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What do you mean by 'too fast a pace'? 3/4 updates a shot for something that already exists shouldn't be particularly hard to read?
Lands of Red and Gold
- Thread starter Jared
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The feedback I got when I started posting it was that given the length of some of the updates, no more than 1-2 per week would work, to allow people time to read it and comment if they wanted. So I stuck with that schedule.
Also, I wasn't just reposting the original version, I was revising it as I went. Usually those tweaks were fairly minor, but they still required time to reread it and decide if there was anything I wanted to adjust.
Are any of the Revisions large enough to merit rereading the whole series here?
Not on their own, although I'd recommend reading the three "director's commentary" posts which are threadmarked under the Informational tab (numbers 3.5, 19.5 and 44.5).
The novel version of this timeline has been both rewritten and expanded much more than the version here, although so far only Book 1 of that has been published (approximately up to chapter #45 here, although things have been moved around a fair bit for that too). Book 2 is... close to being finished, but I keep adding more to that version, so I'm not sure when that book will be out.
Lands of Red and Gold #123: What Becomes Of Dominion
Lands of Red and Gold #123: What Becomes Of Dominion
"Though little-known in Europe at the time, the Battle of Yangan can well be argued to constitute a critical moment in history. It did not, despite what many Gunnagal and Wadang of the time hoped, mark the end of the Dominion. But it did, for several generations, define the limits of the Dominion's ability to conquer on its southern border."
- RE Manford, The Whole of Aururia is Divided into Seven Parts
--
From: Jamberoo's Decisive Battles in World History
Battle of Yangan
... The entrapment of the Blademasters proved the decisive moment in the Battle of Yangan. The nearby Dominion commanders knew that the Hunter was either dead or captured, and either was sufficient grounds to halt the battle. Yongalla, according to his later explanations, declared that he judged it better to preserve the rest of the Dominion's forces to fight for the Hunter's legacy, or to stage a battle on better terms in the event that the Hunter still lived.
Yongalla therefore withdrew his cavalry from the immediate part of the engagement. The other nearby cavalry units had no choice but to follow his lead. Following a hasty conference away from enemy fire, Yongalla and Goonawa redirected a cavalry feint toward the flanks of the royal and Gold units, who were engaged with Dominion infantry. This manoeuvre, which the Tjibarri centre did not contest, permitted the remaining Dominion infantry to withdraw from their engagement and be screened by the cavalry on their retreat.
This marked the effective end of the battle, save for skirmishing clashes. The Dominion forces made an orderly withdrawal, their more numerous cavalry screening their rear. Tjibarri forces probed, and killed or captured stragglers and wounded, but did not pursue too far, wary of the reputation of Dominion cavalry against scattered enemy forces...
--
1st Day of Feasts [1], 30th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [15 March 1720]
Whites Factionaries encampment, near Yangan [Balranald, NSW]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
It is done. Tjibarr is saved. Gurragang of the Whites thought that his famed father would be proud of what he had done. Perhaps even his never-met, but even more famous grandfather, Wemba of the Whites, would have approved of this machination in the Endless Dance.
Or would they call it a pointless gamble? Gurragang did not know, but for now, he did not care too much. Victory was for savouring.
He spared a glance for Norang Dadi [2], the great White land controller, one so great that he had successfully pled off being involved in the battle. Someone would need to guard the Whites' interests if the battle failed. "Has there been any word?"
"The Blues are coming," Norang Dadi said, but did not elaborate. He had a sparing way with words, most of the time.
No doubt busy meeting with as many notables of as many factions as possible, to tell them all that Malligo had been conducting himself properly from the beginning, not a late change of heart. Very few people had known of the true purpose of Malligo's defection or the role of the Harmony Battalion. Even the king had not been told properly, though Gurragang suspected that Guwariyan knew anyway. The monarch was, by now, well-schooled in the machinations of the Endless Dance.
As it happened, it was not too long until Malligo entered their tent, accompanied by Kerela Wallira, one of the most prominent Blues. Kerela might even be the most prominent; with Blues, it was usually impossible to tell.
"It is done," Malligo said simply. He did not say more. He did not need to say more. Celebrations would follow soon enough, but first planning had to be conducted.
"The Hunter's corpse is in our hands," Gurragang said. The White factionaries had seized it, recognising the great opportunity it presented, and naturally would not release it again.
"Burn it with honour, and have the ashes sent back to Cankoona," Malligo said.
"You think that is wise?" Kerela Wallira said. "With their army still on our lands, even if it is withdrawing?"
"He was a man of courage and valour, like none other I have met," Malligo said. "He deserves it, and he is no longer a threat to us. As for the Dominion's armies, they are meaningless too. They will not stop this side of the border, and I expect they will quit Yigutji's old lands even before we need to drive them out."
"Some of our fellow battle commanders feel otherwise," Gurragang said.
"They know not the Warego as I do," Malligo said. "There is no unified command, and no time to resolve one. They can cooperate long enough to keep their forces intact, but not to plan further invasion of Tjibarr. Let our armies shadow them until the border, then allow them to go."
"Let it be so, then," Norang Dadi said. "What of you and your path, then?"
"I remain on the Seven-fold Path, as I always have." Malligo smiled. "As for me, I think it is time I take a new name. Amity, I shall be called. A reminder for all time of the friendship of the Gunnagal."
Gurragang laughed, as did Kerela. Norang Dadi showed the briefest of smiles.
Gurragang said, "We may yet need friendship. Victory here is important, but only the start of our problems."
Kerela raised an eyebrow. "The greatest victory in a half-century or more is only the start of matters?"
"What has been done will be celebrated, but let us first keep cast one eye on what is to come," Gurragang said.
"Fair comment," Amity said. "Yigutji is gone. One-third of our grand alliance has been removed. Now, Gutjanal will wonder what our alliance is worth."
Gurragang shrugged. "Divide the territory of Yigutji in half with them. Along the Matjidi [Murrumbidgee], with the right bank to us and the left bank to them. Nothing could be more generous."
Kerela said, "They may argue that give us the better half, with Garrkimang and Loona [Gundagai], the two largest remaining cities, on the right bank."
Gurragang said, "We would be leaving them the unravaged half. The Hunter's forces plundered most of the right bank, but he sent nothing save a few scouts across the Matjidi."
Kerela said, "They might accept that. Yet it still leaves problems."
"Always there are problems," Gurragang said. "Always we must keep one eye on what is to come. Yet if Gutjanal accepts such a bargain, they will cease to be an immediate problem. Integrating their half of Yigutji will keep them busy. Just as our challenges will remain with our new lands."
Of course, the largest challenge would be the manoeuvring amongst the factions for acquisitions in the new lands. Even more difficult than satisfying the former Yigutjians. Come to that, it would be fitting for Amity to be awarded with plentiful new lands for his efforts. Large lands, full of Yigutjians, and near the border with the Dominion. I must see what is available there. Let Amity be rewarded and kept busy at the same time.
"Fortunately, the succession will be contested in the Dominion," Amity said. "Perhaps they will hold together in the end, perhaps not. Regardless, they will have a bloody war first. That, too, gives us time."
"If they fall apart, we will still have several new states to the north, in contest with each other, that we must balance," Gurragang said.
Kerela said, "And if they hold together, then we have a more delicate balance. Dominion to the north, Yadji to the south, and Gutjanal ready to waver."
Norang Dadi said, "And then we must face the greatest enemy of all. The Raw Men."
--
4th Day of Feasts, 30th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [18 March 1720]
Boat on the Nyalananga [River Murray], near Tapiwal [Robinvale, Victoria]
"This is too long to hide," murmured Puckapunyal. King Puckapunyal, still the true ruler of Yigutji, no matter the disaster which the Horse-Men had brought to it.
Nearly three months had passed, hiding on this boat. No matter how luxuriously it was furnished – this was the boat which Gurragang of the Whites used for his personal travel – this was still a cage. He dared not venture onto the deck of the boat except at night, to avoid being seen. During daylight hours, he could only look through latticework windows that offered mere glimpses of the world outside.
Still, for all that the confinement grated, it remained infinitely preferable to the alternative.
The Horse-Men had captured the city, Yigutji-of-the-Eagles. He had thought it impossible that they would ever breach the walls, but he had been tragically proven wrong. Few of the city's inhabitants were left alive.
Fortunately, Puckapunyal had been one of those few. He had been amongst the first people fleeing the city after the walls were breached, suitably disguised as a common soldier amongst common soldiers. They had rushed to the riverbank, where a few Tjibarri boats were waiting. His bodyguards, likewise disguised but far better fighters than most, had sacrificed themselves so that he could reach a boat; the only refugee in the first wave to do so.
The Tjibarri boat had been crewed by men of the Whites. They had left immediately, without collecting any further refugees, and argued that it was safest if no-one knew that he lived, for now. A point he fully agreed with. As a fallen monarch he would not be immediately popular. Too many in Yigutji would turn on him or even hand him to the Horse-Men for their personal advantage. Too many in Tjibarr would seek to turn his presence to their advantage in their endless machinations, if they knew that he lived.
So the Whites had brought him here, a safe distance past the border. Gurragang son of Lopitja had given him this much more comfortable boat to stay on water rather than on land, saying that it was both easier to keep him from prying eyes and quicker to escape if he was discovered.
All of which Puckapunyal knew, and all of which he had brooded over many times. His imprisonment still grated, for all that it was voluntary and his best option for survival. A concubine had been provided for him, which with typical Gunnagal manoeuvring was one who did not know his name and could not recognise him by sight. Save for that, he had little to do save read – Gurragang had an extensive library on his boat – and plan for how he could rebuild the kingdom. He had considered many ideas for the latter, all of which would require Tjibarri aid. That would make Yigutji little more than a puppet for Tjibarr, but even that would be better than rule by the Horse-Men.
A splash of oars outside interrupted his musings. A smaller boat pulled alongside, ropes were thrown to attach the boats together, and men clambered aboard. Through the nearest latticework window, he recognised Gurragang among the men on the boat.
