From Blight we Rise
- Thread starter GeneralInTheShell
- Start date
Thanks, and the title's are based largely on the Eastern and Central Algonquian languages.
Of Climate and Empire
***
The humid continental, hot-summer climate (Dfa, Dwa) is relatively limited in its distribution on the Eurasian landmass [1]. This is unfortunate for the people of Europe and Asia as it has by far the greatest agricultural potential and is the most productive of the microthermal climates. In terms of environmental conditions, the hot-summer variety of microthermal climate has some obvious advantages over its poleward counterparts. Its higher summer temperatures and long growing season permit farmers to produce a wide variety of crops. Those lands within the hot-summer region are far enough equatorward that there has been sufficient time for most negative effects of continental glaciation to be removed, and primarily positive effects remain. Soils are inclined to be more fertile, especially under forest cover where the typical soil-formin processes are not as extreme and where deciduous trees are more common than the acid-associate pine. Large annual temperature ranges, moderate summers, and long winters with frequent spells of clear cold weather gave the region a 90- to- 130 day growing season and massive population growth as a side effect. It was this highly fertile climate region that the Adena culture and later the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire rested upon. Like the Yellow River Valley Civilization and the Xia dynasty that rose from it, the Adena and the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire lay predominantly in the hot-summer climate region and just north of a humid subtropical (Cfa) region.
***
Political stability and economic growth were achieved within the Oyo Empire by centralizing political control and maximizing agricultural production. It was this centralization that led to further innovation in crop growing. To grow more produce in a more limited space Hopniss was cultivated in the same fields as Corylus Americana. The nitrogen fixing tuber of Hopniss and the cover provided by Corylus Americana made the soil more fertile and promoted growth. Centralized irrigation made larger-scale farming of the pseudocereal Chenopodium berlandieri easier and more productive. During the Late Formative/ Early First Dynastic period diverhistoric archeologists see a massive imperial trade network at work that spanned much of what in the Home Timeline would become the eastern United States. Along with agricultural innovation came military innovation; infantry of the First Dynasty were armed with a variety of stone and bronze weaponry. Amongst the of weapons fielded by the armies of the First Dynasty were bronze Tomahawks, the bow, the Atlatl and its throwing spears, a larger Tepoztopilli-like spear [2], bronze daggers, and a two handed wooden sword with serrated bronze edges [3]. Oyo troops defended themselves with deer skin and wooden shields as well helmets of leather, copper, wood and bronze.
Tablets from the time of the First Dynasty show a shift away from shamanism and the rise of a religious belief more akin to emperor worship, though many of the deities and spirits of old persisted. By 200 CE the Shamanist ways of old had faded away in the lands of the First Dynasty. The Eagle King was the living embodiment of the sun and as the sun was the ruler of the heavens and the Above World, the Eagle King was the ruler of the earth [4]. It continued the belief in the Dreamtime, but this had changed as well. The Dreamtime continued in the Above World and when all died they were reincarnated in the Above World to worship the Eagle Kings; who now ruled in the Above World as fully constituted gods after their reincarnation.
***
The people of the Oyo Empire saw themselves as civilization and all others as barbarians, but the fact remained that the Empire relied upon the city-states of the western Great Lakes for copper and Bronze; a fact that many Emperors of the Oyo Empire knew all too well. In 208 CE the Emperor Beshkno III led an invasion of the city-states western Great Lakes. Deer and slaves carried food and supplies for the invasion force as it made its way north. The invasion had begun at the dawn of spring in hopes of being able to move as far north as possible before the winter season made it incredibly difficult to campaign. Deer pulled slays carried smoked deer meat, smoked fish, sunflower seeds, Maize, preserved Hopniss, and Chenopodium berlandieri grain. The first extensive military campaign since the unification of the Ohio River Basin there was little in the way of experience in combating the bronze wielding city states who were many times more capable at fighting a military than the chiefdoms and tribes that the Empire had gobbled up over the past two centuries. The tremendous size of the invading force made the Oyo Empire a far more dangerous foe to the city-states than they had been to each other. The Oyo Empire used their internal divisions against them and by the end of the campaigning season the Empire had conquered much of south western Wisconsin and was poised to attack the city-states of upper Michigan. The logistics of continuing the push northwards pushed the Empire to its limits as it put massive amounts of man power and effort into the invasion the following year. The Oyo Empire was now presented by a united front as the remaining city-states banded together to try and halt the invasion force. With Rockland being the most powerful and influential of the city-states the emperor launched an assault directed against the city. Battle between the main Oyo force and the composite force of the city-states would take place along the Eagle River, not far from where it runs into the Wisconsin River. The stage was set to determine the fate of the independence of the Upper Michigan city-states. The city-state troops were armed with similar weapons to the troops of the Oyo Empire, but did not have the same organization. The front lines were initially occupied by archers, which would go to the rearguard of the formation after the initial barrages. The lines behind them were occupied by storm-troopers with axes, and wood swords, then short-spear bearers, and closing the formation long-spear bearers. During the battle the invading Oyo army divided into three groups. The main group launched a frontal attack against the force assembled by the city-states while the other two flanked the enemy and circled around behind it to attack from the rear. The city-State coalition force was decimated and the Oyo force crossed the river and continued to march towards Rockland. The fall of Rockland after a brief siege was the death blow to the independence of the city-states, the elite of most negotiating peace that allowed them to maintain some form of administrative control over their respective cities.
The First Dynasty would enter its golden age after the conquest of the western Great Lakes region. The massive distance between the Western Great Lakes prompted the creation of an imperial road network that linked the major cities of the empire allowing for faster trade within the empire and making it easier to control the vast empire. The wheel had been an innovation that was first observed in the Oyo Empire around 175 CE and had been slowly replacing the slay for some time; after the conquest of Emperor Beshkno III and the construction of the imperial road network, the deer pulled slay was more rapidly replaced by the deer pulled cart which was more suited for the roads that spanned the empire [5]. Under the fourth Emperor Beshkno the mound building evolve far beyond what it had previously been into ziggurat-like temples and with an interior constructed of solid mudbrick and an exterior of fired clay [6]. He commissioned the construction of a massive burial ziggurat that would be his tomb upon his death. This trend would continue throughout the First Dynasty as rulers commissioned larger and more elegant burial tombs.
***
[1]: Romania, Bulgaria, portions of the Yellow River Valley and “China Proper”, Southern Ukraine, Northern Serbia, Ciscaucasia, parts of Kazakhstan, all of North Korea and most of South Korea, and some regions of Manchuria are places you can find the Dfa and Dwa climate in Eurasia. You can’t find it in the Southern Hemisphere the closest climate would be a tiny little region in Argentina and Chile that has Dsa climate.
[2]: Unlike the Tepoztopilli which has a wooden head with obsidian blades imbedded in it; its Oyo counterpart has an entirely Bronze head. It might be safe to call it a pike-like weapon; something along the lines of the Macedonian Sarissa.
[3]: You might be asking yourself “Why are they using wooden swords when they have bronze daggers?” The answer is for the moment is availability and craftsmanship. Making a sword is more than just making a big knife and it will take some time before we see the transition to the use of actual swords. This form of weapon was invented in both Mesoamerica and the Andes of South America.
[4]: There are some vague similarities to the Thunderers and the Above World or Overworld of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Fundamentally though the religion of the Adena has diverged from that of the OTL SCC; it has more in common, structure and practice wise, with the religions of the Incan Empire, or Japan than with the SCC.
