Land of Sweetness: A Pre-Columbian Timeline
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I know that he is the more cautious of the ruling pair, but the tlalchiach is looking a bit suspicious from all that's happened.
I have the suspition that by the end of this ear absolutly everyone involved would be worst off. Nobody will really win.
I know that he is the more cautious of the ruling pair, but the tlalchiach is looking a bit suspicious from all that's happened.
Entry 55: In the Land of the Sun, 1410
IN THE LAND OF THE SUN, 1410
It helped that the Great Sun had never heard of any ruler greater than his own. To be sure, every year there came dozens of cargo-laden sailships from Cuba, bearing fantastic things his ancestors could not have dreamed of: obsidian knives, chiming bronze bells, gold and silver and guanin, books with wondrous pictures he could not understand. But he knew from the testimony of the Cubans that their kingdoms were little ones, that their entire island—though it was less than half the size of the Théoloël realm—was divided into seven itty-bitty princedoms.
Yes, the Cubans talked about a huge island to the far south, where each town had more people than the Sun’s entire country. The Cubans named some of these towns: Tiho, Sololan, Acapantonco. But foreigners were prone to exaggerate, and most Théoloëls were of the opinion that these towns were either made-up or vastly exaggerated. Tiho was probably just ten huts in the jungle; and no matter what they said, how could Sololan’s “Pyramid” ever compete with the earth mound in the Théoloël capital of Washt Kahapa?
After all, the Théoloëls were the nation most blessed by the Infinite Spirit (that was the name of the Creator), the elders said. When the Infinite Spirit saw that the humans he had created had gone astray, he sent a man and a woman to steer them back to the right path, teaching them the arts of civilization and morality: kill only in self-defense, never lie, share everything liberally… The descendants of the two were the dynasty of the Great Suns, and the teachings the two had brought, called the Ancient Word, were preserved by the priests of the Théoloëls alone. It was because of the blessings of the Infinite Spirit that no other king in the world could ever compete with the splendor of the Sun, nor any town with Washt Kahapa, nor any people with the Théoloëls.
Admiral Tlamahpilhuiani sailing into the Mississippi in 1410, with the largest fleet that the Mississippian world had ever seen, was an understandable shock. It was the first direct contact between Mesoamerica and the Mississippians in history.
After surviving his brush with death, Ah Ek Lemba had decided that the fortresses of Zacatlān and Ixhuacān necessitated that worst nightmare of all Mesoamerican commanders: a rainy-season campaign. This would require more grain than Cuba alone could provide, and the king was reluctant to demand heavy taxes from the Yucatan to preserve his self-image as a benevolent monarch in his homeland. The solution was to find some other supplier of grain—but where? It was then that the Cubans informed him of an immense and fabulously fertile Caniba kingdom they called Guabon, River-land, because it adjourned the greatest river in the world.
Admiral Tlamahpilhuiani, who was proving of little use in the war against the inland hegemony of Cholōllān, was sent north to negotiate a deal with the King of Guabon. The Guabonese were to be convinced, in one way or another, to give up a large portion of their surplus harvests to Ah Ek Lemba’s armies. In return, the King would be spared from becoming the newest inventory in the World-Conqueror’s wardrobe.
We have no contemporaneous account of the meeting between the Great Sun of the Théoloëls (the man who the Cubans called "King of Guabon") and the Index Finger of the World-Conqueror. The Théoloëls themselves lacked writing until the second half of the fifteenth century, and the encounter was marginal to Mesoamerican histories of Ah Ek Lemba’s carrier. Later Théoloël narratives—the earliest of which date from the sixteenth century, and which we cite below—are outright ridiculous.
What is clear, however, is that some sort of compromise was met. Tlamahpilhuiani did not fight the Sun, and the Sun agreed to supply Tiho with tremendous quantities of agricultural produce at an exceptionally low price in return for a steady supply of prestige goods. On the return, Tlamahpilhuiani pioneered—for the first time in history—a sea lane linking the Mississippi Delta to Mesoamerica which did not go through the Caribbean. Ah Ek Lemba’s supply issues were resolved, allowing him to continue his sieges even in the worst of the rainy season, while the Théoloëls slowly came to terms with the realization that the world was much larger than their Suns had ever imagined.
It was to be the first of two such realizations within a century for the Théoloëls.
* * *
The following is a sixteenth-century account of the Great Sun of the Théoloël Empire’s encounter with “Ah Ek Lemba.” Ah Ek Lemba never ventured into the Mississippi; the narrative is believed to be a garbled memory of the 1410 encounter between the Sun and Admiral Tlamahpilhuiani, by which the Théoloëls were introduced to the Mesoamerican world. The narrative’s polemical purpose in the context of the turbulent sixteenth century is made clear in the conclusion.
In the month of Bears [October], Ah Ek Lemba entered the Mississippi River at the head of eight thousand warships. He sailed straightaway to Washt Kahapa and declared: “I am the son of the Sun! Théoloëls, pay me due fealty.”