Important news, then. Gurragang had come to this boat only twice before, the first when welcoming Puckapunyal to it, and the second a courtesy visit a month later to see how he was faring. Other than that, the man had stayed away. To come here again signified something dramatic.
He ordered the concubine to withdraw to the inner chamber on the boat, then readied himself to await the White aristocrat's arrival.
Soon enough, Gurragang climbed down into the chamber, with two bodyguards following behind. Gurragang looked the same as he always did: tall, deep-set eyes, a broad if rarely used smile, and a short-trimmed beard which left his upper lip bare. The two bodyguards had beards in a similar style; it was the current fashion amongst the Whites.
Gurragang went down on one knee and lowered his head. His bodyguards did the same a moment later.
"Rise," Puckapunyal said. It was good to see the courtesies being maintained. "What portentous news brings you to visit here?"
"Splendid news, Your Majesty," Gurragang said as he rose. Behind him, the bodyguards also came to their feet. "The Hunter has fallen in battle."
"Is this certain, not rumour?"
"Without doubt. I was nearby on the battlefield when it happened. The Dominion forces were defeated, and their great warleader killed."
"Then celebration is called for," Puckapunyal said.
"Indeed it is." Gurragang waved a hand, and both bodyguards produced pistols from beneath their clothes.
Puckapunyal had time to register that and half-rise before the quicker of the two bodyguards cocked the weapon and fired [3]. He felt fire erupt in his belly, and fell back into his chair. An instant later, a second tongue of flame leaped through his thigh.
"Why?" he managed to ask.
Gurragang said, "Keeping you alive was important, since you could help to rally Yigutji against the Hunter in case of our defeat when he invaded Tjibarr. With our armies successful, you are merely an impediment to our control of former Yigutji."
Despite his breath heaving against the pain, Puckapunyal still found it important to ask, "So this is how Tjibarr honours its alliance?"
Gurragang shrugged. "It is said in your kingdom as much as in mine: never trust a Gunngal."
--
Crimson Day, Cycle of Bunya Nuts, 31st Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [2 April 1720]
Near junction of Gurrnyal [Lachlan] and Matjidi [Murrumbidgee] Rivers
Former Yigtuji-Tjibarr border
Two banners had been planted in the ground, both coloured with the pure blue that the Five Rivers and now the Dominion had adopted to mark the presence of a herald. Pinjarra found that quietly amusing, given the well-deserved reputation of the Blues, who sought harmony but rarely found it.
In truth, of course, that was merely a coincidence. The protocol for heralds had been borrowed from Durigal, where the Yadji rulers had chosen blue for reasons of their own, and insisted on it when dealing with others. The Yadji had no interest in adapting their diplomatic conventions to suit their rivals, and given the number of wars fought with Durigal, the Five Rivers had eventually adopted the same colour.
Each of the banners had been daubed with two white dots, to signify that two people could come; each side's herald, and one other. As protocol required, a herald accompanied Pinjarra, a pleasant if usually quiet man named Balmaringa. Pinjarra had already discreetly advised this herald to be silent unless called on to speak. He had only accepted this diplomatic duty out of a desire to avoid further bloodshed, and would not tolerate any interference.
Only one man waited beneath the Dominion's banner. Kullerin was entitled to bring a second representative, but had clearly elected to speak alone. Or perhaps no other representative could be found.
"Good to see you again, my friend," Pinjarra said sincerely.
"And you also," Kullerin said. The man sounded sad, even now, but that was understandable. A man of great vision had been lost.
After a brief introduction of Balmaringa, Kullerin said, "And are you here on your own behalf?"
"I volunteered for this duty, because I think it could spare much further loss of life. And because you know – most of the Dominion's leaders know – that I have no interest in lying to you."
"You represent yourself, then, but I represent the Dominion," Kullerin said.
"Given our past friendship, I won't make your role here any more difficult by asking which particular leader of the Dominion you represent."
Kullerin shook his head. "Tjibarr made the request for heralds to meet, so you may state the purpose."
"First, a question. Do the Dominion's leaders plan on defending Yigutji? My apologies, I should say, what was once Yigutji."
"They are still in council. I do not know which way they will decide."
Pinjarra frowned. "Urge them to decide quickly, for the sake of all of those who serve under them."
"They will decide in their own time, and not before."
"Their time is limited, alas," Pinjarra said. "This is the crux of the information I have been asked to convey. The kings of Tjibarr and Gutjanal have jointly called on the Dominion to abandon all of what once was Yigutji."
"What of the other lands of the Dominion?"
"They say that so long as the Dominion's armies withdraw from all lands that belonged to Yigutji, they can do what they wish elsewhere. The armies of the Five Rivers will not attack them further or interfere with their rule of other lands."
"What time do they give for this?"
"They give the Dominion seven days to begin a withdrawal. Any failure to do so will result in invasion of former Yigutji, and battle on whatever terms seems best to them."
"Are they so sure that they can win another battle?" Kullerin asked.
Pinjarra sighed. "You are a good man, Kullerin, but you need not ask questions which ill-become you. Tjibarr's army was larger than the Dominion's even before Yangan, and that battle cost the Dominion rather more soldiers than it did the Tjibarri. To say nothing of all the cannon which have been captured, and it was only those which let the walls of cities be breached."
"More, Gutjanal still has its own army, which is largely intact, as the Warego will know from when the Gutjanalese withdrew after the invasion of Yigutji. They will be invading, too. This is not a war which the Dominion can win. In their own homelands, perhaps, but not here."
"Is that the full message?" Kullerin asked, his voice cold.
"All that the Tjibarri have asked me to convey," Pinjarra said. And even that set aside Pinjarra's doubts about whether the Warego could work together. They were assuredly now squabbling for who would inherit the Hunter's mantle. That was not a contest which would be resolved without bloodshed.
"This small message I add on my own behalf: I hope that the Warego listen."
"I will tell them."
Pinjarra said, "As for us, my friend, I fear that this will be our last parting. Any reply will have to be conveyed to others. I go now to Gutjanal, a place which I doubt the Dominion shall ever reach."
"I have long given up trying to predict what the fates have in store," Kullerin said. "But I wish you a safe journey, all the same." The herald picked up the banner again, turned, and began walking away.
Once Kullerin was out of earshot, Pinjarra said, "I would wish you a safe journey, too, but I fear that safety will not be found in the Dominion for a long time."
--
From Bareena Uranj, a Tjarrling religious text which is typically though inaccurately rendered into English as the Orange Bible:
Chapter 150
1. Following the treachery at Yangan, the Warego who remained [4] rallied the forces of the faithful at Garrkimang.
2. The Warego met in council for many days, as they considered who should guide the Dominion.
3. Goonawa said, "Tjuwagga was the strongest, and his successor should be the next strongest who is left."
4. The Warego each claimed to be the strongest, save Kyulibah who remained silent.
5. Munya son of Nyambih, commander of the First Goannas, said, "Tjuwagga was a man of unrivalled vision. My fellows and I followed him because of this. I trust his blood and his heirs more than someone who followed him, not led."
6. Minjaree said, "Tjuwagga has two sons, but both are too young to lead. They cannot command armies, nor can they guide the Dominion."
7. Munya said, "They will grow. They are more worthy to claim the title of the strongest than this group of Warego who at one time were each defeated by the Hunter."
8. Kyulibah said, "Munya, they cannot rule now. Your choice means only that we argue over who should be regent. The decision must still be made."
9. Munya said, "The decision is already made. Tjuwagga named Jowarra as the guardian for his sons. Argue whom you will, but as for me and my men, we will serve Tjuwagga."
10. Munya called, and the First and Second Goannas followed him on the road to Cankoona, while the Warego were still in council.
11. The council ended without decision, for each believed himself to be the strongest, save Kyulibah who still held his peace.
12. Each of the Warego returned to his own warband, and each called on the remaining Goannas to join them.
13. The Goannas divided their allegiance as seemed best to them.
14. Nowenrat became the first Warego to depart, taking his warband and such of the Goannas as accompanied him to Murrginhi, where he claimed rulership in the name of succession to Tjuwagga.
15. Each of the other Warego departed in turn with their warbands and allies, until only Kyulibah remained.
16. Kyulibah said, "All who have remained, you are faithful to Tjuwagga. We will honour his memory and his heirs, but we cannot do so here. We must return to Cankoona."
17. Kyulibah sent heralds to the approaching River-Men armies, and negotiated for uncontested passage back to the Neeburra.
18. And so the Five Rivers were once more deprived of harmony.
--
From: The Hunter and His Times
RG Toohey (1996). Oxford: University of Oxford Press.
Epilogue
And so the tale of the Hunter himself is complete, ending as all human stories do, with a death. As with all histories, too, unless the final tale of humanity ever comes to be written, the question arises of what happened next. This tale can only be told in brief, for it is not the main subject of this work, but nevertheless, some details may be added to satisfy the reader's curiosity.
The Hunter made limited provision for naming a successor during his lifetime. The closest he came was naming Jowarra, the semi-retired veteran Warego, as guardian and educator of his sons. The disputed succession which followed was probably inevitable, given the ambition of the Warego class, but the lack of a clearly designated regent certainly made it worse. Perhaps the Hunter feared that naming a clear regent would be taken as justification for that regent seizing power in their own name.
In any event, the Warego divided after the Battle of Yangan, and most of them sought to establish a powerbase for their loyal troops, in preparation for the expected warfare to follow.
Initially, five Warego vied for rulership of the Dominion. In the Neeburra, Jowarra claimed to rule as regent for the Hunter's sons, with Cankoona as his capital. In Kerowra [5], Yongalla ruled on no authority but his own. Goonawa claimed openly to be the strongest Warego, ruling the Daluming lowlands from Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], and contesting for the Daluming highlands [New England tablelands]. Around Narranuk [Taree], Minjaree endeavoured to set up an independent state over the Loomal inhabitants. In Murrginhi [Hunter Valley], Nowenrat sought to use the wealth and spices of the Patjimunra as the basis of his authority. The only senior Warego who did not make an initial bid for supremacy was Kyulibah, who went to the Neeburra and supported Jowarra's regency claim.