[5]: The wheel had evolved over time from a primitive children’s toy into a tool that made load barring easier than it had been with just a slay. In OTL the child’s toy never progressed any farther than that in North America, but with the domesticated deer the wheel has become a practical tool that after the emergence of a decent road system mostly replaced the slay because the low resistance to motion (compared to dragging).
[6]: These mounds have ceased being mounds and have become more like the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. Most are still mortuaries (making it less like the ziggurats and more like the Egyptian pyramids), but monuments to Gods (mostly the father river god Mississippi) and places of worship are beginning to be built and by the start of the Classic Period (100 CE) are widespread.
***
Comments? Questions?
***
The humid continental, hot-summer climate (Dfa, Dwa) is relatively limited in its distribution on the Eurasian landmass [1]. This is unfortunate for the people of Europe and Asia as it has by far the greatest agricultural potential and is the most productive of the microthermal climates. In terms of environmental conditions, the hot-summer variety of microthermal climate has some obvious advantages over its poleward counterparts. Its higher summer temperatures and long growing season permit farmers to produce a wide variety of crops. Those lands within the hot-summer region are far enough equatorward that there has been sufficient time for most negative effects of continental glaciation to be removed, and primarily positive effects remain. Soils are inclined to be more fertile, especially under forest cover where the typical soil-formin processes are not as extreme and where deciduous trees are more common than the acid-associate pine. Large annual temperature ranges, moderate summers, and long winters with frequent spells of clear cold weather gave the region a 90- to- 130 day growing season and massive population growth as a side effect. It was this highly fertile climate region that the Adena culture and later the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire rested upon. Like the Yellow River Valley Civilization and the Xia dynasty that rose from it, the Adena and the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire lay predominantly in the hot-summer climate region and just north of a humid subtropical (Cfa) region.
***
Political stability and economic growth were achieved within the Oyo Empire by centralizing political control and maximizing agricultural production. It was this centralization that led to further innovation in crop growing. To grow more produce in a more limited space Hopniss was cultivated in the same fields as Corylus Americana. The nitrogen fixing tuber of Hopniss and the cover provided by Corylus Americana made the soil more fertile and promoted growth. Centralized irrigation made larger-scale farming of the pseudocereal Chenopodium berlandieri easier and more productive. During the Late Formative/ Early First Dynastic period diverhistoric archeologists see a massive imperial trade network at work that spanned much of what in the Home Timeline would become the eastern United States. Along with agricultural innovation came military innovation; infantry of the First Dynasty were armed with a variety of stone and bronze weaponry. Amongst the of weapons fielded by the armies of the First Dynasty were bronze Tomahawks, the bow, the Atlatl and its throwing spears, a larger Tepoztopilli-like spear [2], bronze daggers, and a two handed wooden sword with serrated bronze edges [3]. Oyo troops defended themselves with deer skin and wooden shields as well helmets of leather, copper, wood and bronze.
Tablets from the time of the First Dynasty show a shift away from shamanism and the rise of a religious belief more akin to emperor worship, though many of the deities and spirits of old persisted. By 200 CE the Shamanist ways of old had faded away in the lands of the First Dynasty. The Eagle King was the living embodiment of the sun and as the sun was the ruler of the heavens and the Above World, the Eagle King was the ruler of the earth [4]. It continued the belief in the Dreamtime, but this had changed as well. The Dreamtime continued in the Above World and when all died they were reincarnated in the Above World to worship the Eagle Kings; who now ruled in the Above World as fully constituted gods after their reincarnation.
***
The people of the Oyo Empire saw themselves as civilization and all others as barbarians, but the fact remained that the Empire relied upon the city-states of the western Great Lakes for copper and Bronze; a fact that many Emperors of the Oyo Empire knew all too well. In 208 CE the Emperor Beshkno III led an invasion of the city-states western Great Lakes. Deer and slaves carried food and supplies for the invasion force as it made its way north. The invasion had begun at the dawn of spring in hopes of being able to move as far north as possible before the winter season made it incredibly difficult to campaign. Deer pulled slays carried smoked deer meat, smoked fish, sunflower seeds, Maize, preserved Hopniss, and Chenopodium berlandieri grain. The first extensive military campaign since the unification of the Ohio River Basin there was little in the way of experience in combating the bronze wielding city states who were many times more capable at fighting a military than the chiefdoms and tribes that the Empire had gobbled up over the past two centuries. The tremendous size of the invading force made the Oyo Empire a far more dangerous foe to the city-states than they had been to each other. The Oyo Empire used their internal divisions against them and by the end of the campaigning season the Empire had conquered much of south western Wisconsin and was poised to attack the city-states of upper Michigan. The logistics of continuing the push northwards pushed the Empire to its limits as it put massive amounts of man power and effort into the invasion the following year. The Oyo Empire was now presented by a united front as the remaining city-states banded together to try and halt the invasion force. With Rockland being the most powerful and influential of the city-states the emperor launched an assault directed against the city. Battle between the main Oyo force and the composite force of the city-states would take place along the Eagle River, not far from where it runs into the Wisconsin River. The stage was set to determine the fate of the independence of the Upper Michigan city-states. The city-state troops were armed with similar weapons to the troops of the Oyo Empire, but did not have the same organization. The front lines were initially occupied by archers, which would go to the rearguard of the formation after the initial barrages. The lines behind them were occupied by storm-troopers with axes, and wood swords, then short-spear bearers, and closing the formation long-spear bearers. During the battle the invading Oyo army divided into three groups. The main group launched a frontal attack against the force assembled by the city-states while the other two flanked the enemy and circled around behind it to attack from the rear. The city-State coalition force was decimated and the Oyo force crossed the river and continued to march towards Rockland. The fall of Rockland after a brief siege was the death blow to the independence of the city-states, the elite of most negotiating peace that allowed them to maintain some form of administrative control over their respective cities.
The First Dynasty would enter its golden age after the conquest of the western Great Lakes region. The massive distance between the Western Great Lakes prompted the creation of an imperial road network that linked the major cities of the empire allowing for faster trade within the empire and making it easier to control the vast empire. The wheel had been an innovation that was first observed in the Oyo Empire around 175 CE and had been slowly replacing the slay for some time; after the conquest of Emperor Beshkno III and the construction of the imperial road network, the deer pulled slay was more rapidly replaced by the deer pulled cart which was more suited for the roads that spanned the empire [5]. Under the fourth Emperor Beshkno the mound building evolve far beyond what it had previously been into ziggurat-like temples and with an interior constructed of solid mudbrick and an exterior of fired clay [6]. He commissioned the construction of a massive burial ziggurat that would be his tomb upon his death. This trend would continue throughout the First Dynasty as rulers commissioned larger and more elegant burial tombs.
***
[1]: Romania, Bulgaria, portions of the Yellow River Valley and “China Proper”, Southern Ukraine, Northern Serbia, Ciscaucasia, parts of Kazakhstan, all of North Korea and most of South Korea, and some regions of Manchuria are places you can find the Dfa and Dwa climate in Eurasia. You can’t find it in the Southern Hemisphere the closest climate would be a tiny little region in Argentina and Chile that has Dsa climate.
[2]: Unlike the Tepoztopilli which has a wooden head with obsidian blades imbedded in it; its Oyo counterpart has an entirely Bronze head. It might be safe to call it a pike-like weapon; something along the lines of the Macedonian Sarissa.
