Update 64 – The Magdalene Letters: the Revolutionary Writings of Madeleine Avatreskvati
An excerpt from Kanatian Women’s Words: the writings of seven visionaries[1]
Madeleine Avatreskvati of the Porcupine Clan was the most prominent woman of the 17th-century Kanatian Revolution. While the male leaders of the revolution, including Andray Ehundayga and Chief Tonsahoten, are more well-known outside of Kanata, for the Kanatians themselves it was the words of Porcupine Mother Madeleine Avatreskvati which inspired them to rise up in revolt against the Arkevujay. While the men of the Kanatian Revolution led the fighters that ultimately defeated the Arkevujay Warriors in battle, it was the women who led the civil disobedience actions which began the revolution, and it was often Clan Mothers who recruited their young men of their Clan to join the fight.
Madeleine Avatreskvati’s early life is unclear. She wrote little of her childhood and youth, although there are records of her attending the Jesuit school in Tannesaga in the 1620s, which is likely where she learned to read and write. The first record of her adult life was in 1654 when she was appointed Clan Mother of a newly-established village in the Amekwista Valley. By this time, she had five grown children (the youngest was in her mid-teens) although her husband had died some years earlier.
Porcupine Mother Madeleine’s [2] first decade in her village of Adewato was largely uneventful. The village struggled for a number of years and then thrived. It was only in 1670, as the Arkevujay went from village to village demanding the surrender of manure supplies for use in the manufacture of gunpowder that Mother Madeleine became notable for refusing the Arkevujay’s request. Due to her refusal to surrender the required manure supplies, the Arkevujay looted Adewato and burned it to the ground. However, unlike many other Clan Mothers in her position, Porcupine Mother Madeleine survived the destruction of her village.
For the next few years, Porcupine Mother Madeleine would take refuge amongst the Order of Mary Magdalene. As the Magdalene Convents [3] were off-limits to men, they were effectively sanctuaries where persecuted Clan Mothers like Avatreskvati could take refuge from the Arkevujay. While taking refuge amongst the Magdalene Priestesses, Porcupine Mother Madeleine would correspond with the outside world via letters. The letters written by Madeleine Avatreskvati during her time in hiding are known, collectively, as the ‘Magdalene Letters’.
While many of the ‘Magdalene Letters’ studied by historians consisted of Porcupine Mother Madeleine’s personal correspondence with friends and family, other letters were written with a more general audience in mind. These letters would be printed in large quantities by the Magdalene Priestesses themselves, and, once the Magdalene presses were shut down by the Arkevujay, would be copied by Huguenot presses in the various Petite Rochelle settlements of Kanata.
It is important to note that, at the time of the Kanatian Revolution, Kanata was not a literate society in the way that, say, Austria was at the time of the Austrian Revolution. [4] Fewer than 10% of the Kanatian population were able to read and write. However, unlike contemporary European societies, literacy was much more evenly spread throughout Kanatian society. Every Kanatian was part of a Clan segment, and each Clan segment had its own Clan Mother. By the 1660s, almost all Clan Mothers were literate, as literacy had become an important skill for the managing the economic aspects of clan business. This meant that every Kanatian had someone in their extended family [5] who could read the Magdalene letters and share their contents with the rest of the clan segment. It was thus to the Clan Mothers of Kanata that Mother Avatreskvati addressed her letters.
The Adewato Letter
The first letter that Porcupine Mother Madeleine wrote to her fellow Clan Mothers was the ‘Adewato Letter’, describing Mother Madeleine’s account of the events at Adewato which had led to her flight to hiding. It was the first of the Magdalene Letters written with a general audience in mind, and the first to be mass-produced on the Magdalene presses. It was largely the dissemination of the Adewato Letter that led to the spread of Revolutionary ideas beyond the Amekwista valley, and led to Madeleine’s ascension to her position as the voice of the revolt. The translated text of the Adewato Letter is included below.