The number of Dominionship contenders was quickly reduced. Minjaree's tenure as a sovereign Warego lasted less than a year before he realised that he lacked a viable position, and he pledged his support to Goonawa. Nowenrat ruled Murrginhi for three years, surviving the initial attacks by Goonawa and Minjaree. In 1723 he was overthrown by an internal Patjimunra revolt. This led to the restoration of Murrginhi as an independent state, now with expanded borders in the south. Murrginhi expressed its open opposition to the Dominion, and also had tacit Tjibarri backing. Nowenrat's surviving forces largely joined Jowarra.
The remaining three contenders had more stable power bases. With the notable exception of the Patjimunra, none of the conquered peoples in the Dominion showed a strong interest in removing the Yalatji as a ruling class. The debates of the subject peoples focused on which Warego was the best leader, not over whether the Yalatji should rule.
These three leading Warego mounted several campaigns against each other throughout the first half of the 1720s, but none managed to decisively defeat their opponents. Goonawa successfully maintained control of the Daluming highlands, and the spices they produced, but otherwise the campaigns did not produce any significant outcome.
In 1726, while on campaign in Kerowra, Jowarra died of what was probably a heart attack, though poison was widely rumoured. This suspicion of poison focused on Kyulibah, which meant that the loyalist forces refused to accept him as ruler. One of the middling-senior commanders, Weriyu, brokered a deal whereby Yongalla publicly ceded his claims to outright rulership in exchange for acting as the regent for the Hunter's sons, and unification of his existing dominion with the Neeburra.
In 1728, Yongalla was assassinated by a Kiyungu warrior who took poison before he could be questioned. At the time, suspicion fell variously on Goonawa, Tjibarr, the Nuttana, and the northern Kiyungu, and even the Dutch East India Company. When questioned whether Tjibarr was involved, their herald famously replied, "Why would we kill someone who was more use to us alive?" The modern consensus is that Goonawa was probably either behind the assassination or at least had been informed of the plot and did not oppose it.
Following Yongalla's death, Kyulibah took control of the regency in the Neeburra, and waged an ongoing campaign against Goonawa. In 1732, Kyulibah's forces occupied Yuragir and Goonawa conceded defeat. Kyulibah accepted his surrender but then had him executed, blaming him for Yongalla's death. To his last breath, Goonawa denied any involvement with the assassination.
Kyulibah ruled as uncontested regent of all remaining Dominion territory until 1735. Then, the Hunter's elder son took the name Justice and declared himself capable of ruling. He had Kyulibah sent on what was effectively an internal exile to watch the border with the northern Kiyungu, and had Minjaree likewise exiled to being a permanent herald with the Portuguese at Rramaji [Karumba, QLD]. Justice also commissioned a history of his ancestry, which has survived as The True History of the Yalatji. With that, the last of the Hunter's senior Warego had been removed from power, and an end had come to the Hunter and his times.
--
Carl Ashkettle pauses, his hand aching from the endless writing. Clements' description of the Hunter and his era has been engaging, thorough, and would doubtless make a suitable tale in itself, even if everything else the multiple-centenarian talks about was deemed worthless.
After some thought, Ashkettle decides to ask a different kind of question. One which is not about what happened. "So, with the tale all told, what did you think after the Battle of Yangan? Forever condemning Gunnagal treachery?"
Clements chuckles. "You know, for many years, I did. As many Tjarrlings still do to this day, having growing up reading the Orange Bible and its depiction of betrayal."
"You think that what happened was justifiable?"
"At the time, no. But then, I was not close enough to witness the events, or play any meaningful part in the battle. As a herald, I had no role there. What I knew of Yangan, I learned as it was told by others. And time lets a man reflect on things, and even change his mind."
Ashkettle asks, "What conclusion has time let you reach?"
"That with the life the Hunter lived, he would have inevitably died in battle, then or elsewhere. He led his troops into battle, and made his warband the vanguard of many attacks. Even at Yangan, a cannonball missed him by less than a foot. Death in warfare was inevitable for him, one way or another. He might not have survived Yangan even if the Gunnagal had fought straightforwardly. Or he might have fallen in the next battle against Tjibarr, or one against Gutjanal. Or even against Durigal, if he made it that far."
"And that excuses Gunnagal deception?"
Clements shrugs. "Deception is part of warfare. What they did was misdirection in combat, conducted against someone who claimed to be the best in battle there ever was. Change of sides or not, it was still a victory in battle for them. And their people were fighting for their survival. Why should they not use every tool at their disposal?"
"So in short, the Gunnagal did what they had to do, and should not be blamed for it?"
"Not exactly how I would describe it, but it will do. The Hunter died in battle, as he inevitably would, but his legacy endures, as he would have wished. It is fitting, I think."
--
"Here lie the ashes of Tjuwagga
Lord of battle and seeker of truth
He saw further and truer than any man
And in both life and death changed the world."
- Epitaph found in the Hunter's mausoleum in Cankoona
--
[1] The Gunnagal calendar is divided into 30 cycles of 12 days each, each of which are named, for the first 360 days of the year. The remaining 5 or 6 days, at the end of the year, are intercalary days which are named as days of feasts, and would normally be a time of celebration, except when interrupted by warfare.
[2] "Dadi" functions as a kind of surname, although Gunnagal naming traditions in this era do not include fully inheritable surnames. Most people, including even some of the wealthy, simply go by a first name and a patronymic, such as Lopitja gang Wemba (Lopitja son of Wemba) and/or their place of birth. This is often enough to distinguish people from each other, or failing that, nicknames usually suffice.
However, for those who are senior members of a faction, they are often permitted to call themselves by the name of the faction, such as Wemba Dalwal or Wemba ga Dalwal, which could be variously translated as Wemba the White or Wemba of the Whites. Where there are two senior members of the same faction who have the same name, the more high-status one at the time is awarded an "honour name." An honour name such as Dadi functions like a surname in some respects, but it can only be inherited within the same faction; if the family changes factions, the honour name would be lost.
[3] Though Puckapunyal is not in a position to make the observation, the pistols being used here are wheel-locks. Flintlocks are used for the more common soldier, since they are cheaper and more efficient for use on a wide scale. Wheel-locks are often carried by the wealthy and their bodyguards, despite the cost, because they can be carried loaded, and fired more quickly than a flintlock once loaded.
[4] In the previous chapter, the Orange Bible states that one of the Warego, the commander of the Long Irons, had died from a cannonball, but never provides his name.
[5] Kerowra is the Yalatji name for the lands of the former Kiyungu League, or in historical terms approximately the Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast.
--
Thoughts?
"Though little-known in Europe at the time, the Battle of Yangan can well be argued to constitute a critical moment in history. It did not, despite what many Gunnagal and Wadang of the time hoped, mark the end of the Dominion. But it did, for several generations, define the limits of the Dominion's ability to conquer on its southern border."
- RE Manford, The Whole of Aururia is Divided into Seven Parts
--
From: Jamberoo's Decisive Battles in World History
Battle of Yangan
... The entrapment of the Blademasters proved the decisive moment in the Battle of Yangan. The nearby Dominion commanders knew that the Hunter was either dead or captured, and either was sufficient grounds to halt the battle. Yongalla, according to his later explanations, declared that he judged it better to preserve the rest of the Dominion's forces to fight for the Hunter's legacy, or to stage a battle on better terms in the event that the Hunter still lived.
Yongalla therefore withdrew his cavalry from the immediate part of the engagement. The other nearby cavalry units had no choice but to follow his lead. Following a hasty conference away from enemy fire, Yongalla and Goonawa redirected a cavalry feint toward the flanks of the royal and Gold units, who were engaged with Dominion infantry. This manoeuvre, which the Tjibarri centre did not contest, permitted the remaining Dominion infantry to withdraw from their engagement and be screened by the cavalry on their retreat.
This marked the effective end of the battle, save for skirmishing clashes. The Dominion forces made an orderly withdrawal, their more numerous cavalry screening their rear. Tjibarri forces probed, and killed or captured stragglers and wounded, but did not pursue too far, wary of the reputation of Dominion cavalry against scattered enemy forces...
--
1st Day of Feasts [1], 30th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [15 March 1720]
Whites Factionaries encampment, near Yangan [Balranald, NSW]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
It is done. Tjibarr is saved. Gurragang of the Whites thought that his famed father would be proud of what he had done. Perhaps even his never-met, but even more famous grandfather, Wemba of the Whites, would have approved of this machination in the Endless Dance.
Or would they call it a pointless gamble? Gurragang did not know, but for now, he did not care too much. Victory was for savouring.
He spared a glance for Norang Dadi [2], the great White land controller, one so great that he had successfully pled off being involved in the battle. Someone would need to guard the Whites' interests if the battle failed. "Has there been any word?"
"The Blues are coming," Norang Dadi said, but did not elaborate. He had a sparing way with words, most of the time.
No doubt busy meeting with as many notables of as many factions as possible, to tell them all that Malligo had been conducting himself properly from the beginning, not a late change of heart. Very few people had known of the true purpose of Malligo's defection or the role of the Harmony Battalion. Even the king had not been told properly, though Gurragang suspected that Guwariyan knew anyway. The monarch was, by now, well-schooled in the machinations of the Endless Dance.
As it happened, it was not too long until Malligo entered their tent, accompanied by Kerela Wallira, one of the most prominent Blues. Kerela might even be the most prominent; with Blues, it was usually impossible to tell.
"It is done," Malligo said simply. He did not say more. He did not need to say more. Celebrations would follow soon enough, but first planning had to be conducted.
"The Hunter's corpse is in our hands," Gurragang said. The White factionaries had seized it, recognising the great opportunity it presented, and naturally would not release it again.
"Burn it with honour, and have the ashes sent back to Cankoona," Malligo said.
"You think that is wise?" Kerela Wallira said. "With their army still on our lands, even if it is withdrawing?"
