Thank you, too.This is why I love this site.
A timeline about.. umm.. Vikings? Native Americans? I forget exactly because by the time I got to the end of it I had just waded through a linguistic discussion of what a bunch of vikings would call a turtle.
(But really, I'm enjoying this one. Subscribed.)
Swords of the Iroquois
- Thread starter smjb
- Start date
Maps in a timeline are like illustrations in a book. You're bringing your story to life.
Laurentian culture
Seems to me that the St. lawrence Iroquois would be the first complex of the Iroquois Culture that any Norse Traders travelling inland wouldinteract with and it would probably be they that they assimilate into...smaller in numbers and initially not well established in the Lower valley they would complement each other. The \norse would porvide the tools and mercenaries to aid the St. L. Iroquois in more firmly establishing themselves in the Lower valley against there Algonkin counterparts north and south of the valley..and the Iroquois in turn would provide the guides and interpreters for the first interactions through their own networks with the rest of the Iroquois culture in the G.L Basin. Mohawks and the other Hodenosaunee tribes to the south, Wendats to the West via the Ottawa River, and of course up the Upper course of the St. Lawrence to L Ontario/Skanadario. and Onondaga/Cayugas and Senecas along with the Wenrohronon and Attawandarons. How that first meet actually went would determine whether the Norse actually get to the more numerous Grt. Lakes Complex of tribes. A hybrid Laurentian/Norse culture coould well develop. It would still be predominately Laurentian, but would have prominent Norse cultural features or trappings that could well be assimilated into their culture.
As previously stated by a few others ...the Hochelaga Archipelego is a natural focal point for trade, both because of the Rapids which would necessitate a portage to get around ( It would be the limit of initial Long Boat penetration). The many Rapids that exist on the upper St. lawrence and parts of the Ottawa mean the Norse would have to adopt something more portable to trade inland, which means adopting and adapting the Native Canoes for their purposes. Though Long boats could be established on Lake Ontario or the Upper lakes, it would need to built from local indigenous sources inland. And while you established " Buffalo" as a major centre inland ( OTL Buffalo Creek I presume), wouldn't someplace on the South of Grand Island be more suited, depending on the relationship with the Attawandarons. even desireable on the latters part, given their preference for avoiding the intermitten warfare between the tribes of the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat over the Hunting grounds of Central and Eastern Ontario. This does not mean of course that they themselves were not warlike, their own hunting grounds extending west over much of SW Ontario towards the Algonkin lands of Michigan which they defended fiercely against their Algonkin neigbours to the west.
By the Way.. a norse outpost via this route on the lower course of Lake Champlain (Caniaderi Guarunte) would be the best place to position an outpost using the Mokawk as Gateway to the Haudenosaunee tribes. But Sacketts Harbour or Oswego are also good because of their proximity to Onondaga village, meeting place of OTL Grand council of the Haudenosaunee but these give more directly onto the lands of the Onondaga, Cayugas and |Oneida, not the Mohawk.
Seems to me that the St. lawrence Iroquois would be the first complex of the Iroquois Culture that any Norse Traders travelling inland wouldinteract with and it would probably be they that they assimilate into...smaller in numbers and initially not well established in the Lower valley they would complement each other. The \norse would porvide the tools and mercenaries to aid the St. L. Iroquois in more firmly establishing themselves in the Lower valley against there Algonkin counterparts north and south of the valley..and the Iroquois in turn would provide the guides and interpreters for the first interactions through their own networks with the rest of the Iroquois culture in the G.L Basin. Mohawks and the other Hodenosaunee tribes to the south, Wendats to the West via the Ottawa River, and of course up the Upper course of the St. Lawrence to L Ontario/Skanadario. and Onondaga/Cayugas and Senecas along with the Wenrohronon and Attawandarons. How that first meet actually went would determine whether the Norse actually get to the more numerous Grt. Lakes Complex of tribes. A hybrid Laurentian/Norse culture coould well develop. It would still be predominately Laurentian, but would have prominent Norse cultural features or trappings that could well be assimilated into their culture.
As previously stated by a few others ...the Hochelaga Archipelego is a natural focal point for trade, both because of the Rapids which would necessitate a portage to get around ( It would be the limit of initial Long Boat penetration). The many Rapids that exist on the upper St. lawrence and parts of the Ottawa mean the Norse would have to adopt something more portable to trade inland, which means adopting and adapting the Native Canoes for their purposes. Though Long boats could be established on Lake Ontario or the Upper lakes, it would need to built from local indigenous sources inland. And while you established " Buffalo" as a major centre inland ( OTL Buffalo Creek I presume), wouldn't someplace on the South of Grand Island be more suited, depending on the relationship with the Attawandarons. even desireable on the latters part, given their preference for avoiding the intermitten warfare between the tribes of the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat over the Hunting grounds of Central and Eastern Ontario. This does not mean of course that they themselves were not warlike, their own hunting grounds extending west over much of SW Ontario towards the Algonkin lands of Michigan which they defended fiercely against their Algonkin neigbours to the west.
By the Way.. a norse outpost via this route on the lower course of Lake Champlain (Caniaderi Guarunte) would be the best place to position an outpost using the Mokawk as Gateway to the Haudenosaunee tribes. But Sacketts Harbour or Oswego are also good because of their proximity to Onondaga village, meeting place of OTL Grand council of the Haudenosaunee but these give more directly onto the lands of the Onondaga, Cayugas and |Oneida, not the Mohawk.
