Chapter 13: The Wooly Wild West
Most of the Hopi people had never before seen a horse. Yet now, there were countless men parading them into the sacred city of Orayvi. The horsemen wore robes of thinly-spun wool covered with plates of iron armor carrying banners of black, white, turquoise, and yellow, representing the four clouds of creation from the Dinei sect. Some of the men carried long, iron-tipped spears which were pointed upward, some held curved swords in their leather belts, and some held bows with quivers of arrows strapped to their backs. The man riding at the front wore a headwrap of what was unmistakably Ileni silk, dressed at the front with a number of large eagle feathers. Marching forward to meet him was a man dressed in a colorful maize-linen tunic with a similar eagle-feathered headdress. The man on the ground stood directly in front of the horse, which came to a halt. The man on the horse came down and stood in front of the Hopi chieftain and high priest.
“Ha’uh,” said the Nabeho man, addressing the Hopi in their own language. “I am Ahiga, Naat’aanii of all of the Dinei and Indei.”
“What is it that the Nabeho want with Orayvi? Are you another tribe who has come to raid the land of the Hopi which we were given by Maasaw?”
“My friend, you misunderstand me. I am your brother under Maasaw and the Creator, and I come to honor your peaceful ways.”
“And this has led you to march an army into the City of Peace?”
“This has led me to offer my protection to the City of Peace and to all those who honor your peaceful ways. Since the time of the Great Death all of the lands of Maasaw have been thrown into disarray. We know we are not the first to bring an army to your people’s cities, but we will be the last. I can assure you that Orayvi will be under our protection.”
“And what do you ask in return?”
“I ask that the Hopi join my new kingdom. I believe my mission is to bring peace to a warring land, Maasaw willing. Allow me into your Great Kiva and grant me Maasaw’s blessing, and I will forever ensure the sacred peace of your people.”
***
Misia was a land that was geographically vast, densely populated, and geographically diverse. Across the cool and temperate regions of the Great Kingdom, the annual problem that had to be resolved was the struggle to stay warm. While one could hunt for wild leather and furs, one had to be careful to avoid overhunting. From the peoples of the more lightly populated northern forests and high plains, the people of Misia were able to trade for thick furs and bison hides respectively. Of course, wild game was not the only resource for material to be used in the production of warm, comfortable clothing. Turkeys, geese, and ducks provided their downy feathers. Some dogs and rabbits were bred for their wooly fur which could be sheared and spun into cloth. Although not as common, the hides of semi-domesticated deer and elk were also used. Cotton was also grown in southern Misia as well as in Mesoamerica, although such material was rather expensive. Even more expensive was the silk worn by the Misian nobility. Llama and alpaca wool, although not difficult to produce, often saw its price marked up significantly by the time it reached the port of Shawasha. However, in the past several centuries, a new popular source of wool emerged– this time from the far west, and when the Misian population would collapse making local resources more available, it would have a profound economic, social, and political effect on West American societies.
Millennia ago, prior to the formation of the Hileni Dynasty, Misian legends told of a western land known as the “Cliff Lands” that lay across the Great Plains– lands that would be known in the Misian language as “Ashipewahk”. According to the legends, the cliff (or “Ashipe”) people had built great cities into rocky canyons and cliffsides. Of course, as we know from archaeology, most of the settlements that existed at the time, while impressive, were not so large, boasting generally a few hundred people and at most a few thousand. Still, the accounts were otherwise quite accurate– between nomadic desert tribes dwelt settled people living in great stone and adobe structures with farms watered by surprisingly advanced irrigation systems drawing water from the Kotsui and Haquat Rivers. Of course, the region also benefited from trade with the Misians, eventually allowing for the spread of technology such as writing and metallurgy. As the Hileni Dynasty was established and closer contact became more frequent as the Hileni were more easily able to manage both land and river routes to the west, a cultural revolution began within the Cliff Lands. Populations exploded. Settlements grew into larger cities. Small amounts of locally written records begin to emerge. Although the emerging kingdoms were kept small by the harsh terrain and lack of horses, they nonetheless thrived in the oases.
