Pepetela

Pepetela is a remote island located off the coast of the Thinlands notable for the distinctive culture of its inhabitants, the Pepetulos. The island is dotted with fazendas where cash crops are harvested for export from the port settlement of Pextana, which is a member state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
=== Early History and Origin ===
Pepetela was uninhabited prior to the expedition of Don Fredo of House Cuomo, a Tenuvian missionary and adventurer who embarked on a perilous journey to an uncharted southern continent. Don Fredo underwent circumcision to complete his disguise as a Nagelite merchant and successfully traversed Nagelite lands, eventually reaching the southern continent from which Nagelite traders source their melanite. There, he encountered many strange apelike peoples, eventually converting the Libongos to Mormonism, establishing the settlement of Múseke on the continent's western shores.
Attempting to return to the Thinlands, Don Fredo and a contingent of Libongo savages set out on a raft, but their journey ended in disaster when they were shipwrecked on the shores of Pepetela. Stranded and facing the harsh realities of island life, Don Fredo killed all the male Libongos and established a new settlement with a harem of the remaining women. The descendants from this harem became the Pepetulos, a people with a mixed identity tied to their single ancestor, Don Fredo, and the Libongo converts. This lead to a tradition where only the strongest males could procreate.
Pepetela lacked native trees, leading to reliance on meager horticulture and fishing. The Pepetulos lived in mud huts, though initially they had brick-making technology using salvaged shipwreck lumber to fuel a kiln, which was used to build the palace of Don Fredo Cuomo. The palace bricks, being a finite resource, were later recycled to construct the Cathedral of The Principle (Catedral do Princípio) — the principle being in reference to polygamy, which Pepetulan Mormonism venerates. The Cathedral also housed Don Fredo Cuomo's mausoleum, which has since been raided by Londrian archeologists. His mausoleum contained the only two books on the island as well as the bones of his favorite slave wives who were buried alive alongside him, which are now located at the Bembridge Museum of Other People's Wonders.
The island's only two books were the manuscript of Don. Fredo Cuomo's memoirs (which were later translated from Tenuvian by Bembridge scholars) and a Book of Mormon in Tenuvian, neither of which the Pepetulos could read anymore. However, an oral accounting of mormon principles were passed down by homens da história (history men), creating a form of folk mormonism still practiced by Pepetulos today, which has quasi-Voodoo elements.
=== Kustlandic Administration ===
Pepetela remained undisturbed for several generations before the island was rediscovered by Kustlandic merchants. Lacking much in the way of territory, the Kustlandic ruling guilds saw the island as an opportunity both economic and political to expand their territory and diversify their economy.
They conquered Pepetela and settled it with a small Kustlander ruling class (SO FAR UNNAMED - I need to come up with a name like Boer or something). These Kustlanders set up the 'Fazendismo' (I need to workshop that name) system, which installed Kustlander-owned plantations throughout the island, building it up as an agricultural producer of cash crops such as tobacco, coffee, and múcua. The ethnic Kustlanders lived in the great houses (Fazendonas), while the Pepetulos were indentured slave workers in the fields.
The Kustlanders outlawed many Pepetulo native practices, such as the practice of androcide and universal polygamy — instead constructing a great arena in the port city (The Mandingo Pit) for more civilized combat. Successful Pepetulo gladiators were sold to wealthy (Fazendistas? - workshop this name) where they lived as studs to create more hardy field slaves, or were used in private Mandingo fights in the countryside.
During the Protestant Mormon revolution in Londria, the revolutionary Sons of Adam made mass arrests of many western mormon loyalists and other non-economical malfactors. Initially a wave of mass guillotining took place, but after it was deemed an economic waste, the authorities explored other options; first they tried grinding up prisoners into mulch and exporting them as fertilizer, but it was not cost effective. They tried selling them to (pseudo-German? so far unnamed) scientists at the Mengele Institute for Human Experimentation, but the demand was not high enough. Eventually they realized that they could sell them to the Kustlanders for labor.
Sensing economic opportunity, Endhaven offered part of the Island to the Londrians for lease, where a massive prison was constructed. These prisoners were put to work processing coffee, cocoa, múcua, and other products. The prison was owned and operated by the Londrian government, who bought the locally produced resources from the Kustlanders and exported the refined products themselves for a considerable profit. Surrounding the prison itself in the territory of their lease was built a port settlement, which became the primary port of the island, called Pextana (Peshtana in some Londrian texts). This came to be where some Kustlandic and Londrian merchants lived, as well as the few well-off Pepetulo turncoats who, in exchange for collaborating with the Kustlanders in the subjugation of their people, were allowed to live free in a little slum known as 'Futunga'. These turncoats were called futungistas. The city also housed the Londrian prison administrators.
There was a considerable degree of mixure between Kustlandic, Londrian, and Pepetulo culture and genetics. To a great extent, Kustlanders had learned to speak the Pepetulo language, and it became fashionable to name young Kustlanders with names of Pepetulo origin to culturally differentiate themselves from the Kustlanders from Endhaven. This was seen in the noble Van Dum family (once the governors of the island), notable members having names such as Basílio and Baltasar.