I know of a St. Joseph Island in Lake Huron but which Lock Island are you referering to?
In regards to gold in the region there is a "gold belt" between Madoc and Kaladar Ontario, they found gold there in the 1860s. The area is accessable from Lake Ontario by the Moira river at Belleville ON. So that's a possibility...
I don't know of anything closer to Montreal though.
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Depends on what the situation on the ground ends up being.
I was going off of the Vikings' idea of what the world looks like; they seemed to be under the impression that Vinland was a large landmass (possibly connecting to Africa somewhere in the southern hemisphere), and yet they may have sent ships as far south as South Carolina, so I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have circumnavigated the island L'anse aux meadows is on. After that, it was as simple as counting the landmasses along the Vikings' path.
There's a couple of meta problems with that. Firstly I already presented Nords in New York as a fait accompli, so I'm going to have to justify that somehow, and second, we don't actually know all that much about the Laurentine cultures. (Do we?)
Also, Buffalo is Buffalo, NY. On Lake Erie.
It's good enough for me, assuming at least some of the gold could be panned--in fact, it gives the Norse good reason to be on Lake Ontario in the first place. Well, now that my OCD has been sated, time to get back to work on that whole Beaver War research.
That's the St. Joseph Island I was talking about. As for Lock Island, it's on the fictional planet of Safehold, which is home to a lost colony which has regressed to barbarism. The protagonist nation has this inland sea connected to the ocean by a channel, and in the channel, there is this place called Lock Island which due to it's convenient location has been completely converted into a naval fort bursting with cannons. It strikes me as an entertaining thought to have the Ojibwe do the same thing to St. Joseph once they get their hands on gunpowder weapons, but luckily I'm not anywhere close to having to decide if such a thing is realistic or not.
St lawrence iroquois what do we know...
established in their formative stages as early as 500 AD in the Upper St. Lawrence valley from lake Ontario (Jefferson Co. NY) to the Hochelaga Arch.
Firmly established in the entirety of the River valley by about the 13th or 14thC from Jefferson Co. in intermittent groups ( Parks Canada believes 4) as far as the Esturary at Q.C..
According to Pks Canada, they could have numbered about 10,000.
There is an interactive map tracing the evolution of the Iroquois tribes from Early pd. 500 AD to Late pd...1400 to European Contact
They are a distinct society within the Iroquois Culture Groups
Their pottery has been found in significant numbers in the Eastern villages of the Huron (Ouendake peoples) but not among those of the Haudenosaunee.
Perhaps indicative that many were taken as captives, as is Iroquois practice, during wars between the two. The Ouendat themselves noted that they had fought many "Cruel Wars" with these people when they first encountered the French.
For these peoples, since "ame" is the laurentian word for Water..call these people collectively...Kahnameke, Peoples of the Big Water.
The Ouendat formed initially as only a confederacy of two, but were later joined by tribes inhabiting the north Shore of L. Ontario. Driven off by the united tribes of the Haudenosaunee..which only formed early 15th c OTL
I have no idea of your timing here because its never been stated... though we know the Norse originally arrived about 1000 AD. You refer to this as New Vinland and not the original Vinland so there is no way to determine what that relationship is but i presume it to be a network of strategically placed trading posts established from the original Vinland in the maritimes. Which means that at the very least they would have encounterd the Laurentian culture by the time they reached the Hochelaga Archipelago at least. And no doubt as the Norse traders were travelling up the St. Lawrence, these peoples would have been motivated to move down river probably sooner than they did OTL and away from the tribes of NY and the Uren-Middleport complex. Alternatively the Algonquian tribes north ( Montagnais and Naskapi) and south ( Miq'maq, whom they no doubt would have initially encountered in in Vinland itself )of the river would no doubt have been encountered and those Norse would have interacted with them.
As to Buffalo.. I simply suggested Grand island because it was an island surrounded by water....but there is no reason the a community at Buffalo Creek could not grow up, but it is Attawandaron territory but would be a good place for they, the Attawandaron to have a buffer between themselves and the Seneca. Buffalo Creek is the Seneca name and its Anglicised, though I doubt that Old Norse would have a word for them so they would adopt the native name for the creek, or perhaps its a version of old Norse for Oxen or Bullocks). But hey Buffalo is fine with me
established in their formative stages as early as 500 AD in the Upper St. Lawrence valley from lake Ontario (Jefferson Co. NY) to the Hochelaga Arch.
Firmly established in the entirety of the River valley by about the 13th or 14thC from Jefferson Co. in intermittent groups ( Parks Canada believes 4) as far as the Esturary at Q.C..
According to Pks Canada, they could have numbered about 10,000.
There is an interactive map tracing the evolution of the Iroquois tribes from Early pd. 500 AD to Late pd...1400 to European Contact
They are a distinct society within the Iroquois Culture Groups
Their pottery has been found in significant numbers in the Eastern villages of the Huron (Ouendake peoples) but not among those of the Haudenosaunee.
Perhaps indicative that many were taken as captives, as is Iroquois practice, during wars between the two. The Ouendat themselves noted that they had fought many "Cruel Wars" with these people when they first encountered the French.