[3]: You might be asking yourself “Why are they using wooden swords when they have bronze daggers?” The answer is for the moment is availability and craftsmanship. Making a sword is more than just making a big knife and it will take some time before we see the transition to the use of actual swords. This form of weapon was invented in both Mesoamerica and the Andes of South America.
[4]: There are some vague similarities to the Thunderers and the Above World or Overworld of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Fundamentally though the religion of the Adena has diverged from that of the OTL SCC; it has more in common, structure and practice wise, with the religions of the Incan Empire, or Japan than with the SCC.
[5]: The wheel had evolved over time from a primitive children’s toy into a tool that made load barring easier than it had been with just a slay. In OTL the child’s toy never progressed any farther than that in North America, but with the domesticated deer the wheel has become a practical tool that after the emergence of a decent road system mostly replaced the slay because the low resistance to motion (compared to dragging).
[6]: These mounds have ceased being mounds and have become more like the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. Most are still mortuaries (making it less like the ziggurats and more like the Egyptian pyramids), but monuments to Gods (mostly the father river god Mississippi) and places of worship are beginning to be built and by the start of the Classic Period (100 CE) are widespread.
***
Comments? Questions?
Astonished...
This is a completely new area of archaeology and ethnology to me - I'm more familiar with the Andean cultures. Fascinating. The disease implications are important and the possibilities or a better diet from plant and animal diversity are crucial.
Religion...h'mmm...is your Thunder God more benevolent than my Thunder God?
This is a completely new area of archaeology and ethnology to me - I'm more familiar with the Andean cultures. Fascinating. The disease implications are important and the possibilities or a better diet from plant and animal diversity are crucial.
Religion...h'mmm...is your Thunder God more benevolent than my Thunder God?
thank you, glad you like it.
I'll probably fill in more about the religion in the next update. As for the climate; that needed to be told, the region the Empire occupies is incredibly fertile in respects to agriculture which is one of the contributing factors to the massive growth in the region. In OTL the Asian culture and civilization that rose in a similar region was that of China with its Dwa climate in the Yellow River Valley. There are actually lot of climate parallels between eastern North America and East Asia.
Glad to see its peeked you interests.
The Thunderers may take your children if they please, they are after all the spirits of Eagle Kings past who when returning to this world take the shape of giant eagles a.k.a the thunder birds.
forgot to say this, but i'm working on a map of the First dynasty during its Golden Age.
wolf_brother
Banned
Excellent. I'd assume the areas outside of the Oyo Empire are rapidly confederating into their own city-statelets and tribal chiefdoms and such, likely to south along the various rivers of the continental US, due to the spread of technology (both agricultural & metallurgical) and culture out of the empire. How much of the continent is actually 'civilized' per say, and how much of that owes vassalage or has its politics directly influenced by Oyo?
Oh, and excellent so far, subscribed, etc.
Oh, and excellent so far, subscribed, etc.
Excellent. I'd assume the areas outside of the Oyo Empire are rapidly confederating into their own city-statelets and tribal chiefdoms and such, likely to south along the various rivers of the continental US, due to the spread of technology (both agricultural & metallurgical) and culture out of the empire. How much of the continent is actually 'civilized' per say, and how much of that owes vassalage or has its politics directly influenced by Oyo?
Oh, and excellent so far, subscribed, etc.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
We do see city-states and chiefdoms developing around the empire as agriculture and metallurgy spreads out from thanks to trade. In the next update I'll cover the expansion of centralized states in the eastern United State. The area that in OTL would be home to the Crab Orchard Culture is one of the most developed region out side of the empire, but its effects on North America can bee seen as far south as the Marksville culture and as far north as the Laurel Complex.
A rough outline of the Oyo Empire during the golden age of the First Dynasty in comparison to OTL North America at the same time.
Sorry the quality isn't that great.
Sorry the quality isn't that great.
The times they are a changing
***
Welcome to North America it is 237CE and the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire is at its peak. Since, roughly, 23 BCE the First Dynasty has ruled over the largest state yet to occupy North America. With the growth of the Empire and imperial trade came the spread of ‘civilization’ throughout eastern North America. Much of eastern North America is connected by a common network of trade routes, known as the Imperial Exchange System. The trade network followed the many rivers of the region as well as the many land trade routes, though these land trade routes were not always as well kept as the stone and brick roads of the Empire they were suitable for cart travel. Imperial influence reached as far south as the Natchez chiefdoms [1] at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here diverhistoric archeologists see Oyo Bronze in the form of tools, jewelry, and weapons. In most cases these are arsenical bronze, but in the mortuary mounds of elite members we see them buried with Hepatizon jewelry, much like the elite of the Oyo Empire. One of the exotic materials that were exported by the Natchez was freshwater pearls which were highly valued in the imperial court of the Oyo Empire. Along with expansion of metallurgy amongst the Natchez, agricultural techniques spread thanks to imperial trade. Hopniss cultivation was adopted by the Natchez and lead to a greater sedentary lifestyle amongst the Natchez which correlated with the rise of several Natchez city-states. The largest of the Natchez city-states was located along the Black River and the Little River in roughly the same area that would in the Home Timeline become Jonesville, Louisiana [2]. The city-state was governed by a chieftain much like the chiefdoms surrounding it. One of the largest and most influential city-states of the Natchez, an ambassador was actually recognized in the court of the Oyo Empire during the First dynasty’s golden age.
Closer to the Oyo Empire laid the chiefdoms and city-states of the Lesser Ohio [3]. The Lesser Ohio had sustained contact with the Oyo Empire for some time and shared many commonalities with the people of the Empire, including similar religious practices and similar iconography. Many of the city-states of the Lesser Ohio were ruled by God-Kings who fashioned themselves after the Eagle King of the Oyo Empire and tried to instill the same cult of king worship on their followers as the Eagle King did on his subjects. Just as was the case in the Oyo Empire mound structures had been predominantly replaced by the construction of ziggurat and pyramid like structures. It was the Lesser Ohio that began the long process of American Bison. Pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio still provided the city-states with white-tailed deer where pastoral life had been virtually eclipsed in First Dynasty Oyo thanks to state centralization and the creation of designated farm land. The pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio could move with the bison and slowly began to process of taming the bison bison [4]. Domestication of the American Bison began in the region inhabited by the Lesser Ohio as with the in the region inhabited by the Adena around 200 BCE, but was met with varying success. In the Ohio River Basin, Bison domestication would continue to some degree until the unification of the Adena as the Oyo Empire when it was ultimately abandoned. Amongst the Lesser Ohio the practice continued and by the peak of the Oyo Golden Age some 400 years later tamed, but not fully domesticated, bison were common throughout the region and were valuable animals for trade. It is said that the Fourth Beshkno emperor purchased half a herd of bison and had them in his private garden around the Imperial palace [5].
***
After the conquest of the Copper city-states of Wisconsin and upper Michigan we see the Oyo Empire interact more with vegetation and plant life of the region. Hopniss had greatly affected the Copper culture and became a major source of food for the city-states because of its capability to grow in a wide variety of climates. The sedentary lifestyle that led to the rise of the city-states also led to the cultivation of Zizania aquatic or Manoomin [6]. Manoomin stands in lakes and rivers reseed themselves and can reproduce indefinitely if water levels do not change significantly during the year over a number of years. New lakes or certain areas of a river can be planted with seed or young plants. Seed intended for germination would be stored over winter in aerated water that is cold (+2°C). Seed was shipped in a (30% moisture) dry state during the first 2 weeks after harvest with very little loss of viability when packed in dry instead of moist sphagnum moss. Attempts at cultivation of Manoomin by the Oyo Empire within the Ohio River basin began before the conquest of the Copper culture, but were increased after the conquests thanks to freer access to the knowledge of Manoomin cultivation. Manoomin, Hopniss, Maize, Huauzontle (Chenopodium berlandieri) were to be the most important crops within the Empire and indeed in North America.
