Sjiveru: To be honest I don’t know much about metalworking amongst Native Americans, so let’s just say they found a convenient place to mine it or something.
loki100, generalolaf, Slaughter, Selvetrica, Tufto: Thanks!
Mr. Santiago: They’re just being snobby about negotiating with ‘savages’. Once the Inuit civilize it won’t be a problem any more.
flyguy117: You’ll like this chapter.
Encyclopaedia Djata Entry
The Djata Kurufa
Founding
The Djata Kurufa (or Empire of Djata) was founded in 1399 by Sufi Muslim dissidents from the Mali Empire. (1)
When portions of the Algarve Expedition washed up on the shores of western Africa it caused serious turmoil within the Mali Empire. Being relatively isolated, the news that all of Europe was dying caught them by surprise. The Mansa at the time, Sandaki Mari Djata, advocated sending an expedition to claim the empty land for Mali before anyone else could. His obsession came close to bankrupting the empire as they tried to assemble a fleet capable of making the journey and in the ensuing political manoeuvring he was ousted from power. He was replaced by a Sunni Muslim radical who began hunting him down along with minority sects.
He believed that his only hope was to use the few ships he had built to escape the empire, and so he set off for the coast with only a handful of loyal followers at his side. Along the way he was sheltered by many Sufi Muslims who were also seeking to flee from the new radical regime. By the time he reached the harbour where the ships had been prepared he had an army of around ten thousand at his side, but the new Mansa had an even larger army in pursuit. The fleet was launched with as many people aboard as could fit while the remainder stayed behind to divert the pursuers.
The journey north was fraught with dangers and almost a third of the refugees died before reaching their goal. Finally, the fleet limped into the Bristol Channel in late 1398. After abandoning the barely held together ships the refugees came ashore. It is said that Sandaki Mari Djata himself managed to make it ashore and speak “an empty land for my people” before passing away from a disease he had picked up on the journey.
In his honour the new nation that the survivors established was named the Djata Kurufa. They quickly moved in and seized a few empty English villages in the area around Gloucester to feed themselves and settled down. Nearly twenty years passed as they slowly built up and began to forcibly integrate the few scattered inhabitants of the region into their culture. They were surprised when they started to get immigrants coming in, mostly Muslims of minor sects from North Africa who were also looking to escape repressive regimes. With these newcomers getting integrated and the population growing rapidly they started to expand into Wales and England. By the time they were contacted by the Inuit in the 1470s they were the premier power on the British Isles.
Go with the Floe: An Inuit Dark Continent AAR
Chapter Five
The Shawnee continued their aggressive expansion by turning on their allies in the south. This brought the Inuit against a coalition of tribes including the Anishinaabe, thwarting the council’s attempts at integrating them peacefully.
The roar of battle rang out across the fields as the Inuit charged.
“Volley!” cried out the voice of the young Chieftain Nakasuk, currently in command of the Abitbi Warband.
Heeding his call, the archer teams took aim and sent a deadly sheet of wood over the wall to smother any resistance. Under this cover the remainder of his forces moved in with ladders in hand to scale the walls and take this Anishinaabe fort. The defenders threw what they could at those below, but anyone who tried to look over the stockade was swiftly brought down by a well-placed arrow and so their attempts usually missed their mark.
“It’s quite disturbing isn’t it,” one of Nakasuk’s subordinates said as he stood next to his chieftain. Even from their position far from the wall the screams of the dying could be heard
“But it’s necessary,” Nakasuk said with a blank face, “war is always like this. I’ve been reading a lot of copies of the books from Europe. There they had castles far more deadly to assault than this collection of sticks. And yet they did so anyway, when it was necessary.”
“These used to be our people though,” the subordinate said. He knew that the chieftain was too young to remember a time when the Anishinaabe tribes had been united, but he was old enough to have been around before the Abitbi tribe had been absorbed by the Inuit.
Another roar came from the troops. The first men had reached the top of the wall and were launching themselves over with spears raised. Many would die before landing a single blow, as the enemy was no doubt prepared to meet the scaling soldiers, but still they went over with the hope that they would be the one to break the line of spears waiting for them and allow the rest of their comrades to enter safely.
