Kisilland

Overseas Territory of Kisilland Երլենդիս Լանդսվաիդս Քիսիլլանդս Erlendis Landsvædi Kisillands (Hártal) Կւնբոտիշելերի Ճետելդա Լանդյվադյ Kunbotišeleri Četelda Landıvadı (Kiši)
Flag
Kisilland (in yellow) within north-western Lestria
Capital	Kattakurgan
Largest city	Matshöfn
Official languages	Hártal, Kiši, Odam; other native languages have local recognition
Demonym	Kisillander
Government	Extraterritorial administration
• Althein	Ásgeir Stórlind af Hydrædsdali
• Governor	Sálkjarna Kúskellin af Virkinu
Establishment
• First landfall and foundation of Matshöfn	1727
• Establishment as de jure Helmin territory	1813
Area
• Total	639,777 km2 (247,019 sq mi)
Population
• 2020 census	17,459,514
• Density	27.29/km2 (70.7/sq mi)
Currency	Kisilland kammur (KIK)

The territory of Kisilland (Քիսիլլանդ) is located on the western coast of Lestria to the south of Oturech, and is an overseas territory of Helminthasse. The largest city in the country is Matshöfn on the north coast, which was the first Siursk settlement established there; however, the functions of government were relocated to the planned city of Kattakurgan in 1994.

The name Kisilland is derived from the Kiši people who lived primarily in the region around Matshöfn and were the tribes with whom the first settlers came into contact; the native term simply means “people” in their own language.

Physical geography

The greater part of Kisilland lies between the equator and 10 degrees north latitude (a small area in the far south extends into the southern hemisphere). The bulk of the country is covered by dense equatorial forests, although tree cover is somewhat sparser along the coast and in the lower river valleys.

The territory is broadly divided into two by the river Sordar, which rises beyond the border within the Lestrian Neutral Zone and runs mainly northward as far as its confluence with the Gulduros (the site of the new capital) before continuing roughly north-westward to reach the Prothenian Ocean at Matshöfn. The land east of the Sordar is mainly low-lying, although there are some scattered hillier regions in the north, while much of the west beyond the coastal strip is dominated by the Katarli hills. These include the highest point in Kisilland, the Himnafell (“sky mountain” in Hártal, but probably from a mishearing of Kiši himoya, “protect”), which lies on the territory’s southern border with the Neutral Zone and is 1,045 metres (3,428 feet) above sea-level.

History

Foundation and the Siursk years

The early settlement and economic development of the Kisilland region was undertaken not by the tháric realm of Siurskeyti directly; instead, this was conducted by a small number of commercial companies, with the Siursk authorities assuming an overall administrative and monitoring capacity in the territory. This was initially confined to a relatively small region, extending no further than around 150 kilometres inland. Chief among these companies at the outset was the Kaupsfélag Lestríu (KL), chartered under the Siursk crown in 1711 with a monopoly on trade along a wide swath of the western Lestrian coast; it was a ship owned by the KL, the Stórvagur, which established in 1727 the first Siursk settlement on this coast – today the city of Matshöfn – and the commander of this expedition, Hollur Gjæð, became the first administrator of what became the Kisilland territory, signing a formal treaty with Kiši elders in Petrial 1728.

While Matshöfn was established primarily as a trading base, it steadily developed a permanent resident population, mainly from discharged KL and other company workers, Siursk soldiers who had come to the end of their enlistment and a small, but steady trickle of incomers from the homeland who sought a new start in a new land. Matshöfn had only 80 residents in 1730, but by 1780 the population had ballooned to some 9,000 people within a twenty-kilometre radius of the town’s docks.

As the settlement expanded, friction with the natives became an increasing problem. The semi-nomadic Kiši tribal bands lived much more lightly on the land than was the practice even for the Siursk in the period before urbanisation, and competition for resources in a limited area saw some increasingly ugly incidents between one-time friendly tribes and ever more numerous settlers, culminating in a short-lived armed conflict, known as the Settlers’ War (Landnámsmannastrið), between 1765 and 1768. The introduction of government troops to help put down the native attacks turned the tide, but the Siursk military presence remained a small and fairly subdued one in the following half-century. The Kisilland territory also came under assault from states closer to it who found its presence objectionable; ships of the Tionastrian Empire bombarded Matshöfn and other coastal settlements in 1776 during the Third Concentration War in a bid to force the Siursk to withdraw.

