Lands of Red and Gold #63: The Fatal Shore
Lands of Red and Gold #63: The Fatal Shore
"Duty is doing what others would have you do. Integrity is doing what you know you must do."
- Bungudjimay proverb
--
My pen feels heavier than a mountain. Perhaps duty is what weighs it down, but I must hold it, all the same. The world must know what passes here.
Gold brought us to this land. Lucre was what the Company sought. We found it here. This place is a land of gold. Some of it is ripe for commerce, with natives who are if not welcoming, at least willing to consider trade. Gold, peppers, greater tobacco, jeeree, will please any Director of the Company.
Alas, some of this land is much, much worse!
The people here have built a pyramid. Reaching into the heavens, and decorated with glass, it shines into the heavens when first seen with the dawn. As if Egypt of old has been reborn here. But step closer to it, and you will see the rotten heart of this land.
This pyramid is properly called Glazkul, for behind each pane of glass is a skull. No Egyptians are here. This is a place of barbarism, of some half-breed Mexicans who have crossed the Pacific to bring their pagan rites to this new land.
And, though it pains me to write it, this must be told. The Mexican king has declared that more skulls will be added to this pyramid. Our skulls, or those who kill us. We must agree to have two of us fight each other, and the winner fight a Mexican challenger, with the loser of that to give their skull in pagan rite. Or they will kill two of us anyway, and fight among themselves for whose skull will be added to Glazkul.
What sacrifice of mankind and blood unbound has brought Mexicans to this fatal shore?
(signed) William Baffin
--
Cultural clashes are hardly unknown in history, or even in allohistory. Even so, the divergent perspectives of the English and the Bungudjimay of Daluming were spectacular.
The Bungudjimay had built their state religion on collecting the heads of the worthy dead and interring them behind glass in the pyramid they called the Mound of Memory. The completion of the Mound, with its ten levels of skulls, marked the Closure, the end of the world.
Quite what the Closure meant was never completely defined. The priests had never built a consensus, although various sacred foretellings described a wide collection of events involving resurrection of the fallen, visitation from various supernatural and perhaps divine beings, and the creation of a new world order. It did not mean the physical destruction of the world as a whole, but the establishment of a new age where all that had gone before was overturned.
The arrival of the Closure had been long-awaited, but not hastened. Many of the existing priests, while fervent in their beliefs, did not want the Closure to begin until there were suitable signs. So as the number of empty niches in the Mound declined, they became more cautious about who was chosen to have their heads interred behind glass. That would let them respond to the right portents when they appeared, and discover what the end of the world involved.
Whatever the Closure meant, the last thing which the Bungudjimay priests expected was that it would be heralded by another group of traders come looking for spices.
An English expedition under William Baffin had explored Aururia, with discovery motivated by profit. The English East India Company had charged Baffin with finding new markets and new trade goods.
Baffin had fulfilled his instructions well, reaching what was an entirely new world to English eyes, and one which until recently had developed in complete cultural isolation. In time-honoured European fashion, Baffin tried to relate the inhabitants of Aururia into other peoples who were already known from the Old World, though he was often unsuccessful.
The early English contact with the other natives of Aururia – Mutjing and Islander, Yadji and Tjunini – found peoples with strange ways and beliefs, to European eyes. Yet at least these people were comprehensible, if unusual, and more importantly, showed receptiveness to trade. Or indeed, open-handed eagerness, in the case of the Islanders.
After this, coming to face to face with Daluming and its pyramid of skulls was the very model of a modern major culture shock.
Alien as the Bungudjimay were, the English sought for cultural analogies. Brief visions of Egyptians were shattered when Baffin first glimpsed the skulls in the Mound of Memory. To be replaced by fumbling explanations of Mexicans and human sacrifice. A forgivable misunderstanding, perhaps, given what followed.
Baffin and seven sailors had been invited as guests to the royal palace in Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, NSW]. While there, they were summoned to their first audience with the Daluming monarch, in the royal hall decorated with interred skulls. Those skulls were from previous princes and warriors who had chosen to be preserved there, but the English sailors naturally assumed that the skulls were from sacrificial victims.
In this same hall of skulls, Baffin and his sailors were informed that they were to name two champions to fight each other, with the winner to fight a Bungudjimay warrior for a place on the Mound of Memory. Or with the option of having two random sailors killed by Bungudjimay warriors instead, and those would kill each other as the price of admission to Glazkul.
The English reaction to this pagan rite needs little imagining. However imperfect their faith might be, Baffin and his crew considered themselves Christian, and more precisely as adherents of the Church of England. No Christian could countenance such human sacrifice. Even if the alternative was merciless slaughter of two of their own.
In the account which was recorded in Baffin's journal, the dilemma was solved when two of his sailors, Jonathan Bradford and Nicholas Beveridge, volunteered to fight each other to save their companions' lives. Baffin tried to dissuade them, but they remained steadfast in their desire. Bradford and Beveridge fought what was meant to be an even fight to the death, but Bradford deliberately stumbled during the duel, allowing Beveridge to kill him.