***
The First Dynasty had reached a height that no other state had reached in the Western Hemisphere; yet the First Dynasty ended with the Fifth Beshkno emperor. With the fall of the First Empire came a dramatic reduction in the population of the Empire and indeed eastern North America. Diverhistoric archeologists were at a loss to explain the cataclysmic disaster that resulted in the fall of the First Dynasty and the dramatic die off until the discovery of a stele that portrayed hundreds of bodies piled and being burnt. An imperial scribe tablet showed told of a devastating disease that swept through the Empire and killed the Imperial line of the First Dynasty. In the Home Timeline, Native Americans had little to no immunity to the diseases brought over by the Europeans do to their lack of close interaction with domesticated farm animals. This would lead to a massive die-off of the native populous, which paved the way for conquest of North America by the Europeans; this is also why there were no diseases transferred to the old world [7]. In the diverhistoric world of “From Blight we Rise” North Americans had domesticated a number of fowl, the White-Tailed Deer, and to some extent the Bison. For nearly 1000 years Humans had interacted with the animals they had domesticated and a few pathogens had transferred from the animals to the people. Amongst these lethal interspecies travelers was Mycobacterium bacilli [8]. It took some time before the virus mutated to make the jump from animals to people and then from person to person, but diverhistoric paleoepidemiology shows that by the first century of the Common Era TB had mutated to be transmittable from person to person. The bacteria was devastating and proved to be North America’s first epidemic, but the bacteria did not cause the massive die off that would occur a century and a half later, becoming endemic in North America. No, the epidemic that devastated the population was a member of the genus Orbivirus. The closest Home Timeline virus to the plague that would become known as “Red Death” to the Europeans after their introduction to it is Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease [9]. Paleoepidemiology shows the during the mid second century the centuries of close contact between human and the white-tailed deer led to the evolution of a form of EHD that was transmittable by the biting midge (Culicoides) to humans. Like the Black Death that would devastate Europe during the Dark Ages or the Plague of Justinian, Red Death spread like a wildfire through the North American populous. The virus had an incubation period of approximately one week, during which period the virus could be further transmitted by biting midges. After the development of symptoms (which include internal hemorrhage, weakness, high fever, bruising, and dyspnea) the victim died within 8-36 hours [10]. In 257 CE the Imperial family was wiped out by the virus leading to a civil war that to took a toll on the population of the Oyo Empire and would outlast the worst of the epidemic which ended after four short years. Though the virus would remain endemic in eastern North America and minor epidemics would occur during years where the virus mutated beyond what was known to the immune system, from that point on death rates caused by Red Death would remain low except when introduced to population that had never come in contact with the virus. In 263 the civil war that followed the fall of the First Dynasty came to an end and the Second Dynasty took its place at the Eagle Throne.
***
[1]: Pretty much the Marksville culture of OTL with a few minor and major differences. Marksville settlements were large and usually located on terraces of major streams. Evidence from excavations of burial mounds from this period suggests they were constructed for persons of high social status, and contained grave goods of imported exotic materials.
[2]: a.k.a the Troyville Earthworks, which has components going back all the way to 100 BCE. The Troyville complex occupied close to 400 acres and was made up of twelve small mounds and one large one.”
[3]: The Lesser Ohio are analogous to the Crab Orchard Culture, but are distinct from the OTL COC. They are known as the Lesser Ohio to diverhistoric archeologists because knowledge of them was passed down through the written history of the Oyo Empire. The Lesser Ohio disappears, or rather are conquered/assimilated during the course of North American history and because of this knowledge about them is lacking because of their conquers desire to show that they were never a separate entity.
[4]: One of the major problems with taming Bison is that they need to be walked because they can’t defecate where they eat. The pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio have more space to walk them and since they have semi-permanent settlements the pastoralist could follow the bison from pasture to pasture. Also before someone complains about European Bison not being tamed, American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, and breed more readily with domestic cattle, which is in part due to them being grazers rather than browsers like their European kin. Another thing that you have to remember is that there wasn’t the kind of agricultural package available to the Native Americans in OTL as there is in the world of “From Blight we Rise”. People have a good reason to try and domesticate bison as bison would be better at plowing fields than deer, much better. Don’t expect bison cavalry; expect it to be more like the water buffalo. For the plains people don’t think cowboys riding them think more the Maasai.
[5]: The Imperial garden at this time is roughly 500 square acres, so he has room for a lot of animals. Of course the number is exaggerated with time and was more like six animals.
[6]: Wild Rice had been harvested in the region for a long time, though it was never cultivated by the natives. With cities and larger populations spurred by the cultivation of Hopniss the cultivation of secondary crops becomes easier as the people are already sedentary and with the larger population have a necessity for more food. Since the Copper culture did not live in the “bread basket” that is the Ohio River Basin they didn’t have as many other plants the one great exception being Zizania aquatic.
[7]: well except for Treponema pallidum, and that is still debated.
[8]: Archeological evidence proves that Mycobacterium bacilli (tuberculosis) was indeed present in the pre-Columbian times. Literally hundreds of mummies have been found in Peru prove that. This variety was the animal for of TB that mutated to jump to people, but never managed to jump from person to person.
[9] Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) is an orbivirus that infects White-tailed Deer in the northeastern and midwestern United States it is related to the Bluetongue virus.
[10]: The internal bleeding that results in blood blisters and bruises is why it gets the name Red Death amongst the Europeans.
***
Comments? Question? Criticism?
***
Welcome to North America it is 237CE and the First Dynasty of the Oyo Empire is at its peak. Since, roughly, 23 BCE the First Dynasty has ruled over the largest state yet to occupy North America. With the growth of the Empire and imperial trade came the spread of ‘civilization’ throughout eastern North America. Much of eastern North America is connected by a common network of trade routes, known as the Imperial Exchange System. The trade network followed the many rivers of the region as well as the many land trade routes, though these land trade routes were not always as well kept as the stone and brick roads of the Empire they were suitable for cart travel. Imperial influence reached as far south as the Natchez chiefdoms [1] at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here diverhistoric archeologists see Oyo Bronze in the form of tools, jewelry, and weapons. In most cases these are arsenical bronze, but in the mortuary mounds of elite members we see them buried with Hepatizon jewelry, much like the elite of the Oyo Empire. One of the exotic materials that were exported by the Natchez was freshwater pearls which were highly valued in the imperial court of the Oyo Empire. Along with expansion of metallurgy amongst the Natchez, agricultural techniques spread thanks to imperial trade. Hopniss cultivation was adopted by the Natchez and lead to a greater sedentary lifestyle amongst the Natchez which correlated with the rise of several Natchez city-states. The largest of the Natchez city-states was located along the Black River and the Little River in roughly the same area that would in the Home Timeline become Jonesville, Louisiana [2]. The city-state was governed by a chieftain much like the chiefdoms surrounding it. One of the largest and most influential city-states of the Natchez, an ambassador was actually recognized in the court of the Oyo Empire during the First dynasty’s golden age.