"He was a man of courage and valour, like none other I have met," Malligo said. "He deserves it, and he is no longer a threat to us. As for the Dominion's armies, they are meaningless too. They will not stop this side of the border, and I expect they will quit Yigutji's old lands even before we need to drive them out."
"Some of our fellow battle commanders feel otherwise," Gurragang said.
"They know not the Warego as I do," Malligo said. "There is no unified command, and no time to resolve one. They can cooperate long enough to keep their forces intact, but not to plan further invasion of Tjibarr. Let our armies shadow them until the border, then allow them to go."
"Let it be so, then," Norang Dadi said. "What of you and your path, then?"
"I remain on the Seven-fold Path, as I always have." Malligo smiled. "As for me, I think it is time I take a new name. Amity, I shall be called. A reminder for all time of the friendship of the Gunnagal."
Gurragang laughed, as did Kerela. Norang Dadi showed the briefest of smiles.
Gurragang said, "We may yet need friendship. Victory here is important, but only the start of our problems."
Kerela raised an eyebrow. "The greatest victory in a half-century or more is only the start of matters?"
"What has been done will be celebrated, but let us first keep cast one eye on what is to come," Gurragang said.
"Fair comment," Amity said. "Yigutji is gone. One-third of our grand alliance has been removed. Now, Gutjanal will wonder what our alliance is worth."
Gurragang shrugged. "Divide the territory of Yigutji in half with them. Along the Matjidi [Murrumbidgee], with the right bank to us and the left bank to them. Nothing could be more generous."
Kerela said, "They may argue that give us the better half, with Garrkimang and Loona [Gundagai], the two largest remaining cities, on the right bank."
Gurragang said, "We would be leaving them the unravaged half. The Hunter's forces plundered most of the right bank, but he sent nothing save a few scouts across the Matjidi."
Kerela said, "They might accept that. Yet it still leaves problems."
"Always there are problems," Gurragang said. "Always we must keep one eye on what is to come. Yet if Gutjanal accepts such a bargain, they will cease to be an immediate problem. Integrating their half of Yigutji will keep them busy. Just as our challenges will remain with our new lands."
Of course, the largest challenge would be the manoeuvring amongst the factions for acquisitions in the new lands. Even more difficult than satisfying the former Yigutjians. Come to that, it would be fitting for Amity to be awarded with plentiful new lands for his efforts. Large lands, full of Yigutjians, and near the border with the Dominion. I must see what is available there. Let Amity be rewarded and kept busy at the same time.
"Fortunately, the succession will be contested in the Dominion," Amity said. "Perhaps they will hold together in the end, perhaps not. Regardless, they will have a bloody war first. That, too, gives us time."
"If they fall apart, we will still have several new states to the north, in contest with each other, that we must balance," Gurragang said.
Kerela said, "And if they hold together, then we have a more delicate balance. Dominion to the north, Yadji to the south, and Gutjanal ready to waver."
Norang Dadi said, "And then we must face the greatest enemy of all. The Raw Men."
--
4th Day of Feasts, 30th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [18 March 1720]
Boat on the Nyalananga [River Murray], near Tapiwal [Robinvale, Victoria]
"This is too long to hide," murmured Puckapunyal. King Puckapunyal, still the true ruler of Yigutji, no matter the disaster which the Horse-Men had brought to it.
Nearly three months had passed, hiding on this boat. No matter how luxuriously it was furnished – this was the boat which Gurragang of the Whites used for his personal travel – this was still a cage. He dared not venture onto the deck of the boat except at night, to avoid being seen. During daylight hours, he could only look through latticework windows that offered mere glimpses of the world outside.
Still, for all that the confinement grated, it remained infinitely preferable to the alternative.
The Horse-Men had captured the city, Yigutji-of-the-Eagles. He had thought it impossible that they would ever breach the walls, but he had been tragically proven wrong. Few of the city's inhabitants were left alive.
Fortunately, Puckapunyal had been one of those few. He had been amongst the first people fleeing the city after the walls were breached, suitably disguised as a common soldier amongst common soldiers. They had rushed to the riverbank, where a few Tjibarri boats were waiting. His bodyguards, likewise disguised but far better fighters than most, had sacrificed themselves so that he could reach a boat; the only refugee in the first wave to do so.
The Tjibarri boat had been crewed by men of the Whites. They had left immediately, without collecting any further refugees, and argued that it was safest if no-one knew that he lived, for now. A point he fully agreed with. As a fallen monarch he would not be immediately popular. Too many in Yigutji would turn on him or even hand him to the Horse-Men for their personal advantage. Too many in Tjibarr would seek to turn his presence to their advantage in their endless machinations, if they knew that he lived.
So the Whites had brought him here, a safe distance past the border. Gurragang son of Lopitja had given him this much more comfortable boat to stay on water rather than on land, saying that it was both easier to keep him from prying eyes and quicker to escape if he was discovered.
All of which Puckapunyal knew, and all of which he had brooded over many times. His imprisonment still grated, for all that it was voluntary and his best option for survival. A concubine had been provided for him, which with typical Gunnagal manoeuvring was one who did not know his name and could not recognise him by sight. Save for that, he had little to do save read – Gurragang had an extensive library on his boat – and plan for how he could rebuild the kingdom. He had considered many ideas for the latter, all of which would require Tjibarri aid. That would make Yigutji little more than a puppet for Tjibarr, but even that would be better than rule by the Horse-Men.
A splash of oars outside interrupted his musings. A smaller boat pulled alongside, ropes were thrown to attach the boats together, and men clambered aboard. Through the nearest latticework window, he recognised Gurragang among the men on the boat.
Important news, then. Gurragang had come to this boat only twice before, the first when welcoming Puckapunyal to it, and the second a courtesy visit a month later to see how he was faring. Other than that, the man had stayed away. To come here again signified something dramatic.
He ordered the concubine to withdraw to the inner chamber on the boat, then readied himself to await the White aristocrat's arrival.
Soon enough, Gurragang climbed down into the chamber, with two bodyguards following behind. Gurragang looked the same as he always did: tall, deep-set eyes, a broad if rarely used smile, and a short-trimmed beard which left his upper lip bare. The two bodyguards had beards in a similar style; it was the current fashion amongst the Whites.
Gurragang went down on one knee and lowered his head. His bodyguards did the same a moment later.
"Rise," Puckapunyal said. It was good to see the courtesies being maintained. "What portentous news brings you to visit here?"
"Splendid news, Your Majesty," Gurragang said as he rose. Behind him, the bodyguards also came to their feet. "The Hunter has fallen in battle."
"Is this certain, not rumour?"
"Without doubt. I was nearby on the battlefield when it happened. The Dominion forces were defeated, and their great warleader killed."
"Then celebration is called for," Puckapunyal said.
"Indeed it is." Gurragang waved a hand, and both bodyguards produced pistols from beneath their clothes.
Puckapunyal had time to register that and half-rise before the quicker of the two bodyguards cocked the weapon and fired [3]. He felt fire erupt in his belly, and fell back into his chair. An instant later, a second tongue of flame leaped through his thigh.
"Why?" he managed to ask.
Gurragang said, "Keeping you alive was important, since you could help to rally Yigutji against the Hunter in case of our defeat when he invaded Tjibarr. With our armies successful, you are merely an impediment to our control of former Yigutji."
Despite his breath heaving against the pain, Puckapunyal still found it important to ask, "So this is how Tjibarr honours its alliance?"
Gurragang shrugged. "It is said in your kingdom as much as in mine: never trust a Gunngal."
--
Crimson Day, Cycle of Bunya Nuts, 31st Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second [2 April 1720]
Near junction of Gurrnyal [Lachlan] and Matjidi [Murrumbidgee] Rivers
Former Yigtuji-Tjibarr border
Two banners had been planted in the ground, both coloured with the pure blue that the Five Rivers and now the Dominion had adopted to mark the presence of a herald. Pinjarra found that quietly amusing, given the well-deserved reputation of the Blues, who sought harmony but rarely found it.
In truth, of course, that was merely a coincidence. The protocol for heralds had been borrowed from Durigal, where the Yadji rulers had chosen blue for reasons of their own, and insisted on it when dealing with others. The Yadji had no interest in adapting their diplomatic conventions to suit their rivals, and given the number of wars fought with Durigal, the Five Rivers had eventually adopted the same colour.
Each of the banners had been daubed with two white dots, to signify that two people could come; each side's herald, and one other. As protocol required, a herald accompanied Pinjarra, a pleasant if usually quiet man named Balmaringa. Pinjarra had already discreetly advised this herald to be silent unless called on to speak. He had only accepted this diplomatic duty out of a desire to avoid further bloodshed, and would not tolerate any interference.
Only one man waited beneath the Dominion's banner. Kullerin was entitled to bring a second representative, but had clearly elected to speak alone. Or perhaps no other representative could be found.
"Good to see you again, my friend," Pinjarra said sincerely.
"And you also," Kullerin said. The man sounded sad, even now, but that was understandable. A man of great vision had been lost.
After a brief introduction of Balmaringa, Kullerin said, "And are you here on your own behalf?"
"I volunteered for this duty, because I think it could spare much further loss of life. And because you know – most of the Dominion's leaders know – that I have no interest in lying to you."
"You represent yourself, then, but I represent the Dominion," Kullerin said.
"Given our past friendship, I won't make your role here any more difficult by asking which particular leader of the Dominion you represent."
Kullerin shook his head. "Tjibarr made the request for heralds to meet, so you may state the purpose."
"First, a question. Do the Dominion's leaders plan on defending Yigutji? My apologies, I should say, what was once Yigutji."
"They are still in council. I do not know which way they will decide."
Pinjarra frowned. "Urge them to decide quickly, for the sake of all of those who serve under them."
"They will decide in their own time, and not before."
"Their time is limited, alas," Pinjarra said. "This is the crux of the information I have been asked to convey. The kings of Tjibarr and Gutjanal have jointly called on the Dominion to abandon all of what once was Yigutji."
"What of the other lands of the Dominion?"