The Summer War

As was the case also in Serania Major, the declaration of secession by the five commonholds of the Helmin alliance, and the Summer War which followed it, triggered substantial fighting and bloodshed among the Siursk community. The position was made worse by the absence of clear battle lines, as loyalists and secessionists lived and worked in close proximity. Much of the financial and political clout lay with the loyalists – the dominance of the coastal commonholds, here as at home, being one of the root causes of the rebellion – while the inlanders frequently had greater logistic control over resources.

While discontent had been rumbling at a low level for some time, open conflict did not break out until mid-Fabricad 1812, when a Siursk ship brought reports of the secession and the Battle of Lágröð, the opening engagement of the war. Governing authorities in Matshöfn, still the territory’s main commercial centre (although now being rivalled by Sýnbýli, some 500 kilometres down the coast to the south-west), declared themselves early for the loyalist camp – largely pushed in that direction by commercial leaders from KL and other enterprises, as well as the local leifturserkar community – but this was strongly opposed by the growing numbers of settlers, many of whom by now had been born in the territory, who had no particular love for the lack of interest showed to them by the home government. The position was worsened inasmuch as loyalists and rebels alike sought support from the native tribes, who were far from averse to using the conflict as a means of settling old scores, with rival bands as much as with the chetler (“foreigners”). While there were insufficient numbers for any large-scale conflict, intermittent skirmishing continued throughout 1812; the loyalists probably held the upper hand by a small margin at the end of the war in the homeland in Nollonger, but the rebels had gained the momentum and had taken control of Matshöfn by the time that news of the war’s end reached the territory in late Petrial 1813.

Kisilland under Helmin rule

In the political vacuum which existed following the end of the Summer War the KL company and other corporate entities on the ground either made their accommodations with the new situation or withdrew to more hospitable climes. A few stayed on, and their skills were critical in helping Kisilland’s interim leadership weather the storms until the new post-secession paradigm established itself. It would not be until 1818 that Helminthasse dispatched a governor to its new territory, and Kisilland probably continued to suffer from a certain neglect by the metropole well into the next century.

The greater part of local censure related to the rubber industry, which increased in scale during the later 19th century as the utility of rubber for industrial purposes became better known. Criticism arose through the large-scale use of labour obtained through indentured labour contracts. While outright slavery was anathema to the vast majority of the Helmin people – as a practice proscribed by Arlaturi philosophies for generations – it was argued that it was entirely within the rights of the individual native to decide whether or not to sign a labour contract. Those protesting against the system argued that the vast majority of the Kiši workers did not understand Hártal, and that what education they had was likely to be poor by Helmin standards. It was therefore unlikely that they understood what the contract documents meant; as many of the workers died before their contracts expired (and the cessation benefit clauses written into them took effect), the entire process was decried in the Helmin metropole as “slavery by the back door”, as well as cynical sophistry on the part of the business owners. This process of near-systematic exploitation resulted in a large number of senior Kisillander officials being summoned before an enquiry chaired by the then althein, Sálleit Hárfell, in Empery 1905.

Although the aftermath of the Hárfell enquiry may have prompted action on the worst abuses in the territory, it can be seen as coming too late to hold off violent response. In 1907, the southern district of Adirijan saw a large-scale insurrection by native workers, mainly in agriculture; the Hoe Handle Rebellion (Hártal Pælarauppreisn) lasted until mid-1910 and turned a substantial part of southern Kisilland into a war zone for most of that time. Little information about the Hoe Handle rebels reached the general public in Helminthasse, as successive governments of the period chose to hide the extent to which Helmin rule in Kisilland was opposed by the natives; a fuller examination of the rebellion and its causes and outcomes has only been viable since the late 1960s.

