Lands of Red and Gold
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Valdemar II
Banned
Yes the IR and the North European agricultural revolution was mostly independently of direct government action, but it happened in structures the government sat up. In the 18th century much of the internal tariffs and cutoms in many countries was removed and replaced with government income through direct taxation, this was a major part of making economy of scale viable. There was also investments into things like education.
If we don't see a central state move the taxes from tariffs and customs to direct taxation we risk end up with states dominated by low noble ruling their own fiefs as petty princes.
It would be significant different from OTL. In fact it will likely result in economies of scale being rare and limited to specialised products and to larger domains.
Seems likely
It's well thought out, specialised urban population was a major source of innovation. Of course to the increased urbanisation of the rest of the world I can't help together with the Aururians plagues, we will likely see earlier investments into things like sewers and readoption of aquaducts. Infrastructural the effect are likely going to be primitive but impressive.
Yes, of course cheese can be kept better if they, as the Greeks and Turks do, brine them. So the result could be a earlier spread of feta.
Maybe it could also mean that every family have a manual loom in their house. I think this are especially likely in North Europe, because the crops you have described as viable there, would be mostly used in areas with sandy soil, there sheeps also happens to be very common.
Yes of course a lot depend on the changes in taxation as mentioned earlier. In areas where we doesn't see such reforms we could still see it, but in would be primary in areas with few tradebarriers like coastal towns and settlements, which again make the Aegean one of the prime area for developments, even if the Ottomans doesn't reforms.
Yes and the freed up labour would make such investments more viable, through I think it will win out in areas with corvee are common.
Yes of course with the very developed canal network in Germany and UK we did see elements of it in OTL. But a even more and earlier canal network would in many way handicap the development of trains. Through horse-drawn railways translate very well into a stream driven one, it's just need to replace the source of power.
I don't think they will invest into that, it will be mostly nobles and the state investing in such things. The urban middle class often invested in just as a important infrastructure; education. Beside that they will likely invest in colonial trading companies and workshops/manufactories.
You have a few things going both way, the sudden loss of population will leave a lot of second rate soil freed up from agriculture, which may push deforestation back and even allow forests to spread. This effect will only receive a borst from the fact that Aurorian crops give a greater yield keeping the a two generation or three away from needing to take up agriculture in those areas to survive. So we may very well see large areas untouched for almost a century, this may be enough for the forests to reestablish themselves. If in that centuries the Ottoman Empire need timber to the navy, we may also see the state protect these forested areas with greater or lesser succes.
It was fundamental realpoliutik, France saw no problem with ally with Lutheran Sweden and Calvinist-Lutheran Brandenburg while killing and deporting Protestants at home.
A very good point.
I think the Ottoman are more likely to push it than the Venetians, the Ottoman have a stronger centralised state than Venice and they have much more potential territories to set aside to such purposes.
There are one aspect I have though about. Urban minorities, in OTL it was common that a urban minority belonged to another linguistic, religious or cultural culture than the rural upland. This more or less ended with the exploding urbanisation of the 19th century.
Here we have two different factor working two different ways, the plagues are going decimate the urban minorities making room for the uplanders or foreigners to move in. On the other hand the earlier increase in natural urbanisation rate, will allow a slower urbanisation making the urban minorities able to fill the cities with natural increasing population and slow assimilation. So we may see much bigger and viable urban minorities when the second wave of urbanisation hit.
I think a heliograph would be more appropriate for Australia than a semaphore network, and this comment is in no way motivated by the fact that I have already ripped off Terry Pratchett's clacks for my TL
What, just because *Australia has more days of direct sunlight in one month than the UK has in a year?
Seriously, though, in considering these forms of communication, I'm more interested in what would be developed in Europe. That's where the *Industrial Revolution is still likely to start. An *Industrial Revolution is unlikely to start in Aururia - although some parts of it may well spread there reasonably early.
Come to think of it, another significant factor was the Poor Law in the UK. The protection of that as a safety net also meant that would-be investors were more willing to bet their shirts, in a manner of speaking.
That's an important point. Spain in OTL, of course, was one of the more mercantilist powers and quite focused on tariffs, customs duties and the like. Changing that may not be completely impossible, but would still be a significant shift in its focus.
Hmm. Sanitation was one thing in OTL that Europe really, really lagged behind in. The reasons seem to be cultural, rather than technological. Many other parts of the world had much less effective construction technology, but much better sanitation. Hell, even the Indus Valley civilization in 2500 BCE had better sanitation than most of Europe would have until the later nineteenth century.
I'm not sure whether contact with Aururia is going to make much difference. Aururia does have an example of an extremely efficient society in that regard (the Yadji), true. But then Europeans had plenty of contact with other societies who had advanced sanitation, and ignored. Even plagues that were worse than the Aururian plagues (eg the Black Death) don't seem to have made an impression in most of Europe.
The crop I was thinking of as viable in parts of northern Europe (murnong) can grow in poor soils, although there are climatic limitations. It is more cold-tolerant than other Aururian crops, but even then, it can only grow in Denmark because of the climate-moderating effects of the Gulf Stream; without that, things would be too cold.
So it could be grown in coastal northern Europe (Denmark, maybe Scotland, the Netherlands) but would have trouble being grown in more inland areas. I'd need to check the climate of the Baltic to confirm whether it could be grown there (eg in Pommerania), but even then, it wouldn't grow too far inland.
Where it is viable, of course, a lot of land can be used to raise cattle and/or sheep, and feed them on murnong over the winter. This will allow profitable use of otherwise marginal lands, to considerable economic benefits.
It may also create a sharp divide between the parts of the world where canals are viable, and others where railways take over. The latter includes much of North America, of course, but I'm not sure about which parts of Europe would be affected by this.