"They say that so long as the Dominion's armies withdraw from all lands that belonged to Yigutji, they can do what they wish elsewhere. The armies of the Five Rivers will not attack them further or interfere with their rule of other lands."
"What time do they give for this?"
"They give the Dominion seven days to begin a withdrawal. Any failure to do so will result in invasion of former Yigutji, and battle on whatever terms seems best to them."
"Are they so sure that they can win another battle?" Kullerin asked.
Pinjarra sighed. "You are a good man, Kullerin, but you need not ask questions which ill-become you. Tjibarr's army was larger than the Dominion's even before Yangan, and that battle cost the Dominion rather more soldiers than it did the Tjibarri. To say nothing of all the cannon which have been captured, and it was only those which let the walls of cities be breached."
"More, Gutjanal still has its own army, which is largely intact, as the Warego will know from when the Gutjanalese withdrew after the invasion of Yigutji. They will be invading, too. This is not a war which the Dominion can win. In their own homelands, perhaps, but not here."
"Is that the full message?" Kullerin asked, his voice cold.
"All that the Tjibarri have asked me to convey," Pinjarra said. And even that set aside Pinjarra's doubts about whether the Warego could work together. They were assuredly now squabbling for who would inherit the Hunter's mantle. That was not a contest which would be resolved without bloodshed.
"This small message I add on my own behalf: I hope that the Warego listen."
"I will tell them."
Pinjarra said, "As for us, my friend, I fear that this will be our last parting. Any reply will have to be conveyed to others. I go now to Gutjanal, a place which I doubt the Dominion shall ever reach."
"I have long given up trying to predict what the fates have in store," Kullerin said. "But I wish you a safe journey, all the same." The herald picked up the banner again, turned, and began walking away.
Once Kullerin was out of earshot, Pinjarra said, "I would wish you a safe journey, too, but I fear that safety will not be found in the Dominion for a long time."
--
From Bareena Uranj, a Tjarrling religious text which is typically though inaccurately rendered into English as the Orange Bible:
Chapter 150
1. Following the treachery at Yangan, the Warego who remained [4] rallied the forces of the faithful at Garrkimang.
2. The Warego met in council for many days, as they considered who should guide the Dominion.
3. Goonawa said, "Tjuwagga was the strongest, and his successor should be the next strongest who is left."
4. The Warego each claimed to be the strongest, save Kyulibah who remained silent.
5. Munya son of Nyambih, commander of the First Goannas, said, "Tjuwagga was a man of unrivalled vision. My fellows and I followed him because of this. I trust his blood and his heirs more than someone who followed him, not led."
6. Minjaree said, "Tjuwagga has two sons, but both are too young to lead. They cannot command armies, nor can they guide the Dominion."
7. Munya said, "They will grow. They are more worthy to claim the title of the strongest than this group of Warego who at one time were each defeated by the Hunter."
8. Kyulibah said, "Munya, they cannot rule now. Your choice means only that we argue over who should be regent. The decision must still be made."
9. Munya said, "The decision is already made. Tjuwagga named Jowarra as the guardian for his sons. Argue whom you will, but as for me and my men, we will serve Tjuwagga."
10. Munya called, and the First and Second Goannas followed him on the road to Cankoona, while the Warego were still in council.
11. The council ended without decision, for each believed himself to be the strongest, save Kyulibah who still held his peace.
12. Each of the Warego returned to his own warband, and each called on the remaining Goannas to join them.
13. The Goannas divided their allegiance as seemed best to them.
14. Nowenrat became the first Warego to depart, taking his warband and such of the Goannas as accompanied him to Murrginhi, where he claimed rulership in the name of succession to Tjuwagga.
15. Each of the other Warego departed in turn with their warbands and allies, until only Kyulibah remained.
16. Kyulibah said, "All who have remained, you are faithful to Tjuwagga. We will honour his memory and his heirs, but we cannot do so here. We must return to Cankoona."
17. Kyulibah sent heralds to the approaching River-Men armies, and negotiated for uncontested passage back to the Neeburra.
18. And so the Five Rivers were once more deprived of harmony.
--
From: The Hunter and His Times
RG Toohey (1996). Oxford: University of Oxford Press.
Epilogue
And so the tale of the Hunter himself is complete, ending as all human stories do, with a death. As with all histories, too, unless the final tale of humanity ever comes to be written, the question arises of what happened next. This tale can only be told in brief, for it is not the main subject of this work, but nevertheless, some details may be added to satisfy the reader's curiosity.
The Hunter made limited provision for naming a successor during his lifetime. The closest he came was naming Jowarra, the semi-retired veteran Warego, as guardian and educator of his sons. The disputed succession which followed was probably inevitable, given the ambition of the Warego class, but the lack of a clearly designated regent certainly made it worse. Perhaps the Hunter feared that naming a clear regent would be taken as justification for that regent seizing power in their own name.
In any event, the Warego divided after the Battle of Yangan, and most of them sought to establish a powerbase for their loyal troops, in preparation for the expected warfare to follow.
Initially, five Warego vied for rulership of the Dominion. In the Neeburra, Jowarra claimed to rule as regent for the Hunter's sons, with Cankoona as his capital. In Kerowra [5], Yongalla ruled on no authority but his own. Goonawa claimed openly to be the strongest Warego, ruling the Daluming lowlands from Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], and contesting for the Daluming highlands [New England tablelands]. Around Narranuk [Taree], Minjaree endeavoured to set up an independent state over the Loomal inhabitants. In Murrginhi [Hunter Valley], Nowenrat sought to use the wealth and spices of the Patjimunra as the basis of his authority. The only senior Warego who did not make an initial bid for supremacy was Kyulibah, who went to the Neeburra and supported Jowarra's regency claim.
The number of Dominionship contenders was quickly reduced. Minjaree's tenure as a sovereign Warego lasted less than a year before he realised that he lacked a viable position, and he pledged his support to Goonawa. Nowenrat ruled Murrginhi for three years, surviving the initial attacks by Goonawa and Minjaree. In 1723 he was overthrown by an internal Patjimunra revolt. This led to the restoration of Murrginhi as an independent state, now with expanded borders in the south. Murrginhi expressed its open opposition to the Dominion, and also had tacit Tjibarri backing. Nowenrat's surviving forces largely joined Jowarra.
The remaining three contenders had more stable power bases. With the notable exception of the Patjimunra, none of the conquered peoples in the Dominion showed a strong interest in removing the Yalatji as a ruling class. The debates of the subject peoples focused on which Warego was the best leader, not over whether the Yalatji should rule.
These three leading Warego mounted several campaigns against each other throughout the first half of the 1720s, but none managed to decisively defeat their opponents. Goonawa successfully maintained control of the Daluming highlands, and the spices they produced, but otherwise the campaigns did not produce any significant outcome.
In 1726, while on campaign in Kerowra, Jowarra died of what was probably a heart attack, though poison was widely rumoured. This suspicion of poison focused on Kyulibah, which meant that the loyalist forces refused to accept him as ruler. One of the middling-senior commanders, Weriyu, brokered a deal whereby Yongalla publicly ceded his claims to outright rulership in exchange for acting as the regent for the Hunter's sons, and unification of his existing dominion with the Neeburra.
In 1728, Yongalla was assassinated by a Kiyungu warrior who took poison before he could be questioned. At the time, suspicion fell variously on Goonawa, Tjibarr, the Nuttana, and the northern Kiyungu, and even the Dutch East India Company. When questioned whether Tjibarr was involved, their herald famously replied, "Why would we kill someone who was more use to us alive?" The modern consensus is that Goonawa was probably either behind the assassination or at least had been informed of the plot and did not oppose it.
Following Yongalla's death, Kyulibah took control of the regency in the Neeburra, and waged an ongoing campaign against Goonawa. In 1732, Kyulibah's forces occupied Yuragir and Goonawa conceded defeat. Kyulibah accepted his surrender but then had him executed, blaming him for Yongalla's death. To his last breath, Goonawa denied any involvement with the assassination.
Kyulibah ruled as uncontested regent of all remaining Dominion territory until 1735. Then, the Hunter's elder son took the name Justice and declared himself capable of ruling. He had Kyulibah sent on what was effectively an internal exile to watch the border with the northern Kiyungu, and had Minjaree likewise exiled to being a permanent herald with the Portuguese at Rramaji [Karumba, QLD]. Justice also commissioned a history of his ancestry, which has survived as The True History of the Yalatji. With that, the last of the Hunter's senior Warego had been removed from power, and an end had come to the Hunter and his times.
--
Carl Ashkettle pauses, his hand aching from the endless writing. Clements' description of the Hunter and his era has been engaging, thorough, and would doubtless make a suitable tale in itself, even if everything else the multiple-centenarian talks about was deemed worthless.
After some thought, Ashkettle decides to ask a different kind of question. One which is not about what happened. "So, with the tale all told, what did you think after the Battle of Yangan? Forever condemning Gunnagal treachery?"
Clements chuckles. "You know, for many years, I did. As many Tjarrlings still do to this day, having growing up reading the Orange Bible and its depiction of betrayal."
"You think that what happened was justifiable?"
"At the time, no. But then, I was not close enough to witness the events, or play any meaningful part in the battle. As a herald, I had no role there. What I knew of Yangan, I learned as it was told by others. And time lets a man reflect on things, and even change his mind."
Ashkettle asks, "What conclusion has time let you reach?"
"That with the life the Hunter lived, he would have inevitably died in battle, then or elsewhere. He led his troops into battle, and made his warband the vanguard of many attacks. Even at Yangan, a cannonball missed him by less than a foot. Death in warfare was inevitable for him, one way or another. He might not have survived Yangan even if the Gunnagal had fought straightforwardly. Or he might have fallen in the next battle against Tjibarr, or one against Gutjanal. Or even against Durigal, if he made it that far."
"And that excuses Gunnagal deception?"