To all my sisters,
You have no doubt already heard of the destruction of my village, Adewato, at the hands of the Arkevujay The Arkevujay have made a point of spreading word of Adewato’s fate, in the hopes that it will serve as a warning to any others who choose to defy them. I have heard the lies spread by the Arkevujay: that we were sheltering English soldiers; that we commanded our sons to take up arms against the Arkevujay; that we stole food or furs or gunpowder from them.
However, none of those stories are true. We did not steal from the Arkevujay, but instead they attempted to steal from us! Our cattle herd has not been doing well the past few years, and the fertility of our fields has been declining. Our corn is not as plentiful as it once was. In order to return fertility to our soil, we made a point of purchasing extra manure from our neighbours to spread on the fields in the spring. We knew that, without that manure, our crops would not grow, and we would be forced to abandon our village.
In early spring, only a week before we would spread our manure, the Arkevujay soldiers came by our village, looking for manure to use in the production of gunpowder. They saw that we had more in our stockpile than our neighbours had in theirs, and demanded that we sell it to them. They offered us tokens in exchange, but the price they offered us was less than what we paid to purchase the extra manure in the first place! We needed the manure to feed our village, so, of course we refused.
It was then that the Arkevujay decided to burn our homes, kill our sons and daughters, and take our herds for themselves. We did not betray them, or take up arms against them, or steal from them. We simply asked to keep what was ours. We asked to fertilize our fields, to grow our corn, to feed our families. The Arkevujay destroyed Adewato for refusing to abandon our livelihoods.
When I was a girl, my grandmother told me stories of the way that things were before the rise of the Arkevujay. Back then, our sons couldn’t go off to war without their Clan Mother’s permission. While the men would often want to go to war for their own glory, we, as Clan Mothers, had the ability to say “no” to any war which would result in pointless death without benefit for our Clan.
Then, when the Arkevujay came along, we lost that right. At first, in my grandmother’s time, it was just a loss of the right to say no to war. The Arkevujay would come to our villages, would speak of the spoils that could be won from our neighbours, and would recruit our sons to fight alongside them. Some Clan Mothers tried to command their sons to stay behind, but the Arkevujay of the time didn’t respect their refusal.
Then, in my mother’s time, the Arkevujay began to demand tribute. Not only would they lead our sons off to war, but they would demand payment for doing so. Clan Mothers would be expected to turn over food to feed the warriors or furs to trade to the French when the Arkevujay came to visit. Those Clan Mothers who refused to give tribute to the Arkevujay were killed, and their villages burnt! Soon, no one refused the Arkevujay requests, and the payments made to them were no longer seen as tribute extorted from us but taxes which were naturally owed to them.
Most of us alive today grew up with the expectation that the Arkevujay would make demands of us and that we would give in to those demands. After all, many of us live on land which was conquered by the Arkevujay, our numbers are swelled by the many adoptees the Arkevujay bring to our Clans, and the Arkevujay have succeeded at driving away the enemies that our mothers and grandmothers knew. These benefits the Arkevujay bring us come with a price, and we are all prepared to pay that price when it is demanded of us.
However, sometimes that price is too high. What is the point of having land if it is deprived of its fertility? What is the point of having new adoptees if there is no food to feed them? What is the point of having protection from our enemies outside Kanata if our villages are burnt to the ground by the Arkevujay themselves?
There is a point where we must stand up and tell the Arkevujay that enough is enough! Just as our mothers and grandmothers accepted the protection of the Arkevujay, we have the ability to reject that same protection. We can refuse to let the Arkevujay enter our villages, we can refuse to give food to their warriors, and we can refuse to let our sons go off to fight under them. After all, land, food, and family have always been part of the women’s domain: anything part of the women’s domain should be beyond the reach of the Arkevujay.
I know that standing up to the Arkevujay is not an easy thing to do. We have no weapons capable of matching theirs, we have no training in fighting, and we do not have the ability to mobilize thousands to fight together as one. However, what we do have is numbers. Every Kanatian is part of a Clan, and every Clan has a Clan Mother. For every village they burn, ten more will rise up in defiance of their demands! For every woman they kill, one hundred more will refuse to serve them! They only way that the death and destruction can end is if we all join together to refused to give in!
