Lands of Red and Gold, Act II

Reader mode

Jared

Haaki said:
Would those manage to spread beyond the Malagasy community though? I have a hard time imagining that the general population would want to take up what to them would be a religion of slaves.
Click to expand...

There's several imponderables. The first one is whether the Malagasy would preserve much (if any) of their own religion, even amongst themselves. That's likely, of course, but not certain, depending on the whole range of other factors I mentioned before (especially if there turns out to be a new state religion).

The second question is how rigid the slavery lines are in Teegal. Would slavery be a permanent condition, passed down through the generations? It depends on several things too, particularly whether the Dutch get to dictate things. To the Atjuntja, slavery normally has been for life up until now, simply because it was viewed as punishment for a crime. But they have the cultural equivalent of forced labour for part of the year, and the question is whether they will view Malagasy slaves as being part of that system too. (Especially those born into slavery). A few slaves at least may well be freed, if only because they've pleased their owners, and those former slaves may in turn establish a free Malagasy community. Which leads in turn to...

The third question is how rigid the ethnic lines are in Teegal. Will slavery become strictly racially based? That would be one method, but there are complications. Atjuntja men care about their sons (more than their daughters, it must be said) and don't care so much who the mother is. So the idea of slavery being defined by the mother's status (as happened in race-based slavery elsewhere) probably won't work, since if an Atjuntja man has a son by a slave wife/mistress, he will acknowledge the son and want to raise him. That may lead to some intermingling and mixing of the Malagasy and broader communities.

Plus, of course, there's the simple demographic fact that mixed-heritage children (Atjuntja-Malagasy or Atjuntja-Dutch) have the best overall resistance to epidemic diseases, since they will have the best chance for the Atjuntja resistance to Aururian plagues combined with the Old World resistance to the Old World plagues. So that community could grow to be a large one.
 

Jared

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Since, of course, Christianity died in infancy and no one has ever heard of it, right? :)
Click to expand...

Christianity did have the advantage of Paul, who was both Jewish and a Roman citizen (the latter giving him credibility with the wider non-Jewish community), and who was extremely influential (if not essential) in spreading Christianity. So if the Malagasy religions (either of them) were to spread, it would be helpful to have a Paul-type figure.
 
Jonathan Edelstein

Jonathan Edelstein

Jared said:
Christianity did have the advantage of Paul, who was both Jewish and a Roman citizen (the latter giving him credibility with the wider non-Jewish community), and who was extremely influential (if not essential) in spreading Christianity. So if the Malagasy religions (either of them) were to spread, it would be helpful to have a Paul-type figure.
Click to expand...

Well, you've mentioned disease-resistant Atjuntja-Malagasy children. The illegitimate son of a noble, who survives a plague that kills the rest of his family and whose survival is taken as a sign of divine favor, could do very nicely.
 

Haaki

Jared said:
Christianity did have the advantage of Paul, who was both Jewish and a Roman citizen (the latter giving him credibility with the wider non-Jewish community), and who was extremely influential (if not essential) in spreading Christianity. So if the Malagasy religions (either of them) were to spread, it would be helpful to have a Paul-type figure.
Click to expand...

I suppose the biggest obstacle to the spread of the traditional Malagasy religion is that it probably doesn't have an element of proselytization. But then, I guess this Paul-type figure could be a kind of religious reformer.
 

Imperator Maximilianius

Banned
Haaki said:
I suppose the biggest obstacle to the spread of the traditional Malagasy religion is that it probably doesn't have an element of proselytization. But then, I guess this Paul-type figure could be a kind of religious reformer.
Click to expand...

Especially considering Saint Paul was something of a religious reformer himself.
 

Jared

Jonathan Edelstein said:
Well, you've mentioned disease-resistant Atjuntja-Malagasy children. The illegitimate son of a noble, who survives a plague that kills the rest of his family and whose survival is taken as a sign of divine favor, could do very nicely.
Click to expand...

That could certainly be the right kind of person needed to spread the word. Preferably one who's picked up enough education that they can spread the written word; much of Paul's influence was via his epistles, after all.

That does leave the question of whether it's Malagasy traditional religion or Islam which this reformer picks up...

Haaki said:
I suppose the biggest obstacle to the spread of the traditional Malagasy religion is that it probably doesn't have an element of proselytization. But then, I guess this Paul-type figure could be a kind of religious reformer.
Click to expand...

There may be something that can be done in terms of reform. Or it may just be a case of Islam which spreads, if anything. Relatively few of the Malagasy will be Muslim, though, so I'm not sure what the potential is for Islam to spread.

On another note entirely, how easy was it to pick out what each of the seven "pearls" are in the closing poem? Some are more straightforward than others, but I tried to make it so that most of them could be worked out, at least.
 

othyrsyde

The Dutch noose tightens around the Middle Country ever more. It seems more likely a reformer for their religion would come about that the King of Kings would latch onto to preserve their authority and what little independence they have left than adopted even a syncretic Calvinist religion. You have my support for some Malagasy-Atjuntja religious hybrid.:cool:
 

Jared

othyrsyde said:
The Dutch noose tightens around the Middle Country ever more.
Click to expand...

Sadly, yes. Even without the plagues, the Atjuntja political structure would leave them vulnerable to European domination; they have lots of semi-independent merchant-aristocrats who would be happy with more power and are always ready to break with the King of Kings, and an economic system which is guaranteed to break with European trade. Throw in the plagues, and European domination of some form (Dutch being the most probable) is nearly inevitable.

It seems more likely a reformer for their religion would come about that the King of Kings would latch onto to preserve their authority and what little independence they have left than adopted even a syncretic Calvinist religion. You have my support for some Malagasy-Atjuntja religious hybrid.:cool:
Click to expand...