Closer to the Oyo Empire laid the chiefdoms and city-states of the Lesser Ohio [3]. The Lesser Ohio had sustained contact with the Oyo Empire for some time and shared many commonalities with the people of the Empire, including similar religious practices and similar iconography. Many of the city-states of the Lesser Ohio were ruled by God-Kings who fashioned themselves after the Eagle King of the Oyo Empire and tried to instill the same cult of king worship on their followers as the Eagle King did on his subjects. Just as was the case in the Oyo Empire mound structures had been predominantly replaced by the construction of ziggurat and pyramid like structures. It was the Lesser Ohio that began the long process of American Bison. Pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio still provided the city-states with white-tailed deer where pastoral life had been virtually eclipsed in First Dynasty Oyo thanks to state centralization and the creation of designated farm land. The pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio could move with the bison and slowly began to process of taming the bison bison [4]. Domestication of the American Bison began in the region inhabited by the Lesser Ohio as with the in the region inhabited by the Adena around 200 BCE, but was met with varying success. In the Ohio River Basin, Bison domestication would continue to some degree until the unification of the Adena as the Oyo Empire when it was ultimately abandoned. Amongst the Lesser Ohio the practice continued and by the peak of the Oyo Golden Age some 400 years later tamed, but not fully domesticated, bison were common throughout the region and were valuable animals for trade. It is said that the Fourth Beshkno emperor purchased half a herd of bison and had them in his private garden around the Imperial palace [5].
***
After the conquest of the Copper city-states of Wisconsin and upper Michigan we see the Oyo Empire interact more with vegetation and plant life of the region. Hopniss had greatly affected the Copper culture and became a major source of food for the city-states because of its capability to grow in a wide variety of climates. The sedentary lifestyle that led to the rise of the city-states also led to the cultivation of Zizania aquatic or Manoomin [6]. Manoomin stands in lakes and rivers reseed themselves and can reproduce indefinitely if water levels do not change significantly during the year over a number of years. New lakes or certain areas of a river can be planted with seed or young plants. Seed intended for germination would be stored over winter in aerated water that is cold (+2°C). Seed was shipped in a (30% moisture) dry state during the first 2 weeks after harvest with very little loss of viability when packed in dry instead of moist sphagnum moss. Attempts at cultivation of Manoomin by the Oyo Empire within the Ohio River basin began before the conquest of the Copper culture, but were increased after the conquests thanks to freer access to the knowledge of Manoomin cultivation. Manoomin, Hopniss, Maize, Huauzontle (Chenopodium berlandieri) were to be the most important crops within the Empire and indeed in North America.
***
The First Dynasty had reached a height that no other state had reached in the Western Hemisphere; yet the First Dynasty ended with the Fifth Beshkno emperor. With the fall of the First Empire came a dramatic reduction in the population of the Empire and indeed eastern North America. Diverhistoric archeologists were at a loss to explain the cataclysmic disaster that resulted in the fall of the First Dynasty and the dramatic die off until the discovery of a stele that portrayed hundreds of bodies piled and being burnt. An imperial scribe tablet showed told of a devastating disease that swept through the Empire and killed the Imperial line of the First Dynasty. In the Home Timeline, Native Americans had little to no immunity to the diseases brought over by the Europeans do to their lack of close interaction with domesticated farm animals. This would lead to a massive die-off of the native populous, which paved the way for conquest of North America by the Europeans; this is also why there were no diseases transferred to the old world [7]. In the diverhistoric world of “From Blight we Rise” North Americans had domesticated a number of fowl, the White-Tailed Deer, and to some extent the Bison. For nearly 1000 years Humans had interacted with the animals they had domesticated and a few pathogens had transferred from the animals to the people. Amongst these lethal interspecies travelers was Mycobacterium bacilli [8]. It took some time before the virus mutated to make the jump from animals to people and then from person to person, but diverhistoric paleoepidemiology shows that by the first century of the Common Era TB had mutated to be transmittable from person to person. The bacteria was devastating and proved to be North America’s first epidemic, but the bacteria did not cause the massive die off that would occur a century and a half later, becoming endemic in North America. No, the epidemic that devastated the population was a member of the genus Orbivirus. The closest Home Timeline virus to the plague that would become known as “Red Death” to the Europeans after their introduction to it is Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease [9]. Paleoepidemiology shows the during the mid second century the centuries of close contact between human and the white-tailed deer led to the evolution of a form of EHD that was transmittable by the biting midge (Culicoides) to humans. Like the Black Death that would devastate Europe during the Dark Ages or the Plague of Justinian, Red Death spread like a wildfire through the North American populous. The virus had an incubation period of approximately one week, during which period the virus could be further transmitted by biting midges. After the development of symptoms (which include internal hemorrhage, weakness, high fever, bruising, and dyspnea) the victim died within 8-36 hours [10]. In 257 CE the Imperial family was wiped out by the virus leading to a civil war that to took a toll on the population of the Oyo Empire and would outlast the worst of the epidemic which ended after four short years. Though the virus would remain endemic in eastern North America and minor epidemics would occur during years where the virus mutated beyond what was known to the immune system, from that point on death rates caused by Red Death would remain low except when introduced to population that had never come in contact with the virus. In 263 the civil war that followed the fall of the First Dynasty came to an end and the Second Dynasty took its place at the Eagle Throne.
***
[1]: Pretty much the Marksville culture of OTL with a few minor and major differences. Marksville settlements were large and usually located on terraces of major streams. Evidence from excavations of burial mounds from this period suggests they were constructed for persons of high social status, and contained grave goods of imported exotic materials.
[2]: a.k.a the Troyville Earthworks, which has components going back all the way to 100 BCE. The Troyville complex occupied close to 400 acres and was made up of twelve small mounds and one large one.”
[3]: The Lesser Ohio are analogous to the Crab Orchard Culture, but are distinct from the OTL COC. They are known as the Lesser Ohio to diverhistoric archeologists because knowledge of them was passed down through the written history of the Oyo Empire. The Lesser Ohio disappears, or rather are conquered/assimilated during the course of North American history and because of this knowledge about them is lacking because of their conquers desire to show that they were never a separate entity.
[4]: One of the major problems with taming Bison is that they need to be walked because they can’t defecate where they eat. The pastoralists of the Lesser Ohio have more space to walk them and since they have semi-permanent settlements the pastoralist could follow the bison from pasture to pasture. Also before someone complains about European Bison not being tamed, American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, and breed more readily with domestic cattle, which is in part due to them being grazers rather than browsers like their European kin. Another thing that you have to remember is that there wasn’t the kind of agricultural package available to the Native Americans in OTL as there is in the world of “From Blight we Rise”. People have a good reason to try and domesticate bison as bison would be better at plowing fields than deer, much better. Don’t expect bison cavalry; expect it to be more like the water buffalo. For the plains people don’t think cowboys riding them think more the Maasai.
[5]: The Imperial garden at this time is roughly 500 square acres, so he has room for a lot of animals. Of course the number is exaggerated with time and was more like six animals.
[6]: Wild Rice had been harvested in the region for a long time, though it was never cultivated by the natives. With cities and larger populations spurred by the cultivation of Hopniss the cultivation of secondary crops becomes easier as the people are already sedentary and with the larger population have a necessity for more food. Since the Copper culture did not live in the “bread basket” that is the Ohio River Basin they didn’t have as many other plants the one great exception being Zizania aquatic.
[7]: well except for Treponema pallidum, and that is still debated.