For these peoples, since "ame" is the laurentian word for Water..call these people collectively...Kahnameke, Peoples of the Big Water.
The Ouendat formed initially as only a confederacy of two, but were later joined by tribes inhabiting the north Shore of L. Ontario. Driven off by the united tribes of the Haudenosaunee..which only formed early 15th c OTL
I have no idea of your timing here because its never been stated... though we know the Norse originally arrived about 1000 AD. You refer to this as New Vinland and not the original Vinland so there is no way to determine what that relationship is but i presume it to be a network of strategically placed trading posts established from the original Vinland in the maritimes. Which means that at the very least they would have encounterd the Laurentian culture by the time they reached the Hochelaga Archipelago at least. And no doubt as the Norse traders were travelling up the St. Lawrence, these peoples would have been motivated to move down river probably sooner than they did OTL and away from the tribes of NY and the Uren-Middleport complex. Alternatively the Algonquian tribes north ( Montagnais and Naskapi) and south ( Miq'maq, whom they no doubt would have initially encountered in in Vinland itself )of the river would no doubt have been encountered and those Norse would have interacted with them.
As to Buffalo.. I simply suggested Grand island because it was an island surrounded by water....but there is no reason the a community at Buffalo Creek could not grow up, but it is Attawandaron territory but would be a good place for they, the Attawandaron to have a buffer between themselves and the Seneca. Buffalo Creek is the Seneca name and its Anglicised, though I doubt that Old Norse would have a word for them so they would adopt the native name for the creek, or perhaps its a version of old Norse for Oxen or Bullocks). But hey Buffalo is fine with me
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I could seriously use some help with the whole Christian angle, people. I intend for there to be a whole missionary organization founded by a Greenlandic priest specifically to deal with the Christianization of the Skraelings founded in the early 1000's and I don't know what such a thing would even be called, much less how to make it officially recognized by the Church. Also, I don't know what the process would be for a Haudenosaunee delegation to request a bishop, especially since they're not so much Christianized as tolerant of Christians.
Will give it a shot...
Most conversions happened due to a mix of a couple of things...
1) missionaries who learned the language and didn't try to convert the natives into Europeans but tried to link God and the Great Spirit as one person with different names. Use of verbal skills is critical as good story tellers are respected people in native cultures while reading out of a book is not as highly valued.
2) Economic oportunities. Many converted due to employment opportunities provided for "civilized" natives versus "wild" natives. Of course economic opportunities vary depending on your perspective.
3) Coversion at birth or death...basically catching the young (especially in epidemic years) or at death allowed some orders/priests to be able to report that large numbers of natives had come forward for conversion (i.e. successful missionary work) but this also became a contentous practice which angered some.
4) willingness to live amonst the native groups. This was the main effective means which is why Jesuits in particular had so much success in OTL...and some not so successful:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Martyrs
In terms of doctrine and factions between Christian factions I can't help you much as I'm not really up on religous or european history past the 1900's. Biggest issue I can see is having enough converted natives to justify having a bishop even being assigned as Canada does not appear to have recieved one until 1658:
http://www.cccb.ca/site/eng/church-...rch-in-canada/history-of-the-church-in-canada
Hope it helps,
foresterab
Most conversions happened due to a mix of a couple of things...
1) missionaries who learned the language and didn't try to convert the natives into Europeans but tried to link God and the Great Spirit as one person with different names. Use of verbal skills is critical as good story tellers are respected people in native cultures while reading out of a book is not as highly valued.
2) Economic oportunities. Many converted due to employment opportunities provided for "civilized" natives versus "wild" natives. Of course economic opportunities vary depending on your perspective.
3) Coversion at birth or death...basically catching the young (especially in epidemic years) or at death allowed some orders/priests to be able to report that large numbers of natives had come forward for conversion (i.e. successful missionary work) but this also became a contentous practice which angered some.
4) willingness to live amonst the native groups. This was the main effective means which is why Jesuits in particular had so much success in OTL...and some not so successful:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Martyrs
In terms of doctrine and factions between Christian factions I can't help you much as I'm not really up on religous or european history past the 1900's. Biggest issue I can see is having enough converted natives to justify having a bishop even being assigned as Canada does not appear to have recieved one until 1658:
http://www.cccb.ca/site/eng/church-...rch-in-canada/history-of-the-church-in-canada
Hope it helps,
foresterab
I think when the Vikings arrived in Greenland the natives (technically not natives) hadn't arrived or were just barely settling the island.
Also, even if the natives were there they wouldn't have any gold.
Well, around the 1000's you got a renewal in monasticism with cluny and a push to reform the Church. Part of that weas to go to "desert" areas e.g. isoalted spots and build a new monastery. These generally led to more economic activity in said area.
It would be fairly simple to have a group of monks looking for isolation be picked up by a trader off to your area. When there, they start pastoral and missionary work. If you want them official, they would first need the approval of a bishop somewhere.Then, they could apply to Rome for recognition of their Rule and approved as an Order.This might imnply more contact with Europe then you seem to be having here though.
It would be fairly simple to have a group of monks looking for isolation be picked up by a trader off to your area. When there, they start pastoral and missionary work. If you want them official, they would first need the approval of a bishop somewhere.Then, they could apply to Rome for recognition of their Rule and approved as an Order.This might imnply more contact with Europe then you seem to be having here though.