“I know,” Nakasuk said as the beginnings of a frown formed. There was nothing he could do though, he was just one chieftain of many in this campaign and the council had forbidden any peace dealings with minor members of the enemy war effort, which meant no way to deal with the Anishinaabe except by violence.
“Then what should we do?” the subordinate asked.
“We have thrown our lot in with the Inuit, so I need to make them stronger. Once the Inuit nation is powerful enough then there will be no more need to keep the Shawnee placated. I just hope that the expedition we sent to Europe returns successfully.”
Suddenly a crash resounded from the battlefield and a cloud of dust burst out from the wall. Part of the stockade began to topple to the ground and a large hole was left exposed in the defences. The men had managed to secure a foothold and take down part of the stockade from the inside. Nakasuk raised his spear and caught the attention of the rest of his spearmen.
“Ready!” It was necessary. “Enter on my command!” If he held back, the Shawnee would be angry that the war effort was weakened, and the council would be angry that he worsened relations with them. “Take no prisoners!” Was it necessary? “Kill all who hold a weapon!” Perhaps not entirely necessary.
The troops’ shouts echoed across the battlefield and they began to storm forward into the gap in the walls. Nakasuk was not sure if the men would entirely follow his final, adjusted order and spare the non-combatants, but it soothed his conscience a little. Fighting in such a pointless war, such a thing would not happen if he had power over the council.
“Let’s go, Chieftain,” his subordinate said. Nakasuk noticed he’d been stood with his spear raised for a while now, just watching the unfolding battle inside the walls.
“Of course,” he said with a sigh as he ran forward to deliver his commands closer to the front. Right now fighting this battle was what was necessary, not thinking of the future.
By annexing the Creek, the Shawnee made themselves the most powerful nation in the south. Rumours were spreading that the Shawnee High Chieftain was pulling more and more power onto himself in an effort to centralise the nation so that it might match up to the Aztec Empire.
The explorer Ouibignaro returned with his expedition and good news. He had mapped out the north-western regions of Europe and contacted many nations, including Skandistan, Al-Alemand and Faransa.
He had returned from a surprising direction. As he travelled around Iberia supplies were getting low so he risked an ocean crossing back to Inuit land, and along the way he discovered usefully placed islands. Included in his report was the recommendation to establish a supply base there.
As Ouibignaro descended the steps from his ship he took note of the finely dressed young man awaiting him where the docks met the city. He seemed to be leaning on a wooden post and barely able to stay standing. Although the lack of full entourage worried him, he did know that he had returned from an unexpected direction so the spotters might not have sighted him early enough. With a shrug he continued down the dock with his hands full of parchment.
“Chieftain of Abitbi, is that you? It’s been so long!” Ouibignaro said cheerfully as he approached. When he left, Nakasuk had just been a boy who’d only just risen to lead his tribe.
“Captain, welcome back,” Nakasuk said. As Ouibignaro approached he could see the chieftain was breathing heavily.
“Are you okay Chieftain?” Ouibignaro asked.
“Sorry for my state,” said Nakasuk, “but I had to rush across the city to get here when news came of your return. I’m afraid the other members of the council who are in Innu right now are too busy to come and see your return.”
“Well that’s a disappointment. I have so many maps to show them,” Ouibignaro said with a frown. He hefted the armfuls of documents in indication.
“Shall we go and take a look at them somewhere else, it is fairly cold out here today,” Nakasuk said. He took a deep breath then stood up straight to lead the explorer away.
As they left, the chieftain looked behind him and spotted a small group of men heading up towards the docks. They hadn’t noticed the two of them standing besides some buildings, so it was working out smoothly for now. He’d have questions to answer later, but right now getting his hands on the maps first was essential. Ouibignaro did not notice the group of men, who were now looking around the docked ship in confusion, as he followed Nakasuk into the city.
In a minor government office Ouibignaro spread the largest of his maps across the table, displaying the nations he had encountered in north-west Europe.
“This is troubling,” Nakasuk said, “I did not expect Europe to be so populated already.”
He pointed at the mainland where large areas were marked with the names of the states of Faransa and Al-Alemand.
“I suspect that the tales they gave me of the size of their nations were exaggerated,” Ouibignaro explained, “but nonetheless they do exist.”
“Who are they?” asked Nakasuk, “the languages you said they speak, they are not like any European languages that we have records of.”
