Angel City
Eastern American legends tell of a tribe
who founded a golden city in the far west, led by their divine foremother Eve
Angelica. The Royal Treasurer asked us to determine if her city existed, and if
so, to locate the gold these ancient people amassed and sequester it for our
Queen.
For our trek, I assembled a team of
five women; a geologist, a botanist, two ethnologists who had lived with a remaining
eastern tribe, and an interpreter, Skilar, who was brought up in an east coast
village. She could read several hundred written word-glyphs as well as speak latter-day
Inglish fluently.
The first westerners we met, living
outside the ruins of Angel City, call themselves the Lost Feelies. They do not
know of Eve. They say their founders were white men and women from the east who
all arrived together on iron horses. They call these ancients the “Rubber
Barons,” and say they built Angel City in one hundred years. The Lost Feelies
told us that the tribe now dwelling in the inner city are not related to them,
arriving long after the city was built.
When asked why their people
abandoned the city, the Lost Feelies say supernatural enemies from the Land of
the Setting Sun sent two plagues: “Bee Die Off” killed all the flowers and “wheat
rust” (a fungus) ruined their grain fields. The city dwellers starved or
dispersed. From the size of trees now growing in the ruins our botanist agreed
that a major disaster occurred around four hundred years ago.
We followed the course of the
river, which is a mere trickle in a vast channel some thirty paces wide, now
much overgrown. On once-paved streets near the remaining great buildings, which
they call “Those-Who-Scratch-The-Sky,” there are numerous dwellings made of
ephemeral materials. They include cartonnage boxes and blankets of animal and
plant fibers. There exists a great stock of paper in the abandoned buildings,
which the people scavenge for cartonnage-making. A popular coating for the papier-mâché
homes is a variety of green paper cut into hand-length rectangles. Each bears a
portrait of a man in the center and a selection of lucky numbers. The tribe living
in the streets call themselves “Skidro.” They too claim to be descendants of
those who built the Sky Scratchers. They say they have an “American Dream” that
material wealth will “trickle down” from the Sky Scratcher, and so they live in
its shadow, waiting.
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| A Sky Scratcher |
We asked the Skidro where they kept
this treasure. They pointed to the largest Sky Scratcher and said it is concealed
“inside the block-chain.” Skilar elicited from them that the ultimate source of
wealth is the “bite coin.” Our ethnologists believe this must be gold, since gold
will readily take teeth marks, but I feel the concept of “trickle down”
strongly suggests that wealth was spiritual, distributed by a sky god.
We soon reached an impasse, despite
Skilar’s fluency. I quickly learned that the highest Skidro moral value is
“Freedom of Speech.” They permit and even encourage untruths. They call lies
“Alternative Facts.” They recite a mantra, “Do your own research!” When we asked
for verification of statements, they cry “I plead the fifth,” and “We refuse
compelled speech!”
Our geologist told us that this
area suffers frequent quakes. Eight Sky Scratchers still stand, but ten or a
dozen have fallen. These cluster, with lower-height wooden buildings (and some
stone) surrounding them as far as the eye can see. Some still have metal glyphs
attached to the upper façade. Skilar told us they were single words without a
common meaning, denoting the name of the god to whom the edifice was
dedicated.
We explored the tallest intact
tower. It is rectilinear at the bottom,
quickly becoming circular, and built in a series of reducing steps, or setbacks,
which eventually shrink away to leave a round tower above, surmounted with a
crown. According to Skilar, the building is composed of 73 “floors” (as each
layer is called, though they are not on the ground). Each “floor” is about the
height of two women and each has many window bays inset into the outer surface.
The core and cladding are made of white “concrete” which Skilar described as a
stone the ancients liquified, then poured from spinning machines, after which
it resolidified. Concrete is usually white but sometimes beige, like a cheap
sandstone but with far more strength (as I found when I tried to chip a piece
off as a souvenir).
From the remains of the roadway,
broad concrete stairs ascend to the “ground floor.” The step height is designed
for women, but they measure a dozen paces in width, suggesting ceremonial
processions ascended the steps. Skidro
told Skilar that workers, both women and men, walked up the steps to spend time
sitting in chambers at the top of the building. We were unable to verify this.
The structure is so austere that it seems likely to me that only priests would
be allowed to enter it.