- Porcupine Mother Madeleine Avatreskvati
Madeleine’s Manifesto
If any one of the Magdalene Letters could be said to have had the most influence on Kanatian political discourse, it would be ‘Madeleine’s Manifesto’. The name ‘Manifesto’ was applied to this letter by later historians, as Porcupine Mother Madeleine herself had little knowledge of a term that was only just becoming current in European political discourse. However, the format that Mother Madeleine used to enumerate her demands likely did draw inspiration from a number of politico-religious publications distributed by the Jesuits to circulate the ideas of the counter-reformation, and these same pamphlets drew their inspiration from the great manifestos of the Reformation, including Luther’s ’95 theses’.
It is important to note that ‘Madeleine’s Manifesto’ was circulated before the meeting of the Amekwista Clan Mother’s Council of 1671. [6] Porcupine Mother Madeleine herself was asked not to attend the council, as many feared that her presence would provoke the Arkevujay into attacking the town of Astikona, where the council was held. However, Mother Madeleine’s writings were popular enough by the time of the Council of 1671 that many of the demands put forward in ‘Madeleine’s Manifesto’ would later be adopted as the political agenda of the Council of 1671 in the resulting ‘Amekwista Manifesto’. In some sense, ‘Madeleine’s Manifesto’ would form the first draft of the eventual Kanatian Consistution as it inspired the ‘Amekwista Manifesto’ which went on to inspire large parts of the Kanatian Constitution.
It is important to note that the ‘Avatreskvati Manifesto’ was written just after the first great victory of the Amekwista Revolts, as the town of Astikona [OTL Ottawa] [7] had obtained a guarantee that the Arkevujay would not attempt to enter their walls in exchange for a large payment of furs, foodstuffs, and manure. [8] This first victory had shown the Clan Mothers that negotiation with the Arkevujay was possible, and ‘Madeleine’s Manifesto’ came at a moment when many of the leaders of the Amekwista Revolts had begun to consider what specific demands they needed to have satisfied before they’d be willing to return to Arkevujay protection.
To all my sisters,
I’m sure that, by the time this letter reaches you, you will have heard the news of our victory at Astikona. The Arkevujay have finally been forced to realize that they cannot impose their will on the women of the Amekwista Valley. While the establishment of Astikona as a town free from the Arkevujay is certainly a victory to be celebrated, we must remember that this is just the first victory in a larger struggle. It is not enough for the Arkevujay to refrain from burning our villages if the only way we can escape their wrath is to continue to support their tyranny!
While establishing the safety of our daughters and sons from Arkevujay attacks is certainly one of the goals of our struggle, it is not the only one. The accomplishment of this goal has put my mind to thinking of the other goals which I have for our struggle. I have decided to put these goals down on paper in order to communicate them to you, my sisters. I know that not all of the goals that I have will be shared by all of my sisters out there, but I encourage each and every one of you to read through this list and determine for yourselves which of my goals you support and which ones you feel are unnecessary. From there, we can perhaps establish a unified set of demands for our movement as a whole.
I will not accept Arkevujay rule over me and my daughters and sons until:
(1) All Clan Mothers are granted the right to retain the basic necessities to grow food, and feed, clothe and house their Clan. Refusing to surrender any of these basic necessities to the Arkevujay must not be a crime punishable by death or destruction. While I understand that the Arkevujay also have need of food, manure, etc., they must obtain these supplies only through voluntary trade and gifting. [9] Taxes and tribute collected in the form of furs or fur tokens are acceptable, but only because depriving a village of its furs will not result in death or destruction.
(2) The Arkevujay agree to keep levels of taxation and tribute constant from year to year. If they Arkevujay are to increase the level of taxation or tribute required from a certain Clan segment, they must give the Clan segment at least one year’s notice of the increase. The Clan Mother must be able to decline the tribute or taxation increase without fear of Arkevujay attack.