“There are some similarities, at least according to my linguist,” said the explorer. He pulled out a Faransi map and indicated the writing. There were some segments of it that even Nakasuk could recognise as derived from French, even though the rest of it seemed unintelligible.
“It looks like they’ve been adopting parts of the culture of the areas they’ve colonised,” Nakasuk said as looked over the map. There was more too it though, as parts of the map had different coloured crescents marked out on them. “What does this mean?”
“Well, the only people we met who completely ascribed to the Christianity we have read about are the Scots. All of these newcomers follow some form of Islam. The continental ones call themselves Kharijites, while the Djata Kurufa is Sufi and Skandistan is Shiite. Those all appear to be different sects of the religion called ‘Islam’,” Ouibignaro said.
“I think I read about that. The Europeans called it a distant heresy though. Could those heretics have survived the Ashen Death and moved in to claim the empty land?” Nakasuk wondered aloud. The situation was not nearly as simple as he or his predecessors had hoped.
“It seems so. Also, there was one interesting point,” said Ouibignaro as he pointed at Faransa, “these people have an interesting political system they call a ‘republic’. It’s sort of like how the High Chieftain is elected, but more of the ruling class is allowed to vote and the ruler is only kept for a set term instead of until death.”
“How strange,” said Nakasuk as he stared at the map. That did not seem like a stable way to run a country.
The Shawnee continued their campaigns in the north with another war against the Huron, who had conquered stretches of Anishinaabe territory in the interim. Nakasuk seized control of the army and marched into Huron territory personally. He had no intention of leaving without gains.
He returned with the lands of the Sault subjugated, finally linking the Inuit directly with their Menominee subjects.
This victory propelled Nakasuk incredibly high in the eyes of his fellow Chieftains, and so in 1483 he was elected as the new High Chieftain almost unanimously.
However, at almost the same time news came from Shawnee of an upheaval. The situation was still very confused, but the note severing the alliance with the Inuit mentioned “backwards tribal fools”. (2)
“And so, by the blessing of the spirits and the word of this council, you are now High Chieftain of the Inuit Tribes.”
The elder slammed his staff into the ground and applause broke out from Nakasuk’s supporters. The man himself stood at the head of the table and smiled slightly at the other chieftains. It had been fairly easy to get to this point. More and more these men had been spending time in Innu running the increasingly complicated society that was developing, so all it took was a little bit of hands on work with the troops to get the support he needed.
“What is your first decree, High Chieftain?” the elder asked.
“My first decree?” Nakasuk repeated. He raised his hand with his thumb pressed against his fingers. “My first decree is to order the immediate dissolution of this council as a political body, permanently.”
Immediately the rest of the council went into uproar as all yelled out in confused anger at the sudden development. How could Nakasuk disband the Council when it had help run the Inuit nation for centuries? What was he planning on doing for the succession? How would the loyalty of the tribes be kept?
“From this day forward the succession of the High Chieftain will be chosen not by you, but by the ruler himself!” Nakasuk said.
This was the final straw for many of the men at the table.
“You Cree scum!” cried out the Chieftain of Labrador, one of the most sceptical of his ascendance in the first place. He leapt onto the table and drew an axe he had hidden on his person.
Just as he was about to make a charge for the defenceless Nakasuk, the High Chieftain finally snapped his fingers. The loud crack echoed through the hall, and almost immediately the doors burst open and in poured countless warriors. The Labrador Chieftain had no choice but to lower his axe as countless spears were aimed directly at his heart.
“You are all behind the times,” Nakasuk said bluntly, “the tribes are more and more united. In the past you might have been able to go home and assemble an army, but now the warriors answer to me alone. I have been the one leading them in recent campaigns as they have been fighting alongside and developing bonds with their brothers from other tribes.”
The soldiers all nodded in agreement. They had seen their own chieftains sitting safely in Innu while Nakasuk made sure they were properly fed and drilled. The last campaign had cemented their opinion of him and their desire for even greater unity of the nation. They continued to display their assent as the High Chieftain continued to speak.
“We are divided tribes no longer. We are united. I hereby declare the end of the Inuit Tribes, and the official foundation of the Kingdom of the Inuit!”