Poor choice of words on my part: I meant what would the middle class spend their money on. Not so much investment, per se, but if they have disposable incomes, then they will spend that money on something. That will create a substantially larger domestic market for purchase of goods. Investment will be needed to supply that market (eg something which lowers transportation costs), but as you point out, that investment may come from elsewhere (upper classes).
Good point. The depopulation of the plagues is going to slow deforestation for a while. Whether that will be for long enough for Aururian crops to spread is something I still need to work out (not everyone will adopt the new crops immediately). But if it does, then there will probably be a lot more timber around.
Interesting thought. It's something which I'd need to look at on a nation-by-nation basis, I expect, since much will depend on how the effects of Aururian crops flow on to each society.
Some societies may see that most of the new non-food-producing specialists cluster in the large cities - in which case the old urban minorities may be flooded out. Other societies may see more of those non-food-producing specialists remain outside of the big cities, for whatever reason (being used as labour drafts, working on high-value agricultural pursuits rather than staple food production, itinerant labourers, etc). In the latter cases, then yes, the existing urban minorities may have a chance to expand faster and assimilate the smaller number of immigrants from rural areas.
On another note, I'm in a position where I'm trying to decide what topics I should cover next in LRG. The next post will be an introductory-style post about the Kiyungu, the people who live in OTL coastal south and central Queensland. It will be in a similar style to the introductory posts which were written a while ago showing the Atjuntja, Yadji, Nangu etc as they were on the eve of European contact, although it may extend to some of the early post-contact developments in Kiyungu society.
After that, though, there's five or so topics I could cover next. These are:
i) the progress of William Baffin, what he discovers in the rest of his voyage, and the consequences of his contact with the Kiyungu and Nangu who are also setting up their own colonies in OTL far northern Queensland. (This will follow more or less straight on from the Kiyungu introductory post which I'm already writing).
ii) the consequences of Nuyts's actions in the Yadji Empire: VOC efforts to repair relations; contact between the English East India Company (EIC) and the Yadji; the first Yadji attempts to adopt European technology; the consequences for relations between the Yadji and their neighbours to north and south.
iii) the consequences of European contact on Tjibarr; the early Gunnagal reactions; what was going on before the capture of Nuyts; Nuyts's experiences in the Land of Endless Argument.
iv) an introductory post describing the Maori in Aotearoa, as they were in 1618, and maybe the first tentative European contacts. (Note that Aotearoa will remain relatively insulated from European contact for a while yet.)
v) what has happened in Europe thanks to the effects of Aururian contact, mainly the Aururian plagues; changed Anglo-French relations; the first viable of Aururian crops within mainland Europe (murnong in Denmark and its neighbours); the culmination of the Twenty Years' War/War of the Habsburg Succession (*Thirty Years War).
vi) the Diary of Tri Ogalala.
Note that depending on the length of these posts, they may end up being split into two or more instalments.
Which one(s) would people be most interested in reading about soon? (I will eventually cover all of them, in one way or another, but not necessarily in great detail).
FTFY
Lady Macbeth
Mercurio
Rosalind
Sir John Falstaff
Prospero
Scarlett O'Hara
Charles Wykeham
Professor Henry Higgins
Sal Paradiso
Gene Hunt.
There's your ten bleeding characters
I'm also more interested in this. Aururia is the centerpiece of the timeline. While butterfiles to other areas may be interesting, this should not detract away from the fact that the timeline is primarily about an advanced Aboriginal civilization, and that civilization is what we want to read about.
Nevermind all that. You've introduced us to the flora of Australia, demonstrated their domesticability, and topped it off with a couple millenia of selective breeding. That's the center of your TL, so far as I'm concerned.
I'll be interested in how a fictitious disease would impact the Thirty Years War. I'll be very interested in your thoughts on full-stop alternate civilizations. I'll even play along when it comes to the Red Yam. But when you talk about how these plants that exist in OTL could potentially affect the world? I'll be fascinated.
You found them - the plants that make this whole timeline possible. You made us these awesome toys. Now I want to play.
I'll be interested in how a fictitious disease would impact the Thirty Years War. I'll be very interested in your thoughts on full-stop alternate civilizations. I'll even play along when it comes to the Red Yam. But when you talk about how these plants that exist in OTL could potentially affect the world? I'll be fascinated.
You found them - the plants that make this whole timeline possible. You made us these awesome toys. Now I want to play.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
And just what were those cultural reasons?
I would love to see what the Maori have been up to
Just what would that be
Me too, the Maori have been alluded to a lot but I'd like to get a good view.
Valdemar II
Banned
I think we looking at sanitation the wrong way, sanitation are low tech, really low tech, even stone age people can produce impressive degree of sanitation. As such I think there was a very simple reason for the lack of it in Europe, climate and urbanisation. Climate because it took longer for organic materials to turn bad, which meant that longer transportation time was a minor problem. Another aspect with climate was that a cold bath could be deadly and fuel to hot ones was expensive, which meant baths was rare and for the well off. At last urbanisation Europe had a low degree of urbanisation, which meant that unskilled urban population which died was easy to replace with people from the country side, but also that the resource to build sanitation infrastructure was lacking. If we look at countries with a high degree of urbanistion like Netherlands, it was much developed, as such I think increased sanitation, with greater urban population are unavoidable.
[/QUOTE]
I like V, to see the effect on Europe are going to be incredible. You are changing the fundament of European society, and it's going to be exciting to see.
Tallying up the votes so far, that makes:
More of Aururia, minimal about Europe (2 votes)
More about Europe, please (2 votes)
About frickin' time you told us about the Maori (3 votes)
Focus on the crops, dammit (1 vote).
That makes, hmm...
The thing is, there's really two components of this timeline that I'd like to depict.
One is the short-term consequences of European contact in Aururia itself (and its neighbours). That is, the kinds of relatively detailed posts which I've been writing since about post #20, starting with the fate of the Atjuntja, and then working eastward, as it were.
