Ilok'tab Dynasty

6th Dynasty Ilok'tab Nimja They Emerged from the Great House
Royal House
Glyph-Emblem of the Ilok'tab
Country	Mutul
Founded	AD 1205
Founder	Jasaw Chan K'awill III
Current head	Jasaw Chan K'awiil V
Titles	K'uhul Ajaw

The Ilok'tab make up a princely dynasty of K'iche origin who became the ruling dynasty of the Mutul in 1202 CE. through the election of Tekun Uman to the throne. His descendent still rule over the Divine Kingdom in a line that is proudly claimed to be "unbroken" even though some historians consider the direct line died with the murder of Wahlam B'alam VI in 1820. The current Patriarch of the Dynasty and Divine Lord of the Mutul is Jasaw Chan K'awiil V who has been on the throne since 1991.

In the official historiography of the Mutul, They are counted as the 6th legitimate Dynasty that ruled uncontested over all of the Mutul, after the Paol'lunyu, Chaan, K'uy, Nimabal K'iche, and Tamub dynasties. It is also generally counted as the third and last of the K'iche Dynasties.

The Ilok'tab first appeared in history as one of the three most important lineages of the K'iche Kingdom, alongside the Nimabal K'iche (not to be mistaken with the ethnies itself) and the Tamub. Their first call to fame was their involvement in the conquest of the Chujuyop Valley in southern Mutul somewhere during the 7th century that led to the establishment of the K'umakah Kingdom. They would remain a major dynasty of military officers and warriors for the kingdom, with some of their members gaining important administrative and religious positions through the course of their services to the always-expanding state.

Origins

It is difficult to trace back the origins of the Ilok'tab before the foundation of K'umakah. While Chaan-speaking populations had seemingly inhabited the Chujuyop Valley since the first millenium BC, the direct ancestors of the Ilok'tab themselves and of other aristocratic lineages seemingly only arrived in the area during the 7th century. Among these invaders, the Nimabal K'iche, Tamub, Ilok'tab, Sotz'il, Xahil, Tukuche, and Raxonihay would create together a first kingdom on the site of the modern Sak K'ak Witz. At some point, the latter four would secede from the other and found Iximt'e while the former three would also leave their first capital and settle in the new city of K'umakah sometime during the 8th century CE.

The name of the tribe formed by all these lineages is unclear, and their origins are shrouded in mystery. Local legends and a stelae unearthed near Sak K'ik Witz in 1954 talk of the K'ayes Yaqw'ib which would've been the leading lineage at the time of the invasion. However, by the time of the foundation of K'umakah, there is no more mentions of the K'ayes Yaqw'ib and no modern Noble House in the Mutul claim to be their descendents.

The royal historiography present these clans as descendents of Tatinak-Chaan lineages who migrated southward to flee the troubles of the Maize Bread Rebellion. However, historians outside of the Mutul have noted disrepancies inside this story. Notably, the complete lack of contemporary K'uy documents or monuments mentioning the foundation of new kingdoms by nobles from their own state. Similarily that teh K'uy Dynasty, once they had restored their authority, wouldn't attempt to exerce their hegemony over these runaways houses seems inplausible. The same historians have put forward a theory linking the original clans to the Maize Bread Rebels themselves. After the rebellion was crushed, they hypothesized groups of insurectionists turned to banditry and then fled outside of the Divine Kingdom to avoid repression. However, this theory is also hotly debated and lack strong evidences.

Ilok'tab Sakkab'

During the late 9th century, the K'iche reconquered the city of Iximt'e that had been founded by the Kakchikel secessionists. The reunion of the Kakchikel and K'iche would be the start of a long serie of victorious campaigns for Kumakah that conquered one by one the other states created by the "foreigners" of the previous century. Ultimately, the entirety of the Highlands and Lowlands were united under the K'iche Ajpop banner by the beginning of the 11th century. Now no longer threatened on their eastern flank, The k'iche were free to turn their attention back to their western rival, the Mam Kingdom. After a decade-long conflict, the K'iche finally took Sakulew, the capital of the Mam and their last bastion left standing, in 1018.