The most positive outcome of the Hoe Handle Rebellion was a greater recognition by Virkið that it could not allow development in Kisilland to be left solely in the hands of commercial companies. The Helmin government under Ský Moðrill and, later, under Starfsamur Eldhress set about introducing a more proactive colonial administration, weeding out some of the more indolent elements within a group which had, over time, become something of a repository for the ineffective and unwilling within the colonial service. Alongside this, a restructuring of police services within the territory saw a greater native component within the new Innfædd Lögregla Kisillands (ILK) from 1913.

The 1930s saw the development of tea, coffee and cotton into viable export industries; cotton, in particular, became the subject of a form of oligopoly in some regions of Kisilland as the result of purchasing licences given to a small number of companies, who saw the benefits to themselves of colluding in pricing matters to mutual benefit. The members of the Cotton Club (Bómullarfélag) were able to maintain this position of strength until 1954, when their support in the Landsþing was broken sufficiently for laws to be passed against such collusive practices.

Present day

In the period since the end of the Long War the Helmin government, as part of a process termed jafnfætisstand or, roughly, “equal standing”, has made conscious efforts to establish a native cadre of trained administrators and professionals. Successive Helmin governments as far back as that of Kapp Elsturhæð in the 1930s have stressed that the country’s responsibility to its overseas territories is not indefinite, and the 1967 Samþykkiræða statement by Sanntráð Vilgóður to the Landsráð in Matshöfn reaffirmed that commitment; indigenous communities, in particular, have criticised what they see as the slow pace of progress to that end and foot-dragging by the Helmin government.

However, the Helmin authorities have persisted in efforts to devolve authority to Kisilland as a whole, rather than to tribal blocs within the territory, despite evidence from elsewhere – mainly the ut possideatur polities of eastern Ascesia – that such a course may be ill-advised. While the Kiši have generally been satisfied with a status quo from which they mostly benefit, there have been bouts of restiveness from other peoples from the 1940s onward, beginning with the first push by the Odam in the north and north-east towards internal autonomy in 1944. In most cases, this has been ascribed to a cash-strapped government being unwilling to incur extra expenditure on duplication of the existing structure of government and administration. The argument remains live in the present day.

The intent to work with the native Kisillanders to improve their lot may have also factored into the decision to move the territorial capital, with the purpose-designed city of Kattakurgan being constructed in Kisilland’s interior as a replacement for the more determinedly “Siur” Matshöfn. Kattakurgan, constructed over almost three and a half years between 1991 and 1994, was formally invested as the capital in 1995 and, while not as successful as might have been hoped, has been recognised as a sincere attempt to demonstrate a willingness to govern for all Kisillanders, Siur and native alike.

It must be admitted that the process has been a slow one, and dotted with several instances of falling back to older and more exploitative practices. The most severe of these – and all the more serious for its reach into the heart of the Helmin government – broke into the open in the Sætisfell enquiry in 1977, where a government-owned company and highly-placed individuals were found complicit in breaches of safety standards at a Kisilland beryllium mine and the deaths through exposure to beryllium dust of numerous indigenous labourers; the political fallout was enough to bring down the Malari government. Indigenous people’s willingness to place their faith in Helmin-created law is also hampered by Helmin interpretation of native legal concepts, although the 1966 Soðadil land-ownership case prompted a re-examination of some of these issues.

In the last decade there have been continuing disputes over Kisilland’s eastern regions. The Helmin government protested over parts of the Lestria Directives which were developed and imposed alongside the Kethpor Accords and to which it was not a signatory, claiming that the Directives do not recognise Helmin territorial claims in some areas, and instead assign this disputed territory to the so-called “Lestrian Neutral Zone”. This has led in particular to some ongoing tensions between Helmin and Kisillander companies and Zepnish Machtbünde over operations which the Zepnish hold to be within the Zone, and thus outside governmental control in accordance with the Directives; the position is being closely monitored by both governments and by the Joint Lestrian Commission from its headquarters in Taikoo.

Government

Kisilland in its present form is largely a creation of the post-unification era in Siurskeyti’s history; as such, it was regarded as territory of the country as a whole, rather than being associated with any particular commonhold. Administration of the territory was in the hands of the Landsumboð Vesturfjörunnar (Hártal “State Agency of the Western Shores”) from that body’s foundation in 1780 until 1795, when a separate department to deal with non-Ascesian matters was established.