I can certainly write more posts like that - basically, the short-term fate of the Yadji, Tjibarr, the Nangu, *Tasmania, and so forth. That will run up to, oh, 1650 or 1660 or so; after that, the butterflies really build up, and the general course of Aururia's future will be reasonably clear.
Of course, writing about all of those matters in detail will be rather time-consuming, to say the least.
The other thing I want to depict is the longer-term consequences of Aururian contact. A big chunk of that is the effects of Aururian crops (and animals) which Admiral Matt mentions. Those will have profound consequences on the world.
Another part of the longer-term consequences is the diffusion of Aururian wealth (especially gold), diseases, and religions across the world, with its effects. And, potentially, the Aururians themselves. The third part is, of course, the longer-term effects of European contact within Aururia itself.
But for they will have longer-term effects, they will need to be depicted in a much "broader sweep of history" method than the detailed posts I've been using so far. I'll need to be more general in the descriptions, and/or just do jumps throughout the future, showing the world the way it is in, say, 1720 and then 1780 or so.
As to how I write things from here, well, I'm not yet sure. It would be possible to wrap up the remaining parts of the "immediate" future in a few posts, and move on to the longer-term consequences. Or I could keep on going in detail (like most of the next few instalments I've described) - but it would take rather a while to get to the longer-term consequences. And ultimately, I don't want writing this timeline to take as long as DoD took.
Hard to be specific, since there were multiple peoples involved, but the take-up of even basic sanitation was much, much slower than elsewhere in the world.
Obscure reference to Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson. Fitzpatrick's War is a future history set in the twenty-fifth century (and later). Within that FH, the Diary of Tri Ogalala is an "earlier" work which described how our modern age (the Age of Electricity) gradually fell apart. Judson has talked about writing that Diary, too, but he never gets around to doing it.
I agree with these; regular baths were less required, for instance. Food was less likely to go off.
This part, I'm not so sure about. Hot baths and so on are one thing, but a basic sanitation (even sewers) just doesn't seem to register. They weren't that hard to build; as you point out, Neolithic peoples could do it.
It's not even a climate issue, so much: even parts of East Asia which had similarly cool climates had better sanitation than Europe. Sure, there were larger cities in East Asia, but I don't think that the overall urbanised percentage of the population was any higher than in Europe.
Increasing urbanisation made sanitation a more urgent issue in nineteenth-century Europe, but it's something which a lot of European cities would have benefitted from centuries before that (pre-Black Death Florence, for instance), and it doesn't seem to have interested them all that much.
More of Aururia, minimal about Europe (2 votes)
More about Europe, please (2 votes)
About frickin' time you told us about the Maori (3 votes)
Focus on the crops, dammit (1 vote).
That makes, hmm...
The thing is, there's really two components of this timeline that I'd like to depict.
One is the short-term consequences of European contact in Aururia itself (and its neighbours). That is, the kinds of relatively detailed posts which I've been writing since about post #20, starting with the fate of the Atjuntja, and then working eastward, as it were.
I can certainly write more posts like that - basically, the short-term fate of the Yadji, Tjibarr, the Nangu, *Tasmania, and so forth. That will run up to, oh, 1650 or 1660 or so; after that, the butterflies really build up, and the general course of Aururia's future will be reasonably clear.
Of course, writing about all of those matters in detail will be rather time-consuming, to say the least.
The other thing I want to depict is the longer-term consequences of Aururian contact. A big chunk of that is the effects of Aururian crops (and animals) which Admiral Matt mentions. Those will have profound consequences on the world.
Another part of the longer-term consequences is the diffusion of Aururian wealth (especially gold), diseases, and religions across the world, with its effects. And, potentially, the Aururians themselves. The third part is, of course, the longer-term effects of European contact within Aururia itself.
But for they will have longer-term effects, they will need to be depicted in a much "broader sweep of history" method than the detailed posts I've been using so far. I'll need to be more general in the descriptions, and/or just do jumps throughout the future, showing the world the way it is in, say, 1720 and then 1780 or so.
As to how I write things from here, well, I'm not yet sure. It would be possible to wrap up the remaining parts of the "immediate" future in a few posts, and move on to the longer-term consequences. Or I could keep on going in detail (like most of the next few instalments I've described) - but it would take rather a while to get to the longer-term consequences. And ultimately, I don't want writing this timeline to take as long as DoD took.
Hard to be specific, since there were multiple peoples involved, but the take-up of even basic sanitation was much, much slower than elsewhere in the world.
Just what would that be
Obscure reference to Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson. Fitzpatrick's War is a future history set in the twenty-fifth century (and later). Within that FH, the Diary of Tri Ogalala is an "earlier" work which described how our modern age (the Age of Electricity) gradually fell apart. Judson has talked about writing that Diary, too, but he never gets around to doing it.
I agree with these; regular baths were less required, for instance. Food was less likely to go off.
This part, I'm not so sure about. Hot baths and so on are one thing, but a basic sanitation (even sewers) just doesn't seem to register. They weren't that hard to build; as you point out, Neolithic peoples could do it.
It's not even a climate issue, so much: even parts of East Asia which had similarly cool climates had better sanitation than Europe. Sure, there were larger cities in East Asia, but I don't think that the overall urbanised percentage of the population was any higher than in Europe.
Increasing urbanisation made sanitation a more urgent issue in nineteenth-century Europe, but it's something which a lot of European cities would have benefitted from centuries before that (pre-Black Death Florence, for instance), and it doesn't seem to have interested them all that much.
Lands of Red and Gold #45: Content To Lie In the Sun
Lands of Red and Gold #45: Content To Lie In the Sun
“I do believe I would like another cup.”
