The February sun shone down from the zenith, and five great ships of the kingdom, along with small boats from more than forty large tribes, had long since packed Iron Bay Town's harbor. All kinds of tribal goods were piled on the small boats, and countless chiefs and headmen gathered together, speaking Taino dialects in different accents. From the Ridge Tribe at Cuba's westernmost end, to the Coastal Tribe at Cuba's easternmost end, to the Xaymaca tribes of the southern great island of Xaymaca (Jamaica), and the Stone River and Great Gold tribes in the west of the eastern Great Island of Haiti...
This Main God festival, in which the Longship Tribe had invited every tribe to sacrifice the "White-Skinned Demons," had brought almost every major Taino tribe within more than two thousand li of the coast to send headmen and small boats, bringing goods for exchange! And it was precisely to wait for these chiefs to arrive that the day of the festival had been delayed again and again, until early February, when almost the vast majority of tribal envoys had finally gathered.
To the many Taino chiefs and headmen, such a large-scale festival, blessed by the sacred added weight of a fulfilled prophecy, was a grand gathering that might not happen even once in many years! Representatives of every great tribe had come here both to worship the gods together and satisfy their spiritual needs, and to trade the surplus products of their tribes and satisfy the needs of material life. Only those great tribes along Cuba's eastern coast, who had personally seen the demon fleet that raided and slaughtered and unleashed thunder, had come with a stronger need for tribal safety, urgently seeking the support and protection of the Longship Tribe warriors!...
"Ancestors! There really is a