What are Jadwiga?

East of Skaldia is Irrisen, the land of eternal winter.  Irrisen is a feudal matriarchy ruled by the "Jadwiga" or Winter Witches.  The Jadwiga have a LOT of problems, and are probably the worst detailed race of all Golarion, yet I've seen many blogs expressing a fascination with them, and with Irrisen in general... and I agree... What's not to like about a land where it is always winter and the rulers are evil witches (and usually depicted as attractive).  In my book, quite a bit, but I will have to fix it if I intend to run a LotLK campaign, because the history and fate of Irrisen and Skaldia are locked together.

My first problem is the name "Jadwiga."  The name of the race is "Jadwiga" (pronounced "Yahd-wee-gah... I have no idea where to put the emphasis).  The gazetteer says that they take this name from the first queen of Irissen, Jadwiga.  This is just plain ignorant.  Its like the English calling themselves the Elizabeth, or the Elizabeths.  They must have a name for themselves, and there must be a name that others call them... again, the Germans do not call the English, the Elizabeth or Der Alfred or Der Henry.  I suggest that using the word "Jadwiga" to name a race should sound equally ludicrous as calling the English, the Elizabeths.  So that's problem one: determine a racial name for the white witches.

They are definitely NOT human.  Here is what the gazetteer says.

The Jadwiga are the direct descendants of the Witch Queen Baba Yaga, who travels to Golarion once a century to install a new daughter to the throne of Irrisen. Even though Baba Yaga hales from somewhere else in the Great Beyond, the Jadwiga appear, and seem to be fully human.

They (or at least the females) are the "daughters" of Baba Yaga.  Baba Yaga is everything that you would think a traditional witch to be, and I have never seen her depicted as anything other than a hook-nosed, toothless hag.  She is never in the company of men, nor does any legend state that she has or had a husband.  So how is she having all these attractive daughters?  As a witch, she does like to steal children, so its possible that her "daughters" are actually children that she has stolen form Golarion or other worlds.  However, they do not seem to age or die of natural causes, of course, their expertise in the arcane arts may explain this.

They are the ruling class of Irrisen, with the descendants of Elvanna, the current queen of the land, holding the highest political and social positions.  This will change in 4713 AR when Baba Yaga returns to remove Elvanna and the first generation of her children from Irrisen and replaces them with a new daughter and progeny.

Lets consider this; every 100 years, Baba Yaga (BY) comes to Irrisen, removes the current queen from her throne and instates another of her (BY's) daughters as queen.  She also takes the first generation of the current queen with her when this is all done.  This raises the following questions:

1) Are the daughters of BY all in Irrisen or does she bring a new daughter with her every 100 years?

2) How many children does the typical queen have and who is their father?  The gazetteer never mentions a husband or make concubines or anything of that nature.  Just how is the queen having babies, and how quickly does a new queen have them in order to replace all offices held by the previous queen's children?  If these winter witches are, indeed, human, there is no way they can enough children to be duchesses and countesses to replace the ones that were taken with the former queen in less than 25 or 30 years.

Of course, I understand, this is a game for gamers much younger than myself, and many biological details are left out or just taken for granted, but these gamers are old enough to know about the birds and the bees, and  some fundamental laws of nature need to be followed, or written off by magic.

But that's not the worst of it.  If  the land is locked in eternal winter (for 1,400 years), what are these Jadwiga and their Skaldian serfs eating?  The gazetteer addresses this with the "winter-yew."  The only indigenous trees that remain in Irrisen are fir trees.  Some animals can use these for food, but not most of the herd animals, and especially not the people living there.  The winter-yew, however, is a fir-like tree that was brought to Golarion by the Jadwiga from... somewhere else.  The winter=yew or "witch tree" has cones that contain edible seeds, I can only imagine that people have also learned to grind theses seeds and make cereals and breads and maybe they even ferment them to make alcohol,  but I can't believe that this is all these people have to eat.  The bark is also edible and grows back quite rapidly, but nowhere is it mentioned that the people of Irrisen farm the witch tree.

As you can see, there aren't a lot of 'reasons' for things to be as they are in Irrisen, and that's something I'll have to give long thought on.  These are a few of my current ideas to answer the questions:

1) The 'Jadwiga' are not human.
2) They do not reproduce like humans do.
3) They either have, or ARE terraforming their chosen part of Golarion.
4) They either do not need food, or subsist in ways totally alien to Golarion
5) They need the humans

I'd really love to hear what other people have to say, so please leave comments to this post, if you have any of the answers I seek, of if I'm completely wrong.