- Reported words of William Baffin, English navigator, explorer and eventual plutocrat, when first tasting jeeree [Aururian lemon tea] in Torimi [Port Stephens, Australia], 1636
* * *
Imagine, if you would, that you can step into a machine unparalleled in the history of the world. One which can travel not only back in time, but into worlds that history has sidestepped, where the river of time has followed a new course. The worlds of if.
If you could step through such a machine, you would find a place which the history you know calls south-eastern Queensland, but in allohistory is called the Coral Coast [1]. This is a narrow band of coastal lands east of the continental divide [the Great Dividing Ranges], fringed by warm seas. With a subtropical climate, the Coral Coast is a land of frequent sun, lush plant growth, more fertile soils and heavier rainfall than most parts of this driest of inhabited continents. Sometimes the rains fall so heavily that the coastal rivers rise in quick, devastating floods.
While long inhabited by hunter-gather peoples, the first Gunnagalic-speaking farmers arrived here during the Great Migrations, around 500 BC, and began to gradually dominate this land. The process of displacing the earlier peoples was slower and less complete than in most other areas touched by the Great Migrations; there were still hunter-gatherers living in parts of the Coral Coast over four hundred years after the first Gunnagalic farmers arrived.
The land which these ancient farmers established was in some ways welcoming, in others restricted. The mountains to the west were both a barrier to exploration and a defence against other newcomers; beyond them lay the sweeping, thinly-populated region called the Neeburra [Darling Downs]. To the east lay the sea, at this time untouched by any other people. Further south along the coast dwelt the Bungudjimay, a people who would later develop into head-hunting raiders, but who at this time were largely inward-looking. Further south inland were the highlands which formed ancient Aururia’s key source of tin for bronze-working. To the north lay warmer lands where their ancient staple crops of red yams and murnong could not grow [2].
These early farmers gradually evolved into the people who called themselves the Kiyungu. Located at the northernmost extremity of Gunnagalic farming, they were for a long time largely insulated from developments further south; one later scholar of the Kiyungu famously remarked, “History mostly passed them by.”
The Kiyungu were never completely isolated, of course. Long ago, they learned to sail the coast further north to places where they could dive for corals, which served as a valuable trade good both within Kiyungu society and when trading further south. Their proximity to the sources of tin meant that they had abundant bronze tools for their purposes. From their hunter-gatherer predecessors, they acquired a belief in the veneration of the bunya tree, and both the belief and the tree itself would spread south along the trade routes [3].
Still, for so long the Kiyungu were a people content mostly to live under the subtropical sun, divided into city-states which squabbled amongst themselves. With mountains to the west and only hunter-gatherers to the north, they did not have any major external enemies, and they were not very warlike. In their distant location, they were protected from the biggest changes that affected the south; the Empire never reached this far, and the ancient Kiyungu were only barely aware of its existence.
Change first came to the Kiyungu through political and religious developments among their neighbours. The Bungudjimay to the south gradually consolidated into the kingdom of Daluming, and began to expand their head-hunting raids, which started to touch the Coral Coast around 1300 AD. Soon after, the Tjarrling faith [related to Plirism] spread to the Yalatji who lived beyond the western mountains, and some of those peoples made religiously-inspired visits further east, including some missionaries-in-force.
Fresh inspiration came to the Kiyungu around this time, too, with the first visits from Maori explorers around 1350 AD. These contacts were few and did not endure, since the Kiyungu lands were distant even by Maori navigators’ standards, and the two peoples had no goods which the other valued enough to sustain long-term trade.
Still, they had one important effect. Of all the Aururian peoples, the Kiyungu were the keenest sailors apart from the Nangu, and had a keen interest in the Maori vessels. Like the Nangu before them, the Kiyungu adopted lateen sails, twin-hulled ships and some knowledge of navigational techniques. Unlike the Islanders, the Kiyungu did not develop these techniques much further, since their interest was initially limited to better ships for reaching the coral reefs to the north, and for more reliable fishing.
The greatest change which came to the Kiyungu was not from politics or religion, but from the appearance of new, tropically-viable staple crops. The initial contact with the Maori was limited enough that the two peoples did not exchange crops, but the Maori’s crops of kumara [sweet potato] and taro were adopted by peoples further south, and these crops gradually spread north along the coast, reaching the Kiyungu around 1450.
About half a century before that, a new crop had appeared of its own accord in Kiyungu fields: a new form of yam. It was smaller than the common yams, and needed to be cultivated through cuttings, since at first it did not develop seeds. The Kiyungu never noticed that it needed more rainfall, too; that was not a problem in the lands along the Coral Coast.
What mattered to the Kiyungu was that they found that these new yams were easy to grow without the stunting problem that sometimes troubled their common yams. That gave them reason to grow it, and this motivation only increased when they realised that the lesser yam could be grown further north, too. There was, in fact, no apparent limit to where it could be cultivated.
The first lesser yams were planted further north in small fields adjacent to ports, to provide food for the ships of coral-divers. But it would not take long for the Kiyungu to find motivation to plant them even further north. This motivation, too, would only increase when kumara and taro reached the Kiyungu...
* * *
When it comes time for future linguists, anthropologists and other -ists to study the Kiyungu, they will note that these are in many ways the most distinctive of all the Gunnagalic peoples, in their language, their religion, and their broader culture.
Linguists will note that the Kiyungu still speak a language related to the other members of the Gunnagalic language family. Nevertheless, its grammar, vocabulary and even phonology differs notably from its linguistic cousins. While the majority of its words and grammatical features have equivalents elsewhere, a significant minority of its basic words have no equivalent in other Gunnagalic languages. Most notably, most word roots relating to water, boats and fishing are unique to the Kiyungu, as are many words related to hunting. Even the names of many of familiar animals have changed; most Gunnagalic languages have related words for animals such as kangaroos and wombats, but the Kiyungu words are distinct.