=== End of Kustlandic Rule ===
Seeing the Londrians profit more off of their island than they were was a sore spot for the Kustlanders, considering the astronomical costs of governing such a faraway piece of land which was only producing raw crops and whose native population outnumbered the Kustlanders more than 10 to 1. The Kustlandic governor of the island at the time, Basílio Van Dum, was put under a great deal of pressure from the Council of Guilds to sabotage the Londrians in order to increase their own profits. 
Legend has it that he was so desperate that he sought out a Pepetulo witch doctor for a solution in the form of black magic. The witch doctor performed his black magic ritual and told him that within a year's time Pepetela would no longer be a money pit for the Kustlanders, but would in fact yield them 1,000,000 Cents in profit.
Governor Van Dum thought the deal satisfactory, but later that night, the sky grew dark with storm clouds. The worst tropical storm in recorded history ravished Pepetela, as well as the Southern Thinlands. In its wake, a great whirlpool (dubbed 'God's Toilet') formed at the bay of Endhaven, swallowing up a hundred ships, wiping out most of the Kustlandic merchant fleet, as well as pulling in entire sections of the city in the water.
This was a complete economic catastrophe for the Kustlanders, and this completely dashed their hopes at independence or expanding their sovereignty beyond of the borders of their city. It represents the national tragedy of the Kustlanders, who today refer to it only as the Maalstroom. It is akin to their Lisbon Earthquake or 9/11.
Economically crippled, the Kustlanders were forced to join the Foederatio of Centum under terms which included fixed prices for the export of ships and sanctions against the Satemids, preventing them from selling to them large seafaring vessels, in exchange for the reconstruction funds which were used for land reclamation projects to rebuild Endhaven. In addition, in order to collect the funds necessary to rebuild their own fleet, the Kustlanders had to sell Pepetela to the Londrians in perpetuity for a sum of 1,000,000 Cents. The promise of the witch doctor was realized; the Kustlanders were technically no longer losing money on Pepetela, even profiting 1,000,000 cents off of it within a year.
=== Londrian Administration ===
Under Londrian administration, very little changed. Socially, the fazendismo (workshop the name) system continued, with Kustlanders running great plantations, selling their raw materials to the Pextana prison, which exported processed goods throughout the world for a considerable profit.
The Londrians continued to prosper and outcompeted Nagelite merchants, who utilized the Cabal to install a series of left-wing leaders who ran the country into the ground. Among their most deleterious decisions were the abolition of slavery, which destroyed the economy of Pepetela, and eventually calls for independence by Pepetulo nationalists were granted in another economically short-sighted move.
=== Self-Rule and Joining the CIS ===
Independent Pepetela still leases the prison, now at a fraction of its former price, though not only to Londria but to the entirety of the Foederatio of Centum, where it acts as a black site to which prisoners can be sent where Centumii laws won't protect them.
Pepetela is otherwise an impoverished shadow of its former colonial self, marked by poor governance and corruption at the hands of Pepetulo lower and middle administrators, although much of the real power is still in the hands of Kustlandic landowners in the countryside, who own nearly all of the land. The true power of the island is a Kustlander named Baltasar Van Dum, from the historically prominent Van Dum family.
Pextana became a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and as such its currency is International Dabloons. It is the largest member by territory when including the agricultural plantations around Pextana. The city of Pextana hosts an embassy of the Foederatio of Centum, an embassy of the Satemid Empire, a Mission in Service of Prikastel Interests, as well as a small nagelshrine.
The current de jure head of state of Pepetela is a Futungista Pepetulo named António José Girão Teixeira Lobo Barbosa, but de facto it is Baltasar Van Dum.
=== Culture and Language ===
The culture of Pepetela is primarily a blend of Tenuvian with the heritage of the Libongos. The Pepetulos speak Pepetulan, a creole language that has evolved from Tenuvian, the language spoken by and Don Fredo Cuomo, with influence from the Libongo language as well as later, Kustlandic and Londrian substrata. The language is often referred to by the locals as "a língua cuomilheira," highlighting their connection to their forefather, Don Fredo Cuomo, and is represented in Bloatcraft via the Portuguese language. 
The Pepetulos sometimes call themselves Cuomilheiros, a term derived from the combination of Cuomo and ilhéu (islander), indicating their perception of the island as "Cuomo Island" in the past. This name further underscores their sense of belonging to the legacy of Don Fredo. They practice Pepetulan Mormonism, a mixed religion incorporating traditional Libongo beliefs akin to real-world voodoo practices, as well as venerating polygamy and androcide.
=== Behind the Scenes ===
The Cathedral of The Principle (Catedral do Princípio) is based on the Sé Catedral de São Salvador de Congo in M'banza Kongo.
Pepetela is loosely based off of several sources, particularly the Pitcarin Islands (whose native population descend from British mutineers and captured Tahitian women), Apartheid South Africa (for which the Kustlandic landowners are somewhat analogous to the Boers), the brief historical Dutch administration of Luanda (about which there is a novel called A Gloriosa Família by Luso-Angolan author Pepetela, the namesake of the island, and from which the name Baltasar Van Dum was taken), as well as the Portuguese island of Madeira, where there is a resort called the Pestana Royal (from which Pextana derives its name), where I was stranded and met Ari Nagel. As it happens, pestana is Portuguese for eyelash, while pepetela (the adopted name of the author of A Gloriosa Família) is the Kimbundu word for eyelash.