“Mandrake was the name of he who founded our land. He called it Pilatu after the place from where he came. The lands over the distant seas, where many of our forefathers were plucked in their prime to be brought to the whitelands, where they were used as slaves and treated as lower than the beasts. There were many who sought to escape such places, but where could they go where the paler skins did not single them out and seek to return them to those who would claim to lay ownership upon them? For many, the route to freedom lay at end only with the peace of being chilled.
“But Mandrake was different. He stood apart because he had intelligence beyond any pale skin, intelligence beyond many of us. He traveled far and wide, staying out of the reach of oppression by his wits, until he found this island. As you know from your own experience, the strange waters make it hard to reach, even though the mainland is but a short distance as the birds fly. When he found this place, he knew that it could provide a haven for his fellows and make for a land where we could live in peace. As time went on, knowledge of this place spread to those brothers and sisters who also sought peace, and so they began to make their way here. Not all were lucky. There were many who perished and bought the farm in an attempt to attain that peace.
“However, there were many who landed here. And we made our own way of living, and our own speech, using the common language we had been taught by our oppressors, but keeping the rhythm and tone that was unique to our shared heritage, though the tribes had different tongues. It is said that there were many terrible things that occurred. Children who were shameful because of their parents. But Mandrake had sense and learning, and he passed this on. There were others like him who followed, and so we evolved the methods we have of making sure such abominations before the Lord are not conceived. We make sure that blood does not mix and taint wherever possible, and we keep a strict watch on ourselves. There is always new blood coming in, but in the several generations since the nukecaust, this has lessened. We know from the newcomers that there are less people out there in the world, but still word spreads, and still we get people arriving to join us.
“I know that one of the things you are wondering is why we have not ventured forth since the nukecaust. This is because we are divided. There is a deep schism between us, and there has been since the years before the nukecaust.
“We are told that there was a war called Nam, and in that war the young of our people were sent by those of the pale skins to go and be chilled for their glory. There was talk among those who arrived here that we could never live in their midst as they would not allow us to be ourselves. More, there were those who believed that the only way to stop them harming us was to chill them first. They believed that we should stay apart.
“It was a time of bitter debate, but all this was halted by the nukecaust. For more than a generation, it was a hard time to be alive. The seasons were wrong, there was little to be made from the land and livestock perished easily. There was rad sickness and many chilled.
“But many survived, and others managed to find their way through the darkness of the world to join us. Pilatu survived, and we have since grown strong. And now the debate rages again. There are those who wish to go out into the world to explore and to see what the lands beyond these shores have to offer, and there are those who wish to stay here, to stay separate from the pale ones. The only thing they would wish to do on the mainland is eradicate those who are not as us—partly as revenge for the past, and partly to neutralize any threat the pale ones may pose. Indeed, there are some among us who would wish to pursue such a fight at any cost.