The Axva, Chapter 7
A Brief Aside (OOC):
Just to let y’all know, I’ve gone back through the previous chapters of the Axva and scrubbed references to “days” as that term doesn’t make sense on Sunlock. Ex: “up to today” has been reworded as “to the present”, and so on.
All right enough with that, on with the show!
Chapter 7:
Rightward Peoples:
Up until 7200 BCE, the Microlith Culture had been undergoing a slow but steady evolution into a nomadic folk that spread rightward from its original urheimat to the further reaches of the rightward steppe. With the domestication of the outraptor by around 7200 BCE, that process sped up dramatically. Evidence of numerous cultures influenced by a Microlith predecessor people extends far across the steppe, up to the foothills of the far rightward Sumxet Mountain Range.
These peoples not only adopted a shared nomadic lifestyle, but also a heavy emphasis on so-called “Fields of the Dead”, where entire generations of their deceased tribe members were buried side by side on top of sacred sites that would in later times come to be associated with entranceways to paradise. The piling of T-shaped burial markers on top of each other led to stratification of one cohort of dead on top of each other, leading to an almost contiguous one-thousand year record of funerary practices ranging from 7100 BCE at the earliest to 6150 BCE at the latest. Why these cultures abandoned their sites around this time is unknown, but it is likely environmental change played a role, as evidence suggests the abandonment followed a wave-like pattern from leftward to rightward from 6500 BCE to 6150 BCE.
Significant differences existed in burial practices between the furthest reaches of this diaspora. While it is clear that tribes in regular contact with each other would have contributed to a regional continuity of culture, the distance between the most remote Chenen and Amawasam (to name but two) sub-groups would have contributed to significant allopatric drift. It appears, for example, that leftward Chenen peoples highly prized precious amber beads, as plenty of these have been found in the “Fields of the Dead” in the far rightward. On the other hand the leftward, but similarly-named, Jenen peoples valued animal hide instead, as witnessed by perfectly preserved bog bodies found close to the original Microlithic Sites.
Thus, while these cultures share an origin within the original Microlithic Culture, and have thus earned the sobriquet “Microlithic Descendents”, their internal diversity should not be glossed over. In many ways, the Microlithic Peoples were quite different from each other.
Crossing the Desert:
The first written records of trading caravans crossing the Waste date from after the rise of the Microlithic Descendents. Usually they were oddities to the people who witnessed them - common trade across the Waste doesn’t arrive in the historic record until later in history.
Some constants of the Great Trade did first arise in this time. Then, as now, societies without access to Tindalan-era airships developed the next-best thing: the windbeast. Early designs from this era have not survived as artifacts due to their construction materials. The most historians can do is attempt to reconstruct the designs based on engravings found on clay tablets within the Tele civilization, recording contact with the rightward peoples. Early windbeasts took the shortest route through the desert after the steppe bridge was cut off circa 6900 BCE, and relied on constancy in the wind patterns in the darkward Waste, which meant that their design could evolve in later years from simpler constructions.
As with the Geshikan to the sunward of the Tele, the Microlithic Descendents traded a variety of goods leftward. The darkward steppe is home to a sought-after but elusive berry called the amber-berry, which was highly prized in Tele courts as a food of the rich and privileged. For the steppe peoples, this valued food, along with several spices and agate from the foothills of the Sumxet comprised highly lucrative cargo that was exchanged for Tele specialties. Bronze tools and weapons, built by Tele bronzesmiths, have been found in the fields of the dead as far rightward as at the Drei border in Dzinda.
The Tele, for their part, saw little need to distinguish between the Geshikan and the rightward steppe peoples. In Tele writings the term “Ileshu” is used to denote barbarians of all stripes. Thus, tracking the historical contacts that the Tele had with peoples from outside their society can be complicated. Ileshu, among the cities to the rightward of the Telen mountain range, generally traded in goods originating from the steppe, and thus can be linked to the Microlithic Descendents. Intermarriage with nomadic peoples was rare, but did occur. Thus it is hypothesized on some level that the interaction with the steppe peoples led to a difference in culture between the leftward and rightward halves of the Tele people.