[8]: Archeological evidence proves that Mycobacterium bacilli (tuberculosis) was indeed present in the pre-Columbian times. Literally hundreds of mummies have been found in Peru prove that. This variety was the animal for of TB that mutated to jump to people, but never managed to jump from person to person.
[9] Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) is an orbivirus that infects White-tailed Deer in the northeastern and midwestern United States it is related to the Bluetongue virus.
[10]: The internal bleeding that results in blood blisters and bruises is why it gets the name Red Death amongst the Europeans.
***
Comments? Question? Criticism?
Well done, including the excellent map. Trading fresh water pearls is good.
Thanks for telling me about manoomin, and walking bison. Also, I think with a large wild population of bison, you're likely to find a few a bit more domesticable, (and from that population...) so domesticating bison has never been much of an obstacle for me.
The relations with neighbouring states is very convincing.
Thanks for telling me about manoomin, and walking bison. Also, I think with a large wild population of bison, you're likely to find a few a bit more domesticable, (and from that population...) so domesticating bison has never been much of an obstacle for me.
The relations with neighbouring states is very convincing.
I’m just addressing the population of the Oyo Empire before and after the outbreak of Red Death.
Just before the viral outbreak the population of First Dynasty Oyo had reach roughly 13 million. In comparison with OTL, most archeologists put the pre-Columbian population of North America at around 18 million. The Empire of the Mexica was around 11.5 million strong so First Dynasty Oyo is larger than any North American or Mesoamerican State in OTL. It is still dwarfed by the Empire of the Tawantinsuyu which at its peak had a population of some 20 million.
Red Death wiped out roughly 45 percent of the population of Oyo alone killing nearly 5.9 million people within the Empire. Similar death rates existed throughout eastern North America, but Oyo with its large cities and large consolidated populous was the hardest hit.
Just before the viral outbreak the population of First Dynasty Oyo had reach roughly 13 million. In comparison with OTL, most archeologists put the pre-Columbian population of North America at around 18 million. The Empire of the Mexica was around 11.5 million strong so First Dynasty Oyo is larger than any North American or Mesoamerican State in OTL. It is still dwarfed by the Empire of the Tawantinsuyu which at its peak had a population of some 20 million.
Red Death wiped out roughly 45 percent of the population of Oyo alone killing nearly 5.9 million people within the Empire. Similar death rates existed throughout eastern North America, but Oyo with its large cities and large consolidated populous was the hardest hit.
Second and Last Dynasty
***
Welcome to North America, it is 270 CE and the first emperor of the Second Dynasty of the Empire of Oyo has firmly established himself as the legitimate ruler of Oyo. Under the Second Dynasty diverhistorical archeologists see many changes in the administration of the Empire as well as a number of religious shifts that will contribute to the empire’s ultimate demise. Years of civil war and depopulation by Red Death had slashed the empire’s population. When dealing with a dwindling population, labor, being the key factor of production, was one of the most important problems for the empire to deal with. In order to stabilize the ailing imperial economy the social structure of the empire was frozen with the advent of what many western historians might try and liken to European Feudalism. Based around continuing to support the imperial cities and the imperial war machine farmers and their children became tied to the land which was redistributed and placed under the governance of an Ogama-Odanes [1] who generally administered the land under his governance from the largest city in the region. Many farmers found themselves becoming more like European villeins [2], farming their own land while also spending time to farm the land of their Ogama-Odanes. This way, the government was able to store surplus food and distribute it in times of famine or bad harvest. Some important manufacturing sectors during this period included bronze smelting, which was integral to making weapons and farming tools, were dominated by the nobility who directed the production of such materials. During the latter portion of the rule by the Second Dynasty power hungry Ogama-Odanes would centralize their Odanes and engage in military conflicts with other Ogama-Odanes in order to gain more power and influence in the court of the Kno’Ogama. After the outbreak of the ‘Bleeding Cough’[3] epidemic killed the last Emperor of the Second Dynasty the strongest of the Ogama-Odanes refused to recognize the authority of the emperor’s seven year old son and marking the fall of Oyo and the era that would come to be known as the ‘Time of Many Kings’.
Under the early Kno’Ogama of the Second Dynasty they ruled supreme and were treated in much the same fashion as the Kno’Ogama of the First Dynasty, but when the First Mishibijiw Emperor [4], first Emperor of the Second Dynasty, became Emperor he had to alter the religious beliefs of the Oyo to give his dynasty an air of legitimacy. With Mishibijiw and the Second Dynasty arose a concept that would remain a firm belief within Eastern North America and which many diverhistorical historians would liken to the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. In order to legitimize his rule Mishibijiw developed the” Sanction of the Above World”, the notion that the Kno’Ogama governed by divine right bestowed upon him by the Thunderers [5] and that his dethronement would prove that his dynasty had lost the right to rule from the Thunderers. The doctrine explained and justified the demise of the First Dynasty and at the same time, supported the legitimacy of present and future rulers.
Second Dynasty culture is also defined by the size and elaborate shapes of the ritual bronzes that appeared during the period, many of which were used in offerings to the ancestors. Their surfaces were ornamented with zoomorphic and theomorphic elements. Some of the animal forms—which include panthers [6], birds, snakes, dragons, deer, and Bison—represented shamanistic spirit animals that warded away evil. Under the Early emperors of the Second Dynasty the complex nature of the mortuary and temple pyramids became larger and more elaborate. Materials were imported from across the empire, such as Pennsylvanian fireclays [7], Muck [8] from Wisconsin, and sod block. Of course, by the late era of the Second Dynasty the Emperors did not have the power to take the resources from across the empire to build the great vanity projects that had become so typical of the early emperors of the Second Dynasty. The elaborate nature of the tombs of the early Second Dynasty would not be matched until the Misi-ziibi Empire.
***
In the early part of the Second Dynasty the military might of the empire was something to behold. After ending the civil war the First Mishibijiw Emperor invaded Upper Michigan which had reasserted its independence as a single kingdom. Crushing the kingdom, Mishibijiw assured the Empires continued domination of the Bronze trade. Later in his reign the First Mishibijiw Emperor launched the first of several campaigns to conquer the Lesser Ohio. The conquest of the Lesser Ohio was not conquest in the name of conquest or the spread of civilization, labor was needed for the mines and for agriculture and the rich lands of the Lesser Ohio not only provided laborers, they also provided farmland. The First Mishibijiw Emperor did not finish the conquest of the Lesser Ohio City-States, but invasion by successive Emperors would bring the chiefdoms and city-states of the Lesser Ohio into the Empire thanks in part to the Lesser Ohio being almost as badly hit by the Red Death as the Empire and their political division. The lesser Ohio Were not the only peoples that was not the only targets of attack by the Second Dynasty during its prime. The barbarian Erielhonan peoples of Pennsylvania and New York were a constant nuisance to Oyo and led to numerous campaigns being launched against the empire’s northern neighbors. As the central authority of the Dynasty began to collapse it became more and more the responsibility of the Ogama-Odanes to raise an army to fight off incursions by the northern barbarians.