In Helmin hands, a similar state of affairs was allowed to continue until well into the 20th century. Even after the establishment of a territorial Landsráð on the pattern of the home viðaldsdeildir in 1923, following pressure from the increasing Helmin-Kisillander population, the ministry of foreign affairs in Virkið held most of the levers of control in the territory. Delegates from the Landsráð were not permitted observer status in the home Landsþing until 1978, although there had been a steady shift of power from the metropole to the territorial administration since the early 1960s.

At present, the Landsráð comprises sixty-four members, sixty of whom represent districts (kjórshúðir) predominantly in the coastal west, and elected on the same general suffrage method that has been used in Helminthasse proper since 2005. (Large parts of the interior are not inhabited in significant numbers and remain unorganised.) Reforms in 1998 provided for a separate division into four districts for the purpose of electing ráðsmenn from the indigenous community. However, the chief ráðsmaður does not govern the territory; the post of governor (landstjóri) is still appointive from the capital, although it is hoped to have this position become fully elective by 2025.

A continuing bone of contention is that, although there have been only minimal restrictions on the right to vote in Helminthasse since 2005, the franchise in Kisilland is still restricted by a requirement to own real property above a set value. Indigenous groups have decried this as an informal effort to prevent native Kisillanders from voting; and the anomaly has been questioned in the Helmin metropole as well, although, even with these restrictions, the percentage of indigenes eligible to vote has more than doubled in the last decade.

Citizenship

Although Kisilland has been a Helmin territory virtually as long as Helminthasse itself has existed, native-born Kisillanders – Siur and indigene alike – are not, technically speaking, full citizens of Helminthasse, with the category of Helmin overseas citizen (borgari í útlandi, hereafter BÚ) being introduced in 1940. BÚs are not allowed permanent residence in Helminthasse proper, instead applying for this status and being accepted on a quota basis. This must be renewed every ten years, although in practice few re-applications are rejected. The scheme is strongly criticised by indigenous Kisillanders, who have seen it as a means of screening out Pyranists from the mainly Arlaturi metropole.

The independence debate

The question of potential independence for the Kisilland territory has arisen on numerous occasions over the years, and was probably thrown into sharper relief by the Samþykkiræða address. While the idea has its supporters, it is perhaps more muted at the present time than most outsiders might think; a strong body of opinion – certainly in Helminthasse proper, if less so in Kisilland itself – leans towards some form of commonwealth arrangement involving Helminthasse, Kisilland and probably the Seranian Gleymtlönd. In recent years some cognisance has been taken of the territory’s position in interordinate law; while Helmin rule over Kisilland was acknowledged at the Congress of Kethpor, there is a strong argument that an independent Kisilland would not be recognised by many states. In this respect it would fall into the same position as the zeephen states of the Lestrian Neutral Zone. A more practical consideration for many Kisillanders is that they are allowed rights of abode in Helminthasse under the BÚ scheme which might not necessarily be extended to an independent Kisilland.

Military

The first official Kisillander military force was the Verndarafl Kisilland, raised in 1769 in the aftermath of the Settlers’ War; however, it was disbanded as part of the Helmin takeover of the territory. Many of the VK’s rank-and-file merely transitioned to Helmin command (under officers mostly brought in from the metropole), but there has been no identifiable Kisillander force since the reorganisation of the Helmin army in 1879; units from each of the homeland battalions are periodically rotated from Helminthasse proper to do service in Kisilland. The posting is not particularly highly regarded by most home-based soldiers, mainly because of the adverse climate, although it has been considered a low-risk assignment for most of the period since the end of the Long War. Indigenous Kisillanders were not eligible for service until as late as 1900, although they were fairly quickly integrated into the homeland military; regular service – as opposed to the routine conscription period served by all Helmin citizens – has been seen by some younger indigenes as a more useful means of securing residency in the metropole than a BÚ scheme which some see as being biased against them.

Economy and finance

Although efforts to encourage diversification have been made over the years, Kisilland’s economy is still very largely geared towards primary production, with the cultivation of tea, coffee and cotton still dominant factors in the territory’s export market. Production of raw rubber remains a significant contributor in the south of the country.