This shift in vocabulary will be inferred (correctly) by future linguists to be the result of a substratum of word roots which have been borrowed from a now extinct language; the peoples who lived along the Coral Coast before the ancestors of the Kiyungu reached there.
Most Gunnagalic peoples displaced their predecessors during the Great Migrations, but the less effective agriculture in the north meant that the early Kiyungu mingled much more considerably with the previous inhabitants. This included a considerable portion of their vocabulary, particularly that related to hunting and fishing.
The intermingling of peoples influenced the Kiyungu in other notable ways, particularly religion and social structures. Later scholars of Gunnagalic studies would note that the Gunnagalic peoples share more than just a common ancestral language; they have also inherited some significant common social structures and, in many cases, common religious beliefs. The ancient social divisions into kitjigal were represented in one form or another in most later Gunnagalic peoples. The Kiyungu, however, preserved no trace of those ancient institutions; a sign that their social system had been influenced by other cultures. Likewise, their own tradition of mentorship with Elder Brothers and Elder Sisters [4] found no comparison amongst other Gunnagalic peoples.
For religious beliefs, students of comparative mythology would later note the common deities and common myths believed by many of the Gunnagalic peoples. Many scholars could compare equivalent gods (including similar forms of their names), identify the ancestral forms, and recognise the places were earlier myths were adapted into later structures.
The Kiyungu mythology would be amongst those which later scholars would identify as having many points of comparison with other Gunnagalic peoples. However, they would also note one significant feature which is unique to the Kiyungu, and which they will again assume (correctly) to be the result of non-Gunnagalic influence.
While most of the Kiyungu deities were recognisably derived from ancient Gunnagalic beliefs, none of them had related names to their Gunnagalic counterparts. Most of the deities had common attributes and myths, but their names were distinct. Instead of related names, Kiyungu deities have titles which sound as if they were originally used as euphemisms or praise-names, with the original names for the deities later being lost. To the Kiyungu, the Rainbow Serpent is called the Curved One, the Twins (or Fire Brothers) are called Firstborn and Secondborn, while the Green Lady is called the Wanderer. By comparing the changes in the Kiyungu language, scholars are able to identify the original Kiyungu names for these deities, but the names themselves are not attested in the Kiyungu mythology.
Still, despite the best efforts of later scholars, for one important Kiyungu deity, they cannot find a counterpart in other Gunnagalic cultures. This is a deity who is considered a troublemaker, a negative influence, a source of much discomfort in the world. This is also a deity who is apparently alien to the common Gunnagalic religious heritage; it must have been a pre-Gunnagalic deity who was believed in fervently enough to be absorbed into Kiyungu religious beliefs.
Unfortunately, where the names of the other Kiyungu deities can be deduced by comparison to other Gunnagalic languages, the name of this deity is lost to history. Without the Kiyungu preserving the name, it can never be known. All that remains is the euphemism for this deity; the Kiyungu title translates literally as He Who Must Be Blamed.
* * *
By 1618, the Kiyungu have put to good use the new crops which they acquired over the last few centuries. They now inhabit over one thousand kilometres of the Aururian coastline, stretching from their northernmost major city of Quamba [Mackay, QLD] to Woginee [Tweed Heads, NSW] in the south. This expanse marks the greatest geographical distance inhabited by any one people in Aururia. Yet the Kiyungu are scattered, without any true political unity, and only the vaguest sense of common identity.
Kiyungu-inhabited territory is not contiguous. Their northward expansion has been largely by sea, and so even in 1618, Kiyungu farmers have not entirely displaced hunter-gatherers along the coast. They have established outposts at all of the convenient ports, but in the more rugged coastal areas, some non-farming peoples still occupy the land.
The Kiyungu are also confined in their landward advances, since the continental divide is never too far inland. Kiyungu do not venture west of the mountains in any significant numbers, since there is little to interest them inland. They prefer to fish for their meat, rather than farm emus or hunt wild animals. The sea provides both their most convenient transportation and their best source of wealth; while the Kiyungu harvest a variety of spices which more distant peoples would value, to the Kiyungu themselves, these are commonplace.
Most of the Kiyungu live in or near city-states along the Coral Coast or the more northerly cities. In the northern Kiyungu outposts, political organisation is confined to this level, as indeed it was amongst all Kiyungu cities until relatively recently. The Kiyungu are ruled by monarchs who come from the same (very extended) family, and who were usually able to maintain order in their own cities, but never really capable of building larger states. The perpetual problem was one of control; collecting tribute from another city-state was easy enough, but conquest required appointing a viceroy, who in time would be likely to declare independence on his own.
Recently, this trend has been partly altered amongst the southern Kiyungu. The need for common defence against Daluming raids and Yalatji proselytisation has led to the development of the League, a loose alliance which exists to resolve disputes amongst member states and encourage mutual defence against enemies. The League is not a solid alliance, but the threat of ostracisation or joint attack from its neighbours is usually enough to bring member cities into line when there are disagreements.
The Kiyungu population density, even in the south, remains reasonably low. Their overall population is growing rapidly thanks to the potential of sweet potato and lesser yams to secure their food supply, but northward expansion offers a population growth outlet. Most of the more adventuresome or simply down-on-their-luck types amongst the Kiyungu choose to strike it north to acquire land, potentially new wealth, or just a fresh start. The northward march continues even in 1618; some pioneering farmers are pushing north past Quamba. There is no geographic barrier to stop them until they reach what another history would name Torres Strait.
For those Kiyungu who are settled, though, both in north and south, they still have much of the old laidback attitude of their forebears. They fish, they dive for coral, they eat spicy food, and they do, in fact, like to lie in the sun. Life usually finds its own pace amongst the Kiyungu. Like most Aururian farming peoples who use perennial crops, they have a labour surplus, but as often as not they are content to use the time simply to relax rather than find some industrious pursuit.
