Hattea
First and last of all, if one asks you why an « H » to start the name « Hattea » - or « Hottea » as it is spelled by some - simply reply (except to a touchy violent person who would be better weaponed as you) : « It is no use, not unlike many another thing… ». And if one asks you whether you like your tea hot, you can reply that it depends not on the pot but on the hat and thus you could commonly be talking to and greeting others on that colourful island as if you'd been there. That said, there is much more on Hattea than that which you can see at first glance, much much more… We let you at any rate judge now!
Aspects of the island in short
The island is only scarcely settled and, a sign of the difficult living conditions reigning here, its inhabitants are still Curry-Bean Indians in majority.
At first sight however, the island shows a pleasant aspect to whom approaches its shores, like any other Curry-Bean island, let's say. But something lurks here, a difficult to define atmosphere, which bring a certain uneasiness to the newcomers… They maybe do not even know it but here is the source of Voodoo and without adequate a knowledge and protections - jealously kept by the Curry-Beans - they are immediately in real danger for their life!
Physically, the island is very mountainous: three parallel mountain ranges, covered by thick forests up to almost two thousand meters, define the physionomy of the island through their West-North-West to East-South-East orientation. The most northern one remains relatively low while the central range is the highest and most massive, culminating above three thousand meters in a rocky dome of dark red colour, Mounty Dread, a well desserved name! At last, the southern range rises slowly from the East to the West and, having almost reached two thousand five hundred meters, falls steeply into the sea, giving to that cape of Hattea the look of a black fortress errected against the waters, therefore its name, The Black Bastion…
The valleys of the island are deep and not easy to access, filled with thick forests of Mappoo, the sacred tree of Hattea, which barely leaves another place than the narrow coastal low lands to settle in small villages where the Curry-Beans thus live in close neighbourhood to each other.
In the western part of the island, between the central and the southern ranges lies a wider plain but a huge swamp fills it up, which makes it difficult to exploit: this is the Mosquitos' Lowland, which tells clearly enough what can be expected there… While the mountainous valleys are the refuge of a few powerful Shaman of the Immemorial Times, these wet lands are a home to many Voodoo Sorcerers, the Bokor. The Priests and Priestesses of Voodoo, for their part, live in villages and cities (in Hattean Criole one would say Pebbles and Shootas).
Actually, only two or three Shootas have a more remarkable size, of which two are the main harbours of the island: Haven-On-Earth to the West, seven thousand two hundred souls and governmental center of Hattea (of the Kolony at least), and Teetotallers' Haven to the East of the Mosquitos' Lowlands, thirteen thousand five hundred inhabitants and, economically speaking, the most important. Let us also mention Baronyes, two thousand five hundred souls… and almost as many Giddies! (We only exaggerate a little here…) For the remaining, Hattea bears only about twenty Pebbles of barely more than five hundred inhabitants and is a home to a total of fourty thousand inhabitants, that total being actually quite difficult to estimate accurately.
A (very) short abstract of Hattean History
Hattea is settled since immemorial times (see Chronology) by Curry-Beans but the population remained sporadic a long time and the island never had a large population relative to its size.
Quite probably were the Lwa, especially Good Oll'Ayon, part of causes for that situation and even in a continued manner since the colonisation of Hattea, which had strongly started with the foundation of Teetotallers' Haven, was suddenly brought to a full stop: indeed, the Curry-Beans and a majority of the slaves of the island rose up around 240 BUC as a consequence of the hard questioning which the Mambo, Houngan and other Bokor underwent as well as of the generalised bad treatments against the slaves. Colonisation was still in the early phase and already Voodoo was the object of all greed. Quite unexpectedly, the revolt, which burst at the occasion of a giant Voodoo ceremony held in the Mosquitos' Lowlands not far from Teetotallers' Haven, quickly met success and most of the settlers were expelled or killed.
As a consequence of those events, Voodoo expanded in all of the Curry-Bean, then in the whole Known World, in more or less incomplete or biased versions or forms in a first phase. Living conditions on Hattea became more precarious than before and many Hattean left the island. It was the second wave of Voodoo's expansion, the one which put it in order and ensured its worldwide success.
Since that time, some villages, towns and harbours developped or recovered in the coastal areas of Hattea, with a Curry-Bean population in its great majority, lightly « spiced » with a mix of Settlers and Mullatos who, however, generally avoid valleys and mountains, mysterious or represented as dangerous… With good reasons for that if one considers the ratio of those who came back to those who made an attempt! In the middle of the land still live exclusively Curry-Beans or descendants of slaves who developped a « savage » lifestyle, the Maroons. There is a very small number of them for the center parts of the island with their mountains and Mapoo forests remain the domain of Lwa and of a few Shaman in the antique fashion…
Hattean political structures briefly explained
It is appropriate to distinguish Curry-Bean villages from Shootas and Pebbles of the Kolony (Criole term for Colony, that's quite easy, isn't it?), which, in the best case, ignore and live separated from each other.
Curry-Beans are relatively little organised at the global level of their territory. They, above all, recognise the power (at first spiritual) of a Shaman and that(truly political) of a Village's Chief, often inherited for a lifetime, sometimes chosen by the important families of the place. There is a strict interdiction for a Shaman to become a Village's Chief and vice-versa.
Regarding the Kolony, the political power is more structured and religion is, at least officially, separated from it. Each Pebble elected a Pebble Head (a village's chief in criole), as well as each Shoota. In the second case, the Shoota's Head, as he or she is called, forms a small team around him to manage the government of the town. It is called the Clique. Finally, at Haven-On-Earth is seating the Government of the Kolony, composed of the Governor Kolony, himself chosen by Shoota's and Pebble Heads for one or more mandates (of which the duration is not completely defined anyway). That means: the Governor makes on Hattea in the Kolony (and sometimes for it…) more or less whatever he wants… except the weather rainy or sunny! The current Governor is a dark and authoritarian Character, recognised as a Voodoo adept. He is because of that nicknamed Baron Kolony and one generally does not spell his true name. It doesn't imply he would be a Lwa, even a Hoongan or a Bokor! Well, if you listen to the rumours… But we prefer to avoid talking too much on such highly politicised topics and break here, by the way, our introductory discussion on the Hattean political structures.