The most advanced civilization in this region would by far be the Kutsan. According to the archaeological record, the Haquat River delta and the region of confluence between the Haquat and Haquasail Rivers did not feature the same early architectural achievements as the neighboring regions to the northeast, but did feature a rather humble farming culture that was able to take advantage of seasonal flooding to ensure a regular bountiful harvest. In the middle of the first century BC, the population would expand rapidly– faster even than any of the surrounding regions. The locals managed the wetlands of the delta and irrigated surrounding desert land, allowing for the cultivation of the three sisters, cactus, and a number of other crops– notably manoomin, of which recent varieties had begun to arrive from the east. Some time shortly before 300 AD, the Kutsan people would unite the Haquat River Delta with significant portions of the lower Haquat and Haquasail rivers to form the Kingdom of Kutsan. A number of large, sandstone pyramids not dissimilar in shape from those in Mesoamerica, rose towards the sky. By 400 AD, the Kamya Channel was completed, ensuring the water of the Haquat River would be split between the Aztlan sea to the south and the endorheic Kamya Sea to the northwest, further expanding the available farmland by draining some of the wetlands and bringing life to the desert. While a number of cities would each have their turn as capital, the two most common sites were Paruk, where the Kamya Channel split off from the Haquat River, and Yuum, located at the confluence of the Haquat and Haquasail.
As the population of Kutsan grew, demand increased for resources such as meat and cloth to make clothing. Around the same time as the completion of the Kamya Channel, there is the earliest documentation of the maintenance of herds of bighorn sheep under the reign of King Numet II. Around two centuries later, evidence first appeared of the nomadic peoples living in the nearby mountains and deserts also maintaining herds of sheep. Taking advantage of the vast tracts of land unsuitable for agriculture, the nomadic herder population was able to sell their meat and wool to the settled Kutsan in exchange for grain. This practice would gradually spread throughout Oasisamerica and to the west coast, but would never catch on to the south or the east.
Meanwhile, back in the Cliff Lands, smaller tribes and kingdoms were frequently vying for power. Tribes like the Zunis, Keresians, Tiwas, Tewas, Piros, Tanos, Nuchus, Havasupais, and others frequently fought one another for land, water, and other resources, which would eventually also include grazing land for sheep. Outright conquests were not uncommon, but attempts at empire building did not last long across the vast arid, mountainous terrain. One tribe, however, remained above the rest– the Hopi. The Hopi tribe, as much as possible, preferred to stay out of wars, resolve disputes peacefully, and try to gain the protection of other powers. Over time, the other Ashipe tribes came to acknowledge the Hopi as a neutral party which could be trusted to facilitate peaceful interactions. Due to its peace, Orayvi, the Hopi capital, was able to thrive as a center of trade, bringing people from all over. Over time, they came to be seen as a spiritual people not to be messed with. According to the Hopi religion, Maasaw, the caretaker of the Earth who guided the Hopi people to their homeland and instructed them to build a great Kiva to him at the city of Orayvi, had instructed the Hopi to follow in his peaceful ways.
Before long, Maasawism, a religion based on worship of the god of the Hopis and its many variants, would spread from the kingdoms around the upper Kotsui River all the way to the West Coast. Thaampo I would implement the religion in Kutsan when his popular dynasty took over from the previous unpopular and oppressive one in around 550, at which point the religion was already quite popular. Paruk had been the capital of Kutsan since the Kamya channel began construction, but Thaampo would move the capital north to Yuum, representing the theological shift towards the great city of Orayvi. Yuum would become the site of the Pyramid of Maasaw, the largest in Kutsan, which had a large kiva within. Still, with such a diverse and disconnected landscape, religions varied significantly from the original Hopi practice. Other tribes would often merge their own traditions with the new faith, forming their own sects. The Maasawism of the Hopi differed from that of the Zuni, which differed from that of the Kutsan, which differed from that of the Tiwa, which differed from that of the Dineic tribes that would eventually migrate into the region from the far north. And before long, this religion would spread even further west along with other aspects of Oasisamerican culture.
The west coast, despite its proximity, was an entirely different realm from the inland cultures to the east for much of its history. Unlike Oasisamerica, which contained settlements centered around irrigation-based agriculture with nomadic desert tribes in between, the west coast was a lush and temperate landscape– so much so that large settled populations could exist even without agriculture. Prior to the rise of agriculture in the Americas, the Far West was the most densely populated region on the continent. Plentiful fruits, nuts and wild grains filled the valleys. Deer and wapitis ran through the grasslands and forest, and there were plentiful fish in the rivers and seas. Naturally, when the three sisters and other crops cultivated by the Kutsan entered the Dadacian valley and the land known to the locals as “Daadaaktak” (literally “The Valley Land”), the population skyrocketed. The central valley as well as many of the smaller valleys between mountains of coastal Dadacia proved perfect for agriculture. Squabbling city states would emerge between the mountains, while at any given time the river systems of the Central Valley would be home to a number of small kingdoms. Maasawist missionaries would convert most of Dadacia by around 900, seeing the religion mix with the local Kuksu cult forming the Kuksu sect, with most of the Pacific Northwest converting in the following centuries. Of course, the religious practices of these regions would differ significantly from those of distant Orayvi.