1.3: Warning Shots
Tododaho had been late in joining the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. In fact, even in the face of the eclipse which proved that Deganawidah was in fact Haghwediyu’s messenger, rather than, say, running to Deganawidah and crumpling at his feet to pledge eternal fealty as some would, he had calmly come to the man with a list of concessions he would need in the unlikely event that he’d deign to join their infant nation. He’d even gotten enough of the concessions to justify joining the Haudenosaunee to his people; divinities were well and good, after all, but even Haghwediyu must understand that looking weak in front of his people would not have done anyone any good, especially not Tododaho himself. For all this, and even though he knew that Ayenwatha did not like him—indeed, considering their history the fact that “did not like” wasn’t the grossest understatement of all time was a miracle in and of itself—he was still a faithful member of the Haudenosaunee. That was, in fact, why he was here today.
Tododaho was walking in the woods far from Syracuse with his old friend Deshayenah, who was…a particularly useful fellow to know in certain tight situations, let’s say. The woods had been closer during his childhood, and no doubt closer still in the days of his father and grandfather, but new crops, livestock, and—especially—iron axes had changed all that.
“I suppose you’ve heard about this Nena-ongebi fellow,” Tododaho said conversationally, almost boredly.
Deshayenah nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. ‘The Great Warmaker’ they call him. At first it was in ironic mockery, but people don’t find it at all funny these days.”
“Quite, I have noticed this myself,” Tododaho agreed. “It would be a…pity, don’t you think?...if the ‘Great Warmaker’ were to run afoul of some bandits. He does a lot of traveling, mostly alone, so really, it’s almost shocking that it hasn’t happened already.”
Deshayenah tried to hide his surprise, but didn’t quite manage it. “You don’t say. Personally, I’d have thought you’d be looking forward to Nena-ongebi’s war.”
“Part of me is,” Tododaho confessed. “I am a warrior, after all, and my place is in battle. In fact I know, in my heart of hearts, that there is no place I’d rather be than on the battle field, where complicated issues such as right and wrong are boiled down to basic survival and clear-cut goals. There’s nothing so cathartic as proving you’re right through use of force.
“But for all that I am also a practical man, and what’s more not a stupid one,” Tododaho continued. “There’s a reason Nena-ongebi is pushing for this war to happen as soon as possible—the longer it waits, the stronger the Haudenosaunee become, with more iron weapons and shields, whereas what few swords the Erie peoples[1] have become more and more rusted with age.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a smirk. “As bloody-minded as I am, even I know better than to wish for a ‘worthy opponent’. Loki—or if I’m particularly unlucky, Satan—might just grant the wish if I did.”
The island of Montreal was and had always been the center of the Laurentian world, and no wonder. Between being located where the Ottawa flows into the St. Laurence on the one hand and having the Lachine Rapids as a permanent feature of the river—which even canoes and Viking-style ships had to be portaged around—it was perfectly set up to be a major trade hub, and the people were consequently skilled traders. When the Vikings first showed up with their thirst for gold, the Laurentians and the Montreal Band in particular spread the knowledge of gold panning as far and wide as it could with the offer to buy all the gold anyone could produce. Laurentian canoes traveled as far as Sault Ste. Marie and the southern shores of Lake Michigan in one direction and Cape Cod in the other in their efforts to force themselves on the Greenlanders and Icelanders as middlemen, and with awe-inspiring speed, gold became a commodity in the Great Lakes region simply because someone else was willing to buy it.
Their efforts to corner the markets on gold and iron were less than entirely successful, however (though even in their “failure” their warehouses filled and emptied of gold, iron, and traditional trading goods frequently), due to the Vikings’ superior ships, and so they got to reproducing Nordic-style ships. Though they were liberal in the use of spies, bribery, and the use of tobacco and alcohol on “honored guests,” it was still long after the establishment of Vanadsthorpe that they finally produced working knars, and so their hopes of establishing a monopoly on the Great Lakes gold trade had vanished. However, they were still closer to the Eastern Seaboard than Greenland, let alone Iceland, and so were able to hit those gold panners faster and more frequently than their competitors. There was talk of creating a colony at the Sea Islands so as to recreate this performance in the far south, and even explore farther than the Norse ever had. They were also working on extracting the secret of ironmongery itself from the Nordics and that of mining from the peoples of Lake Superior, where the majority of the region’s raw iron, copper, and gold came from. To no avail just yet, but the Laurentians figured that it was just a matter of time, and even as things stood they had a very significant supply of iron tools and weapons.
Unfortunately for Nena-ongebi, this meant that his message about the dangers the Haudenosaunee posed to all their neighbors fell on largely deaf ears. Actually, this was just one reason; the other was that he was proposing that they ally with their most hated enemies, the Wendat, against a people they have only rarely and sporadically gone to war against in the past. In short, Nena-ongebi went into this meeting knowing it was going to be a tough sell, but he sold it as hard as he could. He used every oratory skill he had—he appealed to fear, he appealed to greed, he appealed to everything he thought he could appeal to, and still it wasn’t enough. The Laurentians simply would not join his anti-Haudenosaunee alliance.
