Yajawil of Barriset
Yajawil of Barriset B'aatz Yajawil | |||||||||
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| 1661–19th century | |||||||||
 Flag
 Glyph-emblem
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| Capital | Barriset City | ||||||||
| Religion | White Path Azdarin | ||||||||
| Government | Dukedom | ||||||||
| B'atz Yajaw | |||||||||
| Legislature | K'ak Holpop | ||||||||
| Historical era | Mutulese Ochran | ||||||||
• Established | 1661 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 19th century | ||||||||
| Currency | Baat | ||||||||
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The Yajawil of Barriset, also known as Mutulese Barriset, B'aatz, or B'aatz Yajawil, was a Mutulese province including the entirety of Barriset Island, in the Ozeros Sea. It was formed after the fall of the Iifae Caliphate of Barriset to oppose the Second Iifae Holy War for Barriset and protect the Mutuleses interests in the region. It was directly placed under the K'uhul Ajaw authority, with the B'atz Yajaw serving as his representative and governor of the island.
History
First Mutuleses Establishments
First Holy War and Caliphate
Second Holy War
Population in the Mutuleses Concessions grew quickly after the establishment of the Caliphate. Oxidentaleses remained a rare sight, but many Barrisetis emigrated to find work as dockers, shop-owners, or sailors. To ease relations with the Mutuleses, many of the wealthier traders who had regular contact with them converted to the White Path, alongside most of the inhabitants of the Concessions. This is when the first sizeable K'uh Nahs were erected.
Religious tensions between the Iifae and the White Pilgrims started to emerge during this period, leading to criticism toward the Caliphate for leaving too much freedom to the Nuk Nahob. In 1649, the Caliph made some attempt to limit the growth of the White Path, such as making |Iifae the only religion openly practicable outside of the Concessions, with the flux of people in and out of these districts being now closely monitored by the Caliph. This sparkled an outrage from the Mutuleses traders who raised the number of Tulotairi militias and warships present in Barriset as a form of protest, alongside diplomatic lobbying to get the decrees redacted. By the end of the year, the Caliph had been forced to back down, abandon the controls at the Concessions' gates, and proclaim religious freedom all over the island.
After the failure of the caliphate to reign in the Mutuleses, parts of the Iifae clergy started to radicalize, openly calling for the departure of the Oxidentaleses, the crushing of "Those who turned away from Mesfin", and even for the overthrow of the Caliph who had been incapable of enforcing Yen laws. Despite heavy repressions, these imam-priests ended up annointing a "new" tribal lord as Caliph who began a new Holy War against the Betrayers and the Infidels.
The second Tabanaa started in 1656 with the siege of the Concessions and the assault on the Caliph's palace. Deathtoll numbered in the thousands after a week of violence, but ultimately the radicals were driven off the cities by the Tulotairi and the remnants of the First Caliph's troops. The rest of the Holy War was a long campaign of guerilla and counter-insurgency, culminating with the capture and sacrifice of the Insurgent Caliph and of most of his clergy in 1661, even if remnants of the Second Caliphate would continue the fight for many more years.
While the Nuk Nahob present in Barriset had organized themselves into Kuchkabal, they ended up electing to call for the Divine Throne to send judges, lawyers, and administrators to the island to takeover the task of pacifying Barriset, managing the island, and driving off the Iifae insurgents. In 1660, the K'uhul Ajaw proclaimed the constitution of Barriset as a Yajawil. The new B'aatz Yajaw and his administration reached the island, officializing direct Mutulese control over it.
Economy
Culture
Slavery
With the establishment of the Yajawil, the Mutuleses started to enforce their own set of laws. One of such was the Code of Slavery which gave a limited ammount of rights to slaves and a number of duties to owners. Notably, the slaves were free to marry without needing their master's consent, if they were followers of the White Path. Otherwise, they were considered "war captives" and thus subjected to harsher laws. In either cases, slavery was no longer transmissible to one's descendance under the Mutulese system. A slave who could speak either Mutli or Tewanya, the two litturgic languages in use in the Yajawil, couldn't be sold without his consent and he could have a say in his transaction.