When the K'iche' conquered another kingdom, its practice was to place the newly subject kingdom under the control of one of the K'iche' noble lineages. It's Achik' Nim Banik of the Ilok'tab who would be chosen by the K'iche Ajpop to serve as the new ruler of Sakulew. Patriarch of the Ilok'tab, Achik' Nim Banik was already one of the Four Generals of Numakah and governor of Mukwitz. When he died, the K'iche king divided his duties between his two sons : Ban Kache, the elder, inherited Mukwitz while the younger Nim Chamiy was made Governor of Sakulew.

In 1030, a violent uprising against the K'iche King began. Ban Kache, Patriarch of the Ilok'tab, was one of the rebels leaders but his brother remained loyal to the king. After the loyalists' victories Nim Chamiy was recognized patriarch of the Ilok'tab and made High Marshal of the kingdom as a reward for his vital support. The governorship of Mukwitz, however, was granted to a different lineage and from there on, the Ilok'tab base of power would be in the Mam territories which they ruled more and more like their own private kingdom.

The 8th of May 1094, K'ak Chamiy, the son and successor of Nim Chamiy, was present at the corronation of K'ukumatz as K'uhul Ajaw. He and his children inherited many titles and positions at the new court of the Nimabal K'iche Dynasty. However, the Dynasty was short-lived : K'ukumatz died in 1099 during a battle against the K'oja People who had rebelled against the K'iche. The revolt was put down by his son, K'ikab. But in 1109, ten years after his crowning, two of K'ikab sons and their vassals rebelled against their father. This first rebellion ended in a defeat of the royalists and a strengthening of the aristocratic lineages and a re-negociation of K'ikab inheritance. But the death of his first son, Waxak, before he could inherit the throne, pushed the two rebel brothers and their respective partisans into a fraticidal war for the throne. K'ikab, then terribly ill and dying, agreed to follow his non-K'iche courtesans' advises and summon a large noble council, in which Xiu Tzik'in, the new Patriarch of the Ilok'tab, King of the Mam, and Marshal of the East, participated. The Council decided, following the previous dynasties' customs but against K'iche's traditions, to elect Tziawilix the K'uhul Ajaw's daughter as K'uhul Ajaw. In the ensuing succession crisis, Xiu Tzik'in was instrumental in the defeat of the two brothers and the re-conquest of K'umakah. After K'ikab's death in 1114, Tziawilix succeeded him in a purely legal manner as she was the sole survivor of her siblings. Her own son, Oxib Keh, would inherit her position in 1142 but since the K'iche are a patrilineal people, he is considered to be the founder of the Tamub Dynasty.

During the Tamub Dynasty, the Ilok'tab continued to enjoy great prestige : they cumulated a great number of titles and courtly positions. Xiu Tzik'in's elder son, k'ak Kantun, was notably King of the Mam and Marshal of the East, while his brother was King of Oxwitik. Their sons all served under one another as lords of various cities and districts, or commanders of fortresses.

In 1198 the Tamub K'uhul Ajaw B'ah Chich, was only seven years old and showed signs of mental deficiencies. As a result, a council of regents was formed. Tekun Uman, Patriarch of the Ilok'tab, was one of the regents elected by the noble council, but through political manoeuvering and court intrigue he managed to sideline all the other members of the councils. In 1202, B'ach Chich died after a rapid degradation of his health. The same year, Tekun Uman, who was the uncle of B'ah Chich and thus had the "Blood of Chaakh", was elected by the noble council as the new Divine Lord. Breaking away with some K'iche traditions, he renewed with the custom of regnal names, being crowned as Jasaw Chan K'awiil III.

Ilok'tab Ajawlel

The First Divine Lords

Jasaw Chan K'awiil III, the first K'uhul Ajaw of the Ilok'tab Dynasty, was elected to the detriment of the other potential candidates of the Nimabal K'iche and Tamub Dynasty lineages. Inheriting a Mutul plagued by infighting and tensions between the Chan and K'iche clans, but also between the K'iche lineages themselves, he immediately began reinforcing the authority and prestige of the Divine Lordship, both to strengthen the still-divided Mutul and to put the legitimacy of his claim beyond doubt. His first action as a K'uhul Ajaw was to gamble everything in a war agains the Kayamuca Empire which was caught on a downward spiral since the previous century but was not yet harmless.

In 1203, a first campaign failed to take the Kayamucan colonies in the Xuman Peninsula despite greatly reducing their effective territory. Peace was negotiated at the price of an important tribute paid to the K'uhul Ajaw. War resumed in 1208 with the conquest of the Lakamja River Valley, greatly expanding the Mutul eastward. The conquest of the Lakamja was made possible by a bold plan where Jasaw Chan K'awiil III dammed and fortified the mouth of the river, preventing Kayamuca reinforcement from sailing upstream.

