"Your land, mountains and water..." Act 64, The Promise of Shaconage
An excerpt from an experimental serial novel published on the digital spaces, The Promise of Shaconage.
Yufala intensely surveyed the men surrounding the fire in the Yonega council house: his own council of elders, the white traders and the Tsalagi interpreter hired by the Yonega, a young man Yufala knew more by reputation than by friendship, Attakullakulla, who the Yonega called, Little Carpenter.
The white men perspired rivers from underneath their heavy clothing inside the sweltering, dimly-lit house. They clearly knew nothing of building a council house which included ventilation. Its walls were mud, the floor was dirt and the ceiling was dried oak, hemlock and pine branches and leaves.
The only opening was the door and the heat of the fire made the inside very warm, not unlike Yufala’s own sweat lodge. But not intentionally a sweat lodge.
The Yonega were clearly uncomfortable.
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“Your land, your mountains, your water are among the most beautiful on the face of the earth,” Captain Wills began, addressing Yufala and his council. “Your region is among the most fertile that can be found.
“From the banks for your rivers can be grown endless supplies of corn, polk, potatoes. The game in your mountains seem plentiful and robust. From your waters can be harvested an unfathomable supply of fish and mollusks.
“The King’s settlement far off in the land of Pensacola wants to begin our relationship in the proper way by offering manufactured goods from England - cloth, guns, European bread and seeds for new crops you can grow yourselves such as indigo, cotton, new and better kinds of corn and potatoes.
“All these offered to you to make your lives better.”
Yufala remained silent for quite a while after the Yonega leader finished his talk. No one else spoke.?
“Our people tried trading with Yonega once before, many seasons ago,” he said after some time. “The trade was not satisfactory. The Yonega of that time were only interested in gem stones, in wealth as you see it. They seemed to think our people hold some great secret store of gems and metals. They were very greedy people.”