From 263 CE to 421 CE the Second Dynasty ruled over Oyo, but after the rule of the Second Waptiyen Emperor (331-345)( commonly agreed by most Diverhistorical historians to be the last strong Emperor of the Second Dynasty) the imperial authority had declined to something more comparable to that of the Holy Roman Emperor that would appear in Europe than to the God-Kings that had ruled over the Empire since the First Dynasty. The growing decline of the empire was punctuated by rebellions amongst the Lesser Ohio and incursions by the Erielhonan barbarians of the north. In 420 Eastern North America was struck by its second great epidemic when a form of Coronavirus that afflicted White-Tailed Deer mutated to become first an animal to human and then human to human passed virus. With a fatality rate of nearly 10 percent [9] the virus devastated Eastern North America again. Since the scattering of the pastoralists after the conquest of the Lesser Ohio by Oyo Pastoralism had grown westwards and with it so had the trade network. Unlike Red Death the longer incubation phase and larger percentage of people capable of surviving Bleeding Cough with minor symptoms ensured that the virus spread farther with the trade routes. Much more of North America would be touched in the initial break out of Bleeding Cough than would be touched during the initial break out of Red Death. The virus spread far west into the Great Plains, but never making it passed Aridoamerica into Mesoamerica. The virus killed the last Emperor of the Second Dynasty in January of 421 and with his death the Ogama-Odanes refused to take orders, even superficially from a seven year old child and empire of Oyo disintegrated into a patchwork of competing states.
***
It was during the era of the Second Dynasty that diverhistorical archeologists see the advent of the oar and sail ship based around first more readily traversing the Great Lakes and then based around militarily dominating them. These wooden ships had oars and sails [10], being fitted with a bipod [11] mast and a single, large, square sail. The whole mast could be lowered when under oars. Large ships built during that latter portion of the Second Dynasty had more than 20 oars to a side, with two or more steering oars. Modifications that could be easily incorporated in a merchant ship’s hull under construction included elevated decks fore and aft for archers and spearmen, planks fitted to the gunwales to protect the rowers, and a small fighting top high on the mast to accommodate several archers.
***
[1]: Small Town King
[2]: A villein was the most common type of serf in the middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with or without land. As part of the contract with the landlord, the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The requirement often was not greatly onerous, contrary to popular belief and was often only seasonal, for example the duty to help at harvest-time. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit.
[3]: a Coronavirus in the Coronaviridae family it is a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus. A respiratory disease Bleeding Cough it is most similar to OTL Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome a.k.a SARS. While it will kill a great deal of people in its own most people who die, die from getting TB after their immune system is compromised by the virus.
[4]: The Emperors have no name during their lifetime only being known as the Kno’Ogama and are bestowed the name of their spirit animal after their death. Because of this there are dozens of Emperors with the same name. They are referred to as the First blank emperor or the Forty-Second Blank Emperor. When successive Emperors have the same name it gets hard for Diverhistorical archeologists to tell who did what and can be a little bit confusing. Also the First Mishibijiw Emperor would be Great Lynx the First if we were using the English translation.
[5]: The Thunderers are the Thunderbirds which are the guardians of the Above World in the religion of Oyo. They have magnificent temples dedicated to them.
[6]anthers could be Mountain Lion (I don’t know what you call them but in Northern California we call them Mountain Lions so that is what I’ll refer to them as) or they could be Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) used to live as far north as Arkansas. Emperors of Oyo love them and they have been semi-domesticated by this point. Some have escaped and become feral and have led to the expansion of the Ocelot’s rang. The Ocelot isn’t the only animal to get a boost in its range thanks to Oyo; the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) is prized for its feathers and has become semi-domesticated as a pet for the elite.
[7]: Fireclays consist of natural argillaceous materials, mostly Kaolinite group clays, along with fine-grained micas and quartz, and may also contain organic matter and sulphur compounds. It is resistant to high temperatures, having fusion points higher than 1,600°C, therefore it is suitable for lining furnaces, as fire brick, and manufacture of utensils used in the metalworking industries, such as crucibles, saggars, retorts, and glassware. Because of its stability during firing in the kiln, it can be used to make complex items of pottery such as pipes and sanitary ware. It’s strength and importance make it perfect for building the mortuaries for the Kings as they are supposed to last ages, and well in many cases structures made from them do, after all the Ziggurat of Ur is still standing.
[8]: sun dried Muck bricks are generally the filler that make up much of the pyramids insides.
[9]: Once again I must state that this does not necessarily mean that the virus killed the person, this is people that died directly from the virus and indirectly from it when they caught TB in their weakened state and died.
[10]: Sometimes these sails are made from quilted reeds and other times they are made from leather.
[11]: an inverted V
***
Comments? Question? Criticism?
***
Welcome to North America, it is 270 CE and the first emperor of the Second Dynasty of the Empire of Oyo has firmly established himself as the legitimate ruler of Oyo. Under the Second Dynasty diverhistorical archeologists see many changes in the administration of the Empire as well as a number of religious shifts that will contribute to the empire’s ultimate demise. Years of civil war and depopulation by Red Death had slashed the empire’s population. When dealing with a dwindling population, labor, being the key factor of production, was one of the most important problems for the empire to deal with. In order to stabilize the ailing imperial economy the social structure of the empire was frozen with the advent of what many western historians might try and liken to European Feudalism. Based around continuing to support the imperial cities and the imperial war machine farmers and their children became tied to the land which was redistributed and placed under the governance of an Ogama-Odanes [1] who generally administered the land under his governance from the largest city in the region. Many farmers found themselves becoming more like European villeins [2], farming their own land while also spending time to farm the land of their Ogama-Odanes. This way, the government was able to store surplus food and distribute it in times of famine or bad harvest. Some important manufacturing sectors during this period included bronze smelting, which was integral to making weapons and farming tools, were dominated by the nobility who directed the production of such materials. During the latter portion of the rule by the Second Dynasty power hungry Ogama-Odanes would centralize their Odanes and engage in military conflicts with other Ogama-Odanes in order to gain more power and influence in the court of the Kno’Ogama. After the outbreak of the ‘Bleeding Cough’[3] epidemic killed the last Emperor of the Second Dynasty the strongest of the Ogama-Odanes refused to recognize the authority of the emperor’s seven year old son and marking the fall of Oyo and the era that would come to be known as the ‘Time of Many Kings’.
Under the early Kno’Ogama of the Second Dynasty they ruled supreme and were treated in much the same fashion as the Kno’Ogama of the First Dynasty, but when the First Mishibijiw Emperor [4], first Emperor of the Second Dynasty, became Emperor he had to alter the religious beliefs of the Oyo to give his dynasty an air of legitimacy. With Mishibijiw and the Second Dynasty arose a concept that would remain a firm belief within Eastern North America and which many diverhistorical historians would liken to the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. In order to legitimize his rule Mishibijiw developed the” Sanction of the Above World”, the notion that the Kno’Ogama governed by divine right bestowed upon him by the Thunderers [5] and that his dethronement would prove that his dynasty had lost the right to rule from the Thunderers. The doctrine explained and justified the demise of the First Dynasty and at the same time, supported the legitimacy of present and future rulers.
Second Dynasty culture is also defined by the size and elaborate shapes of the ritual bronzes that appeared during the period, many of which were used in offerings to the ancestors. Their surfaces were ornamented with zoomorphic and theomorphic elements. Some of the animal forms—which include panthers [6], birds, snakes, dragons, deer, and Bison—represented shamanistic spirit animals that warded away evil. Under the Early emperors of the Second Dynasty the complex nature of the mortuary and temple pyramids became larger and more elaborate. Materials were imported from across the empire, such as Pennsylvanian fireclays [7], Muck [8] from Wisconsin, and sod block. Of course, by the late era of the Second Dynasty the Emperors did not have the power to take the resources from across the empire to build the great vanity projects that had become so typical of the early emperors of the Second Dynasty. The elaborate nature of the tombs of the early Second Dynasty would not be matched until the Misi-ziibi Empire.