Beveridge went on to fight a Bungudjimay warrior, Weenggina – or Wing Jonah as Baffin misunderstood the name – who killed him with ease, and Beveridge's skull was added to the pyramid of skulls. Bradford's skull was given back to the English, where Baffin took it with him to be returned to England for a proper Christian burial.
With that challenge completed, Baffin fled with all haste from Daluming, and this time he was unhindered. He recorded in his journal that he hoped that the next English ships which came to "Mexico of the Orient" should send a volley of cannonballs into Glazkul. He charted the rest of the eastern coast of Aururia, including an island at the southern end of a great reef which would later bear his name [Fraser Island], but refused to set foot on the Land of Gold again. He skirted New Guinea and returned to Surat in India, where he gave his report and asked for a ship to be sent to rejoin the sailors who he had left among the Yadji. After that, he brought his ships back to England.
Of course, that was what was recorded in Baffin's journal. The story was matched by every account ever given of the experience by the five remaining sailors who had accompanied Baffin onto land. Bradford's skull was interred in Wells Cathedral in Somerset, where he quickly became venerated as a martyr and in time as a saint (hero) of the Church of England.
On Baffin's eventual return to England, however, Nicholas Beveridge's wife Mary refused to believe that her husband would have gone to his death in such a manner. She insisted that Baffin and the other sailors must have forced him into it, giving up her husband for a pagan rite, and that Baffin had effectively condemned him to death. She began a public campaign of letter-writing and denouncements which continued for as long as she lived; her efforts only ended with her death from smallpox in 1651.
No matter how many times Baffin denied Mary Beveridge's tale, he was never completely believed. Opprobrium lingered on William Baffin. No matter how much of a plutocrat he became in later years, he never quite gained acceptance into wealthy society, thanks in part to the lingering suspicion which clung to him.
The Company, however, was greatly pleased with Baffin's discoveries. While Daluming itself seemed to be a place to be avoided, establishing permanent relations with the Yadji was an immediate priority, with the gold of the Tjunini and the spices of the eastern seaboard also seen as promising opportunities.
The next English ship to visit the Yadji had been sent from Surat before Baffin returned to England, and it would not be the last. The English East India Company now actively pursued an interest in Aururia. A fact which greatly displeased the Dutch East India Company, for they considered the continent their private preserve, and the greatest spice island.
Within a handful of years, the two companies were in a state of undeclared war. The first blow was struck in Aururia itself; in 1642 the Dutch raided Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria], the first English outpost in the Yadji realm. But the campaign would be a much more wide-ranging one, fought across Aururia, the East Indies, Ceylon, India and southern Africa...
--
Thoughts?
"Duty is doing what others would have you do. Integrity is doing what you know you must do."
- Bungudjimay proverb
--
My pen feels heavier than a mountain. Perhaps duty is what weighs it down, but I must hold it, all the same. The world must know what passes here.
Gold brought us to this land. Lucre was what the Company sought. We found it here. This place is a land of gold. Some of it is ripe for commerce, with natives who are if not welcoming, at least willing to consider trade. Gold, peppers, greater tobacco, jeeree, will please any Director of the Company.
Alas, some of this land is much, much worse!
The people here have built a pyramid. Reaching into the heavens, and decorated with glass, it shines into the heavens when first seen with the dawn. As if Egypt of old has been reborn here. But step closer to it, and you will see the rotten heart of this land.
This pyramid is properly called Glazkul, for behind each pane of glass is a skull. No Egyptians are here. This is a place of barbarism, of some half-breed Mexicans who have crossed the Pacific to bring their pagan rites to this new land.
And, though it pains me to write it, this must be told. The Mexican king has declared that more skulls will be added to this pyramid. Our skulls, or those who kill us. We must agree to have two of us fight each other, and the winner fight a Mexican challenger, with the loser of that to give their skull in pagan rite. Or they will kill two of us anyway, and fight among themselves for whose skull will be added to Glazkul.
What sacrifice of mankind and blood unbound has brought Mexicans to this fatal shore?
(signed) William Baffin
--
Cultural clashes are hardly unknown in history, or even in allohistory. Even so, the divergent perspectives of the English and the Bungudjimay of Daluming were spectacular.
The Bungudjimay had built their state religion on collecting the heads of the worthy dead and interring them behind glass in the pyramid they called the Mound of Memory. The completion of the Mound, with its ten levels of skulls, marked the Closure, the end of the world.
Quite what the Closure meant was never completely defined. The priests had never built a consensus, although various sacred foretellings described a wide collection of events involving resurrection of the fallen, visitation from various supernatural and perhaps divine beings, and the creation of a new world order. It did not mean the physical destruction of the world as a whole, but the establishment of a new age where all that had gone before was overturned.
The arrival of the Closure had been long-awaited, but not hastened. Many of the existing priests, while fervent in their beliefs, did not want the Closure to begin until there were suitable signs. So as the number of empty niches in the Mound declined, they became more cautious about who was chosen to have their heads interred behind glass. That would let them respond to the right portents when they appeared, and discover what the end of the world involved.
Whatever the Closure meant, the last thing which the Bungudjimay priests expected was that it would be heralded by another group of traders come looking for spices.