Nena-ongebi left the chief’s longhouse reeking of abject failure and lost in his own misery. He mounted his pony and was riding to the nearest bridge to the northern coast when he was momentarily startled out of his reverie by a deep, brassy ringing sound, but then realized it was just church bells. The Christian Missionaries had had phenomenal luck in this land—a century and change removed from the first Vikings to step foot in this land, and already more than one in three Montreal were Christian. It wasn’t surprising, considering the fact that the skills the missionaries were willing to teach to those who listened to their sermons—farming eastern crops, animal husbandry, and of course gold panning—were directly responsible for much of the current Laurentian wealth. It also wasn’t surprising that there would be so many people of mixed Nordic and Skraeling blood, with the sheer volume of Viking custom Montreal receives, but it was still shocking to see so many of them in one place. He supposed this sort of thing happened wherever two peoples meet, but it usually wasn’t so visibly apparent, in Nena-ongebi’s experience.
The world was a rapidly changing place, and had been since some missionary in what was considered by modern folks to be Vinland (even though Leif Ericson may or may not have ever set eyes on it and no one had yet found any trace of Leifsbúthir had ever been found[2] ) had discovered how to skim gold out of the local rivers and decided to share the knowledge with the locals along with the fact that the Greenlanders would trade for it not so much to benefit his hosts but to benefit the rapidly-Christianizing Greenlanders, who desperately needed a way to earn cash other than kidnapping live polar bears[3].
And for the last century, the Laurentians had been at the epicenter of this rapid change, feeding off of it and capitalizing on it, and this has affected their culture and character. Theirs was a world where currency was king[4], it was a world ruled by merchant princes, where enough wealth could buy the world, a world where competition and supply and demand—and they always said it like that, “supply and demand,” like it was a single concept—were laws as grounded and basic as the fact that dropping a stone causes it to fall. Most societies try to overcome humanity’s basic nature, but the Laurentians were instead trying to harness it and use it for good. It seemed to Nena-ongebi to be a little bit insane, frighteningly rational, and oddly elegant at the same time.
Nena-ongebi spotted a wagon parked in the middle of the road. Then noticed he was in the woods. (Man, he thought. I must have really been out of it.) A man hopped off of the wagon and addressed Nena-ongebi. “Hail, friend!” he said in Seneca-accented Norse. “My ponies have run off. If you could help me move my wagon and then tell the guards at the next town that I’m stuck here—my name is Deshayenah—I would surely appreciate it. And so, no doubt, would my many friends amongst the merchants.”
Nena-ongebi wordlessly hopped off his mount and lent a shoulder to the effort, and they shortly had the wagon moved. Deshayenah smiled at him. “Many thanks, friend…um…?”
“Nena-ongebi,” Nena-ongebi supplied.
Deshayenah’s eyes widened. “The Nena-ongebi?”
“Aye, the Nena-ongebi.”
“Excellent.” Deshayenah made a gesture, and several men walked out of the woods holding swords, surrounding them. “It’s good to know we’re killing the right man.”
“Hey, now, let’s be—” reasonable. Before Nena-ongebi could fully articulate the thought, one of the thugs collapsed, revealing an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. Then, before Nena-ongebi’s attackers had a chance to respond, another one appeared in the chest of the thug standing across from him. One man fumbled for his bow, and got an arrow to his neck for the trouble. The final three charged him in a mad dash while Deshayenah, with more courage than common sense, charged in the general directions of the attackers’ unseen attacker. One of the chargers fell to yet another arrow from Nena-ongebi’s unseen benefactor, but two would reach him. One did so a fraction of a second before the other with his sword raised for a Viking-style head-to-groin cleave, and Nena-ongebi grabbed him by the hands so he couldn’t let go and pirouetted, blocking the final thug’s blow with this one’s body. Periferally, he noticed Deshayenah fall to an arrow a split second before he brought his newly acquired sword down on the man who was trying to pull his own sword out of his fallen companion’s flank.
Shit. I should have left one of them alive for questioning. That’s what I get for acting without thinking, Nena-ongebi chided himself. Ah, well; better them than me, I suppose.
A figure walked out of the woods and calmly retrieved his arrow from Desheyenah’s corpse, wiping the flint arrowhead on the deceased man’s tunic.
“Athalráthr Athalbrandsson,” Nena-ongebi said. “If it was anyone else at all—as in, in the entire world—I’d have been surprised.”
“I’d have cleared the bandits out before you got here, but I got distracted by a conversation with a farmer,” the boy said—apologetically, of all things.
“What could a farmer possibly say that you’d be interested in, witch-boy?”
Athalráthr continued to collect his arrows as he spoke. “Well, he was saying how he noticed a few years ago that his soil kept getting weaker and weaker while his neighbor who grew the Three Sisters[5] the traditional way never seemed to have the problem, so he began moving crops to different plots every year, and so—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” Nena-ongebi said, just a touch irately..
Athalráthr grunted. “So, how’d the pitch go?”
“Not as well as I hoped. The Laurentians will not join our alliance for love nor money. Still, they did agree not to use the Wendat warriors being away from home as an opportunity to raid their villages, so, you know, silver linings and all that,” Nena-ongebi said.
