Bandaiyan is a land said to lie between Mu and Lemuria. According to legend, it was settled long before the Second Age, by natives of Nyaminate (called the Garden Continent for the fecundity of its food sources) who were dissatisfied with their gods, and who followed the songs of those younger gods known as the Cloud Striders. No native of that land has been seen in Yereho since the Great Disaster, although some individuals that claim to be natives continue to correspond with those men of letters left scattered across creation.
Elte of the Anki is said to have sojourned in Bandaiyan for some time. He spoke highly of the natives' erudition and prowess in battle, but disdained their adherence to false gods, many of whom had no higher form than that of an animal. It is said by many that even these false gods are given but the most perfunctory worship, the influence of atheist Mu looming large on the natives' horizon. Their skin is dark and without blemish, and their hair lush and curly, suggesting the legendary connection to Nyaminate is at least partially true. Their culture has been described as a bewildering melange of other cultural artifacts, including a form of the artificial division into races found in Lemuria, suggesting a crossing of that haunted and cursed place as part of their exodus. However, they also practice circumcision, which is a sign that they have not forgotten all of the sacred rituals in their apostasy.
Elte describes, once again through his student Ameilik, the land itself as being rich and green, covered over much of its area with thick, choking forests. He praises the natives for their industry in thinning the forests, using fire, mundane and divine. Many strange animals are said to dwell in these forests, although these reports are much to be doubted due to the incredible and unnatural descriptions given. In fact, it is considered very strange by the learned that Elte of the Anki, considered by most to be one of the most indisputable of mortal sources, was so taken in by the fabulous tales of the natives of Bandaiyan. He tells of seed cones as large as a man's head, and nuts used as candles, of enormous fanged rats that would leap upon prey and crush them with their forelimbs, and of crocodiles that leapt out of trees. Speculation as to this lapse in judgement is inappropriate for this article.
In the absence of reliable reporting from Elte of the Anki, we turn to the only slightly-more credible testimony of Aegea of Atlantis, a witch and a slaver, from many centuries after Elte's ascension. She reports landing upon the western coast of Bandaiyan while fleeing from a Lemurian punishment fleet, and winning the trust of a village of natives. They were a peaceful people, living on the bounty of the sea, and on largesse from their neighbors in Mu. She writes that they were laughably easy to capture, believing her tale that she sought the most learned men of the east to solve a grave problem her people faced. An entire village marched willingly into her slave holds. She corroborates Elte's reports of their handsomeness, although she found their wooly hair to be a flaw in their breeding.
As of this writing, the existence of Bandaiyan as described by Elte and other ancients is judged by the wise to be more likely than the supposed lands of frost and plenty east of Mu, but less likely than that of the unnamed antipodal reversal continent.
edited by Ae of the Third Eye, Sacred Gudg of Yereho