(3) All Clan Mothers are granted the right to refuse to pay tribute or taxes without punishment by death or destruction. Every Clan segment will retain the right to terminate its relationship with the Arkevujay and thus decline to pay tribute or taxes. While the Arkevujay are justified in withdrawing their protection or refusing to trade with a Clan segment terminating this relationship, they are not justified in killing Clan members or destroying their village.
(4) The Arkevujay agree to consult Clan Mothers before they make a decision to make war on our enemies or neighbours. This decision as to whether or not to engage in warfare has been within the authority of Clan Mothers for generations; the replacement of Clan-based war chiefs with the Arkevujay hierarchy has changed who leads war parties, but not who has the authority to grant the war parties permission to make war.
(5) The Amekwista Valley, and all other ‘Arekvujay marches’ are not taxed at higher rates than the National Districts of the Arekvujay Empire. The lack of National Councils for the marches has allowed the Arkevujay to demand higher taxes of us than of our cousins who reside in the National Districts. This disparity is unfair, and must be ended. [10]
(6) The Amekwista Valley, and all other ‘Arkevujay marches’, are allowed to have our own District Councils to fulfill the role that the National Councils fill in the National Districts. [11] In the Amekwista Districts, where many Clan segments do not have Peace Chiefs, the Clan Mothers must be permitted to attend council meetings and make decisions about the administration of their Districts.
(7) The Arkevujay – the ‘third Kanata’ – accepts that it is on the same level as the other two Kanatas. Balance can only be achieved within our society if all three Kanatas know their place and stick to it. The Arkevujay, the third Kanata, has not done this but has instead interfered in the affairs of the other two Kanatas. They have interfered in the second Kanata by aiding the Jesuits in their persecution of the Magdalene Church, and have interfered in the first Kanata by governing the marches themselves rather than letting the Clans form their own District Councils.
(8) The Arkevujay ceases the persecution of the Magdalene Church and allows the Magdalene Priestesses to be afforded the same privilege as the Jesuit Priests. [12] The Arkevujay, as a male organization, has come to devalue the female side of things and has thus made an alliance with the male Jesuits against the female Magdalenes. This war between men and women must stop so we can return to a state of balance within the second Kanata.
(9) The Arkevujay acknowledges the importance of balance to the maintenance of a healthy society, and takes real steps toward the restoration of that balance. Rather than attempting to maintain the balance in our society, the Arkevujay has instead embraced the European idea of ‘dominance’, [13] attempting to increase its own power at expense of all others. Not only has the Arekvujay’s power as a male-only organization created a gender imbalance in our society, but the power of the Arkevujay as the third Kanata has created an imbalance between the three Kanatas where the third Kanata holds vastly more power at the expense of the other two. We must remember the wisdom of our grandmothers, and must return our society to a state of balance. This means that we must recommit ourselves not only to the idea of male and female domains resulting in balance between the sexes, but also to the idea of three equally powerful Kanatas each with their own domain, creating a new type of balance.
I hope that all of you reading my demands will be inspired to come up with a list of your own demands for the Arkevujay. We are stronger when we fight together, and we can best fight together when we know what we can agree on. By making our demands known to each other, we can find greater agreement. By working together, we can ensure that we do not give up the fight until all that we’re fighting for has been achieved.
- Porcupine Mother Madeleine Avatreskvati
The Ehundayga Letter
The ‘Ehundayga Letter’ is the first of a number of letters written by Porcupine Mother Madeleine to Andray Ehundayga, head of the Trader branch of the Arkevujay. It was written during the time in the last months of 1671 between the death of Konta Sinoh Hatoretsi’ and the appointment of Konta Tawinday. The sudden death of Konta Hatoretsi’ from the ongoing measles epidemic had resulted in a frantic search by the Arkevujay administration in Hochelaga to find a new leader. Andray Ehundayga, who had the support of much of the Trader branch of the Arkevujay, and who had a reputation as a visionary leader, put his name forward, but was rejected by his colleagues in Hochelaga, who mostly came from the Warrior branch of the Arkevujay.
