On the Backs of Beasts (A Native American TL)

PROLOGUE

Around 5,000 B.C.E

Children, ranging in age from being able to walk only with the assistance of others, to the boys and girls verging on adulthood, waited patiently as the elder readied for the day. The room they were in was large and circular, with a small fire blazing at it's heart. The walls were painted in bright colours, depicting images of the natural would outside, as well as the stories of the people. Pottery, some very old, lined the walls, carefully and lovingly looked after by the elders.

Finally, an elder woman took the large wooden seat before the children and the fire looking down at her gathered, captive audience. She smiled to herself slightly, just light enough that the children would not notice. They were children of all the clans and nations in the surrounding lands. Some, a small group huddled together in the back were likely from further away that this. The elder took a long strong wooden poll to prod the fire, bringing it to greater life. It's light bringing life to the cool night that engulfed the world outside.

"I have been here, since the world was young." The elder began slowly. "Our people, all of our people, once lived far away from this place in a different land." She used the stick to point at one of the paintings on the wall. "We lived once, on the banks of a great lake, many generations ago. Our people were cold, and hungry. But we pressed on. Our chiefs, and our mothers refused to let the people die. Our enemies were many, and they pressed to take us from this world." She pointed again at a different picture, this time of men and women grouped together. "A great chief, who could commune with the spirits called out to them. It was the spirits who are in the north winds, and ice, winter and snow who took pity upon him and our people. And the froze the lake by which our people lived so that they people could cross. With us came the animals we used for food, and our homes and clothing. When at last we had crossed the ice, the chief again asked the spirits for their help. And this time, it was the spirits who are in the South Winds, and fire, and in the sun who answered his call. And the hard ice that had carried the people melted, so that our enemies could not follow.

We were given a new land. A new world, free of our enemies. With new rivers and mountains, grasslands valleys for our people to live in and watch over. And so it came to us, to be the care takers of the land, and it's animals. We would honour them and care for them as they would for us. Their meat would fill our bellies, their furs and hid would warm our bodies, their backs would carry our people far. The plants that grew in the soil would be protected with in our walls, and make the people healthy."

The light of the moon filled the room like a flood, as the skins that covered the doorway were cast aside. A younger man stood there, looking down at the children and at the elder. "My greatest apologies elder. But I have been sent to humbly ask of you to hold audience with the chiefs." He placed a hand over his heart as he spoke, a lowered his head in respect. The elder lowered her stick, and looked to the children before her.

"I will return, and we will finish the story on another night. Be safe young ones. All of your relations." She said standing slowly, using the stick as support. "All of your relations." The children echoed. The elder walked next to the younger man, leaving her stick but taking his arm for support. The two walked out of the round building, looking down at the city built on the banks of the great river known as "Misiziibi" to the local nations who depended upon it for all things. Most buildings were already going dark, but light still filled a few dotting the small city like stars at night. The air was cool, and filled with the smell of smoke and food wafting up from the trade region near the river. The elder stepper out onto the dirt path but was pulled back gently by the younger man, as a man road past on the back of a large horse.

"Thank you Teppi." The elder said patting his arm. "Speak with me as we walk. How is your wife?"

"She is well elder. We have had our first child. A daughter to who we gave the name Adsila." Teppi spoke of his daughter for the whole walk across the small city, much to the pleasure of the elder.
 
Around 5,000 B.C.E

The spirit that is in the great eastern waters was angry, and he seemed to call upon his brothers in the sky to punish these humans for their insolence. But the men, and their animals had no choice but to challenge the spirit of the waters. They were the only survivors of their people, others, armed with spears and and bows came to them from the north, they killed their warriors and took their women. They stole their animals used for meat, clothing and companionship. They were nearing the death of their people, and they knew it. Now, the small numbers that remained of their people were adrift, on small rafts, having launched themselves into the sea. With them, came some of their remaining tools and other supplies, a few animosh, pottery containing seeds that would grow in the earth.

If they did not perish in their attempt.

Great white mountains floating and bobbing with the waves passed along the sides of the small group of wooden rafts. Other smaller chunks of ice floated on the top of the waters, far more dangerous than their larger brothers and sisters. For the would hid under the waves in the blackness of the salty waters, from time to time a raft would land hard on one after being tossed into the air by the raging sea, and break apart, or over turn, shrinking again the population of the the people. Kanti-Hurit, a young girl, not yet of child bearing age clutched the wet, ice covered wood, terror ran through her as it would any person. But she did not let herself cry, or whimper, scream or weep. Her father and mother had been some of the people lost in the battle. She watched, as her father died. And he told her, with his last breath, to be brave. And so she would be.

A great noise tore across the sky. It boomed and roared like the sound of all the feet of man and beast stomping upon the earth at one time. Kanti-Hurit looked up at the sky to try and see the spirits as they ran across the heavens. But she saw nothing but the rolling black clouds that blocked the sun from giving its warmth to the world. Next to her, their chief sat up on his knees. He was young, younger than her father had been, but was now one of the tribes elders, they had lost so many. Like Kanti-Hurit, chief Askuwheteau-Chogan had lost his family to the invaders. His young wife and infant son were taken from him. Now, as he had said his only family was the tribe. Kanti-Hurit, had heard some of the other men say that the chief felt great shame, for not dyeing to protect his family. But none of them had died protecting the tribe. Kanti-Hurit, felt it to be unfair to hold such things above his head. Suddenly, the raft jumped, bounced and split. Kanti-Hurit watched as the grass ropes tightened and broke apart, the logs breaking away from one another, casting it's occupants into the sea.

