On Bad Lands And Ruined Cities

A day's walk to the southeast of the Black Hills, rolling green prairie suddenly cuts open into a multicolored abyss of sand, rock, and scrub. It's easy to miss, even though The Waste goes on for miles and miles. The Waste hides in plain sight within the prairie. If your scouts come back to you after they find The Waste, keep them in your party. They are trustworthy and doing their job.

Many seek their fortunes here amid the rocks and ruins. Few return, as the hills, cliffs, and caves are extremely brittle. Sudden collapses are the norm. And there are other dangers.

At first sight, The Waste appears to be an unusual and very hostile land feature. Sometimes it is beautiful; at other times it is menacing and sinister. The Waste's coloration and appearance changes throughout the day, with different qualities of light and shifts in the weather.

Some tribes hunt here for game. You often see pronghorns on the cliffs, and there are rabbits, snakes, and other game - as well as stranger creatures - living mirages - that appear and strike from thin air.

But spend time looking at the cliffs, and you will see why strangers come here. The Waste is an ancient ruined city, blasted by the gods for some horrible sin committed in times long-past. The Waste may once have been one giant city, miles across, with walled cantons for different clans. Or perhaps the "city" was in fact a cluster of walled villages, temples, and citadels. Between the walled areas were carefully tended commons for hunting and gathering, as well as farm lands cultivated by specific walled village compounds or city precincts.

The pattern would have been:

walled compound - farm lands - wild commons - farm lands - walled compound

The Waste's original inhabitants may have been distant ancestors of the Xeno-Meso peoples in the far south. Clan-based city builders, mound builders, kiva, ball court, and temple builders. Players of games - from ball games to flower wars.

They sacrificed millions in their temples. Once you discover the Chopped Bones, the vast subterranean ossuaries where the bones of their sacrifices were dumped, you will see and believe.

Delvers from as far away as Xeno-Meso have discovered many treasures and horrors within and below the ruins. Subterranean tunnels and mazes extend for miles under the ruins, crumbling crawlways filled with death and wonder. There are gates here, too.

Photo copyright 2013 by John Everett Till.

It's All About The Attitude!

Photo copyright 2013 by John Everett Till

This is an example of the extraordinary ceramic art from the exhibit "Ceramica de los Ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed" the new exhibit at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The exhibit features the art of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

The Central American region, with the exception of Guatemala, is usually underrepresented or completely ignored in popular discussions of the archaeology and cultural history of the ancient New World. This is tragic, as the region had an incredible material culture, combining aspects of Mesoamerican Aztec and Mayan cultures with those of other groups such as the people of the Nicoya region.

The Aztecs and Mayans had cultural outposts in the zones south of Guatemala. But as far as we know, there weren't huge empires here, as in Central Mexico. The pattern was more one of villages with chieftains, known as caciques.

Unfortunately, the Museum did not have a catalog for the collection, so I can't tell you for sure what animal the creature above is meant to be represent. It looks like a badger, but I believe it is an agouti, a pretty common rodent of Central and South America, which is often represented in art of the Central American region.

But it sure has attitude.

This insouciant creature could have been a Mayan lord!

I'll be sharing more pictures from the exhibit, as the images are getting the creative juices flowing about the region south of The Forest of Kings in my Xeno-Meso setting!