These conquests, the first unconquested victories the Mutul had over the Kayamuca Empire since the beginning of the tensions between the two powers, greatly strengthened Jasaw Chan K'awiil's position. To fully exploit this opportunity, the Divine Lord relied on his policy of preserving and favoring the Chan and local elites over the K'iche lineages. Propaganda did not present him as the legitimate inheritor of K'ukumatz, but as the true successor of the K'uy and, from there, of the Chaan Dynasty. For the first time, the Ilok'tab presented themselves as not a K'iche lineage, but as a Tatinako-Chan or even Yokot'an clan having migrated in the distant past to the southern mountains to establish a kingdom there. To create this image of a truly "Mutulese" dynasty, Jasaw Chan K'awiil III recruited many scribes and scholars of non-K'iche origins for his administration. They were considered to be more trustworthy than public officials from what had essentially become rival families, even if they continued to be dominant in the higher spheres of government. Similarily, through his patronage of the arts, Jasaw Chan K'awiil III helped create the "Neo-Classical" style which became so popular in the courts of the first Ilok'tab Ajawlel.

Jasaw Chan K'awiil's policies were continued by his son, Yaxk'in Chan K'awiil II, "Mutulizing" the K'iche while keeping their Great Houses at the top of the social ladder. Yaxk'in Chan K'awiil's policies were resumed by the slogan "Harmonize the Earth; Satisfy the Heavens" written over most of the steale and monuments erected during his rule. In fact, large-scale architectural projects are what made his rule memorable. He expanded the Causaways network, built new canals, and erected many temples. These projects, funded and carried out under the direct supervision of the Divine Throne, also helped reaffirming the proeminence of the Divine Lord over his vassal rulers and governors. Yaxk'in Chan K'awiil also carried out the first census of his dynasty.

The Crusades

A statue of Tecun Uman

See also: Belfrasian Crusade

The successor of Yaxk'in Chan K'awiil II did not carry on the tradition of taking a regal name and ruled under his avonym of Tecun Uman. Overshadowing the rest of his rule was his involvement in the Belfrasian Crusade, launching a large offensive to contest Norumbia from the Latin crusaders. The war ended with the official recognition by the two empires of each others spheres of influence, and the division of the moribund Kayamuca Empire between them. While Tecun Uman himself wanted to continue the war, the spread of a devastating epidemy forced the Mutuleses to withdraw from the northern continent. His war-like policies and the spread of the plague both ultimately left the Mutul financially and demographically weakened, but its international prestige and internal structure greatly benefited from these successive crisis.

It's only with Tecun Uman successor, Kayb'il B'alamb', that the Mutuleses were finally able to try and exert their influence over the territories recognized as "theirs" by the peace treaty of 1261. In 1282, he declared war against the Kayamuca Empire and in a serie of quick successive campaigns, pushed the eastern border of the Divine Kingdom close to its modern boundaries. However, in 1290, Leon Aegidius landed in the modern Yajawil of Kaniktun while the K'uhul Ajaw and his forces were already fighting the Kayamuca remnants. It's through the resistance of the local lords, who fought back the crusaders by raising militias and leading a campaign of harassment, skirmishes, and scorched earth while the Mutulese fleet successfuly cut the crusaders from the rest of the world. The victory of the local lords over the crusaders proved was perceived as a danger by the Divine Throne, resucitating the fear of petty kings and warlords' return.

Ilok'tab Xuman

Because of this double threat of both the Latin Empire and Vassal Lords, Tekun Uman II took the decision to move the capital away from Kumakah, too far south to effectively control the rest of the Divine Kingdom, to the new city of K'alak Muul. The move was associated with the division of the Yajawil Xuman into a multitude of smaller, more manageable, administrativ divisions, most of which have survived to this day.

Tekun Uman's rule was a time of revolutions. Beside settling in K'alak Muul, he also foresaw the invention of the Printing Press and directly led a large-scale effort to document every single myth and belief in the Divine Kingdom to merge them into a single religious histography. A coherent mythology and theology which the Divine Throne could then use to oppose the spread of Christianity by Latin missionaries. This lifelong project ultimately succeeded with the publication of the Bitzal Hun K'uhul Patzal, the first historical collection of Mutulese mythology, cosmology, and theology. The redaction of the Bitzk'uh is often considered by historians of religions to be the true birth certificate of the White Path.