***
In the early part of the Second Dynasty the military might of the empire was something to behold. After ending the civil war the First Mishibijiw Emperor invaded Upper Michigan which had reasserted its independence as a single kingdom. Crushing the kingdom, Mishibijiw assured the Empires continued domination of the Bronze trade. Later in his reign the First Mishibijiw Emperor launched the first of several campaigns to conquer the Lesser Ohio. The conquest of the Lesser Ohio was not conquest in the name of conquest or the spread of civilization, labor was needed for the mines and for agriculture and the rich lands of the Lesser Ohio not only provided laborers, they also provided farmland. The First Mishibijiw Emperor did not finish the conquest of the Lesser Ohio City-States, but invasion by successive Emperors would bring the chiefdoms and city-states of the Lesser Ohio into the Empire thanks in part to the Lesser Ohio being almost as badly hit by the Red Death as the Empire and their political division. The lesser Ohio Were not the only peoples that was not the only targets of attack by the Second Dynasty during its prime. The barbarian Erielhonan peoples of Pennsylvania and New York were a constant nuisance to Oyo and led to numerous campaigns being launched against the empire’s northern neighbors. As the central authority of the Dynasty began to collapse it became more and more the responsibility of the Ogama-Odanes to raise an army to fight off incursions by the northern barbarians.
From 263 CE to 421 CE the Second Dynasty ruled over Oyo, but after the rule of the Second Waptiyen Emperor (331-345)( commonly agreed by most Diverhistorical historians to be the last strong Emperor of the Second Dynasty) the imperial authority had declined to something more comparable to that of the Holy Roman Emperor that would appear in Europe than to the God-Kings that had ruled over the Empire since the First Dynasty. The growing decline of the empire was punctuated by rebellions amongst the Lesser Ohio and incursions by the Erielhonan barbarians of the north. In 420 Eastern North America was struck by its second great epidemic when a form of Coronavirus that afflicted White-Tailed Deer mutated to become first an animal to human and then human to human passed virus. With a fatality rate of nearly 10 percent [9] the virus devastated Eastern North America again. Since the scattering of the pastoralists after the conquest of the Lesser Ohio by Oyo Pastoralism had grown westwards and with it so had the trade network. Unlike Red Death the longer incubation phase and larger percentage of people capable of surviving Bleeding Cough with minor symptoms ensured that the virus spread farther with the trade routes. Much more of North America would be touched in the initial break out of Bleeding Cough than would be touched during the initial break out of Red Death. The virus spread far west into the Great Plains, but never making it passed Aridoamerica into Mesoamerica. The virus killed the last Emperor of the Second Dynasty in January of 421 and with his death the Ogama-Odanes refused to take orders, even superficially from a seven year old child and empire of Oyo disintegrated into a patchwork of competing states.
***
It was during the era of the Second Dynasty that diverhistorical archeologists see the advent of the oar and sail ship based around first more readily traversing the Great Lakes and then based around militarily dominating them. These wooden ships had oars and sails [10], being fitted with a bipod [11] mast and a single, large, square sail. The whole mast could be lowered when under oars. Large ships built during that latter portion of the Second Dynasty had more than 20 oars to a side, with two or more steering oars. Modifications that could be easily incorporated in a merchant ship’s hull under construction included elevated decks fore and aft for archers and spearmen, planks fitted to the gunwales to protect the rowers, and a small fighting top high on the mast to accommodate several archers.
***
[1]: Small Town King
[2]: A villein was the most common type of serf in the middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with or without land. As part of the contract with the landlord, the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The requirement often was not greatly onerous, contrary to popular belief and was often only seasonal, for example the duty to help at harvest-time. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit.
[3]: a Coronavirus in the Coronaviridae family it is a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus. A respiratory disease Bleeding Cough it is most similar to OTL Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome a.k.a SARS. While it will kill a great deal of people in its own most people who die, die from getting TB after their immune system is compromised by the virus.
[4]: The Emperors have no name during their lifetime only being known as the Kno’Ogama and are bestowed the name of their spirit animal after their death. Because of this there are dozens of Emperors with the same name. They are referred to as the First blank emperor or the Forty-Second Blank Emperor. When successive Emperors have the same name it gets hard for Diverhistorical archeologists to tell who did what and can be a little bit confusing. Also the First Mishibijiw Emperor would be Great Lynx the First if we were using the English translation.
[5]: The Thunderers are the Thunderbirds which are the guardians of the Above World in the religion of Oyo. They have magnificent temples dedicated to them.
[6]
anthers could be Mountain Lion (I don’t know what you call them but in Northern California we call them Mountain Lions so that is what I’ll refer to them as) or they could be Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) used to live as far north as Arkansas. Emperors of Oyo love them and they have been semi-domesticated by this point. Some have escaped and become feral and have led to the expansion of the Ocelot’s rang. The Ocelot isn’t the only animal to get a boost in its range thanks to Oyo; the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) is prized for its feathers and has become semi-domesticated as a pet for the elite. [7]: Fireclays consist of natural argillaceous materials, mostly Kaolinite group clays, along with fine-grained micas and quartz, and may also contain organic matter and sulphur compounds. It is resistant to high temperatures, having fusion points higher than 1,600°C, therefore it is suitable for lining furnaces, as fire brick, and manufacture of utensils used in the metalworking industries, such as crucibles, saggars, retorts, and glassware. Because of its stability during firing in the kiln, it can be used to make complex items of pottery such as pipes and sanitary ware. It’s strength and importance make it perfect for building the mortuaries for the Kings as they are supposed to last ages, and well in many cases structures made from them do, after all the Ziggurat of Ur is still standing.
[8]: sun dried Muck bricks are generally the filler that make up much of the pyramids insides.
[9]: Once again I must state that this does not necessarily mean that the virus killed the person, this is people that died directly from the virus and indirectly from it when they caught TB in their weakened state and died.
[10]: Sometimes these sails are made from quilted reeds and other times they are made from leather.
[11]: an inverted V
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Comments? Question? Criticism?
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Thank you. The names, as well as the solid technological and medical details, help to make this well thought tl so satisfactory. The maps don't hurt, either.
I love the idea of tame Carolina parakeets being a wide spread pet! Surely the elite won't be able to keep them to itself for long. One very small detail. According to my textbook, the largest ocelot is thirty five pounds. I don't think that sounds 'panther', myself.
Thank you, and please keep on with this tl.
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[6]
I love the idea of tame Carolina parakeets being a wide spread pet! Surely the elite won't be able to keep them to itself for long. One very small detail. According to my textbook, the largest ocelot is thirty five pounds. I don't think that sounds 'panther', myself.
Thank you, and please keep on with this tl.
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Glad that your enjoying it. I'm working on another map, but it may take a while.
Yah, The parakeet will eventually become more widespread as a pet, which will change the behavior of the wild parakeets as one of the main reasons they were hunted to extinction was because they would crowd around their dead. Being around humans more will lead to them abandoning their dead to keep from being killed themselves. Because of increased human contact they will have a lot longer to learn this.
An ocelot may not look like a panther in person, but in a painting on a pot or a carving it looks a lot like a mountain lion leading diverhistoric archeologists to generically call any long tailed cat image a panther.
twovultures
Donor
Your style of focusing on one region allows for a lot of detail, but it kind of leaves some questions unanswered-i.e., has the potato moved into Mesoamerica yet? How long will it take before the Mesoamerican civilizations are growing these tasty tubers?