In the last thirty years, Kisilland has begun to see active exploitation of its mineral resources in the territory’s deeper interior; the identification of substantial copper deposits in the central Uchkizil district has seen the area become one of Lestria’s largest producers of copper and zinc. This has taken place alongside the clearance of forest areas for settlement and economic development, and a secondary industry in the export of tropical hardwoods has become a significant contributor to the territory’s trade balance since the mid-1980s.

Similarly to Helminthasse’s Seranian territories, Kisilland uses its own currency rather than the standard Helmin kammur; the Kisilland kammur (sometimes known as the toj or toy locally, after a unit of value used by the Kiši and some other native tribes) is convertible against the Helmin version at 1 KIK = 0.8 HEK.

Religion

As a Helmin overseas territory, Kisilland is officially regarded as an Arlaturi region, and this is overwhelmingly the professed belief of the Helmin colonial population; for administrative purposes the territory is part of the mæskyn of Útlöndin. Pyranism, the native Kiši faith, remains dominant among the indigenous people; while there has been some adoption of Arlatur by native Kisillanders, and key Arlaturi texts have been translated into local languages, the official stance of the Arlaturi communion against active proselytisation has kept this at a fairly low level overall.

Official stances as regards Pyranism have varied substantially over the years. During the Hoe Handle Rebellion and for some years afterwards, the authorities made sizeable efforts to monitor and, to an extent, regulate Pyranist observances due to a perceived link between the religion and the Hoe Handle rebels; and the gap in comprehension between Arlaturi refusal to recognise external deities and Pyranism’s highly structured collection of greater and lesser gods has seldom helped matters. At present, however, Kisilland is mostly governed by more customary Arlaturi attitudes of tolerance towards other systems of belief, although some unease still persists, particularly in more remote regions where the Arlaturi presence is sparse.

Tribalism

The term Kisilland for the territory as a whole is somewhat erroneous, as it refers only to one tribal group, the Kiši, who were the most numerous in the region around Matshöfn and the group with which the earliest Siursk visitors came into immediate contact. The largest native group is actually the Odam, who inhabit most of the north-east of the country and extend across the border into the south of Oturech; other substantial groups are the Zor in the upper Sordar valley (the river takes its name from them, in somewhat corrupted fashion), the Turgun along the southern coast and the Dušman of the inland south.

The early close contact of the Kiši with the Siursk gave them a leading position, disproportionate to their numbers, among the natives as the territory was developed (even if it was not necessarily sought after or desired). This has caused substantial inter-tribal friction in the past as other tribes dispute this apparent favoured status, although the current situation is muted as compared with times past. The Dušman, whose language appears to be wholly unrelated to those of the other main tribes (dušman is a Zor word meaning “enemy”; their name for themselves is O-Kai), continue to suffer hardship and marginalisation today.

The main indigenous languages spoken within Kisilland form a broad continuum, with some specialists in the field speculating that Kiši, Odam, Turgun and Zor may have diverged from a common ancestor as late as the early 18th century. After many years of disapprobation in favour of Hártal, the native languages began to gain a measure of official acceptance probably from the late 1960s (and the use of Odam as a basis for Police Odam, which has become a common lingua franca for the country’s police and other emergency services, predates this). Kiši and Odam, the two more widely spoken indigenous languages, became co-official with Hártal in 1975; Turgun and Zor have recognised status in the regions where they are most widely spoken. The term Kunbotišelleri, meaning “western lands”, was initially adopted as a compromise to avoid the appearance of favouritism towards the Kiši, but has since acquired a legitimate currency among the other tribal groups.

Culture

The robust nature of life on the rugged frontier has, for much of Kisilland’s history, mitigated against a strong cultural drive among Helmin settlers; in this sense, the territory may resemble the Seranian territories in the Gleymtlönd in meriting comments from visitors that “[there is] more culture to be found in a tub of skyr than in [Kisilland]”. However, some traditional Helmin and Siur cultural touchstones, such as ránspár performances and the practice of tathyn, have been brought from the homeland and are now well established locally.

Native Kiši culture has had some impact across the religious divide, and some forms of ritual dance peculiar to Pyranist worship in the region have been adopted and modified for wider consumption in the home country.