It was cold. A cold the likes of which Kanti-Hurit had not felt. The spirits of the waters seemed to pull at her. Try to drag her away from her people and the rafts. She opened her eyes, and the stung from the cold and salt. But she could see images, blurred and hazy as they were. She saw pottery falling into the darkness, leaking their seeds into the waters. She could see where the sea was torn above her, as men, women and animals, struggled to keep their heads above the waters. And she could see what renamed of the broken raft drifting apart in the waves. Something, wrapped around her, not a spirit's ghostly pull, but something hard, physical. She was pulled up, out of the water and into the cold air. She gasped and coughed as her lungs took in a deep breath of life. Chief Askuwheteau-Chogan had her, as he paced her over his shoulder. In his arms he carried a single pot of seeds, and a hunting dog who shivered from the cold. Askuwheteau-Chogan pushed forward, reaching another rafter, who took the weight from him.

He went to turn back, swimming into the sea, but the people stopped him. Pulling him onto the raft, though he fought every moment. "No chief! You must not! You will die if you again return." One man named Kitchi-Machk said working to pin him to the raft.

"I must save them! The people! They must be saved!" Askuwheteau-Chogan screamed fighting against the much larger man.

"You can do nothing for the people if you are dead." Kitchi-Machk said sitting on the chief's chest. The chief struggled for a moment, then slowly, gave in to the will of the others, before screaming in pain and rage at the spirits in the sky. Kanti-Hurit watched on, as the dog, whimpering and cold crawled into her lap for warmth, she wrapped her arms around the poor animal, trying to share her warmth.

"Land!" The call is strange, nearly unknowable at first. "Land!" A woman's voice calls out again. "Smoke!" A man's voice calls out. Kitchi-Machk turned her head, and there, far off on the horizon, was land, with small pullers of smoke rising up from somewhere near the shore. They would be safe. They would live on. Perhaps, now, less than thirty in number.

But the people would live on in this new found land.
 
Sounds to me that the POD is a Great Lakes tribe, possibly some form of proto-Anishiinabe, migrating southward down to the Mississippi and the plains. Somewhere along the line they get some sort of domestic animal? Elk or bison?


I never get tired of Native American TLs. ;)
 
I have no idea what is happening but I love it.

Sounds to me that the POD is a Great Lakes tribe, possibly some form of proto-Anishiinabe, migrating southward down to the Mississippi and the plains. Somewhere along the line they get some sort of domestic animal? Elk or bison?


I never get tired of Native American TLs. ;)


Thank you! And the POD, is actually the survival of some of the Mega Fauna of North America.

And the first post is just a post from the POV of the Proto-Mississippians.
 
Thank you! And the POD, is actually the survival of some of the Mega Fauna of North America.

And the first post is just a post from the POV of the Proto-Mississippians.

IDK if it's ASB or not but, who the hell cares when you can have Native American tribes riding Pleistocene megafauna into battle. The English are gonna have a bad time... :p
 
Uh oh, that sounds possibly ASB. Unless you can come up with a reasonable POD, that would have to be further than 5,000 BC.

The POD would have to be much further back than that. But I do not think I have to cover the POD directly.

Noticing that the First Nations peoples have Horses and other beasts of burden, would make that clear I feel.

EDIT: Also, totally not the first to do this.
 
Oh yeah of course not, but those TLs typically show some method where said extinct animals didn't actually go extinct.

I'm fairly certain calling something 'just so' in a TL, in some cases, equates to an ASB POD. In actuality there are a large number of clear-cut reasons why Pleistocene megafauna died out that would be hard to change, so it's on the author to try and work out a method where this can be believably different. It's similar to the whole "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" gig.

As you can tell from other TLs, this isn't impossible, it just takes a bit of work. Sometimes you teeter on the verge of ASB.

So like, say, for horses. You could have it so that, during the height of human hunting of animals, horses found little pockets in OTL Canada and elsewhere where human activity wasn't present then and linger there or perhaps from pocket to pocket until the giants like mammoths, rhinos and ground sloths go extinct. With them and the more open herds of horses, go some of the large predators there like short-faced bears. With the lack of predator diversity and human activity in the north, horses can eventually spread and repopulate in the areas they were once extirpated from and migrate south into the Great Plains, similar to bison and likely sharing areas with them, and by that time their sheer numbers will make them difficult to drive to extinction.

Another method is to, somehow, introduce a general trend in some areas to not hunt or trap horse in favor of other more 'appealing' animals. This could be a bit more difficult. Preventing the Clovis points from being invented is possible but you'd wind up creating the god-emperor of butterflies.

So there's a few ways for this to happen but unless you come up with one, from what I've seen, it's considered a handwave and thus ASB.

Would there be any chances of predators surviving the extinctions, like American lions or Homotherium?
 
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