At the top of the stairs are two
flat, rectangular areas filled with small rocks. Skilar learned these were
fountains that propelled water through hidden pipes into the air, after which
it would sink out of sight. I assume this water was used for ritual ablutions
before ceremonies. The river is a mile away but our geologist pointed out that,
judging by the size of its concrete channel, it must have been a veritable
torrent in the Classic Period. Perhaps the depletion of this resource provides
another reason for the city’s abandonment.
Beyond this ritual cistern, against
the concrete wall, stand four metal sculptures. These resemble serpents adorned with
red, serrated crowns. Each has a glyph affixed which Skilar read as “Fire
Riser.” She did not know what relationship snakes have to fire. I asked her if the glyphs could be an example
of “Freedom of Speech,” but she said that both here and in the east, glyphs
sanctified by the “Fire General” were always true, as the gods required the
General to be literally truthful in all her dealings with the populus.
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| Serpent sculpture at the top of the broad stair. Traces of red paint remain visible. |
The main entrance on the “ground
floor” (many steps above the ground) was originally composed of large sheets of
curved blue glass, some fitted with hinges to form doors. We saw no evidence of fortifications or guard
quarters. The doors lead into an expansive open chamber. Large concrete pillars
inside the space reveal the method by which the immense weight of the building
is distributed to the ground, but the size of the open space is remarkable. It
is some six “floors” high. The space—Skilar read the glyph as “atrium”—retains
traces of wood flooring and there is a long, chest-height counter with remnants
of red-stained wood. Skilar said that easterners believe the ancients stationed
four “recessionists” in military garb behind these counters to repel invaders
and escort invited guests.
Light pours in through the upper
windows, lower windows and doors. It seemed a barren glare to us, but while the
blue glass remained intact on the now open side of “atrium,” daylight must have
been calming and tranquil.
Skilar and I climbed the ribbed
metal staircase at the far side of “atrium.” It leads only to a balcony (or half-floor with
a short wall) overlooking the entrance and “atrium.” Further ascent, Skilar
said, was undertaken in a box winched on cables. We explored, finding two
arrays of the winched boxes and many rooms of unknown use. We saw several
blocks and chains, but I did not find any bite-coins.
We saw several other glyphs Skilar believes
the “Fire General” must have written.
Signs include “Occupancy” followed by a numeral, which must be the
number of celebrants in a religious ceremony, and “Emergency Exit,” a
reference, I believe, to the doorways which are thrown open during an
“Occupancy” and through which Disaster Demons are expelled. From the balcony,
we saw that the principal contents of the vast “atrium” comprises many ceramic containers,
the size of coffins, each one filled with soil. Around them, the Classic Period
tribe placed stools with backs, for comfortable viewing of the vessels’
contents.
I asked our botanist to examine the
plant material remaining in the soil-containers. She found desiccated leaves
and stalks from Swiss Cheese plants, remnants of Bromeliads, dried leaves of
Velvet Philodendron, and stalks of Dumbcane. All of these, she told me, originate
in rainforests far to the south of Angel City. They are all inedible and some are noxious, so
were not grown for food.
We left the city precipitously, as
an earth tremor shook the ground. The Skidro told us it presaged another “big
one” strong enough to collapse a sky-scratcher.
From our brief visit, I conclude
that the ceremonial cisterns before the entrance, the dim, filtered blue light,
the serpent sculptures and the large ceramic pots filled with rainforest trees
and shrubs surrounded by observation platforms and resting areas—even the belief
that beneficence ‘trickles down’ like drips from trees—suggest an attempt to
recreate the tropical home of their gods. I further believe, contrary to their
own origin myth, that the city-builders came from the south, bringing their
gods with them. The Sky-Scratchers were their temples.
Accordingly, we feel that any
subsequent expedition in search of bite-coin should contact the more indigenous
tribes, beginning with the Lost Feelies (since we have already made contact)
and their neighbors, the Hollyweird.
***
This piece is a travelogue in the
style of Fr. Diego de Landa. It is a fictional account of an expedition to the
ruins of Los Angeles.
The Classic Maya civilization collapsed
five centuries before Father Diego de Landa arrived in Yucatán, Mexico. He set
to learning Mayan history, relying on contemporary villagers’ stories and his own
primitive ethnography. In 1562, de Landa burned the 27 bark-paper books he had
found, believing them to be the work of demons. In doing so, he wiped out
almost all written Mayan historical records. Because of his vandalism, his
account of explorations in Yucatán paradoxically provides much of what we know
about Maya life.
***
07/17/25 - edited the image of ruined LA