The Kiyungu are not completely isolated from other farming peoples, but virtually all of their contacts are with the often-unfriendly Yalatji to the west, or the less organised peoples to the south who are also victims of Daluming raids. They live close enough to the ancient sources of tin that they can still import as much of that metal as they need to make bronze, an alloy which suits all of their metalworking needs. In 1618, they have had only the most sporadic contact with the Islanders, and none of their immediate neighbours use iron to any meaningful degree, so the Kiyungu remain firmly in the Bronze Age.
Collecting coral has been a Kiyungu habit for nearly two millennia, and their taste for it has not diminished. Their sailors still search the Inner Sea [ie the waters inside the Great Barrier Reef] for some of the more valued and colourful types. It is the basis of much of their own jewellery and ornamentation, and the main trade good which they exchange further south for tin. Most of their other main ornamentation comes from gold. The Kiyungu no longer have any active gold mines, but their ancestors discovered and exploited several small alluvial gold fields in earlier times [5]. Much of that gold remains in Kiyungu jewellery, although some has also been traded further south.
Thus, in 1618, the Kiyungu were a people who had lived on their own nearly independent path for a long time, and no inclination of the storms gathering beyond their mental horizons. Unlike most Aururian peoples, though, great change would first come to the Kiyungu not from Raw Men, but from other Aururians.
In 1630, the first Nangu sailed to the Coral Coast under the command of Werringi, later called the Bold. This was a visit of exploration, like occasional Islander visits before. Unlike those earlier visits, though, Werringi had the determination to make sure that this time, contact would be sustained...
* * *
[1] The Coral Coast corresponds roughly to the historical regions of Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast in south-eastern Queensland, although it stretches slightly further north and south.
[2] Red yams do not grow in tropical latitudes due to insufficient shortening of days to trigger their tuber formation. Murnong is too heat-sensitive to grow so far north, except in highland regions (which this region mostly lacks).
[3] The bunya tree (Araucaria bidwillii) is a kind of conifer which produces erratic but large yields of edible seeds. Its veneration is an ancient phenomenon, and the occasions when it produces seeds are times for celebration among the Kiyungu.
[4] This institution of mentorship in the Kiyungu involves an older man (or more rarely, woman) taking on responsibility as the guardian, guide and lover of a younger person of the same gender. The Kiyungu view this as the best way for a person to learn about love, life, proper values, and social order. It also usually involves teaching a valuable craft skill, too. The formal role as Elder Brother or Elder Sister ends when the younger is deemed ready for marriage, although the elder party will usually still provide advice to the younger throughout their lives.
[5] The largest of these was in historical Gympie, Queensland, which was the site of a gold rush in early colonial Queensland.
* * *
Thoughts?
“I do believe I would like another cup.”
- Reported words of William Baffin, English navigator, explorer and eventual plutocrat, when first tasting jeeree [Aururian lemon tea] in Torimi [Port Stephens, Australia], 1636
* * *
Imagine, if you would, that you can step into a machine unparalleled in the history of the world. One which can travel not only back in time, but into worlds that history has sidestepped, where the river of time has followed a new course. The worlds of if.
If you could step through such a machine, you would find a place which the history you know calls south-eastern Queensland, but in allohistory is called the Coral Coast [1]. This is a narrow band of coastal lands east of the continental divide [the Great Dividing Ranges], fringed by warm seas. With a subtropical climate, the Coral Coast is a land of frequent sun, lush plant growth, more fertile soils and heavier rainfall than most parts of this driest of inhabited continents. Sometimes the rains fall so heavily that the coastal rivers rise in quick, devastating floods.
While long inhabited by hunter-gather peoples, the first Gunnagalic-speaking farmers arrived here during the Great Migrations, around 500 BC, and began to gradually dominate this land. The process of displacing the earlier peoples was slower and less complete than in most other areas touched by the Great Migrations; there were still hunter-gatherers living in parts of the Coral Coast over four hundred years after the first Gunnagalic farmers arrived.
The land which these ancient farmers established was in some ways welcoming, in others restricted. The mountains to the west were both a barrier to exploration and a defence against other newcomers; beyond them lay the sweeping, thinly-populated region called the Neeburra [Darling Downs]. To the east lay the sea, at this time untouched by any other people. Further south along the coast dwelt the Bungudjimay, a people who would later develop into head-hunting raiders, but who at this time were largely inward-looking. Further south inland were the highlands which formed ancient Aururia’s key source of tin for bronze-working. To the north lay warmer lands where their ancient staple crops of red yams and murnong could not grow [2].
These early farmers gradually evolved into the people who called themselves the Kiyungu. Located at the northernmost extremity of Gunnagalic farming, they were for a long time largely insulated from developments further south; one later scholar of the Kiyungu famously remarked, “History mostly passed them by.”
The Kiyungu were never completely isolated, of course. Long ago, they learned to sail the coast further north to places where they could dive for corals, which served as a valuable trade good both within Kiyungu society and when trading further south. Their proximity to the sources of tin meant that they had abundant bronze tools for their purposes. From their hunter-gatherer predecessors, they acquired a belief in the veneration of the bunya tree, and both the belief and the tree itself would spread south along the trade routes [3].
Still, for so long the Kiyungu were a people content mostly to live under the subtropical sun, divided into city-states which squabbled amongst themselves. With mountains to the west and only hunter-gatherers to the north, they did not have any major external enemies, and they were not very warlike. In their distant location, they were protected from the biggest changes that affected the south; the Empire never reached this far, and the ancient Kiyungu were only barely aware of its existence.
Change first came to the Kiyungu through political and religious developments among their neighbours. The Bungudjimay to the south gradually consolidated into the kingdom of Daluming, and began to expand their head-hunting raids, which started to touch the Coral Coast around 1300 AD. Soon after, the Tjarrling faith [related to Plirism] spread to the Yalatji who lived beyond the western mountains, and some of those peoples made religiously-inspired visits further east, including some missionaries-in-force.