Of course, not all contact with Microlithic peoples was mutually beneficial. Ongoing slaving raids into the steppe would return with a large population of people to occupy the bottom of the Tele social pyramid, and would sow discord with the tribes immediately to the rightward of Sokash. Thus, a situation of tit-for-tat raiding developed near Sokash until it escalated into a full-blown invasion by the steppe peoples.
Conflict in Sokash:
In the records of Sokash, the period from 7350-7150 BCE was written of as “the two hundred-years’ disgrace”. Following its sack by a much smaller power in 7320 BCE, the former home of Ila the Great slid into a near-permanent status as a backwater, its citizens living in the ruins of greater times long gone. Graffiti on the walls of ancient temples proliferated. Monumental pillars fell into the sides of the main thoroughfare with no civic government powerful enough to remove them.
In the place of other economic drivers for the city, now sorely lacking, individual parties of citizenry appear to have organized themselves into slaving gangs that raided rightward into the steppe.
In 7220 BCE, a confederation of tribes most likely sourced in the Amawasam culture raided the countryside around the city, and broke through into the city center through an unrepaired breach in the city wall, before they were driven out. Records of this invasion come to us from a number of sources in the nearby Kalan, which exaggerate the numbers involved in this conflict to hyperbolic proportions.
The end result of the conflict was the beginning of a sense of unease within the rightward Tele, and the need to band together in order to form some defense against the barbarians to their rightward. Fortunately this coincided with the beginning of the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in the Tele region more broadly, where the economy and defensive capabilities of the Tele region were on the upswing. When the rightward Amawasam tried again in 7205 BCE to raid the city of Kalan, they were not as successful the second time.
A third raid in 7195 BCE crashed back into Sokash, and managed to succeed in plundering some wealth from the city’s outskirts. By the time of the fourth raid, Sokash had repaired the city walls, and with the help of their allies, massacred the invading force. Almost a half-century later, these new agreements with their neighbors that had saved them from ruin, would become the basis for a new alliance structure that stood vigil against the various descendents of the Microlith Culture.
Compact of the League:
[By the authority of] Eres, Shekishkan, and Misher
[The cities/towns of] Kalan, Sokash, Yetu, Chusesemu, Meyosh, Kshatan, Shunem
Here declare and set in stone the treaty between them. This treaty sets forth the compact of the league that has been constructed in their center.
No city of the League shall make war on another in the League.
No city of the League shall provoke another in the League.
No city of the League shall embargo another in the League.
No city of the League shall be unaided. All cities of the League shall aid each other.
No city outside of the League shall make war on an unaided city in the League.
No city outside of the League shall provoke an unaided city in the League.
No city outside of the League shall embargo an unaided city in the League.
No barbarian shall stand in the great centers of the cities.
No barbarian shall reap what he does not sow.
No barbarian shall plunder the sacred treasures of the Gods.
League of Seven, and the Divine War:
In the rightward of Tele, Kalan and Sokash formed the nucleus of a mutual defense agreement known as the League of Seven around 7170 BCE. Other smaller towns joined - some willingly, some under coercion. The primary goal of the League was to attain protection from attacks by the steppe nomads, and some measure of success was achieved. On the other hand, the League’s secondary goal of achieving protection against the leftward Tele failed.
The League’s very existence was a threat to the political centers in Akshetse and Ike. While the two cities could probably have tolerated inter-city cooperation in the rightward against tribal raids, the broader aim of curbing influence from other cities ran in direct contradiction to Akshetse and Ike’s ascendency. In addition, both cities still had deep scars from the conquest of Ila the Great over two centuries ago. Never again would they see Sokash dominate them.
Thus, under the pretenses of securing religious orthodoxy against a resurgent and independent cult of Sasishkan in Sokash, Akshetse and Ike joined forces in assaulting the territories of the League in 7168 BCE. The war lasted one year, and was notable for the iconoclastic tendencies of Akshetse and Ike as they conquered the upstart cities. The idols of Sasishkan were taken away as booty by the conquering forces where they were laid to rest in the Court of the Recluse, bowed down symbolically in front of the throne of the Recluse.
While 7150 BCE marks the end of the Sokash “two hundred years’ disgrace”, it would never again make an attempt for independence from the domination by Ike. Instead, the rightward cities fell under the political control of Akshetse and Ike. Stability - political and economic - gradually returned to the region, and the slave raids by Sokash would be drastically curbed, bringing peace to the broader region. With the beginnings of the Three Kingdoms’ period, the idol of Sasishkan in Ike would be given to Akshetse as a gift in exchange for significant political concessions. Sasishkan would take his place next to the other Five Gods, his honor slightly restored.