At the time of the writing of the ‘Ehundayga Letter’, it had already become clear that Ehundayga was unlikely to be named the next Konta. Tawinday, a hero of the Second Wabanaki War, who was currently leading the garrison at Fort Dekektare [near OTL Plattsburg, NY], was the clear favourite. However, he could not be appointed Konta until he could be summoned from Fort Dekektare to Hochelaga, and thus Ehundayga still had a window of opportunity to change the minds of his colleagues in the Arkevujay administration.
This window of opportunity for Ehundayga would be seen as an opportunity for Porcupine Mother Madeleine and her allied Clan Mothers as well. Mother Madeleine saw Ehundayga as a potential ally against the leadership of the Arkevujay. The current Arkevujay leadership was determined to crush the Amekwista revolts while Andray Ehundayga had displayed willingness to reach a negotiated end to the conflict. In the ‘Ehundayga Letter’, Mother Madeleine began the building of an alliance with Ehundayga which would provide the backbone of the successful coalition that would eventually achieve victory with the Kanatian Revolution.
While the ‘Ehundayga Letter’ would succeed at its goal of arranging a face-to-face meeting between Porcupine Mother Madeleine and Andray Ehundayga, this meeting would not occur until after Tawinday had been named the new Konta. While Ehundayga proved willing to negotiate with the revolting Clan Mothers, one of Ehundayga’s guards would betray him to Tawinday. As Mother Madeleine arrived at the arranged meeting spot, she would be captured and executed by Tawinday’s warriors, and Ehundayga would be forced to flee Hochelaga to his own power base in the West. Thus, while the Madeleine-Ehundayga correspondance marks the beginning of the end of Mother Madeleine’s writings, it at the same time represents the growth of the Amekwista Revolts into the Kanatian Revolution.
To the great Trader Andray Ehundayga,
You may wonder why I, as a condemned woman and fugitive from the Arkevujay, am writing a letter to you, one of the leaders of the Arkevujay itself. The truth is that I am not opposed to everything the Arkevujay stands for. I have certainly benefitted from the Arkevujay campaigns of the past; after all, I was Clan Mother of a village which only existed because of the Arkevujay conquest of the Amekwista Valley. I am not opposed to the existence of the Arkevujay as an institution, I am simply opposed to a number of the recent actions of the Arkevujay, including the destruction of my home village of Adewato.
I know there are some in the Arkevujay who see me and my sisters as their mortal enemies. They see the Amekwista revolts as an existential struggle in which only two outcomes are possible: either me and my sisters are locked in chains or the Arkevujay are forever expelled from the Amekwista valley. However, this view of the ongoing struggle is based upon the European idea of Dominance: where victory is only achieved by establishing Dominance over one’s enemy and where a failure to do so results instead in one’s enemy establishing this Dominance instead. While this idea has been fully embraced by many Europeans, is present in many of the Christian holy texts, and has been adopted by the Arkevujay in your quest to European-ize your war-waging skills, it is not supported by my and my sisters.
Turning to the stories told to me by my grandmother, and told to her by her grandmother, I see not the ideology of Dominance, but instead the ideology of Balance. In my grandmother’s time, Kanatian society consisted of a delicate balance between Male and Female, between War and Peace, between Hunting and Farming, and between Flint and Sapling. [14] While there is much to be gained from adopting European ways, it is my opinion that the adoption of European ways has destroyed our society’s sense of Balance. The goal of me and my sisters is not to overthrown the Arkevujay, but instead simply to reestablish Balance so that the power of the Arkevujay does not exert Dominance over the other two Kanatas.
While you may not have thought about things this way before, I believe that you are also a believer in Balance. Some of my sisters in my current struggle have sons who have served under you in the Trader branch of the Arkevujay. They have heard you express frustration about the Dominance of the Warrior branch within the Arkevujay, and have heard you speak of how much better things would be if the Trader branch had greater authority. They have heard you speak of the pointlessness of the war just fought in the East against the English, and have heard you say that those same resources would be much better spent expanding our trade routes to the West. They have heard you speak of how the future of our people lies not in the East, where the French, English, and Dutch continue to expand their colonies, but in the West where new supplies of furs lie unexploited.
