rang in his ears; each strike at the stone was another weight lifted from his mind.
The rhythm grew. Agetshahnit felt his thoughts travel far back in his mind, to places he never knew existed. Soon everything that Agetshahnit knew, everything that Agetshahnit was fell into the stone’s rhythm. His young skin gave way to old; his old muscles hardened into youth. A son became a father; that father was a son again, and then again a father. He was in a state of flux; what he was was no more. The village he knew disappeared behind him; the forest moved from place; everyone he knew left him. Only the river and his deep charcoal eyes remained the same. He was no longer hammering the stone; here now he was grinding powder; now cutting iron; now beating shining copper.
The rhythm stopped. He found himself by that same river that he had known all his life; that he had grown up on; that his father had known, and his father’s father, and every father to time immemorial. It was evening on a shining summer’s day; he heard the shouts of men and the crackling of fires. He watched the river flow, a single spirit without a single body.
He heard a shout. A laugh, a sigh of relief.
‘Fool, fool, what have you been doing? Come to the fire; we have a great catch today. Here is the fool!’
An old woman walked to him. Her wrinkles showed the spirits of her mother and her mother’s mothers. She chuckled.
‘And is your sickness better, ‘fish-king’?’ she laughed good-naturedly. Then her voice dropped, and she spoke seriously. ‘We were worried about you. You were very agitated. You were a demon of a sick man!’
He forced a laugh. The hunter who had called for him gestured him over to the fire. He wanted in his mind to join them, but his heart was guided by the spirits. He walked on, further towards the river. He did not believe, he knew that this was the spirits’ plan.
He reached the river and walked along it to a cliff face. Closing his eyes, he touched the hard stones and pulled. It yielded, and he held them in his hand.
The hunter ran over towards him in a graceful forward stride. He was laughing harder than before.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, fool? You seem rather… Haghwegaetan, I don’t know how you’re acting today.’
‘I am fine,’ in a voice deeper and stronger than he knew.
‘Come, let’s sit by the fire. A great hunt it was today.’
The hunter chattered on while the visitor walked purposefully. Soon he reached the bright yellow flames of the fire. He could feel its heat, and for one moment he doubted the spirits’ will. He gave himself new resolve, and in one deep breath threw the black stones into the fire.
Agetshahnit’s eyes opened. What had he done?
 
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