The League of Seven, though short-lived, was still notable for being one of the first recorded inter-state treaties in history. The archaic language of the stele recording its existence belies the fact that this was a monumental step forward for the Tele. Where self-interested conflict had reigned since time immemorial, the League of Seven was a hint of things to come, and a harbinger of broader cultural unity after the Three Kingdoms’ period.
Kitelan Se’an:
In the sunward, the Se’an historical record begins with the arrival in the Se’an system of a new wave of settlers from unknown lands. Hypotheses abound concerning the origins of these so-called Dzuen, and none of them are completely accepted by the scientific community. Some scholars associate them with the rightward migration of Microlithic peoples, others associate them with a second wave of the Proto-Gye’an, coming from a different tribal stock.
The admixture of Dzuen and Proto-Gye’an in the area, whether peaceful or violent, produced a new people that continued to occupy the area for millennia, and are presently considered the native inhabitants of the Se’an region. These were the Ezhan, famous throughout history for having birthed the foremost thinkers of their time. Many millennia later in history, the great Teacher himself would be born to an Ezhan mother.
The earliest Ezhan script has only recently been deciphered, and as a result, the historical record of the early Se’an is incomplete from most of the corpus having yet to be translated. What we do know is that the Se’an was divided around 7060 BCE between two equally powerful kingdoms, one occupying the upper reaches of the Se’an, and one occupying the lower. In the works from the time, they were often referred to as the “sunward” and “darkward” kingdoms, due to the fact that in the middle of the Se’an’s bend where the territories of the two states met, the upper kingdom occupied the sunward bank of the Se’an, and the lower kingdom held the darkward bank.
This era was known as Kitelan Se’an, for the Kitel - the dividing line between sunward and darkward kingdoms. Its establishment is murky, and there are (and were) various competing sites claiming to be the legitimate site of the old Kitel. Due to this plethora of claimants, and changes in the shape of the Se’an river over the millennia since, modern scholars believe it to be highly unlikely that the site of the old Kitel has survived to the present rhythm.
War in the Se’an:
Sunward and darkward Se’an were the centers of a fierce rivalry between two dynasties from the earliest records. The sunward Dzukulan and darkward Zhevi families established strong states around the centers of Kaimiz and Zhadzu respectively. The semi-mythical city of Echuche provided a middle ground between the two, and peace treaties were often signed within its walls.
Dzukulan and Zhevi rulers often sought to extend their influence into each other’s territories by violent means. The wars fought in the Se’an ended up being more skirmishes than grand campaigns with thousands lost. The exact reasons for this are likely to be multitudinous in nature. Scholars have identified potential cultural and environmental reasons for the difference between the ancient Tele and Se’an forms of warfare. However, each of these have problems in their own right, and nothing conclusive or empirical can be said to put an end to the debate over why the Se’an were less bloodthirsty than their darkward neighbors.
The course of the rivalry in the Se’an was known in their records as the “years of strife”. Relative advantage swung back and forth between the rulers of the earliest dynasties for close to two centuries, before the sunward Dzukulan managed to lay claim to several territories of the darkward kingdom that ran out to the Nemasian sea. The end result of this situation isn’t clear. Whether the sunward kingdom then conquered the rest of the darkward kingdom, or if the darkward kingdom submitted to the rule of the sunward, or even if the lineages of the two dynasties intermingled in marriage, we can’t say.
All that is known is that Dechudzen, leader of the Dzukulan, moved her capital to the old city of Echuche, and is painted thereafter wearing two bracelets - one for the sunward, and one for the darkward kingdom, emphasizing her dominance over both. The brief time of Kitelan Se’an, which lasted from 7060 BCE to 6880 BCE, ended with the unification of the Ezhan people under one kingdom, which would last another one hundred years.
Early Philosophies:
Ezhan philosophy reached its heights later on in antiquity, but started out as a tradition rooted in a dialogue that barely survives to us from the time of the Kitelan Se’an. The pre-Sokanir philosophers would, in the 3rd millennium BCE, reiterate these arguments and ultimately mutate them. The original ideas belong to the earliest Ezhan that founded the sunward and darkward kingdoms.
