In an unspecified time and country lived a people called the Kreuls. They were a gentle, peaceful people who were in love with life. This people worshipped a god: Rei Dom who was often represented with a bird, a kind of chicken with atrophied wings which was not quite a chick nor quite an adult, an adolescent bird called the Dom. When they were born, the Kreuls were baptized by a master of ceremonies who cut the inside of their lower lips slightly and who made a gash under their calves on which the master applied brown seaweed which dried with the scar and stayed there for the rest of their lives. When they died, the seaweed was removed and put back into running water, thereby creating new life. According to a Kreul custom, the seaweed represented the soul of the dead person which came back to life in the water. Thus, generation upon generation continued the customs and rites of a magnificent, deeply civilized people. One day, a nameless people, jealous of the Kreuls, a barbaric, cruel people, decided to massacre and exterminate them.