Fresh inspiration came to the Kiyungu around this time, too, with the first visits from Maori explorers around 1350 AD. These contacts were few and did not endure, since the Kiyungu lands were distant even by Maori navigators’ standards, and the two peoples had no goods which the other valued enough to sustain long-term trade.
Still, they had one important effect. Of all the Aururian peoples, the Kiyungu were the keenest sailors apart from the Nangu, and had a keen interest in the Maori vessels. Like the Nangu before them, the Kiyungu adopted lateen sails, twin-hulled ships and some knowledge of navigational techniques. Unlike the Islanders, the Kiyungu did not develop these techniques much further, since their interest was initially limited to better ships for reaching the coral reefs to the north, and for more reliable fishing.
The greatest change which came to the Kiyungu was not from politics or religion, but from the appearance of new, tropically-viable staple crops. The initial contact with the Maori was limited enough that the two peoples did not exchange crops, but the Maori’s crops of kumara [sweet potato] and taro were adopted by peoples further south, and these crops gradually spread north along the coast, reaching the Kiyungu around 1450.
About half a century before that, a new crop had appeared of its own accord in Kiyungu fields: a new form of yam. It was smaller than the common yams, and needed to be cultivated through cuttings, since at first it did not develop seeds. The Kiyungu never noticed that it needed more rainfall, too; that was not a problem in the lands along the Coral Coast.
What mattered to the Kiyungu was that they found that these new yams were easy to grow without the stunting problem that sometimes troubled their common yams. That gave them reason to grow it, and this motivation only increased when they realised that the lesser yam could be grown further north, too. There was, in fact, no apparent limit to where it could be cultivated.
The first lesser yams were planted further north in small fields adjacent to ports, to provide food for the ships of coral-divers. But it would not take long for the Kiyungu to find motivation to plant them even further north. This motivation, too, would only increase when kumara and taro reached the Kiyungu...
* * *
When it comes time for future linguists, anthropologists and other -ists to study the Kiyungu, they will note that these are in many ways the most distinctive of all the Gunnagalic peoples, in their language, their religion, and their broader culture.
Linguists will note that the Kiyungu still speak a language related to the other members of the Gunnagalic language family. Nevertheless, its grammar, vocabulary and even phonology differs notably from its linguistic cousins. While the majority of its words and grammatical features have equivalents elsewhere, a significant minority of its basic words have no equivalent in other Gunnagalic languages. Most notably, most word roots relating to water, boats and fishing are unique to the Kiyungu, as are many words related to hunting. Even the names of many of familiar animals have changed; most Gunnagalic languages have related words for animals such as kangaroos and wombats, but the Kiyungu words are distinct.
This shift in vocabulary will be inferred (correctly) by future linguists to be the result of a substratum of word roots which have been borrowed from a now extinct language; the peoples who lived along the Coral Coast before the ancestors of the Kiyungu reached there.
Most Gunnagalic peoples displaced their predecessors during the Great Migrations, but the less effective agriculture in the north meant that the early Kiyungu mingled much more considerably with the previous inhabitants. This included a considerable portion of their vocabulary, particularly that related to hunting and fishing.
The intermingling of peoples influenced the Kiyungu in other notable ways, particularly religion and social structures. Later scholars of Gunnagalic studies would note that the Gunnagalic peoples share more than just a common ancestral language; they have also inherited some significant common social structures and, in many cases, common religious beliefs. The ancient social divisions into kitjigal were represented in one form or another in most later Gunnagalic peoples. The Kiyungu, however, preserved no trace of those ancient institutions; a sign that their social system had been influenced by other cultures. Likewise, their own tradition of mentorship with Elder Brothers and Elder Sisters [4] found no comparison amongst other Gunnagalic peoples.
For religious beliefs, students of comparative mythology would later note the common deities and common myths believed by many of the Gunnagalic peoples. Many scholars could compare equivalent gods (including similar forms of their names), identify the ancestral forms, and recognise the places were earlier myths were adapted into later structures.
The Kiyungu mythology would be amongst those which later scholars would identify as having many points of comparison with other Gunnagalic peoples. However, they would also note one significant feature which is unique to the Kiyungu, and which they will again assume (correctly) to be the result of non-Gunnagalic influence.
While most of the Kiyungu deities were recognisably derived from ancient Gunnagalic beliefs, none of them had related names to their Gunnagalic counterparts. Most of the deities had common attributes and myths, but their names were distinct. Instead of related names, Kiyungu deities have titles which sound as if they were originally used as euphemisms or praise-names, with the original names for the deities later being lost. To the Kiyungu, the Rainbow Serpent is called the Curved One, the Twins (or Fire Brothers) are called Firstborn and Secondborn, while the Green Lady is called the Wanderer. By comparing the changes in the Kiyungu language, scholars are able to identify the original Kiyungu names for these deities, but the names themselves are not attested in the Kiyungu mythology.
Still, despite the best efforts of later scholars, for one important Kiyungu deity, they cannot find a counterpart in other Gunnagalic cultures. This is a deity who is considered a troublemaker, a negative influence, a source of much discomfort in the world. This is also a deity who is apparently alien to the common Gunnagalic religious heritage; it must have been a pre-Gunnagalic deity who was believed in fervently enough to be absorbed into Kiyungu religious beliefs.
Unfortunately, where the names of the other Kiyungu deities can be deduced by comparison to other Gunnagalic languages, the name of this deity is lost to history. Without the Kiyungu preserving the name, it can never be known. All that remains is the euphemism for this deity; the Kiyungu title translates literally as He Who Must Be Blamed.