The next few decades in the Middle Country are going to be... volatile. There's still several more plagues to hit (including smallpox, influenza and typhoid), plus likely recurrence of existing ones. Such an environment is going to cause all sorts of religious upheaval. Some of this may well lead to religious hybrids. Plirism vs Malagasy-Atjuntja hybrids versus syncretic pseudo-Calvinism, perhaps. Taking all bets...
 

Jared

mojojojo said:
So what are these pseudo-Calvinist cults like? How do they differ from real Calvinism?
Click to expand...

The short answer is that the Atjuntja pseudo-Calvinist cults are to Calvinism are as Hong Xiuquan is to Christianity. The Atjuntja forbid formal missionary efforts, and so the idea of Calvinism has filtered through a mire of sailors' and traders' answers to Atjuntja questions, a lack of written Scriptures, and a mire of cultural misunderstandings.

In particular, Atjuntja who are used to the idea of sacrifice for atonement to the Lord have trouble reconciling the concept of the Crucifixion with the problem of evil. Their questions are, basically, if the Crucifixion meant atonement for sin, why is the world not now heaven? They come up with a range of their own answers - there's no single cult here - such as the idea that the Crucifixion was just the first sacrifice, and more need to be made, or that God and Satan are really equals, and various other explanations. They also have trouble with the concept of the elect.

The longer answer... well, at the moment I'm contemplating changing what I had in mind for post #99 to a full exploration of the long-term fate of the Atjuntja (up to the end of Act II). This is possible since what happens in western Aururia develops largely independently of the rest of the continent anyway, so it may be possible to write that up.
 

TheScottishMongol

Banned
Jared said:
* * *

“To the Raw Men, nations are either players or game pieces.”
- Wemba Dalwal (Wemba of the Whites), 1660

* * *

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Welp, the Europeans are forming puppet governments, and the religious system is breaking down. Guess it really is the apocalypse for the Aururians.
 

naraht

B_Munro said:
Well, at least they're not being driven off their land and being replaced by European settlers so far... :(
Click to expand...

OTL, Australia probably was the most extreme example of a settler colony in terms of kicking the natives completely off the land. (Though Anglo-North America is in the running as well. ITTL, at worst, they are the equivalent to OTL Maori and at best the equivalent of OTL India.
 

Jared

TheScottishMongol said:
Welp, the Europeans are forming puppet governments, and the religious system is breaking down. Guess it really is the apocalypse for the Aururians.
Click to expand...

For the Atjuntja, certainly, things are looking very grim. They always were the most vulnerable of the major Aururian states, due to a combination of first contact, isolation, and their own social-economic systems. Now a protectorate in all but name, and ever-increasing turmoil. (This is the Time of the Great Dying, as they will later remember it).

For the rest of Aururia, well... things are looking unpleasant, too, if not quite as dire as for the Atjuntja (mostly). There is a reason why Act II is titled The Four Horsemen.

B_Munro said:
Well, at least they're not being driven off their land and being replaced by European settlers so far... :(
Click to expand...

Even in the worst case for indigenous Aururians, large waves of European settlers are unlikely. (Well, until a nineteenth-century level of technology). The place is simply too damn far away, and the colonial powers that are there are far more interested in making profits than in fostering large-scale settlement. Except, in a very limited way, the Portuguese, and even they have more interesting targets for colonial settlement (Brazil, take a bow).

That doesn't preclude all sorts of unpleasantness, of course, but even in the worst case we're not looking at European-majority Aururia.

naraht said:
OTL, Australia probably was the most extreme example of a settler colony in terms of kicking the natives completely off the land. (Though Anglo-North America is in the running as well. ITTL, at worst, they are the equivalent to OTL Maori and at best the equivalent of OTL India.
Click to expand...

On the whole, I'd say that the worst case is not even as bad as what happened to the Māori. For the agricultural areas of Aururia, at least. The pre-existing population density is simply so much higher. Even with the worst possible plague toll, there will be over 2 million indigenous Aururians left at their lowest point. No way, no how are the European colonial powers bringing in enough people to outnumber that, even allowing for the fact that the population growth rate for the Aururians may still be slightly slower than for Europeans (still more vulnerable to disaeas).

So the worst case for the agricultural areas of Aururia is something like Mexico, where the majority of people are of indigenous (or mixed) heritage, and at least some vestiges of their languages remain used in everyday speech. With two possible exceptions: if enough slaves are imported to the Middle Country, the Atjuntja/Yaora may only be the plurality, and *Tasmania may be vulnerable for reasons which will be explored in the next regular instalment.

The best case is... well, a lot better than that.

mojojojo said:
I think these words of Augra apply quite well to this case
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Wl7grhX2g
Click to expand...

Like the popular (if incorrect) myth that the Chinese word for "crisis" is a combination of the symbols for "danger" and "opportunity". :D
 
Petike

Petike

The 100th chapter is fast approaching. Congratulations on making it this far with the timeline, Jared. :)
 

eschaton

Jared said:
That does leave the question of whether it's Malagasy traditional religion or Islam which this reformer picks up...
Click to expand...

I still like the idea of Islam spreading among the Malagasy. We know that *Indonesians are going to be taken as slaves in limited numbers as well. It would seem trivial to end up with a literate *Indonesian slave (perhaps from Borneo) who realizes that he can understand a lot of Malagasy. He's a bit of a language savant (on the order of Sequoya or Uyaquq) and works out a written language for the Malagasy, possibly an Abugida, or possibly based on the Jawi alphabet. He also begins the process of conversion to Islam - which nominally will require some level of literacy.
 
Reader mode
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top