Clements shrugs. "Deception is part of warfare. What they did was misdirection in combat, conducted against someone who claimed to be the best in battle there ever was. Change of sides or not, it was still a victory in battle for them. And their people were fighting for their survival. Why should they not use every tool at their disposal?"
"So in short, the Gunnagal did what they had to do, and should not be blamed for it?"
"Not exactly how I would describe it, but it will do. The Hunter died in battle, as he inevitably would, but his legacy endures, as he would have wished. It is fitting, I think."
--
"Here lie the ashes of Tjuwagga
Lord of battle and seeker of truth
He saw further and truer than any man
And in both life and death changed the world."
- Epitaph found in the Hunter's mausoleum in Cankoona
--
[1] The Gunnagal calendar is divided into 30 cycles of 12 days each, each of which are named, for the first 360 days of the year. The remaining 5 or 6 days, at the end of the year, are intercalary days which are named as days of feasts, and would normally be a time of celebration, except when interrupted by warfare.
[2] "Dadi" functions as a kind of surname, although Gunnagal naming traditions in this era do not include fully inheritable surnames. Most people, including even some of the wealthy, simply go by a first name and a patronymic, such as Lopitja gang Wemba (Lopitja son of Wemba) and/or their place of birth. This is often enough to distinguish people from each other, or failing that, nicknames usually suffice.
However, for those who are senior members of a faction, they are often permitted to call themselves by the name of the faction, such as Wemba Dalwal or Wemba ga Dalwal, which could be variously translated as Wemba the White or Wemba of the Whites. Where there are two senior members of the same faction who have the same name, the more high-status one at the time is awarded an "honour name." An honour name such as Dadi functions like a surname in some respects, but it can only be inherited within the same faction; if the family changes factions, the honour name would be lost.
[3] Though Puckapunyal is not in a position to make the observation, the pistols being used here are wheel-locks. Flintlocks are used for the more common soldier, since they are cheaper and more efficient for use on a wide scale. Wheel-locks are often carried by the wealthy and their bodyguards, despite the cost, because they can be carried loaded, and fired more quickly than a flintlock once loaded.
[4] In the previous chapter, the Orange Bible states that one of the Warego, the commander of the Long Irons, had died from a cannonball, but never provides his name.
[5] Kerowra is the Yalatji name for the lands of the former Kiyungu League, or in historical terms approximately the Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast.
--
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So, do you think what the Harmony Brigade did would be classed as Perfidy if it happened today? I mean, they won, and winners rarely get charged for war crimes, and what counted as fair play in war hadn't been codified yet in the same way (and neither side had agreed to any treaty of the sort) but I'd think it probably counts as "2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations".
Yeah by todays standards but during that time period they just called that "good tactics"
An interesting and well thought out take, say what you will about the Hunters commanders and soldiers they were disciplined enough to handle such a disruption, but smart enough not to rush to their own dooms as well. The ensuing political back and forths were quite intriguing and complex but things seemed to calm down eventually well enough, I'd love a territory map one day XD Also gosh dang this whole thing was just a back and forth of back stabs, hahaha. Still I can see why our dear narrator eventually came down on the side they did, it feels like a natural development and stance for them to take.
Kudos on your work here!
Kudos on your work here!
Quite. I even had that foreshadowed via the perspective of one of the Warego, of course.
There may be some other territorial losses around the fringes, too. Some of the claimed Panjimundra territory, some of the northern Gemlands, possibly one or two of the northern Kiyungu cities. But the core of the Dominion certainly holds together.
By today's standards, it would probably be classed as something along the lines of perfidy. By Tjibarri standards, though, it amounted to "we can be condemned for treachery, or we can be condemned for not existing. Not a tough choice."
Gracias. This has been a long tale, but the SV version of this timeline is now up to date as far as the original AH.com version, and of course also has a few bonus director's commentary chapters which the original lacks. Speaking of which, I'm going to write up another director's commentary post soon about why the fate of the Hunter and Dominion played out the way it did, and the likely course of events if he hadn't received that offer of Gunnagal friendship. That will probably take a week or two before I find time to finish that, then I'll post it here.
Re maps, I've not had much luck setting up an image here, so I think the simplest thing to do is link to the rough map which I posted on AH.com which shows the borders of the Dominion on the eve of the Battle of Yangan. Credit for the original version of the map there goes to AH.com user Scarecrow, I just made some rough tweaks to it (being graphically challenged). The link is here. This goes to the public part of alternatehistory.com and so does not need an account to view.
I mean... Fair XD
No problem, thanks again for sharing
Oooh that all sounds fascinating, best of luck!
Ah my sympathies, ooh lemme try something:
I think you need to click on the map so it fills the screen, then right click and go "Open in new tab" then use that web address.
Also intriguing its a solid amount of territory but less than I was perhaps expecting (I have no mind for geography either XD) Thanks for the link!
Lands of Red and Gold #44.5: Notes From The Yalumas
Lands of Red and Gold #44.5: Notes From The Yalumas
This is the fourth of the "Director's Commentary" posts, which I'm writing as additional chapters for the Sufficient Velocity version of Lands of Red and Gold. They will offer some comments on what was going on behind the scenes with the original posts, or some information which I've developed or discovered since, or just some general commentary on the broader LoRaGverse which for one reason or another didn't fit into the original posts.
In this instalment, I give some insights into the nature of Gunnagal society, what led them to take the actions that they did against the Hunter, and how it was outside of the norm for their own society. I also peel back the veil on some of the considerations which led me to write the outcome of the Yalumas the way that they finished up.
Since this post is quite spoilerific and I don't want people reading through to this accidentally without reading the rest of the Hunter sequence, the remainder of this post has been put behind a spoiler notice. Do not click on it unless you've read the rest of the Hunter sequence first.
This is the fourth of the "Director's Commentary" posts, which I'm writing as additional chapters for the Sufficient Velocity version of Lands of Red and Gold. They will offer some comments on what was going on behind the scenes with the original posts, or some information which I've developed or discovered since, or just some general commentary on the broader LoRaGverse which for one reason or another didn't fit into the original posts.
In this instalment, I give some insights into the nature of Gunnagal society, what led them to take the actions that they did against the Hunter, and how it was outside of the norm for their own society. I also peel back the veil on some of the considerations which led me to write the outcome of the Yalumas the way that they finished up.
Since this post is quite spoilerific and I don't want people reading through to this accidentally without reading the rest of the Hunter sequence, the remainder of this post has been put behind a spoiler notice. Do not click on it unless you've read the rest of the Hunter sequence first.
The Rules of the Dance
Anyone reading the conclusion of the Hunter sequence could quite reasonably have found themselves asking the question: "Have the Gunnagal ever met a back that they wouldn't stab?" (I received a question along those lines over on AH.com).
The answer to this question is that, as with anything involving the Gunnagal, the situation is rather complex.
It is quite true that in a metaphorical sense, Gunnagal would quite happily backstab anyone if they thought it gave them a bigger advantage. Where it gets more complex, though, is that Gunnagal operate within a set of unwritten, but nevertheless quite real rules. Gunnagal do not assassinate each other, at least not if they think there's any risk of getting caught. Or even if they think there's a significant risk of getting blamed, regardless of whether anyone can prove it.
The reasons for this are far more pragmatic than they are ethical. Gunnagal have been playing the Endless Dance for centuries. If they start encouraging assassinations, well, anyone can be assassinated. There's no enjoyment or even lasting gains in the Endless Dance if it ends with the death of too many of the participants. So the unwritten rule evolved into "Thou shalt not kill thy foe by assassination." People who are suspected of breaking that rule tend to find that it brings everyone against them, and that can be very, very bad. (As an aside, there are occasionally open squabbles between factions, although these are exceedingly rare nowadays. But an open squabble is seen as better than a knife in the dark, simply because it isn't going to risk starting the same trend of everyone getting stabbed in the dark).
More broadly, within their own system the Gunnagal have evolved their own code which is in some ways the opposite of Machiavellian (despite some surface similarities). Machiavelli said to never to give a person a small injury. The Gunnagal system is the opposite: try not to do an enemy a large injury unless absolutely necessary. Their social system expects that some people will change sides regularly. It's just part of the game. Any switch will involve some negative consequences on your former allies - but that doesn't mean that you will never want to deal with them again. So you try to make it so that your betrayal of them is not so bad that they will refuse to deal with you or try to take vengeance for the sake of it.
When it came to dealing with non-Gunnagal, the rules were less strict, but nevertheless still relevant. Despite centuries of warfare with the Yadji, Gutjanal and Yigutji, no Gunnagal factional leader had ever sponsored the assassination of any of their reigning monarchs. Or for several centuries, any of their high-ranking officials. There was an occasion about 300 years ago where that rule was broken for a high-ranking Yigutji official, leading to Unfortunate Consequences for the faction involved, to the point where that faction was lucky to survive.
Despite the legendary reputation of the Gunnagal for switching sides, it was extremely rare for them to break an existing alliance with a reigning monarch of the other Five Rivers states. Not quite unknown, of course. They might break an alliance if they saw a really big advantage or had good grounds for expecting to be betrayed themselves. However, the more common practice was to declare an alliance with an existing monarch and stick to it as long as that monarch lived. Their alliance was thus with the monarch rather than the state. When the monarch died, of course, all alliances were up for reconsideration.
These rules changed with the Hunter because he was a circuit-breaker, in more ways than one. He didn't just disrupt everything in the eastern parts of Aururia, he was also a circuit-breaker in how the Gunnagal saw the world. They correctly perceived him as outside the existing rules. This led to a sense of extreme fear that they could lose everything, simply because the Hunter would break the Dance, not join the Dance. So the Gunnagal, or more precisely some groups within the Gunnagal (the Whites and Blues, mostly) were willing to take an extreme and open step, risking the furore that it would cause amongst the Dominion forces, simply because they believed that they had no real alternative. Even then, the openness of the action was part of the message: "We do this openly because we acknowledge that it was necessary. We still don't do secret knives in the dark. If we assassinate someone, we make sure the world knows."