However, if all members of the Warrior branch suddenly dropped dead from measles, and if the Arkevujay abandoned all of your forts in the East to focus solely on the West, I doubt that you would celebrate. You are intelligent enough to recognize that while the Arkevujay currently gives too much power to the Warrior branch and focuses too much on the East over the West, Dominance of the Trader branch in the West would not be any better. The problem in the Arkevujay is a problem of imbalance where the Dominance of the Warrior branch has caused an overemphasis on Eastern affairs. To correct this imbalance, we must not overthrow the Warrior branch but instead must return the Arkevujay to a state of Balance where both branches can coexist.
I do not need to enumerate for you the ways in which the Dominance of the Warrior branch has brought misfortune upon us. However, I may need to convince you that the Domaninance of the Arkevujay over the other two Kanatas, and the Dominance of men over women cause just as many problems. In order to return to a healthy society, we must strive for Balance in all aspects of societal governance: balance between the sexes, balance between the Three Kanatas, but also balance between the Warrior and Trader branches of the Arkevujay. In order to achieve this Balance, we need a new Konta that believes in Balance rather than Dominance. We need the next Konta to come not from the Warrior branch, but from the Trader branch, and I think there is no better candidate for Konta than you.
However, as popular as you are amongst the Trader branch, I know that the administration in Hochelaga is made up mainly of Warriors, and you stand little chance of being chosen as Konta unless something changes to make you the obvious choice. I think that there is something I can do to increase your chances of being chosen. With my help, you can bring an end to the Amekwista Revolts, and achieve a victory that neither Konta Hatoretsi’ nor the aspiring Konta Tawinday could achieve.
I am probably the only person respected by all leaders of the Amekwista Revolts enough to convince all of them to lay down their arms and make peace with the Arkevujay. If I tell my sisters in this struggle that it is time for them to make a truce with the Arkevujay, they will likely do so. I would like to see our struggle end with a negotiated peace. However, I have heard enough of Tawinday to know that, if he becomes the new Konta, he will keep on fighting and trying to achieve Dominance until the whole Amekwista Valley is in ruins. I need someone in charge in Hochelaga who will see the need for a negotiated peace and will engage in negotiations with me.
So, I have an offer to make you. Let’s meet immediately to begin truce negotiations. If you are able to secure a truce with me and my sisters, you can present it to the Arkevujay administration as a victory. We can make it clear to all concerned that, as the next Konta, you would continue with these negotiations to bring the Amekwista Valley back under Arkevujay protection, while if Tawinday is chosen, the revolts will begin anew. Hopefully, enough of the leaders in Hochelaga will see the promise of a negotiated peace that they will throw their support behind you as Konta.
If you are interested in a truce, please write me a letter in reply, and send it to the Magdalene Sisters in Astikona. [15] They will convey the letter to me in hiding. Once we have established a correspondence, we can arrange a meeting point for negotiations. Until then, I hope that you will see the promise of Balance, and will work towards achieving it just as much as I have.
- Porcupine Mother Madeleine Avatreskvati
Footnotes:
[1] This publication is the same one from which the earlier update on Sainte Helene Grignon was taken. I’ll have to figure out who the other five of the “seven visionaries” will be later.
[2] Powerful women in Kanatian society are known by their clan name and first name rather than by their last name. In some sense, women in Kanatian society don’t really “have” last names, as they rarely use them, although Jesuit and Arkevujay records do refer to women by their father’s last names, and foreign-language (i.e. European-language) writing about Kanatian women often times refers to them by either their father’s or husband’s last name. “Avatreskvati” is Porcupine Mother Madeleine’s father’s name.
[3] “Convent” is the closest European-language term for the compounds where the Magdalene Sisters live and hold women-only worship services. Of course, the Magdalene Sisters refer to themselves as “Priestesses” rather than “Nuns”, and they engage with the wider world, performing baptisms and marriages in public churches which adjoin their convents. In some sense, you can think of the “convent” as a women-only rectory.