An English expedition under William Baffin had explored Aururia, with discovery motivated by profit. The English East India Company had charged Baffin with finding new markets and new trade goods.
Baffin had fulfilled his instructions well, reaching what was an entirely new world to English eyes, and one which until recently had developed in complete cultural isolation. In time-honoured European fashion, Baffin tried to relate the inhabitants of Aururia into other peoples who were already known from the Old World, though he was often unsuccessful.
The early English contact with the other natives of Aururia – Mutjing and Islander, Yadji and Tjunini – found peoples with strange ways and beliefs, to European eyes. Yet at least these people were comprehensible, if unusual, and more importantly, showed receptiveness to trade. Or indeed, open-handed eagerness, in the case of the Islanders.
After this, coming to face to face with Daluming and its pyramid of skulls was the very model of a modern major culture shock.
Alien as the Bungudjimay were, the English sought for cultural analogies. Brief visions of Egyptians were shattered when Baffin first glimpsed the skulls in the Mound of Memory. To be replaced by fumbling explanations of Mexicans and human sacrifice. A forgivable misunderstanding, perhaps, given what followed.
Baffin and seven sailors had been invited as guests to the royal palace in Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, NSW]. While there, they were summoned to their first audience with the Daluming monarch, in the royal hall decorated with interred skulls. Those skulls were from previous princes and warriors who had chosen to be preserved there, but the English sailors naturally assumed that the skulls were from sacrificial victims.
In this same hall of skulls, Baffin and his sailors were informed that they were to name two champions to fight each other, with the winner to fight a Bungudjimay warrior for a place on the Mound of Memory. Or with the option of having two random sailors killed by Bungudjimay warriors instead, and those would kill each other as the price of admission to Glazkul.
The English reaction to this pagan rite needs little imagining. However imperfect their faith might be, Baffin and his crew considered themselves Christian, and more precisely as adherents of the Church of England. No Christian could countenance such human sacrifice. Even if the alternative was merciless slaughter of two of their own.
In the account which was recorded in Baffin's journal, the dilemma was solved when two of his sailors, Jonathan Bradford and Nicholas Beveridge, volunteered to fight each other to save their companions' lives. Baffin tried to dissuade them, but they remained steadfast in their desire. Bradford and Beveridge fought what was meant to be an even fight to the death, but Bradford deliberately stumbled during the duel, allowing Beveridge to kill him.
Beveridge went on to fight a Bungudjimay warrior, Weenggina – or Wing Jonah as Baffin misunderstood the name – who killed him with ease, and Beveridge's skull was added to the pyramid of skulls. Bradford's skull was given back to the English, where Baffin took it with him to be returned to England for a proper Christian burial.
With that challenge completed, Baffin fled with all haste from Daluming, and this time he was unhindered. He recorded in his journal that he hoped that the next English ships which came to "Mexico of the Orient" should send a volley of cannonballs into Glazkul. He charted the rest of the eastern coast of Aururia, including an island at the southern end of a great reef which would later bear his name [Fraser Island], but refused to set foot on the Land of Gold again. He skirted New Guinea and returned to Surat in India, where he gave his report and asked for a ship to be sent to rejoin the sailors who he had left among the Yadji. After that, he brought his ships back to England.
Of course, that was what was recorded in Baffin's journal. The story was matched by every account ever given of the experience by the five remaining sailors who had accompanied Baffin onto land. Bradford's skull was interred in Wells Cathedral in Somerset, where he quickly became venerated as a martyr and in time as a saint (hero) of the Church of England.
On Baffin's eventual return to England, however, Nicholas Beveridge's wife Mary refused to believe that her husband would have gone to his death in such a manner. She insisted that Baffin and the other sailors must have forced him into it, giving up her husband for a pagan rite, and that Baffin had effectively condemned him to death. She began a public campaign of letter-writing and denouncements which continued for as long as she lived; her efforts only ended with her death from smallpox in 1651.
No matter how many times Baffin denied Mary Beveridge's tale, he was never completely believed. Opprobrium lingered on William Baffin. No matter how much of a plutocrat he became in later years, he never quite gained acceptance into wealthy society, thanks in part to the lingering suspicion which clung to him.
The Company, however, was greatly pleased with Baffin's discoveries. While Daluming itself seemed to be a place to be avoided, establishing permanent relations with the Yadji was an immediate priority, with the gold of the Tjunini and the spices of the eastern seaboard also seen as promising opportunities.
The next English ship to visit the Yadji had been sent from Surat before Baffin returned to England, and it would not be the last. The English East India Company now actively pursued an interest in Aururia. A fact which greatly displeased the Dutch East India Company, for they considered the continent their private preserve, and the greatest spice island.
Within a handful of years, the two companies were in a state of undeclared war. The first blow was struck in Aururia itself; in 1642 the Dutch raided Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria], the first English outpost in the Yadji realm. But the campaign would be a much more wide-ranging one, fought across Aururia, the East Indies, Ceylon, India and southern Africa...
--
Thoughts?
The fight, the discussion on the Closure and how the Priests attitudes shifted, the throne room, all incredibly well described and exposited upon, and wow that ending was ominous as all get out!