The second action, though, was the decision of Gurragang alone. The murder of Puckapunyal came in the environment where the Gunnagal continued to be afraid and the world had not yet settled down. While Gurragang would never admit it explicitly - he is a Gunnagal, after all - there was a strong fear that the world was still unsettled and that things could go seriously wrong.
Yigutji was in chaos with the Dominion withdrawing. It could have turned into anything. Gutjanal might use Puckapunyal as part of a counter-plot; Gutjanal is the nation which now has the most fear of Tjibarr, not for anything that Tjibarr has (yet) done but simply because beforehand it could rely on cooperation with Yigutji to restrain any Tjibarri excesses, but now that is lost. Or Puckapunyal might have become a pawn in the struggles between competing Warego, or worse an excuse for the English or other Europeans to exert influence if they came in via former Port Percy (*Sydney).
In that environment, there was too much concern that things could blow up and that Puckapunyal could become a tool of someone. So Gurragang decided that the only safe option was to remove the threat. He would not have done such a deed without such an environment of fear. And also, equally importantly, if he thought there was any risk of word getting out. Since the world already thought that Puckapunyal was dead, though, he decided it was better to make that belief become truth.
Or, for a much shorter version: Gunnagal betray each other (and other non-Gunnagal) quite happily. However, open results leading to death (the Hunter and Puckapunyal) were not the norm, but the result of a sense of extreme desperation where they would not normally go so far.
Naturally, it remains to be seen whether the Gunnagal settle down from this state of affairs.
On the Fate of the Hunter
Regarding why the Hunter's fate out played out the way it did, I should first go into some detail about the prospects of the Hunter successfully conquering the Five Rivers and then Durigal without any, erm, Gunnagal special manoeuvring.
The short version is that the Hunter's odds of successfully conquering the rest of the Five Rivers were no better than about one in three. The odds of successfully conquering Durigal were next to zero, since even if his forces had been successful that far, overextension would have really kicked in. Also, the EIC would have had time to ship in considerable numbers of weapons and (if needed) mercenaries to bolster Durigal's defences.
To expand a bit on the chances for the Five Rivers, Malligo was basically right when he told the Hunter that he lacked the resources to conquer that region. The population of the Five Rivers outmatched everything which the Dominion had before it. More importantly, the Five Rivers states were capable of fielding and supplying large, well-equipped armies using disciplined, firearm-using armies combined with adequate numbers of cavalry (albeit not of the same quality of the Dominion cavalry).
The problem was that the Hunter's forces could defeat Five Rivers armies, but they would struggle to rout them. In the first battle in the Five Rivers, while the Tjibarri and Gutjanalese forces were defeated, they still held their forces together and withdrew in good order. The same would likely have played out in any *Battle of Yangan, and then the battle after that. Result: the Dominion forces would have been bled even in victory, until they reached a point where they were incapable of continuing the conquest. Unless the Dominion forces could rout and essentially wipe out the entire Tjibarri army, they would face this problem. Even then, realistically they would need to rout Tjibarri armies at least twice – Tjibarr had the population to raise a further army of or close to the size of the one which fought at Yangan. And Gutjanal would be capable of bolstering Tjibarr's forces, too.
To give this a bit more context, even after the capture of Yigutji City, the kingdom was not yet entirely conquered. The military remnants referred to in the last couple of chapters existed, were meaningful and could have been bolstered by Tjibarr and/or Gutjanal. (As things played out, those remnants ended up being subdued by Tjibarr and Gutjanal instead, but that's another story). Malligo encouraged the Hunter to move quickly into Tjibarr for reasons of his own, but if the Hunter had remained in Yigutji instead, getting the kingdom fully under control would have taken more time and bloodshed.
Even once Yigutji was subdued, the problem would remain that what was left of the Five Rivers was too big to conquer quickly, and thanks to control of the rivers, the Five Rivers states would have better logistics and power projection than the Dominion. Cavalry are great for raids, and could have done considerable damage to Tjibarri and Gutjanalese territory, but holding territory requires infantry, and the Dominion didn't have that much. Tjibarr-of-the-Lakes is virtually impregnable to siege, as was described in the chapters, and settling in to capturing it or Tapiwal (the other key city) would have been difficult since Gutjanal could support Tjibarr. Going for Gutjanal first would have the same problem that Tjibarr could and would support them, while also raising up problems in the Hunter's rear in former Yigutjian territory.
Overcoming that wouldn't have been impossible, but it wasn't the way to bet. The odds were on a Five Rivers win. Of course, even in victory the Five Rivers states would have been seriously damaged.
More fundamentally, the Hunter was the sort of person who would keep going and going as long as he lived. He was capable of pausing for a period where it was useful, but not of stopping entirely. If he defeated the Five Rivers, he would be looking to move into Durigal next, leading to the problems described above, only worse.
So in the scenario where the Hunter isn't surprised at Yangan, there's essentially two options. First is that the Five Rivers states preserve their sovereignty but are badly-weakened. In that case, they now become a target of Durigal and/or the Dutch, and a power vacuum ensues in the former Dominion which leads to European trading companies take over all or most of the territory there, too. (A rump Dominion inland in the Neeburra might survive, but the east coast would be gone).
The second alternative is that the Hunter eventually scores a bloody victory, depopulating large parts of the Five Rivers along the way. Now he looks to move on Durigal, which has had time to prepare and which has close to the population of the Five Rivers anyway. Again, hard for the Hunter to win, and even if he does, things are so weakened that the Europeans would move in.
So short version, if the Hunter had survived Yangan, the most likely scenario was an eventual Yadji conquest of most of the Five Rivers, or the Dutch picking up the pieces there. While the older Dominion territories would fall under the influence of one European power or another.
Given that likely outcome, I went for a scenario which I think is more interesting from here: exploring the future of Aururia where the Dominion and the Five Rivers both endure, at least for a while.
Anyone reading the conclusion of the Hunter sequence could quite reasonably have found themselves asking the question: "Have the Gunnagal ever met a back that they wouldn't stab?" (I received a question along those lines over on AH.com).
The answer to this question is that, as with anything involving the Gunnagal, the situation is rather complex.
It is quite true that in a metaphorical sense, Gunnagal would quite happily backstab anyone if they thought it gave them a bigger advantage. Where it gets more complex, though, is that Gunnagal operate within a set of unwritten, but nevertheless quite real rules. Gunnagal do not assassinate each other, at least not if they think there's any risk of getting caught. Or even if they think there's a significant risk of getting blamed, regardless of whether anyone can prove it.
The reasons for this are far more pragmatic than they are ethical. Gunnagal have been playing the Endless Dance for centuries. If they start encouraging assassinations, well, anyone can be assassinated. There's no enjoyment or even lasting gains in the Endless Dance if it ends with the death of too many of the participants. So the unwritten rule evolved into "Thou shalt not kill thy foe by assassination." People who are suspected of breaking that rule tend to find that it brings everyone against them, and that can be very, very bad. (As an aside, there are occasionally open squabbles between factions, although these are exceedingly rare nowadays. But an open squabble is seen as better than a knife in the dark, simply because it isn't going to risk starting the same trend of everyone getting stabbed in the dark).
More broadly, within their own system the Gunnagal have evolved their own code which is in some ways the opposite of Machiavellian (despite some surface similarities). Machiavelli said to never to give a person a small injury. The Gunnagal system is the opposite: try not to do an enemy a large injury unless absolutely necessary. Their social system expects that some people will change sides regularly. It's just part of the game. Any switch will involve some negative consequences on your former allies - but that doesn't mean that you will never want to deal with them again. So you try to make it so that your betrayal of them is not so bad that they will refuse to deal with you or try to take vengeance for the sake of it.
When it came to dealing with non-Gunnagal, the rules were less strict, but nevertheless still relevant. Despite centuries of warfare with the Yadji, Gutjanal and Yigutji, no Gunnagal factional leader had ever sponsored the assassination of any of their reigning monarchs. Or for several centuries, any of their high-ranking officials. There was an occasion about 300 years ago where that rule was broken for a high-ranking Yigutji official, leading to Unfortunate Consequences for the faction involved, to the point where that faction was lucky to survive.
Despite the legendary reputation of the Gunnagal for switching sides, it was extremely rare for them to break an existing alliance with a reigning monarch of the other Five Rivers states. Not quite unknown, of course. They might break an alliance if they saw a really big advantage or had good grounds for expecting to be betrayed themselves. However, the more common practice was to declare an alliance with an existing monarch and stick to it as long as that monarch lived. Their alliance was thus with the monarch rather than the state. When the monarch died, of course, all alliances were up for reconsideration.
These rules changed with the Hunter because he was a circuit-breaker, in more ways than one. He didn't just disrupt everything in the eastern parts of Aururia, he was also a circuit-breaker in how the Gunnagal saw the world. They correctly perceived him as outside the existing rules. This led to a sense of extreme fear that they could lose everything, simply because the Hunter would break the Dance, not join the Dance. So the Gunnagal, or more precisely some groups within the Gunnagal (the Whites and Blues, mostly) were willing to take an extreme and open step, risking the furore that it would cause amongst the Dominion forces, simply because they believed that they had no real alternative. Even then, the openness of the action was part of the message: "We do this openly because we acknowledge that it was necessary. We still don't do secret knives in the dark. If we assassinate someone, we make sure the world knows."
The second action, though, was the decision of Gurragang alone. The murder of Puckapunyal came in the environment where the Gunnagal continued to be afraid and the world had not yet settled down. While Gurragang would never admit it explicitly - he is a Gunnagal, after all - there was a strong fear that the world was still unsettled and that things could go seriously wrong.
Yigutji was in chaos with the Dominion withdrawing. It could have turned into anything. Gutjanal might use Puckapunyal as part of a counter-plot; Gutjanal is the nation which now has the most fear of Tjibarr, not for anything that Tjibarr has (yet) done but simply because beforehand it could rely on cooperation with Yigutji to restrain any Tjibarri excesses, but now that is lost. Or Puckapunyal might have become a pawn in the struggles between competing Warego, or worse an excuse for the English or other Europeans to exert influence if they came in via former Port Percy (*Sydney).