“They agreed to that? Wow. And they say that Deganawidah causing an eclipse was a miracle.” Athalráthr placed his last arrow in his quiver. “These men seem awfully well-dressed for bandits, you know.”
“Oh, they’re not bandits, at least not in this instance. Bandits don’t confirm your identity before they kill you. No, these are assassins.”
Athalráthr’s eyes widened. “Assassins? That’s terrible news.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s terrible news, really. More of a vote of confidence, in fact.” Nena-ongebi grinned, “After all, it means that someone out there has a high opinion of my chances of actually pulling this alliance off.
[1] A number of tribes which were precursors to OTL Erie…maybe. (*evil laugh*)
[2] I’m having doubts about the logic I used to place Vinland in New Brunswick. I could just ignore it, as the map is only semi-official, but I decided to do this instead.
[3] I am seriously not making this up. Greenland’s major exports IOTL were walrus ivory and polar bear cubs. You can see why they’d want to find a less dangerous occupation, considering their most advanced weaponry were none-too-great iron swords.
[4] Indians obviously don’t have mints at this time and thus no actual currency, but Vanadsthorpe does (and hence the Haudenosaunee will, assuming they don’t get wiped out in the upcoming war—I already told you I’m writing this by the seat of my pants and there is such a thing as an Artifact Title, you know) and Greenland uses Norwegian currency, obviously, so they generally do understand the concept, and what’s more use it when there’s enough of it in circulation—which there is in Montreal.
[5] Squash, maize, and beans.
So let’s review. The Laurentians have: (1) Viking-style ships, (2) some sort of proto-capitalism, and (3) just invented crop rotation. Hmm, something tells me they’re going to be a major player in the future. Then again, something tells me Nena-ongebi and Athalráthr are going to become a sort of race-reversed Lone Ranger and Tonto, which would be a neat trick as I don’t actually know anything about the Lone Ranger.
I almost reneged on the whole crop rotation deal, figuring that it would be just too soon, but I decided not to. These people have the examples of the Native American farming style and the European farming style to compare side-by-side, after all. They’re going to immediately decide they want to somehow combine the ease of the European way with the reusability of the traditional way. I predict that crop rotation will be independently invented several times over the course of the next century. As for the Laurentians being first, they do have that proto-capitalism encouraging them to take risks, you know. Then again, what’s the risk? I mean, worst case scenario, you’re exactly where you were before…
You know, it’s kind of freaky how well the Vikings fit in in this environment. They’re the only European culture that bathes regularly (unless the Greeks and/or Italians retained that knowledge from Roman times), they’re the only European culture with skinwalkers, they live in longhouses, and even their name fits the local pattern! (“Viking” comes from vikingr, which means “People of the Fjord.”) Spooky. So yeah, there’s lots of potential for synergy there.
1.3: Warning Shots
Tododaho had been late in joining the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. In fact, even in the face of the eclipse which proved that Deganawidah was in fact Haghwediyu’s messenger, rather than, say, running to Deganawidah and crumpling at his feet to pledge eternal fealty as some would, he had calmly come to the man with a list of concessions he would need in the unlikely event that he’d deign to join their infant nation. He’d even gotten enough of the concessions to justify joining the Haudenosaunee to his people; divinities were well and good, after all, but even Haghwediyu must understand that looking weak in front of his people would not have done anyone any good, especially not Tododaho himself. For all this, and even though he knew that Ayenwatha did not like him—indeed, considering their history the fact that “did not like” wasn’t the grossest understatement of all time was a miracle in and of itself—he was still a faithful member of the Haudenosaunee. That was, in fact, why he was here today.
Tododaho was walking in the woods far from Syracuse with his old friend Deshayenah, who was…a particularly useful fellow to know in certain tight situations, let’s say. The woods had been closer during his childhood, and no doubt closer still in the days of his father and grandfather, but new crops, livestock, and—especially—iron axes had changed all that.
“I suppose you’ve heard about this Nena-ongebi fellow,” Tododaho said conversationally, almost boredly.
Deshayenah nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. ‘The Great Warmaker’ they call him. At first it was in ironic mockery, but people don’t find it at all funny these days.”
“Quite, I have noticed this myself,” Tododaho agreed. “It would be a…pity, don’t you think?...if the ‘Great Warmaker’ were to run afoul of some bandits. He does a lot of traveling, mostly alone, so really, it’s almost shocking that it hasn’t happened already.”
Deshayenah tried to hide his surprise, but didn’t quite manage it. “You don’t say. Personally, I’d have thought you’d be looking forward to Nena-ongebi’s war.”
“Part of me is,” Tododaho confessed. “I am a warrior, after all, and my place is in battle. In fact I know, in my heart of hearts, that there is no place I’d rather be than on the battle field, where complicated issues such as right and wrong are boiled down to basic survival and clear-cut goals. There’s nothing so cathartic as proving you’re right through use of force.
“But for all that I am also a practical man, and what’s more not a stupid one,” Tododaho continued. “There’s a reason Nena-ongebi is pushing for this war to happen as soon as possible—the longer it waits, the stronger the Haudenosaunee become, with more iron weapons and shields, whereas what few swords the Erie peoples[1] have become more and more rusted with age.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a smirk. “As bloody-minded as I am, even I know better than to wish for a ‘worthy opponent’. Loki—or if I’m particularly unlucky, Satan—might just grant the wish if I did.”