The Great Sun said,
“We have never heard that the Sun could have a child, though our language is ancient and our river is great. Lord, present me your name and your pedigree and the laws you keep.”
Ah Ek Lemba said,
“I am Ah Ek Lemba, greatest king on earth. You ask me my pedigree. I am the Feathered Serpent; I am a god on earth; this is my pedigree. All the kings under the sky prostrate before me, and they follow my laws to the word, which are these: ‘It is my right as king to kill you; it is my right as king to lie to you; it is my right as king to take your things.’ So present me your name and your pedigree and the laws you keep, and remember to do so humbly.”
The Great Sun said,
“I am the Great Sun, father of my people. You ask me my pedigree. A great number of years ago there appeared among us a man and a woman, who came down from the sun. Not that we believe that the sun had a wife who bore him children, or that these were the descendants of the sun; but when they first appeared among us they were so bright and luminous that we had no difficulty to believe that they came down from the sun. This man told us, that having seen from on high that we did not govern ourselves well, that each of us had presumption to think himself capable of governing others, while he could not even conduct himself; he had thought fit to come down among us to teach us to live better.
“The words of this man deeply affected us, for he spoke them with authority, and he procured the respect even of the old men themselves, though he reprehended them as freely as the rest. Next day we offered to acknowledge him as our Sovereign. He at first refused, but we insisted and insisted, and he at last accepted the offer on the following conditions: that we built a Temple to speak to the Infinite Spirit; that this Temple should eternally preserve a Fire, which he would bring down from the sun; that the Fire should be supplied with fine wood without bark; and that eight wise men of the nation should be chosen for guarding the Fire night and day.
“Our nation having consented to these conditions, he agreed to be our Sovereign, and in presence of all the people he brought down the Fire from the sun—to this day, it still burns in the Temple here. He lived a long time, to see his children’s children before he passed away. For thousands of years thereafter we have lived under the guidance of his descendants, of whom I am the latest scion; this is my pedigree.
“And these are the laws of the Ancient Word preached by this ancestor of mine, and which we Théoloëls abide to this day: ‘We must never kill anyone but in defense of our own lives; we must never know any woman besides our own; we must never take anything that belongs to another; we must never lie nor get drunk; we must not be avaricious, but must give liberally and with joy what we have to others who are in want, and generously share our subsistence with those who are in need of it.’ These are the laws that make us Théoloëls live in peace under the Infinite Spirit, and I dare say they are better than yours, lord.”
Ah Ek Lemba said,
“I do not believe you. Let’s have a contest to see who is better. If I am to win, you will kneel before me. If you are to win, I accept that the Théoloëls are the gods’ most favored nation.”
The Great Sun agreed, and so they held the first contest. The two kings would meditate upon the Infinite Spirit, fasting for as many days as they could bear.
Ah Ek Lemba fasted for a single day, and the next day he was hungry. So hungry, in fact, that he began to dig for grubs and maggots to eat. Ah Ek Lemba then sent his servants to set roast venison and the most fragrant tortillas before the Great Sun, hoping to shake him from his fast. But the Sun ignored them completely and fasted for thirteen days.
“You cheated!” Said Ah Ek Lemba, and so they held the second contest. The two kings would shoot an arrow over the Mississippi River.
Ah Ek Lemba shot an arrow from Ogula Chetoka, but the arrow did not go a single foot before it fell into the mighty Mississippi. The Great Sun shot an arrow from one side of the Mississippi Delta, and the arrow flew over the entire Delta like a bird and hit a turkey on the other side.
“You cheated!” Said Ah Ek Lemba, and so they held the third contest. The two kings would sleep next to flower buds and see if any bloomed while they were asleep.
The Great Sun slept with a loud snore, but Ah Ek Lemba only pretended to sleep. He opened his eyes at midnight and saw, much to his consternation, that the Sun’s flowers were in full bloom, while all of his had wilted away. Ah Ek Lemba dug out the Sun’s flowers and replanted them beside him, then dug out his own flowers and replanted them beside the Sun. Relieved, he went to sleep.
When Ah Ek Lemba and the Great Sun awoke the next morning, the flowers that were blooming at midnight had all wilted, while the flowers that were wilted at midnight had all bloomed.
“The Théoloëls are the best people on the earth,” admitted Ah Ek Lemba. He turned to the Great Sun, bowed down his head, and implored, “Teach me the ways of the Théoloëls, my lord!”
The king remained in the court of the Great Sun for the next ten years, learning the Ancient Word of the Théoloëls before returning to his southern home. In order to thank the Great Sun, Ah Ek Lemba paid us annual tribute in gold and silver and jade and obsidian; the Great Sun repaid his student’s gifts with great ships loaded with corn and beans and squash.
And now that the Bitter People [Spaniards] have come to our land, we would do well to remember what Ah Ek Lemba learnt: that the Théoloëls are the best people on the earth, favored by the Infinite Spirit, keepers of the Eternal Flame.
* * *
Théoloël is the eighteenth-century French transcription of the endonym of the Natchez, the last surviving Mississippian people of OTL.
