Traveller Manifesto
26. Mississippi - 11th Century

Mississippi – 11th Century.

As they had anticipated, Vohkinne turned out to be some kind of medicine man or priest. It was difficult to be certain as to his role, for sign language was insufficient for their full understanding. He stood impressively, his face painted white with black around his eyes and in lines down his face that gave him an air of mystery that was nothing like the good-natured man with whom they had conversed the day before.

The people, even the elite, viewed him with a mixture of awe and terror.

Upon the top of a smaller mound, he stood with Maska, the great chief who wore an ornate, crystal inlaid gold helmet rimmed with eagle feathers that, Professor Hughes surmised, must have been imported from one of the Mesoamerican nations to the south. He loomed, pale, beardless and incongruous in the midst of his dark-skinned people.

Either side of them reared imposing totems of the snake and the bird. There had been some discussion on the possible meaning of the carvings, for the images collected by the UAVs and the footage analysed by the scientific team showed the design to be common throughout the budding city. The stylised motifs adorned the tall, cedar poles in the wood henge and decorated the top of the buildings on each of the mounds. Though not the dominant mound that they knew as Monks Mound, with the timber temple, the mound upon which the leaders of the people stood was still an awesome sight. The academics had concluded that the people worshipped a birdman cult, though the presence of the snake implied another link to the nations of the south who were known to worship Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent God.

Before the team departed from their base camp, Professor Hughes again urged caution. “We have to be careful,” he stressed. “If they shower us with beautiful women again, we must not accept or even show ourselves to be attracted. They might be looking for anything, like signs of divinity or the lack thereof, of our pleasure or displeasure. We just don’t know! But we have to be cool about this or we might accidentally cause problems, conflict, or offense. We have to be on our best behaviour.” He had looked at the soldiers, urging them to understand. “Yesterday there were comments and some joking. Not today. Understand?”

Leishman looked to his men coolly. They understood.

So they sat, as they had the previous day, though their arrival was met with a more sombre, solemn tone. They were welcomed with dignity and then led to the mats where they could witness what was likely to be celebratory events to take place on top of the mound. For a ceremony was materialising. The people knelt and sang in a chant that rang to the heavens and made the heart beat faster. The sun shining in the cobalt sky made for a perfect day for the UAVs and miniature drones that were to thoroughly record the occasion. Each of the Travellers sat ready, their weapons rested beside them. Helmets had been removed, but all personal cameras and communications remained in place.

Never before had any Traveller mission been so well recorded and documented. Leishman understood the images and footage would be clearer and from more angles than the Battle of Giolgrave, New Zealand, and Constantinople combined. Professor Cowen assured them that the American public eagerly awaited the footage of their mission, a mission that was to leave no Travellers or locals dead, yet would spectacularly expand their knowledge of the peoples who inhabited the Mississippi a thousand years in their past.

To Leishman, Saxon Traveller had been so ad hoc, so on the edge. It felt like another life.

As the singing swelled, a line of young women slowly ascended the stairs that had been carved into the pyramid-like hill. They were the same young women who had sought to entertain the men the previous day and they looked resplendent in painted skirts, sandals, and necklaces of semi-precious stones and shells. Their black hair had been carefully combed and woven with flowers and they wore no tops, so the oil applied to their torsos and youthful breasts shone in the sunlight.

The prettiest girl, the one who had been the object of the comments from the soldiers the previous day, stepped forward. She did so slowly in an almost trancelike state and stood by Vohkinne as the other girls fell to their knees. Two warriors promptly stepped forward and tied chords to her wrists and the other end to the totems, so she stood spreadeagled between them.

The chanting increased and the other young girls joined in, their arms raised to the blue heavens.

“What’s this about?” asked Leishman, but Professor Hughes only frowned and raised his finger to urge silence. The Priest and the Chief watched their guests carefully.

One of the troops muttered, “Ooh yeah.”

Another commented, “Welcome to Dawson’s, any Saturday night.”

But a growl from Leishman quietened any further comments.

Vohkinne raised his hands and boomed out a chanted prayer that went on for minutes. His calls sounded like a litany and his lungs expanded when he took a deep breath to help him conclude each set of prayers without taking any additional breath. He then stooped to pick up a bow and arrows. Holding them he danced around the top of the mound with high steps and jumps as Chief Maska stood still, his head and hands lifted to implore the heavens. Drums were thumped to a beat that made hearts race while bone flutes joined the cacophony. “It seems they’re worked up into a sort of trance,” murmured Professor Hughes. His commentary not only for the soldiers, but recorded for on-the-spot interpretation. “They’re saying something I can’t fathom, but Vohkinne has said Amadahy a few times. Now, if I understand correctly, Amadahy is something to do with the Goddess of forest and water. Quetzalcoatl is a God we know a little about. He is the Aztec feathered serpent God is an amalgam of the snake and the bird visible on the totems here. I believe he is the God of creation. They are calling him something different. But there’s something about Amadahy, who seems to be a lover or wife or something, I just can’t get it.”

They continued to watch the dancing. Vohkinne had worked himself into a lather of sweat. His teased hair bobbed and the pain etched onto his heavily painted face made him seem otherworldly.

Professor Cowen frowned and whispered, “Am I correct in recalling that to name a woman as a Goddess in a ceremony may indicate that she is no longer human and is indeed that God or Goddess and …” He stopped. There was a sharp intake of breath and Professor Cowen and Professor Hughes looked up to the young girl just as the first arrow penetrated her thigh with a solid thump.

From where he sat, with the angle and the trajectory, Leishman was certain the flint arrowhead penetrated the thigh-bone. For an arrow to penetrate the thigh bone, in this place, meant death.

The young girl gave a gasp, but her meditative, probably drug-induced state prevented her from screaming. She gave a small moan of despair and her oiled chest expanded as she took a deep breath. Head dropped backward for a moment before she raised it again.

“What the fuck!” grunted one of the soldiers.

“No way,” growled another as there was a whisper and grumble of shock and anger.

“Sit and be still!” Leishman ordered quietly.

“Team, this is going to be a ceremony the likes of which we warned you about,” Professor Hughes explained hurriedly. He sounded breathless with shock. “Please. You must remain utterly expressionless and still!”

A second arrow was fired and the chanting picked up pace. The locals looked to the mound and swayed in a mixture of terror and religious ecstasy.

The young girl, she must have been only fourteen, was flung backward as the second arrow hit her in the right chest, above her breast and close to her shoulder. They were purposely not killing shots. She hung, supported.

“Fuck this!” growled another of the soldiers.

“Be still! Freeze like you see this every day!” ordered Leishman quietly. “Any man who breaks will have me to deal with! I won’t say it again!”

So they sat, and they watched.