# # # # #
The island of Montreal was and had always been the center of the Laurentian world, and no wonder. Between being located where the Ottawa flows into the St. Laurence on the one hand and having the Lachine Rapids as a permanent feature of the river—which even canoes and Viking-style ships had to be portaged around—it was perfectly set up to be a major trade hub, and the people were consequently skilled traders. When the Vikings first showed up with their thirst for gold, the Laurentians and the Montreal Band in particular spread the knowledge of gold panning as far and wide as it could with the offer to buy all the gold anyone could produce. Laurentian canoes traveled as far as Sault Ste. Marie and the southern shores of Lake Michigan in one direction and Cape Cod in the other in their efforts to force themselves on the Greenlanders and Icelanders as middlemen, and with awe-inspiring speed, gold became a commodity in the Great Lakes region simply because someone else was willing to buy it.
Their efforts to corner the markets on gold and iron were less than entirely successful, however (though even in their “failure” their warehouses filled and emptied of gold, iron, and traditional trading goods frequently), due to the Vikings’ superior ships, and so they got to reproducing Nordic-style ships. Though they were liberal in the use of spies, bribery, and the use of tobacco and alcohol on “honored guests,” it was still long after the establishment of Vanadsthorpe that they finally produced working knars, and so their hopes of establishing a monopoly on the Great Lakes gold trade had vanished. However, they were still closer to the Eastern Seaboard than Greenland, let alone Iceland, and so were able to hit those gold panners faster and more frequently than their competitors. There was talk of creating a colony at the Sea Islands so as to recreate this performance in the far south, and even explore farther than the Norse ever had. They were also working on extracting the secret of ironmongery itself from the Nordics and that of mining from the peoples of Lake Superior, where the majority of the region’s raw iron, copper, and gold came from. To no avail just yet, but the Laurentians figured that it was just a matter of time, and even as things stood they had a very significant supply of iron tools and weapons.
Unfortunately for Nena-ongebi, this meant that his message about the dangers the Haudenosaunee posed to all their neighbors fell on largely deaf ears. Actually, this was just one reason; the other was that he was proposing that they ally with their most hated enemies, the Wendat, against a people they have only rarely and sporadically gone to war against in the past. In short, Nena-ongebi went into this meeting knowing it was going to be a tough sell, but he sold it as hard as he could. He used every oratory skill he had—he appealed to fear, he appealed to greed, he appealed to everything he thought he could appeal to, and still it wasn’t enough. The Laurentians simply would not join his anti-Haudenosaunee alliance.
Nena-ongebi left the chief’s longhouse reeking of abject failure and lost in his own misery. He mounted his pony and was riding to the nearest bridge to the northern coast when he was momentarily startled out of his reverie by a deep, brassy ringing sound, but then realized it was just church bells. The Christian Missionaries had had phenomenal luck in this land—a century and change removed from the first Vikings to step foot in this land, and already more than one in three Montreal were Christian. It wasn’t surprising, considering the fact that the skills the missionaries were willing to teach to those who listened to their sermons—farming eastern crops, animal husbandry, and of course gold panning—were directly responsible for much of the current Laurentian wealth. It also wasn’t surprising that there would be so many people of mixed Nordic and Skraeling blood, with the sheer volume of Viking custom Montreal receives, but it was still shocking to see so many of them in one place. He supposed this sort of thing happened wherever two peoples meet, but it usually wasn’t so visibly apparent, in Nena-ongebi’s experience.
The world was a rapidly changing place, and had been since some missionary in what was considered by modern folks to be Vinland (even though Leif Ericson may or may not have ever set eyes on it and no one had yet found any trace of Leifsbúthir had ever been found[2] ) had discovered how to skim gold out of the local rivers and decided to share the knowledge with the locals along with the fact that the Greenlanders would trade for it not so much to benefit his hosts but to benefit the rapidly-Christianizing Greenlanders, who desperately needed a way to earn cash other than kidnapping live polar bears[3].
And for the last century, the Laurentians had been at the epicenter of this rapid change, feeding off of it and capitalizing on it, and this has affected their culture and character. Theirs was a world where currency was king[4], it was a world ruled by merchant princes, where enough wealth could buy the world, a world where competition and supply and demand—and they always said it like that, “supply and demand,” like it was a single concept—were laws as grounded and basic as the fact that dropping a stone causes it to fall. Most societies try to overcome humanity’s basic nature, but the Laurentians were instead trying to harness it and use it for good. It seemed to Nena-ongebi to be a little bit insane, frighteningly rational, and oddly elegant at the same time.
Nena-ongebi spotted a wagon parked in the middle of the road. Then noticed he was in the woods. (Man, he thought. I must have really been out of it.) A man hopped off of the wagon and addressed Nena-ongebi. “Hail, friend!” he said in Seneca-accented Norse. “My ponies have run off. If you could help me move my wagon and then tell the guards at the next town that I’m stuck here—my name is Deshayenah—I would surely appreciate it. And so, no doubt, would my many friends amongst the merchants.”
Nena-ongebi wordlessly hopped off his mount and lent a shoulder to the effort, and they shortly had the wagon moved. Deshayenah smiled at him. “Many thanks, friend…um…?”