With the dissolution of the council, all power was placed in the High Chieftain. Nakasuk officially changed the title to King, styling himself after the European monarchs he had read about. (3)
One of his first orders was to send men out into the neutral tribes along the coast and bring them into his Kingdom by any means.
The Inuit settlers brought their culture with them, even going so far as to rename places in their own language. (4)
The small wooden boat drifted slowly into the harbour as its crew carefully watched the amassing group of onlookers on the shore. Some of the men had already been ashore once to negotiate with the locals, but they were still unsure of exactly how well they had gotten their intentions across.
“What language was that?” Ouibignaro, now designated emissary to Europe, asked of his linguist who had been one of the first ashore.
“At the fundamental level it sounds like Latin of some kind, but there’s a definite twist that I cannot place,” the linguist said. This time he had brought with him a whole host of copied Latin texts to gain some kind of common ground with the land’s inhabitants.
“Keep at it, I want you to understand as much of what they say as possible when we land,” Ouibignaro said.
This would be the first proper diplomatic exchange, as opposed to stilted introductions, between Eurasia and the western lands, and he did not want anything to get in the way of the momentous occasion. He was also concerned by the apparent arrival of soldiers clad in gleaming metal to the landing site.
“Be careful everyone,” he said. He’d been in hostile contact situations before, so he knew exactly how quickly the situation could go badly.
The boat pulled up onto the sand close to the entrance of the large river. The crowd of onlookers had grown even larger to the point where the soldiers were all that was keeping them held back. It was a strange mixture of ethnicities with faces of many different colours present, although Ouibignaro had no idea which were which.
“Ave!” a voice shouted out from amongst the soldiers. Out stepped a swarthy man dressed in the finest purple cloth with a turban bearing a strange symbol of four stars upon.
“Ave,” the linguist said back as he stepped from the boat. The rest of the men stepped out and helped Ouibignaro.
“Salutem in pro Ruma Sultanı,” the man said with a smile.
“Welcome on behalf of the…er…Sultan of Rome,” the linguist translated. He was furiously going through his documents as words that he did not understand came up. He had heard the term ‘Sultan’ before, but not in this form.
“On behalf of Nakasuk I, ruler of the Kingdom of the Inuit, I thank you,” Ouibignaro said.
“Pro Nakasuk primum regnum Inuit rex, gratias tibi,” the linguist translated again. He was just going on pure Latin, so he hoped that the message got across.
For a few moments the man opposite them held a confused scowl on his face, before looking at the linguist and breaking into laughter. He moved over and held out his hand as if asking for one of the Latin book. The linguist obliged and allowed the man to look through them. After a few pages the man started speaking very quickly in the semi-Latin to the linguist, who seemed to be picking up the general idea and nodding. Ouibignaro just looked on, waiting for his subordinate to actually get back to his job.
“Oh, sorry sir,” the linguist said when he noticed the look the explorer was giving him. “I believe he said something along the lines of ‘these texts are from the Old Rome, we are the New Rome. We are Ruma.’”
“So does that help you?” Ouibignaro asked.
“A little. Apparently they speak Latin mixed with another language from the east, so if I could get my hands on a few texts from there...” the linguist trailed off as he saw some of the approaching soldiers carrying huge numbers of scrolls.
The man that had greeted them had a grin on his face as he said, “erit incipit müzakereler?”
Now that the nations would negotiate with the Inuit they were able to secure safe harbours all across Europe. Soon, the whole Mediterranean was mapped out and all of the new inhabitants of Europe knew of the visitors from the west.
To be continued…
(1) Technically, the neo-European nations start as Sunni or something else boring, but they get events which allow them to become something more interesting (such as Muslim minor sects, Buddhism, Judaism or even Zoroastrianism depending on which nation it is). For story purposes, the Djata Kurufa was always Sufi, and the others were all their new religion as well.
(2) They severed because non-tribals don’t like allying with tribals.
(3) These events bring all remaining tribals across the world to settled status. However, the events are fired at random so if you have tribes on your border it can cause an issue, which is why I tried to avoid a direct border with the Shawnee. In this case, because the Huron have a truce with us and the Menominee are vassals only the Anishinaabe have been a problem.
(4) Sadly this is the only Colony Name Change Mod (which is integrated into Miscmods) event that will fire for Inuit, and it’s a universal event rather than for Inuit specifically.