The Natchez IOTL were indeed ruled by a ruler titled the “Great Sun,” who indeed claimed descent from a radiant culture hero who taught the Natchez to not kill people, commit adultery, be greedy, or get drunk. (Historians have long since recognized that these laws are uncannily similar to the Ten Commandments, and that the list comes from the testimony of a Natchez nobleman in the 1720s, thirty years after the Natchez first made contact with French Catholic missionaries. But the TTL source is also sixteenth-century, postdating contact with Spanish missionaries.) The Natchez deity was indeed called the “Infinite Spirit,” which I have to say is one of the best names for a god anyone could come up with.
In fact, most of what the Great Sun says in his monologue to Ah Ek Lemba is quoted directly from the aforementioned testimony of a 1720s Natchez nobleman, as reproduced in Lee Irwin, Coming Down From Above: Prophecy, Resistance, and Renewal in Native American Religions, pp. 33—37.
When the French ran into them in the last years of the seventeenth century, the Natchez Great Sun only ruled a small portion of what is now the state of Mississippi. But archaeologically, the Natchez are associated with the Plaquemine culture, which dominated the entire Mississippi Valley almost from Memphis down when the Spaniards arrived. When the Mississippian cultural complex collapsed in the sixteenth century, the Natchez population dwindled greatly and what remained of the precolonial kingdom shrank to the Natchez Bluffs, where the French encountered and ultimately destroyed them.
The Théoloël capital of Washt Kahapa (a Natchez phrase meaning “Big Town”) is what is now called Emerald Mount Site, near modern Stanton, Mississippi. In 1410 IOTL the Natchez capital would have been Winterville Mounds, near Greenville, Mississippi a bit upriver, but greater trade with the Yucayans (see Entry 18) has tipped the scales.
For more on the Natchez, see George Edward Milne, Natchez Country: Indians, Colonists, and the Landscapes of Race in French Louisiana and Ch. 14 “The Lament of the Tattooed Serpent” in Native Land: Mississippi, 1540—1789.
This will not be the last entry we have on the Théoloëls, far from it. The Natchez are absolutely my favorite people this side of the Tarascans and I’m thrilled to make history turn out better for them.
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Not intentionally; as mentioned in the annotations, I took it entirely from what an OTL Natchez temple guardian said about his religion in 1725 as reported by Le Page du Pratz, a Frenchman who had many Natchez friends—in his writings he never refers to the Natchez as sauvages "savages" but always as naturels "natives", which I believe is unique to him—and was the long-term lover of a Chitimacha woman (the Chitimacha are a people who lived just south of the Natchez).
I'm not sure to what extent Du Pratz's account is trustworthy. According to him, the Natchez believed that the Infinite Spirit was omnibenevolent, created many minor spirits to rule the human world in his stead, imprisoned a spirit of evil, and fashioned humans out of clay, which sounds a little too similar to the Catholic system of God, saints/angels, and Satan and how God makes Adam out of earth. De Pratz also says that the Natchez culture hero was sent to earth because the Natchez had strayed from the right path, which is also a little too much like the Biblical Prophets and/or Jesus.
But then again, coincidences happen, and De Pratz's account of Natchez religion has strong parallels with a lot of traditional African religions, where it is extremely common to believe in one omnipotent and omniscient Supreme Being (Jok in Lango religion, Nyasaye in Luo religion, Modimo in Sotho religion, Nyame in Akan religion, Amma in Dogon religion, Olodumare in Yoruba religion, Waaq in Somali religion) with varying degrees of involvement in the human world.
To get back to your point, it's been previously mentioned that the Théoloël writing system is derived from the Taiguano script, so your idea seems like a very good in-universe justification for some of the eccentricities of Natchez religion.
Probably as far the old world could get without cammels/horses and less time.
The Teoloels definitely have the greatest potential for (territorial) expansion out of the states we have seen. Mesoamerica is comparatively quite crowded, as Ah Ek Lemba is realizing. But the land north of the Delta might as well be a sea, save for those troublesome Cherokees...
I won’t be surprised if there a huge population increase after this and even a small forgien population form
@Every Grass in Java
Loving this TL
Texas ITTL must be a trade hub with Oasisamerica to the west following the Rio Grande, and Mesoamerica and the Mississippi to the north and south following the Gulf Coast. Not sure if you plan an update on these peripheral regions but I'd love to read it.
In the Caribbean, are there any plans for a snapshot on Jamaica or Borinquen. They've been mentioned briefly in past updates but nothing focused on those islands. In South America, any chances of an update on the Tairona?
Please keep it up!
Loving this TL
Texas ITTL must be a trade hub with Oasisamerica to the west following the Rio Grande, and Mesoamerica and the Mississippi to the north and south following the Gulf Coast. Not sure if you plan an update on these peripheral regions but I'd love to read it.
In the Caribbean, are there any plans for a snapshot on Jamaica or Borinquen. They've been mentioned briefly in past updates but nothing focused on those islands. In South America, any chances of an update on the Tairona?
Please keep it up!