“Nena-ongebi,” Nena-ongebi supplied.
Deshayenah’s eyes widened. “The Nena-ongebi?”
“Aye, the Nena-ongebi.”
“Excellent.” Deshayenah made a gesture, and several men walked out of the woods holding swords, surrounding them. “It’s good to know we’re killing the right man.”
“Hey, now, let’s be—” reasonable. Before Nena-ongebi could fully articulate the thought, one of the thugs collapsed, revealing an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. Then, before Nena-ongebi’s attackers had a chance to respond, another one appeared in the chest of the thug standing across from him. One man fumbled for his bow, and got an arrow to his neck for the trouble. The final three charged him in a mad dash while Deshayenah, with more courage than common sense, charged in the general directions of the attackers’ unseen attacker. One of the chargers fell to yet another arrow from Nena-ongebi’s unseen benefactor, but two would reach him. One did so a fraction of a second before the other with his sword raised for a Viking-style head-to-groin cleave, and Nena-ongebi grabbed him by the hands so he couldn’t let go and pirouetted, blocking the final thug’s blow with this one’s body. Periferally, he noticed Deshayenah fall to an arrow a split second before he brought his newly acquired sword down on the man who was trying to pull his own sword out of his fallen companion’s flank.
Shit. I should have left one of them alive for questioning. That’s what I get for acting without thinking, Nena-ongebi chided himself. Ah, well; better them than me, I suppose.
A figure walked out of the woods and calmly retrieved his arrow from Desheyenah’s corpse, wiping the flint arrowhead on the deceased man’s tunic.
“Athalráthr Athalbrandsson,” Nena-ongebi said. “If it was anyone else at all—as in, in the entire world—I’d have been surprised.”
“I’d have cleared the bandits out before you got here, but I got distracted by a conversation with a farmer,” the boy said—apologetically, of all things.
“What could a farmer possibly say that you’d be interested in, witch-boy?”
Athalráthr continued to collect his arrows as he spoke. “Well, he was saying how he noticed a few years ago that his soil kept getting weaker and weaker while his neighbor who grew the Three Sisters[5] the traditional way never seemed to have the problem, so he began moving crops to different plots every year, and so—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” Nena-ongebi said, just a touch irately..
Athalráthr grunted. “So, how’d the pitch go?”
“Not as well as I hoped. The Laurentians will not join our alliance for love nor money. Still, they did agree not to use the Wendat warriors being away from home as an opportunity to raid their villages, so, you know, silver linings and all that,” Nena-ongebi said.
“They agreed to that? Wow. And they say that Deganawidah causing an eclipse was a miracle.” Athalráthr placed his last arrow in his quiver. “These men seem awfully well-dressed for bandits, you know.”
“Oh, they’re not bandits, at least not in this instance. Bandits don’t confirm your identity before they kill you. No, these are assassins.”
Athalráthr’s eyes widened. “Assassins? That’s terrible news.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s terrible news, really. More of a vote of confidence, in fact.” Nena-ongebi grinned, “After all, it means that someone out there has a high opinion of my chances of actually pulling this alliance off.
~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~
[1] A number of tribes which were precursors to OTL Erie…maybe. (*evil laugh*)
[2] I’m having doubts about the logic I used to place Vinland in New Brunswick. I could just ignore it, as the map is only semi-official, but I decided to do this instead.
[3] I am seriously not making this up. Greenland’s major exports IOTL were walrus ivory and polar bear cubs. You can see why they’d want to find a less dangerous occupation, considering their most advanced weaponry were none-too-great iron swords.
[4] Indians obviously don’t have mints at this time and thus no actual currency, but Vanadsthorpe does (and hence the Haudenosaunee will, assuming they don’t get wiped out in the upcoming war—I already told you I’m writing this by the seat of my pants and there is such a thing as an Artifact Title, you know) and Greenland uses Norwegian currency, obviously, so they generally do understand the concept, and what’s more use it when there’s enough of it in circulation—which there is in Montreal.
[5] Squash, maize, and beans.
~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~
So let’s review. The Laurentians have: (1) Viking-style ships, (2) some sort of proto-capitalism, and (3) just invented crop rotation. Hmm, something tells me they’re going to be a major player in the future. Then again, something tells me Nena-ongebi and Athalráthr are going to become a sort of race-reversed Lone Ranger and Tonto, which would be a neat trick as I don’t actually know anything about the Lone Ranger.
I almost reneged on the whole crop rotation deal, figuring that it would be just too soon, but I decided not to. These people have the examples of the Native American farming style and the European farming style to compare side-by-side, after all. They’re going to immediately decide they want to somehow combine the ease of the European way with the reusability of the traditional way. I predict that crop rotation will be independently invented several times over the course of the next century. As for the Laurentians being first, they do have that proto-capitalism encouraging them to take risks, you know. Then again, what’s the risk? I mean, worst case scenario, you’re exactly where you were before…
You know, it’s kind of freaky how well the Vikings fit in in this environment. They’re the only European culture that bathes regularly (unless the Greeks and/or Italians retained that knowledge from Roman times), they’re the only European culture with skinwalkers, they live in longhouses, and even their name fits the local pattern! (“Viking” comes from vikingr, which means “People of the Fjord.”) Spooky. So yeah, there’s lots of potential for synergy there.