The new system also included a number of ways allowing for a slave to regain his freedom. One was if a slave managed to find refuge in a K'uh Nah, he would be allowed to present his case before a judge. If his request was granted, he would be washed, given new clothes not owned by his ex-master, and declared free. Any person not related to a slave's master could be enslaved for trying to prevent a slave's escape. However, a slave who failed to escape three times would be declared "incorrigible" and made to wear at all time a large collar that made it almost impossible to run through crowds or narrow spaces. When buying a collared slave, one was informed of how many times that slave had been sold and why he was wearing the collar.
These new rules changed how the Barriseti Slave Market worked. Most Slave traders, who were mostly pirateers operating raids on the Tuluran coasts, were forced to abandon the profession and find new opportunities because of the cumbersomeness of the laws. But larger traders became moneylenders, gambling dens owners, and brokers. They would buy people with debts they could not repay otherwise, children of people who desesperately needed money, and aging courtesans and prostitutes who had fell from graces. Slave traders who had been unable to find a place in this new system either resorted to piracy, which meant they could be themselves captured and sold as "war prisoners", joined the Nuk Nahob marines as rowers, sailors, or guards, or even joined the Iifae Insurgency. Which often involved either more piracy, or migrating west to settle in the new Iifae Imamates. Most of the slave-traders that remained converted to the White Path to solidify their social status.
Religion
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When they discovered Barriset and the Tuluran coast, the Mutuleses were fascinated by Azdarin and Scholars and priests among the Nuk Nahob started to study this "new" religion. They notably built parallel with their own practices, and they understood Azdarin to be a Cult of Chaak and of the Mamlabs. Notably, the Aj K'in Yaxja wrote that the Yens had "reached a profound understanding of the nature of the Cycles, and comprehend the unity that exist between the Rain, the Rivers, and the Ocean. They are a people entirely dedicated to the cult of Water under all its aspects, but mainly under the traits of Mesfin, whom seem to have been the human incarnation of Chaak and a great ruler of his people, which mean there was at one point two K'uhul Ajaw on this World. However, it seems that his bloodline has dried out with the ages, alongside his empire. They scatter many liquids in honor of Mesfin-Chaak, except for blood.
Despite this profound relationship with Chaak, it seems that the Yen stray away from the Truth in that they mistakingly consider Chaak to be a Monad. They don't consider that any other god exist and that there's no god above him. In that, they're not too dissimilar from the worshippers of Ox Kakix to their north and it is my fear that this proximity has led to many mistakes that have blurred their understanding of the Divine."
This view on Azdarin and the convertions of many slaves, workers, and traders to the White Path has led to the development of a very local understanding of Sak B'e. Chroniclers of the period resume that the White Pilgrims of Barriset carried over many Yen practices. Mesfin notably, continued to be worshipped with the title of Och'Chaak or Western Chaak. Amsalech the Seeress is also the object of a minor cult, parallel to that of Ez the Dwarf-Magician. Similarily they fused the Azdarin practices of Libations with the White Path's bloodletting.
Tensions were high between the Iifae and the White Pilgrims, the two principal denominations of the island. For each of them there was a state-sanctioned clergy, one ruled by the Imam-Priest of Naabri while the Ajaw K'in Mah (High-Priest) served as the spiritual guide of the White Path community and traditionaly also held the role of Chancellor of the B'atz Yajaw. A third denomination, called the "Insurrectionists" by the Mutuleses authority, were Iifae secret societies who aimed to re-establish a Caliphate over Barriset. The "Clergy of Naabri" often came into conflict with the Insurectionists and were often the target of their wrath. As a result people suspected of "following false preachers" or of "banditry" were publicly sacrificed or forced to flee the island once found out. The failure of the Second Holy War was thus followed by an important wave of emmigration, made of Iifae who fled the Mutulese repression of the Insurection. These migrants would then settle on the Tuluran coastline, where they would be forced into banditry or piratery, often continuing their opposition to the Mutulese regime even if pursued by both the Tulotairi and the Sahb Warlords of the continent. Some communities managed to migrate deeper inland, where they established short-lived Imamates.