[4] Yes, there will be an “Austrian Revolution” at some point. My plan is for Austria to be the first major Western European power to have its monarchy overthrown.
[5] Really, by this point in time, referring to Kantian Clan segments as “extended families” is a bit of a stretch as many of them number in the thousands. However, there is a certain extent to which the structure of Kanatian society is still “tribal” enough that Clan identity is more important than Class identity, so that Clan Mothers still see all of their Clan segment members as ‘family’ in some sense. The Clan Mothers will eventually become clearly separate as an upper class, but that hasn’t happened yet.
[6] The “Amekwista Clan Mother’s Council of 1671” or “Council of 1671” for short is a historic moment in the ongoing Kanatian Revolution. It represents the first time where the Clan Mothers of the Amekwista Valley meet in one place to discuss their ongoing struggle against the Arkevujay. The “Council of 1671” will go on to become the prototype for the post-revolutionary Clan Mother’s Councils which will be held annually all over the Kanatian Republic.
[7] The name “Astikona” is derived from the Algonquin place-name “Astikou” for the rapids between OTL Ottawa, ON and Gatineau, QC.
[8] The status quo before the Kanatian revolution was that Arkevujay soldiers always had the right to enter any village or town without first asking permission. While villages and towns still do have palisades capable of keeping the Arkevujay out in the short term, refusal to welcome the Arkevujay into a village or town as so far been treated as a crime punishable by the destruction of the village or town in question. This is why the establishment of Astikona as an Arkevujay-free-zone is seen as such a victory.
[9] Remember, that the Kanatian economy was, until very recently, a nominal gift economy where trade would take place through the exchange of gifts. However, the Arkevujay regime, and its system of tribute and taxes has created scarcity and thus pushed the Kanatian economy into more of a barter system. The ‘fur tokens’ circulated by the Arkevujay are also starting to form a sort of proto-currency, but barter is still the main medium of trade.
[10] By ‘National Districts’, Mother Madeleine is referring to the districts governed by the Tarentohronon, Wendohronon, Damedohronon, Wendat, Tionontati, and Oneyote nations. All these nations are under Arkevujay protection, but have reasonable degrees of internal autonomy. The ‘Arkevujay Marches’ consist of the territory under direct Arkevujay rule laying outside of the ‘National Districts’.
[11] Before the rise of the Arkevujay, each nation had its own National Council. While the creation of the Arkevujay Empire has reduced the importance of the National Councils, these National Councils still exist in the National Districts, but not in the Arkevujay Marches.
[12] The Jesuits have long condemned the Order of Mary Magdalene as heretical, but have not been powerful enough themselves to drive them fully underground. However, with the outbreak of the Amekwista Revolts, the decision of the Magdalene Priestesses to protect Porcupine Mother Madeleine has resulted in a decision by the Arkevujay to crack down on the Magalene Order. Magdalene churches and convents have been destroyed in cities and towns with an Arkevujay garrison, although Madgalene churches and convents in smaller towns and villages have gone without notice so far.
[13] Kanatian culture, like other Iroquoian culture, was less hierarchical than Early Modern Western culture. The political institutions that did exist had complementary roles, and were arranged in parallel rather than having one political institution dominate another. Even the Chiefs were little more than spokespeople for their Clans, and had no power without their Clan standing behind them.
[14] Flint and Sapling are two twins from Iroquoian creation myths. Sapling traveled the world creating trees, rivers, and many animals, while Flint set the trees on fire, put rocks in the rivers, and created wolves and bears to pretty on the animals created by Sapling. In some sense, Sapling represents a creative force while Flint represents a destructive force. However, in pre-Christian Iroquoian mythology, there was no sense in which Sapling was ‘good’ and Flint was ‘evil’, as Flint’s role was just as necessary as Sapling’s. In contemporary OTL Iroquoian culture, Sapling is often described as the ‘good twin’ and Flint the ‘bad twil’, but that ascription of good and evil is likely due to Western cultural influence.
[15] Astikona, as a town off-limits to the Arkevujay, is one of the few large settlements where the Order of Mary Magdalene still publicly maintains a church and convent.