Modern Ilok'tab

Ik'skull

The murder of Wahlam B'alam VI allowed his older sister, Lady Ik'skull, to become Ix K'uhul Ajaw in his stead. With the support of large parts of the administration, she tried to oppose the rise in power of the old aristocratic families. Her perpetual conflicts with the "Sajal Ch'ob" divided the society into two irreconciliable sides and grinded the Mutul to an alt, to the point it was unable to oppose correctly the rise of Tsurushima. It all cumulated eight years after her coronation when in a palace coup, she was murdered and thrown out of the balcony by the Yajaws of Oxwitik, Danguixh, and Chik'inchel. Following this assassination, the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale was proclaimed by the Sajal Ch'ob.

Balijaj Chan K'awiil

See also: Sajal War

See also: Itzamnaaj B'alam

Longest recorded ruling monarch of the Mutul (74 years), he was only six years old when his mother was murdered. He spent the first years of his rule under the regency of his father, Itzamnaaj B'alam who took the direction of the Loyalists faction after he had escaped from K'alak Muul with his son and found refuge in the eastern countries of the kingdom. It's through the effort of his father, his clan, his friends, their clients, and the correct exploitation of the growing insatisfaction of the commoners toward the Noble Republic, that Itzamnaaj was able to crown his son in K'alak Muul ten years later, following the proper rituals. The corronation of Balijaj Chan K'awiil is generally used to mark the end of the Sajal War, even though pockets of the NRNO would continue to exist for another four years.

The first years of Balijaj Chan K'awiil's rule from Kalak Muul were dominated by the figure of his father, who cummulated the charges of "Commander-in-Chief of the Mutulese Army" and of "First K'awiil" (Prime Minister). In 1844 were published the "First Written Laws of Chaak" (Mtl:Yax Tz’ibich Chaakal Chakun), which is still to this day the official constitution of the Mutul.

In 1848, Itzamnaaj B'alam died and his son was now free to rule by himself. He continued his parents' work of consolidating the central government powers, but also relied more and more on Estates General as a way to mend the fractures left by the Sajal War and to improve his image among both commoners and aristocrats. He nonetheless maintained careful control over the Estates, and made sure beforehand to finish the purges started by his father of all aristocrats they judged dangerous for the Divine Throne, expanding the budget and numbers of the intelligence services. It's during his personal rule that the Mutul started its industrial revolution, at first limited only to coastal cities, but then quickly expanded with the support of the K'uhul Ajaw who employed foreign experts to build railroads and telegraph lines to support and encourage the construction by the private sector of modern factories.

In 1891 because of growing concerns by the court around his old age and health, he sent his grand-daughter Lady Sak K'uk to negociate the independence of Benaajab and the return of the Vespanian Fleet. This acted Ix Sak K'uk as her grandfather's successor. A position further strengthened through court intrigues against other possible claimants.

He died in 1902 in the middle of rising tensions between the Mutul and Belfras.

Jasaw Chan K'awiil V

Main article: Jasaw Chan K'awiil V

Finances

There is no distinction in the Mutul between Crown Estates and Royal properties, but possessions of other members of the Ilok'tab lineage are not considered part of the "Royal holdings". As such, Personal properties of the Divine Queen, the Princes and their consorts are still taxable. "State properties" are also considered to be personal properties of the K'uhul Ajaw. In total, it's around 14,4 millions of square kilometers that were personally owned by the Divine Lord in 1992, when Jasaw Chan K'awiil V rose to the throne. It comprises all governmental buildings, various palaces complexes, temples, forests, and various other residential and commercial properties.

Because of this like of distinction between the public and private spheres, merged in the personality of the K'uhul Ajaw, it is extremely difficult to estimate the net worth of the Ilok'tab Dynasty. It is known that, when he was only the Crown Prince, Jasaw Chan K'awiil V's personal fortune was estimated at around 500 millions solidus and his son, Janab Pakal, owned 660 millions solidus worth of properties, financial assets, and other miscelaneous investments in 2018. The total net worth of all the members of the Ilok't'ab Dynasty's main lineage, excluding the K'uhul Ajaw, in 2012 has been estimated at around 8.5 billions of solidus.