The most prosperous city-states of Dadacia were Ohlone cities located around the Ohlone bay and further south. Two of the most prominent Ohlone cities were Yelapu, one of the northernmost Ohlone cities that sat at the mouth of the bay, and Socoisuka, a city at the southern end of the bay with a large well-protected fertile valley as its hinterland. The bay served as a key point in trade both north and south and between the coast and the Central Valley, making the region as a whole quite wealthy. In the Ramaytush Wars of the early 1300s, an alliance led by Socoisuka crushed one led by Yelapu, which allowed King Apsen of Socoisuka to establish the united Ohlone Kingdom.
When the plague hit Dadacia 200 years later, much of the political leadership in many states died, leading to scrambles for power. King Daraten of the Ohlone Kingdom, however, survived. To his east, the nearby Yokuts, a related people, had broken into a complex civil war. Daraten, whose mother was a Yokut princess, would march east from the mountains into the Central Valley claiming that he, blessed by Maaso as the most powerful survivor of the plague, was the rightful ruler of all Yokut lands, a campaign he won rather quickly. In 1506, he married Queen Tukuli, who had just finished her own campaign to unite the Miwoks, another related people, to the north with his aid. The Miwok warrior queen would join her husband and rule from Socoisuka, forming the kingdom of Ohlones, Miwoks, and Yakuts, which would quickly come to be known as the Kingdom of Daadaaktak, or Dadacia.
Still, the victories of King Daraten and Queen Tukuli were not enough to bring peace to the region. While the population had taken a hit due to the plague (and to a lesser extent due to war), the demand for sheep wool had disproportionately fallen, with those to the east instead relying more on other more local options for clothing that were now less scarce relative to the population. For many tribes, particularly in the mountains and the grasslands, the wool trade was rather important. A driving factor in Daraten’s invasion of the Yokuts was the desire to bring trade back through the Ohlone ports. Still, the wool market was in shambles, and so the Dadacian kingdom came under the attack of economically desperate herding tribes in all directions. Raids were frequent on the frontiers of the kingdom, which fought back by marching into the mountains and slaughtering sheep, in the process hoping to help their own wool market.
The wool market crash affected Oasisamerica even more so than the Far West. It was bad enough when the king of Kutsan died, leading to a civil war, during which the Kumeyai people of the west coast who had lived under Kutsan control seceded to form separate kingdoms, that in turn continued to fight each other. The situation in Kutsan quickly got even worse when a branch of the Yavapai would attack, motivated by their economic desperation. Akwathek, the leader of the Yavapai attackers, would install himself as the new king in 1508 and ban anyone except for him and his new noble caste from selling wool to merchants. Meanwhile, other desert tribes, including other Yavapai, would attack the kingdom, raiding cities and villages for excess grain, taking wives to revive the population, and slaughtering populations of sheep. Meanwhile, both the raids and the prohibition on the sale of wool led to revolts against Akwathek’s reign, which were brutally suppressed. Similar events happened in the east, with nomadic tribes, mostly the Nuchus and Dineic peoples attacking the settled Ashipes.
The status quo, of course, would not last. Like the Eastern Seaboard and Mesoamerica, the deserts of the west would also be changed by the introduction of horses to Oasisamerica, most likely by Nawa merchants or plains tribes to the west. The Dinei, also known as the Nabeho, and their fellow Dineic Indei tribes, would quickly master the horse. In 1535, the Dinei, led by Ahiga the Great would do the unthinkable by conquering the Hopi homeland. Fortunately for the Hopi, the Dinei were benevolent leaders and agreed to protect the Hopi from raids by other tribes. This conquest granted the Dinei legitimacy in the eyes of some tribes, while angering others. During the Indei Wars, the Dinei would align with subservient Indei tribes while attacking those that refused to subjugate themselves to him. In 1537, knowing about the precarious political situation, Ahiga and his allies would invade Kutsan, ousting the unpopular Akwathek II and declaring Kutsan to be part of his empire and securing a valuable source of grain. The following year, the Kumeyai campaign would see the Dinei quickly subjugate the Kumeyai along the coast. By the mid 1540s, Ahiga would conquer the Zuni, Keresians, Tewa, and Piro kingdoms. Perhaps the most notable of these conquests would be that of Tuf Shur Tia in 1542, the great Tiwa city that served as a major trading hub in the region and was even featured on Misian maps for its legendary status. The Dinei Empire now stretched from the Upper Kotsui to Kutsan, with the Nabeho city of Natani Nez on the Sa Bito River, a tributary of the Haquat River, as its capital.
