Jecuor
From Almeopedia
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Jecuor [dʒɛ ˈtswor] is an island off the coast of Mnau, about the size of Sicily. Cold and battered by strong winds, it is a forbidding place except during the summer months, when the chief annoyance is clouds of mosquitoes. Nonetheless it is a convenient stopping place for ships, and protected from the vicissitudes of the mainland; it has therefore been held by one maritime empire after another. The island is also a center of the whaling industry. Rye and millet are the chief crops, though the former is chiefly used to make beer. Its chief city is Inṭi Luṭay, and the island is presently independent, as the nation of Luṭay.
The small Aḍagli islands to the south of Jecuor have sometimes been occupied as a waystation by a weaker maritime power; outside such periods their only occupants are a few fishermen.
Etymology: Wede:i De:ijubori 'Eastern people island', Old Skourene Detubori, Uṭandal Diḍbur, Tžuro Jidebur, Ax. Deijubori, X. Jecuor, Ṭeôši Ḍûḍubör, Ver. Díďebur.
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Ancient times
The island was settled before -1000 by De:iju hunter-gatherers. It was known to the first major maritime nation of southern Ereláe, the Jei. However, they did not build a permanent settlement there till around 575, when competition from the Skourenes was mounting: Ba:unśela, on the northwestern tip of the island. The Skourene city of Kolatimand was closer and more aggressive, occupying the larger remainder of the island by 650. Their chief settlement was Eŋ Luṭali, on the western coast. The Aḍagli islands were acquired peacefully by Guṭḷeli just before 700.
The Jeori emperor Toma:un turned the Jei lands into an empire over the greater part of Xengiman. His son Suma:un, considering a drive against the Skourenes, took Eŋ Luṭali from Kolatimand in 736. Their empire provoked the rise of Axunai; the Axunemi were however slow to see the possibilities of naval expansion, and allowed Jecuor and the southern coast of Mnau to remain under local Jeori lords, as the kingdom of Boriju.
The Axunemi period
When Kolatimand joined the Mudric Confederation, the island was drawn into its struggles with Axunai. In 1005 Axunai completed the conquest of the western coast of Mnau, destroying Boriju, and for good measure occupying Ba:unśela. For some time Eŋ Luṭali was independent, but it was taken in 1055. The Axunemi even took the trouble to occupy the Aḍagli islands, cowing the fisherfolk and dismantling the Guṭḷelik forts. For some centuries Jecuor was ruled by the Axunai, who hoped to colonize it as they were doing in Čeiy; they did entice some Axunemi settlers, but never succeeded in tilting the demographics in their favor. They did build a large settlement on the northern coast, Banbori.
As a colony, Čeiy was freewheeling and unaristocratic, very different from the stiff, hierarchical home society. When central authority declined, the southern province, Tandau, became independent under king Juručenke, son of the last Axunemi governor, who set up a senate on the Skourene model. When the governor of Jecuor seemed to be thinking along the same lines, Juručenke occupied the islands and invited its two chief cities, now known as Inṭi Luṭai and Bambur, into his kingdom.
The Gurdagor period
Gurdago, once a Guṭḷelik colony, now a rich trading nation, took over the Aḍagli islands in 1465. In 1726, as Gurdago became a major player in the Skourene resistance to the Tžuro, Gurdago conquered Jecuor as a way station and as a source of supplies, unreachable by the Tžuro, for the beleaguered Skourene cities.
For some centuries Jecuor was a key piece, along with Jeor, of the tripartite Gurdagor empire. Its chief export was whale oil, but it also traded dried fish and meat, honey, salt, and cheese.
The Gurdagor liked to call themselves Aḍḍiral, the Free People, because they was ruled by a senate rather than by an emperor, like the Axunemi— but membership in the senate was confined to the chief grandees of Gurdago itself, and its rule over its empire was notoriously absolute.
The Uṭandal period
By 2500 Čisra had brought together, or conquered, all the eastern Littoral people— the descendants of the ancient Skourenes, now called the Uṭandal. After their attempt to ‘liberate’ Skouras ran aground, the Čisrans turned west, occupying Jecuor in 2607, and then the southern coast of Mnau. The Čisrans allowed the city of Inṭi Luṭay to govern itself, which was more than the Gurdago had ever done.
In the middle 2700s Xurno and Čisra fought a brutal war ranging across Mnau, which culminated in the Xurnese occupation of Čisra itself (2750). During the course of the war the Xurnese burned Bambur, and now occupied and rebuilt it.
The despotate of Luṭay
Čeiy did not appreciate Xurnese rule, and rebelled in the 2800s. Uṭandal, internal and external, aided the rebels; Inṭi Luṭay sent an expeditionary force to help. By 2840 Čeiy was independent, and Inṭi Luṭay had expelled the Xurnese garrison from Bambur and occupied the largest city of southern Mnau, Bal.
These actions were glorious enough for the Jecuoran general Snatai to declare himself Despot (pašni) of Luṭay (2852). Snatai allowed Inṭi Luṭay self-rule under its senate, but elsewhere reigned as a dictator. Under the despotate Luṭay devoted itself to war; when it was not fighting on its own behalf it hired its army out as mercenaries. The rest of the Mnau and Littoral regions considerd the Luṭair to be hardy and aggressive warriors, and fanatically dedicated to their Despot, though backwards in every art but war.
In the Čeiyu civil war (2940-63) Snatai's great-grandson Xruna allied with the north, which encouraged him to blockade and then occupy the southern coast of Čeiy; he went rather beyond the territory agreed upon, and once reunited Čeiy pushed him back somewhat. Luṭay fought several wars with the Daş Uṭandal; in the last of these (3149-54) the league collapsed, and Luṭay was able to occupy part of western Barmund, including Arṭai. In the 3200s it conquered Minṭu and expanded its footprint in Čeiy.
By the 3300s, however, a good infantry was no match for the superior industrial production of an advanced commercial state. Čeiy now had formidable cannons and iron-plated warships to mount them on. It reduced Bal's fortifications to rubble, then destroyed half the Luṭair fleet in its harbor in Inṭi Luṭay. Luṭay gave up Bal and southwestern Mnau (which became the region of Mešäriš) (3365), and counted itself fortunate to retain its independance. Encouraged by this, Barmund recovered Arṭai and then pushed Luṭay out of the rest of Mnau by 3380.
In 3472 Čisra conquered Minṭu, reducing Luṭay to Jecuor and the Aḍagli islands. This final loss of its empire, rather than the debacles in Mnau a century before, finally destroyed the prestige of the Despotate. The senate of Inṭi Luṭay arrested and deposed the last Despot, and declared itself the new government of Luṭay.
The modern Luṭair mostly speak their own Littoral language, Diḍburir, which is considered to be closer to Gurdagor than to the eastern Littoral languages such as Uṭandal. A distinctive dialect of Ṭeôši is still widely spoken along the northern coast. The writing system is a form of the Gurdagor syllabary.