Cheudu, a name most likely assigned later on in history to a composite figure of the Se’an priesthood, first identified an argument for a “life-force” that acted as the source of human animate nature. According to the argument, humans and animals shared a common substance within them that was formed from the same essence as that which the Gods possessed. This substance enabled them to behave in ways that other substances, like water or rock, could not do because it was not in their nature. The substance was believed to run through the body in some physical structure, controlling the inanimate body like a puppet.
Cheudu’s ideas were taken up and iterated upon by an unnamed student, who posited that the natural world could contain an unbound version of the “life-force”, which he identified with fire. Fire has many properties that ultimately lead to it having unpredictable behavior, unlike water or rock. The unnamed student argued that this unpredictable-ness was shared in common with human and animal spirits. In addition, fire was the prime source of warmth, which both human and animal bodies produced on a smaller scale. This indicated that the life-force that puppeteered the human body must be made of fire.
The response to this assertion, recorded in the annals of the philosophers’ crypt in Echuche, was that water was a far better candidate for a natural analog to the life-force. Eydzumezh, a thinker writing some decades after the initial suggestion of fire, was among the first in human history to point to the existence of the circulatory system. Humans bleed, the argument went, and so they are filled mostly with water. This water traveled around the body and differing waves of pressure pumped from the heart into the body’s extremities animated the body.
Later thinkers do not survive from the philosophers’ crypt, though some tantalizing words remain. It is known that by the 4th millennium, the problem of human animacy would be divided into two competing schools - those that sought animate source in mathematics/pure metaphysics, and those that still sought some natural analog for animacy. Later thinkers would try to search for an admixture of fire and water that would produce behavior like that of humans and animals - as it was thought that blood was.
Taming Nemasia:
The lands to the leftward of the Tele and Se’an, across the Bay of Neman, had remained largely unpopulated during the 9th and 8th millennium BCE. Some small groups of hunter-gatherers had undergone allopatric changes in culture after the end of the 7500s BCE, but the land now known as Ijritan remained a rainy jungle-covered region lacking in the development of settled societies. Tribal groups were few and far between. This changed with the advent of coastal sailing in the Bay of Neman.
The usage of Nemasia (and the bay of Neman in particular) as a highway between the sunward and darkward worlds began at first with massive barges pulled by andironbacks making their way along the shore through Geshikan territory. As the Geshikan began to impose harsh duties on the traders moving through their territory, the first galleys were developed to move the flow of goods slightly offshore, out of the reach of the tribal Geshikan. These were originally pulled by hundreds of slaves, and thus restricted to the most wealthy of traders who could afford the associated costs. With the discovery of tacking against the sunward tides however, the need for galleys abated and the market opened up to less-wealthy merchants. Most ships remained coastal in their paths, due to the sunward tides becoming less manageable the further from the coast the ships strayed.
During the 7200s, the cities of Dal’dz and Shamsu, founded by outcasts from Se’an and Tele societies respectively, began to take shape across the Bay of Neman in modern-day Ijritan. Both of them were coastal in nature, and relied heavily on coastal trade from towns that succeeded the failed city-state of Meyan. Intermingling with the local hunter-gatherers, Dal’dz and Shamsu would soon develop their own unique cultural identity as the first Zham city-states. Colonization by Tele outcasts would soon form the basis for a more far-flung Tele diaspora elsewhere along Nemasia.
The development of the sea-based trade opened up a new globally-networked world, perhaps the first in history. Se’an goods have been found in this era far out to the rightward among the descendents of the Microlithic people, as well as in the darkward at modern-day Anor. The Zham city-states brought goods from the far leftward like dried jungle fruit into the heart of the Tele Three Kingdoms. It is from this period that the first copies of documents written in both archeoform and ancient Ezhan, preserved on clay tablets, began to appear, indicating contact between the two civilizations.
The relative stability of the late 8th millennium wouldn’t last however. In the darkward, the Tele political system began to show wear and tear, as a new empire arose to fight for dominance along the Tele and Kande. In the sunward, the successor to the Kitelan Se’an would wither and fade, leading to a decline in the first interconnected global order.