* * *
By 1618, the Kiyungu have put to good use the new crops which they acquired over the last few centuries. They now inhabit over one thousand kilometres of the Aururian coastline, stretching from their northernmost major city of Quamba [Mackay, QLD] to Woginee [Tweed Heads, NSW] in the south. This expanse marks the greatest geographical distance inhabited by any one people in Aururia. Yet the Kiyungu are scattered, without any true political unity, and only the vaguest sense of common identity.
Kiyungu-inhabited territory is not contiguous. Their northward expansion has been largely by sea, and so even in 1618, Kiyungu farmers have not entirely displaced hunter-gatherers along the coast. They have established outposts at all of the convenient ports, but in the more rugged coastal areas, some non-farming peoples still occupy the land.
The Kiyungu are also confined in their landward advances, since the continental divide is never too far inland. Kiyungu do not venture west of the mountains in any significant numbers, since there is little to interest them inland. They prefer to fish for their meat, rather than farm emus or hunt wild animals. The sea provides both their most convenient transportation and their best source of wealth; while the Kiyungu harvest a variety of spices which more distant peoples would value, to the Kiyungu themselves, these are commonplace.
Most of the Kiyungu live in or near city-states along the Coral Coast or the more northerly cities. In the northern Kiyungu outposts, political organisation is confined to this level, as indeed it was amongst all Kiyungu cities until relatively recently. The Kiyungu are ruled by monarchs who come from the same (very extended) family, and who were usually able to maintain order in their own cities, but never really capable of building larger states. The perpetual problem was one of control; collecting tribute from another city-state was easy enough, but conquest required appointing a viceroy, who in time would be likely to declare independence on his own.
Recently, this trend has been partly altered amongst the southern Kiyungu. The need for common defence against Daluming raids and Yalatji proselytisation has led to the development of the League, a loose alliance which exists to resolve disputes amongst member states and encourage mutual defence against enemies. The League is not a solid alliance, but the threat of ostracisation or joint attack from its neighbours is usually enough to bring member cities into line when there are disagreements.
The Kiyungu population density, even in the south, remains reasonably low. Their overall population is growing rapidly thanks to the potential of sweet potato and lesser yams to secure their food supply, but northward expansion offers a population growth outlet. Most of the more adventuresome or simply down-on-their-luck types amongst the Kiyungu choose to strike it north to acquire land, potentially new wealth, or just a fresh start. The northward march continues even in 1618; some pioneering farmers are pushing north past Quamba. There is no geographic barrier to stop them until they reach what another history would name Torres Strait.
For those Kiyungu who are settled, though, both in north and south, they still have much of the old laidback attitude of their forebears. They fish, they dive for coral, they eat spicy food, and they do, in fact, like to lie in the sun. Life usually finds its own pace amongst the Kiyungu. Like most Aururian farming peoples who use perennial crops, they have a labour surplus, but as often as not they are content to use the time simply to relax rather than find some industrious pursuit.
The Kiyungu are not completely isolated from other farming peoples, but virtually all of their contacts are with the often-unfriendly Yalatji to the west, or the less organised peoples to the south who are also victims of Daluming raids. They live close enough to the ancient sources of tin that they can still import as much of that metal as they need to make bronze, an alloy which suits all of their metalworking needs. In 1618, they have had only the most sporadic contact with the Islanders, and none of their immediate neighbours use iron to any meaningful degree, so the Kiyungu remain firmly in the Bronze Age.
Collecting coral has been a Kiyungu habit for nearly two millennia, and their taste for it has not diminished. Their sailors still search the Inner Sea [ie the waters inside the Great Barrier Reef] for some of the more valued and colourful types. It is the basis of much of their own jewellery and ornamentation, and the main trade good which they exchange further south for tin. Most of their other main ornamentation comes from gold. The Kiyungu no longer have any active gold mines, but their ancestors discovered and exploited several small alluvial gold fields in earlier times [5]. Much of that gold remains in Kiyungu jewellery, although some has also been traded further south.
Thus, in 1618, the Kiyungu were a people who had lived on their own nearly independent path for a long time, and no inclination of the storms gathering beyond their mental horizons. Unlike most Aururian peoples, though, great change would first come to the Kiyungu not from Raw Men, but from other Aururians.
In 1630, the first Nangu sailed to the Coral Coast under the command of Werringi, later called the Bold. This was a visit of exploration, like occasional Islander visits before. Unlike those earlier visits, though, Werringi had the determination to make sure that this time, contact would be sustained...
* * *
[1] The Coral Coast corresponds roughly to the historical regions of Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast in south-eastern Queensland, although it stretches slightly further north and south.
[2] Red yams do not grow in tropical latitudes due to insufficient shortening of days to trigger their tuber formation. Murnong is too heat-sensitive to grow so far north, except in highland regions (which this region mostly lacks).
[3] The bunya tree (Araucaria bidwillii) is a kind of conifer which produces erratic but large yields of edible seeds. Its veneration is an ancient phenomenon, and the occasions when it produces seeds are times for celebration among the Kiyungu.
[4] This institution of mentorship in the Kiyungu involves an older man (or more rarely, woman) taking on responsibility as the guardian, guide and lover of a younger person of the same gender. The Kiyungu view this as the best way for a person to learn about love, life, proper values, and social order. It also usually involves teaching a valuable craft skill, too. The formal role as Elder Brother or Elder Sister ends when the younger is deemed ready for marriage, although the elder party will usually still provide advice to the younger throughout their lives.
[5] The largest of these was in historical Gympie, Queensland, which was the site of a gold rush in early colonial Queensland.
* * *
Thoughts?
Last edited:
Hendryk
Banned
Although an apocryphal version insists that his words were actually "Bafflin' stuff!"
Okay, that's lame.
Ah, Werringi. We've heard of him before, and he sounds like a fascinating fellow.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
Judging by that smiley He Who Must Be Blamed is something signifigant. What am I missing?
- Status