In that environment, there was too much concern that things could blow up and that Puckapunyal could become a tool of someone. So Gurragang decided that the only safe option was to remove the threat. He would not have done such a deed without such an environment of fear. And also, equally importantly, if he thought there was any risk of word getting out. Since the world already thought that Puckapunyal was dead, though, he decided it was better to make that belief become truth.
Or, for a much shorter version: Gunnagal betray each other (and other non-Gunnagal) quite happily. However, open results leading to death (the Hunter and Puckapunyal) were not the norm, but the result of a sense of extreme desperation where they would not normally go so far.
Naturally, it remains to be seen whether the Gunnagal settle down from this state of affairs.
On the Fate of the Hunter
Regarding why the Hunter's fate out played out the way it did, I should first go into some detail about the prospects of the Hunter successfully conquering the Five Rivers and then Durigal without any, erm, Gunnagal special manoeuvring.
The short version is that the Hunter's odds of successfully conquering the rest of the Five Rivers were no better than about one in three. The odds of successfully conquering Durigal were next to zero, since even if his forces had been successful that far, overextension would have really kicked in. Also, the EIC would have had time to ship in considerable numbers of weapons and (if needed) mercenaries to bolster Durigal's defences.
To expand a bit on the chances for the Five Rivers, Malligo was basically right when he told the Hunter that he lacked the resources to conquer that region. The population of the Five Rivers outmatched everything which the Dominion had before it. More importantly, the Five Rivers states were capable of fielding and supplying large, well-equipped armies using disciplined, firearm-using armies combined with adequate numbers of cavalry (albeit not of the same quality of the Dominion cavalry).
The problem was that the Hunter's forces could defeat Five Rivers armies, but they would struggle to rout them. In the first battle in the Five Rivers, while the Tjibarri and Gutjanalese forces were defeated, they still held their forces together and withdrew in good order. The same would likely have played out in any *Battle of Yangan, and then the battle after that. Result: the Dominion forces would have been bled even in victory, until they reached a point where they were incapable of continuing the conquest. Unless the Dominion forces could rout and essentially wipe out the entire Tjibarri army, they would face this problem. Even then, realistically they would need to rout Tjibarri armies at least twice – Tjibarr had the population to raise a further army of or close to the size of the one which fought at Yangan. And Gutjanal would be capable of bolstering Tjibarr's forces, too.
To give this a bit more context, even after the capture of Yigutji City, the kingdom was not yet entirely conquered. The military remnants referred to in the last couple of chapters existed, were meaningful and could have been bolstered by Tjibarr and/or Gutjanal. (As things played out, those remnants ended up being subdued by Tjibarr and Gutjanal instead, but that's another story). Malligo encouraged the Hunter to move quickly into Tjibarr for reasons of his own, but if the Hunter had remained in Yigutji instead, getting the kingdom fully under control would have taken more time and bloodshed.
Even once Yigutji was subdued, the problem would remain that what was left of the Five Rivers was too big to conquer quickly, and thanks to control of the rivers, the Five Rivers states would have better logistics and power projection than the Dominion. Cavalry are great for raids, and could have done considerable damage to Tjibarri and Gutjanalese territory, but holding territory requires infantry, and the Dominion didn't have that much. Tjibarr-of-the-Lakes is virtually impregnable to siege, as was described in the chapters, and settling in to capturing it or Tapiwal (the other key city) would have been difficult since Gutjanal could support Tjibarr. Going for Gutjanal first would have the same problem that Tjibarr could and would support them, while also raising up problems in the Hunter's rear in former Yigutjian territory.
Overcoming that wouldn't have been impossible, but it wasn't the way to bet. The odds were on a Five Rivers win. Of course, even in victory the Five Rivers states would have been seriously damaged.
More fundamentally, the Hunter was the sort of person who would keep going and going as long as he lived. He was capable of pausing for a period where it was useful, but not of stopping entirely. If he defeated the Five Rivers, he would be looking to move into Durigal next, leading to the problems described above, only worse.
So in the scenario where the Hunter isn't surprised at Yangan, there's essentially two options. First is that the Five Rivers states preserve their sovereignty but are badly-weakened. In that case, they now become a target of Durigal and/or the Dutch, and a power vacuum ensues in the former Dominion which leads to European trading companies take over all or most of the territory there, too. (A rump Dominion inland in the Neeburra might survive, but the east coast would be gone).
The second alternative is that the Hunter eventually scores a bloody victory, depopulating large parts of the Five Rivers along the way. Now he looks to move on Durigal, which has had time to prepare and which has close to the population of the Five Rivers anyway. Again, hard for the Hunter to win, and even if he does, things are so weakened that the Europeans would move in.
So short version, if the Hunter had survived Yangan, the most likely scenario was an eventual Yadji conquest of most of the Five Rivers, or the Dutch picking up the pieces there. While the older Dominion territories would fall under the influence of one European power or another.
Given that likely outcome, I went for a scenario which I think is more interesting from here: exploring the future of Aururia where the Dominion and the Five Rivers both endure, at least for a while.
Very interesting information, the Gunnagal not wanting assassins to become a thing reminds me of how Rome went from little to not political violence to over a century of assassins and civil war.
I am a little surprised the Hunter didn't take these things into consideration, but fair enough this is more interesting.
Yes, the risk the Gunnagal face now is that assassinations have started, others may start to decide that assassination is the solution for other problems. Which leads to the risk of turning into a situation like classical Rome or some vendetta-prone regions in Renaissance Italy.
The Hunter somewhat took them into consideration, but ego and victory disease got into the way. He placed too much emphasis on the prospect of winning one or two decisive battles by shattering enemy armies, and on being able to recruit former enemies to fight for his cause.
To be fair, that approach had worked for him for a while, and he did his best to recruit infantry before getting into the Five Rivers. But he overestimated his prospects of fighting a Decisive Battle, and also of recruiting local allies. The Five Rivers had a much stronger sense of nationalism which made finding many recruits unlikely, and they also had more experience fighting large organised armies (ie the Yadji and each other) which meant that they had learned how to fight campaigns rather than one big battle.
Glad you liked it. To paraphrase Shrek, Gunnagal are like onions: they come with many layers, and if you cut them they make you cry.
Oh my that would be just 'terrible' XD
I see that all makes sense and works well, thanks for explaining.
I love how alien and yet real these cultures feel. It's made me fascinated with real Aboriginal culture.
Glad you like it.
If this encourages people to learn more about real Aboriginal cultures, so much the better. Many of their achievements leave me staggered.
Such as one which still blows my mind every time I think about it. Some of the cultures of northeastern Australia preserved (via songlines) detailed descriptions of the geography of now-submerged lands off the coast of Queensland. Those places were flooded by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, 10,000+ years ago. That's roughly twice as long as it's been since writing was invented anywhere. Yet those Aboriginal peoples could still describe the geography and features of interest in those now drowned lands.
I wonder what's going on in the Portuguese Northwest?
Aozhouhuaren
Ostrich Rider, Lover of Cider, Friend of the Haida
- Location
- Beeliar Prefecture, Whadjuk Province, Nyoongar
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Finally caught up. This is a good one, and a long one.
So passes the Hunter, a man who felt the pain of losing a loved one to war and decided to share that pain with all the people he could reach. Clements was indeed correct that this was the most fitting end the Hunter could have found.
...I might have opinions. But seriously, this is a spectacular timeline! All the people feel real, the cultures form a breathtaking and realistic tapestry, and it appears to be incredibly well-researched. Kudos. This is amazing.
So passes the Hunter, a man who felt the pain of losing a loved one to war and decided to share that pain with all the people he could reach. Clements was indeed correct that this was the most fitting end the Hunter could have found.
...I might have opinions.
But seriously, this is a spectacular timeline! All the people feel real, the cultures form a breathtaking and realistic tapestry, and it appears to be incredibly well-researched. Kudos. This is amazing.Thanks, that was interesting to see in that format. I'm not sure of the pronunciation of everything either, but it's good to get an idea of the number of different cultures which existed.
Good question - that's one area where there's been relatively little information provided so far. Too big a continent, not enough time to go into detail on everything. At some point I'll have a few chapters set in northern Aururia, but it probably won't be for a while.
But in general, think of it as an area where for most of it, there's only a very thin Portuguese presence. In some ways it's like the Spanish mission system in California - a smattering of religious missions along the coast with the stated purpose of converting the "natives", and very little presence inland. The disruption to the local peoples way of life has been less severe than the California equivalent, though, due to most of the Portuguese attention being focused on the one town Rramaji (OTL Karumba) where they can trade into the interior for gemstones. For the rest, there has been some transfer of technology and particularly domesticated animals, and a very low-level trade in some resources, but the combination of low Portuguese manpower and the area's general lack of appeal to Europeans means that so far the effects have been relatively small when compared to other parts of Aururia.
Welcome aboard. The timeline will continue here, although my general plan for this timeline is to wait until I have a good-sized sequence of posts and then release them as a batch (with a few days interval in between), rather than having the very slow drip-feed it would be if I tried to release them as I wrote them.
Glad you liked it. This has been a long time and a lot of fun to write. More is coming at some point, though as per above probably not for a while.Finally caught up. This is a good one, and a long one.
So passes the Hunter, a man who felt the pain of losing a loved one to war and decided to share that pain with all the people he could reach. Clements was indeed correct that this was the most fitting end the Hunter could have found.
...I might have opinions.
Happy to be of service! And yeah pre colonial Australia was an incredibly diverse and vibrant place; interestingly with little to no records of interstate warfare, basically all art, weapons or tools either show little to no sign of being designed with killing another person in mind. Archaeological surveying can't find evidence of big battles but find evidence of travel, pathways ETC & records show tons of nation-state communication. As it is though all tools for building stuff, harvesting ETC, taking down animals and so on, those were all over the shop, but it seems like armed conflict was largely not a thing.
Oh also you may like this, it basically is a heavily streamlined version of Dark Emu: