Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
In French it's pionnier and visionnaire (singular). Otherwise good update, the gunnagalic languages are really far from one another!
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
NOOOOOOO.... Not Wemba!
I have a feeling his legend will live on, and the advice he gave his son will have profound impacts
With Jared's approval here's some artwork I finally got around to getting done for him. It's a Yadji Death Warrior. In the background is the slain Earth Mother, with the Neverborn within her womb. And coming down from sky is the Lord of the Night with his minions of captured souls. I wanted to evoke the Aboriginal style of cave paintings, along with reflecting the division of earth and sky by the color shifts; while also making it appear almost like the hallucinations one suffers from the [FONT="]Marnitja virus.
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[/FONT]
Last edited:
Kaiphranos
Donor
Ah, nicely done! The background looks great, and definitely gives it that unsettling fever dream feel.
Thanks for the correction. I'd asked for translation assistance beforehand, but I think it got missed, so I had to rely on Babblefish.
Eventually, yes. Certainly by the end of Act II. But don't expect it in the next post or two. (Unless I end up writing things much faster than I have planned.
That's certainly part of it. But there is more going on than just that - remember Wemba talks about a particular opportunity, i.e. "When the conditions are exactly right, do this."
NOOOOOOO.... Not Wemba!
Sadly, yes.
However, Wemba was around 70 by now. Regardless of the Great Death, he had only a handful of years left in him. All in all, he had a good innings. And what will turn out to be a very good legacy.
Thanks for the language advice.
The Gunnagalic languages are reasonably far apart, but these particular phrases make things look even worse than they are.
That's because, apart from the name Wemba, only one of all those words is actually a cognate: tjan in Gunnagal, nyen in Wadang, both mean approximately "here" or "place", depending on context. And even those look further apart than they are because of differences in orthography: the sound represented by them has no real English equivalent, and so the developers of alphabets did their best to approximate it. The "tj" is only an approximation of the actual sound (a palatal consonant), while in Wadang the Proto-Gunnagal sound has evolved into a sort of palatized "n".
For the rest of the words, for one reason or another they don't use cognate roots, but another root has taken over the meaning. For instance, the word for "white" in Proto-Gunnagal represented both the colour and the kitjigal (proto-factions) who used that colour. In Gunnagal it has retained that usage. In the historical development of the Wadang language, the White kitjigal evolved into more of a trading association, and it became specific to those traders, while another word root was adapted to mean "white" as a general colour. So when the modern Gunnagal saying was translated into Wadang, they used the general word for white.
Other non-cognates of note: the Wadang word for "unity" is in fact borrowed from European languages, "yunetee". The Gunnagal word is in fact something quite different: "nyabbagarr" comes from "nyabba", which means something like "the community" or "the people", and "garr" which is a suffix which means "greater" or "higher". The word thus actually means something like "greater community" or "increased sense of one people": "unity" is only an approximate translation.
The "ka" word in Wadang (meaning "of" or "from") does have a cognate in Gunnagal - "ga" - but Gunnagal speakers usually omit the word where it's clear from context what's meant. And finally, the "kurra kunna" does not actually mean "stand": it's an idiomatic Gunnagal expression which means something like "looking both forward and backward", i.e. is mindful of both past and future.
So, the Gunnagal saying could be more literally translated as:
"Here in this place, looking forward and backward, [is] Wemba [of the] Whites, pioneer [of] knowledge [and] visionary [of the] greater community." Such a translation being both decidedly awkward and too long for an inscription, the creators of the statue opted for a slightly bowdlerised version instead.
I have a feeling his legend will live on, and the advice he gave his son will have profound impacts
That is indeed a distinct possibility. That statue was still standing in the Panipat in the equivalent of the late twentieth century.
The non-Old World societies didn't really manage it, because generally speaking they lacked either the opportunity or the political sophistication to plan that far ahead (or both). Some of the Mayan kingdoms probably came the closest.
But the difference is deliberate. The Aururian states - or at least, the most politically and technologically advanced of them - occupy something of a middle ground between the larger states of the Old World, and the larger states of the New World (Aztecs, Inca). Middle ground both in terms of technology, and in terms of political sophistication.
The reasons for this stem from their longer history of agriculture and of state formation - they had large organised states by 600-500 BC, and have maintained their political tradition ever since - and some of the consequences of their perennial agriculture which, I think, would encourage certain forms of long-term thinking. Particularly as it involves land management (which was a big part of Wemba's advice).
Or to put it another way, in terms of their attitudes and outlook, rather than the Aztecs or Inca, a closer parallel would be states like Thailand or Japan, when faced with European colonialism. They were aware of the threat, and did what they could to manage it.
The Five Rivers states may not, of course, have anything like the ability to pull off what Thailand and Japan managed. They have a lower population, are much more vulnerable to diseases, and have a much wider technological gap to overcome. But they are, at least, aware of some of what they would need to do.
And a very impressive-looking death warrior.
Yes. They will be, in some ways, an analogue to the Cape Malays in South Africa. While Aururians will fill the role of Cape Malays in South Africa. Such is life.
Some more thoughts.
1. A crucial question regarding how slavery works in Aururia (both in the west with the Malagasy & co, and the east with a mix of Maori, Papuans, and other Pacific Islanders) is the gender balance of those who are imported. IOTL, areas where relatively gender balanced slaves were imported (such as the U.S. saw a domestic supply soon available through natural increase, leading to a corresponding drop in demand for new slaves. In contrast, in places like the Caribbean or Brazil, there was a high demand for only male slaves, meaning the supply was continually being replenished right up to the end of the slave trade. Or to give more extreme examples, the Chinese "Coolie" population in many areas of South America vanished without a trace, not only because the death rate was ridiculously high, but because no women were imported at all, and men were given no ability to mix with the existing population.
2. I believe the Malagasy in Aururia will keep their language however. Even today Malagasy is generally seen as one language with diverse (but mostly intelligible) dialects, and a few hundred years ago intelligibility should have been even higher. This means that unlike most New World slavery, the vast majority of the labor force will share a common language. I'd expect that the minority of slaves who are Bantu or Malay will actually be folded into the ethnic group over time.
3. Presuming the Malay slave population freely intermingles with the other slaves, I would not be surprised if the Malagasy in Aururia mostly become Muslim. Basically because unlike the Dutch in OTL's South Africa, I don't think the Atjuntja will care one whit about what religion their slaves practice. Christianity and Plirism will have some appeal (particularly the latter) but the access of missionaries of either to slaves will be limited. In contrast, the Malays will be right there in the mines/fields with the Malagasy and Bantu, and some of them will be observant and literate.
4. Related to that last thought, it would be a cool interlude if some more literate than the norm Malay slave realizes the Malagasy language is actually closely related to their own, and there is a cultural kinship between their peoples. In the end if you intermix the Malagasy with more Malay and Bantu, you'll just end up with pretty much what you started with.
1. A crucial question regarding how slavery works in Aururia (both in the west with the Malagasy & co, and the east with a mix of Maori, Papuans, and other Pacific Islanders) is the gender balance of those who are imported. IOTL, areas where relatively gender balanced slaves were imported (such as the U.S. saw a domestic supply soon available through natural increase, leading to a corresponding drop in demand for new slaves. In contrast, in places like the Caribbean or Brazil, there was a high demand for only male slaves, meaning the supply was continually being replenished right up to the end of the slave trade. Or to give more extreme examples, the Chinese "Coolie" population in many areas of South America vanished without a trace, not only because the death rate was ridiculously high, but because no women were imported at all, and men were given no ability to mix with the existing population.
2. I believe the Malagasy in Aururia will keep their language however. Even today Malagasy is generally seen as one language with diverse (but mostly intelligible) dialects, and a few hundred years ago intelligibility should have been even higher. This means that unlike most New World slavery, the vast majority of the labor force will share a common language. I'd expect that the minority of slaves who are Bantu or Malay will actually be folded into the ethnic group over time.
3. Presuming the Malay slave population freely intermingles with the other slaves, I would not be surprised if the Malagasy in Aururia mostly become Muslim. Basically because unlike the Dutch in OTL's South Africa, I don't think the Atjuntja will care one whit about what religion their slaves practice. Christianity and Plirism will have some appeal (particularly the latter) but the access of missionaries of either to slaves will be limited. In contrast, the Malays will be right there in the mines/fields with the Malagasy and Bantu, and some of them will be observant and literate.
4. Related to that last thought, it would be a cool interlude if some more literate than the norm Malay slave realizes the Malagasy language is actually closely related to their own, and there is a cultural kinship between their peoples. In the end if you intermix the Malagasy with more Malay and Bantu, you'll just end up with pretty much what you started with.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
I bet such a group could form the core of a slave rebellionSome more thoughts.
1. A crucial question regarding how slavery works in Aururia (both in the west with the Malagasy & co, and the east with a mix of Maori, Papuans, and other Pacific Islanders) is the gender balance of those who are imported. IOTL, areas where relatively gender balanced slaves were imported (such as the U.S. saw a domestic supply soon available through natural increase, leading to a corresponding drop in demand for new slaves. In contrast, in places like the Caribbean or Brazil, there was a high demand for only male slaves, meaning the supply was continually being replenished right up to the end of the slave trade. Or to give more extreme examples, the Chinese "Coolie" population in many areas of South America vanished without a trace, not only because the death rate was ridiculously high, but because no women were imported at all, and men were given no ability to mix with the existing population.
2. I believe the Malagasy in Aururia will keep their language however. Even today Malagasy is generally seen as one language with diverse (but mostly intelligible) dialects, and a few hundred years ago intelligibility should have been even higher. This means that unlike most New World slavery, the vast majority of the labor force will share a common language. I'd expect that the minority of slaves who are Bantu or Malay will actually be folded into the ethnic group over time.
3. Presuming the Malay slave population freely intermingles with the other slaves, I would not be surprised if the Malagasy in Aururia mostly become Muslim. Basically because unlike the Dutch in OTL's South Africa, I don't think the Atjuntja will care one whit about what religion their slaves practice. Christianity and Plirism will have some appeal (particularly the latter) but the access of missionaries of either to slaves will be limited. In contrast, the Malays will be right there in the mines/fields with the Malagasy and Bantu, and some of them will be observant and literate.
4. Related to that last thought, it would be a cool interlude if some more literate than the norm Malay slave realizes the Malagasy language is actually closely related to their own, and there is a cultural kinship between their peoples. In the end if you intermix the Malagasy with more Malay and Bantu, you'll just end up with pretty much what you started with.
Excellent as always.
Societies which encountered more technically and socially advanced societies, and consciously chose to adapt from the others' ways, without being conquered... Wholesale adaptation, not just copying weapons and tactics or fashions. And changes which the leadership were invested in.
Japan, of course. Manus Island, or so I've read somewhere.
The Cherokee tried.
What other examples are there.
Kemalist Turkey, perhaps.
Some more thoughts.
1. A crucial question regarding how slavery works in Aururia (both in the west with the Malagasy & co, and the east with a mix of Maori, Papuans, and other Pacific Islanders) is the gender balance of those who are imported. IOTL, areas where relatively gender balanced slaves were imported (such as the U.S. saw a domestic supply soon available through natural increase, leading to a corresponding drop in demand for new slaves. In contrast, in places like the Caribbean or Brazil, there was a high demand for only male slaves, meaning the supply was continually being replenished right up to the end of the slave trade. Or to give more extreme examples, the Chinese "Coolie" population in many areas of South America vanished without a trace, not only because the death rate was ridiculously high, but because no women were imported at all, and men were given no ability to mix with the existing population.
2. I believe the Malagasy in Aururia will keep their language however. Even today Malagasy is generally seen as one language with diverse (but mostly intelligible) dialects, and a few hundred years ago intelligibility should have been even higher. This means that unlike most New World slavery, the vast majority of the labor force will share a common language. I'd expect that the minority of slaves who are Bantu or Malay will actually be folded into the ethnic group over time.
3. Presuming the Malay slave population freely intermingles with the other slaves, I would not be surprised if the Malagasy in Aururia mostly become Muslim. Basically because unlike the Dutch in OTL's South Africa, I don't think the Atjuntja will care one whit about what religion their slaves practice. Christianity and Plirism will have some appeal (particularly the latter) but the access of missionaries of either to slaves will be limited. In contrast, the Malays will be right there in the mines/fields with the Malagasy and Bantu, and some of them will be observant and literate.
4. Related to that last thought, it would be a cool interlude if some more literate than the norm Malay slave realizes the Malagasy language is actually closely related to their own, and there is a cultural kinship between their peoples. In the end if you intermix the Malagasy with more Malay and Bantu, you'll just end up with pretty much what you started with.
Islam already exists in Madagascar at this point IIRC. Part of the imported slaves may be already Muslims (most would be probably illiterate, although Madagascar had pre-European forms of literacy).
Unfortunately, I have no idea what that means.
I believe that the crucial factor is the disease environment and life expectancy of the slaves, more than the gender balance. As far as I know, even in the colonies which would become the United States, the gender balance for imported slaves was still significantly in favour of male slaves. It was just that because the life expectancy was generally much higher, those female slaves who were imported tended to live long enough to have children, and more of those children survived. So after the first generation, half of the slaves born in British North America were female, and the gender ratio became more evenly balanced thereafter (although males remained the majority all the way through until 1810, if not later).
In Aururia, the gender balance will be similarly skewed in favour of males, although the severity differs. The Atjuntja will have a stronger preference for males in the gold mines, but otherwise view a worker as a worker. The cultivation of their spices and dyes does not particularly require a male workforce.
In the east, the supply from Aotearoa will be extremely skewed in favour of males: while Maori warfare produces slaves of both genders, the preference is to keep the female slaves locally and export the (potentially more troublesome) male slaves elsewhere. There will be some female Maori slaves exported, but not very many. The Papuans and Pacific Islanders will be less skewed, but still with a majority of males.
Crucially, though, in every single environment in Aururia, the slave populations will still be capable of growing through natural increase (except for European diseases affecting Maori and Pacific Islanders). The disease environment is much less hostile. Malaria does exist in the north of the continent, but is much less of a threat than - say - Africa or South America, because the local mosquitoes are much less efficient at transmitting it.
Hmm. I would certainly agree that the Malagasy will keep their language a lot longer than, say, Africans enslaved and sent to the New World. As you say, they have the advantage of commonality of language, and any new slaves coming would speak the same language. However, they will still be relatively scattered populations of a few Malagasy speakers surrounded by a sea of Yaoran speakers. The nobles' holdings are not that close together, so there won't be many groups of separate slaves who have the opportunity to speak to each other.
At the very least, slaves will need to become bilingual in the local Yaoran language (whichever one that is) very quickly. Nobles and overseers won't deign to speak to the slaves in Malagasy, and native-born children will get less exposure to it. I suspect that in the long run the local languages will still win out.
This is quite possible. (And, as Falecius pointed out, some of the Malagasy may well already be Muslim.) The Atjuntja and other Yaoran nobles will not care one whit what religion their slaves believe, although they won't be allowing anyone to build mosques either. To the Atjuntja, religion is the rites which they practice, and slaves aren't really expected to take part.
On the other hand, Plirism and a form of Christianity are also spreading among the working classes of the Middle Country (despite the Atjuntja's best wishes). Some of those workers may also try to convert some slaves.
4. Related to that last thought, it would be a cool interlude if some more literate than the norm Malay slave realizes the Malagasy language is actually closely related to their own, and there is a cultural kinship between their peoples. In the end if you intermix the Malagasy with more Malay and Bantu, you'll just end up with pretty much what you started with.
I'm not sure whether I know enough about the culture of Malagasy or Malay to write a credible narrative POV, but if someone has some ideas, I'd be willing to listen to them.
From time to time, no doubt. Slave rebellions will happen occasionally - as they did in most places. Although it would be unfortunate if the Atjuntja came to view such rebellions as being inspired by the wrong religious beliefs amongst their slaves.
Thailand, to a degree.
A couple of other failed attempts spring to mind: post-1911 China, and late nineteenth-century/early twentieth century Korea.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
In our time line we hear a lot about the conflict between Islam and the West. I wonder if events like these, in this TL will cause the major conflict of Islam to be with AustraliaFrom time to time, no doubt. Slave rebellions will happen occasionally - as they did in most places. Although it would be unfortunate if the Atjuntja came to view such rebellions as being inspired by the wrong religious beliefs amongst their slaves.
Any Islam-Atjuntja or Islam-Plirite conflicts in the Middle Country in the seventeen and eighteenth century will be largely forgotten by the modern era.
Which does not mean no religious conflict, of course. There's already been a certain amount of foreshadowing that there will be some religious conflict between Christians and Plirites, and that there will be a strong Plirite element to the anti-colonial or post-colonial struggle in some areas, e.g. Africa. It's possible that Islam - or more precisely, some elements within Islam - come into conflict with Plirism as well.