MAN RAID! Sexual politics and the Witches of Dathomir [NRM]

Q: Why haven't the men of Dathomir taken over or even ever rebelled? Not only should they be bigger and stronger physically, but surely they also have Force potential, and there must be as many as the females?

A: I propose a retcon that makes both of those assumptions wrong, and explains how the "peculiar institution" of the Dathomiri has survived to the present day. Please note that I do not have all relevant sources, so I may get a few points wrong.

There's two castes in Dathomiri society: the witches and the commoners. The witches are matrilinear. While they have husbands (in some cases multiple husbands) we have never to my knowledge seen a witch or Nightsister of Dathomir bear a son. Daughters, yes, and many daughters. There's a Dathomiri myth about Allya feeding the males that sired sons to rancors, even. Clearly this is not a sustainable strategy. However, we see Tenel Ka perform Wacky Pregnancy Tricks, and surely spells related to conception and pregnancy were of great interest to the Dathomiri (more than to the Jedi!). It's easy to imagine a spell that kills male sperm, or in some other fashion ensures that all witch offspring will be the treasured daughter-apprentices.

As a rule, high-class Dathomiri women don't want sons. Pregnancy's enough of a pain, and giving birth to a male is just adding insult to injury. He'll end up some other woman's slave, and you can't teach him the Force because he's a man...etc. Similar to various other cultures' attitudes towards women. This leads to a shortage of men. Actually, this leads to a massive shortage of men, because not only is a good part of the clan not having sons, high-class women also can have multiple husbands.

There's probably ways for low-class women who really want children to rent a man for a few days to try and get pregnant. But you have a situation where few commoner women have husbands, few have sons. While there's more commoners than witches, there's not that many more.

However, a commoner woman who has a son is almost set for life, if her son doesn't get stolen from her. She can pick and choose who to sell him to, and make enough money to maybe buy a husband for any daughters she has. This is similar to how polygynous societies drive up the (cash) value of women with bride-prices, while monogamous societies historically tend to require the parents to pay dowries (because there are generally more adult women than men). The free value market of a wife as it were. Husband, here. In this case we have both a naturally skewed gender ratio AND polygamy. Sad days for commoner women looking for husbands, but having a son is probably the main path for wealth for a commoner.

So....if the witches are only having daughters, and most daughters are witches, the blood of the Force-sensitives isn't really getting out into the general population. Sure, there's a few squibs who would "become" commoners, but any commoner who shows talent will probably be trained as a witch, and men with talent (or most men) would be more likely to have only daughters by witches. In Shadow Academy, the Nightsisters accept men, but say they're less talented. Given this set-up, that would be the absolute truth. Outnumbered and outpowered, the poor Dathomiri men don't stand a chance

There's a couple of strategies the witches have set up for dealing with this imbalance. One of them is man-raiding, as shown so hilariously in Infinity's End. Escaped males are free game. The only free males are those who've saved the life of a witch, but if they're from another clan and you're raiding they're still probably fair game. Other clans' slaves are also free game, if you can get them away. And one man can in his reproductive lifetime be passed between many witches. Raiding seems to be half-friendly competition, and small children are probably not valid targets. Only witches seem to raid, though, and this makes the lot of your average commoner Dathomiri even sadder.

So, why hasn't this system collapsed under its own weight? One word. Tourism

 

Whoa, that's an....interesting theory.

 

For want of anything better to say at the moment-

 

Yet Teneniel Djo was pregnant with a son during the time of Jedi Eclipse (but we never found out until Dark Journey). Sure, the boy was stillborn, but blame that on Thrackan and all those dying Hapans.

And I would assume that in order for their to keep on being Dathomiri ladies, there would have to be some men born there as well.

After all, no matter how good those witches are with the Force, and no matter how many Wacky Pregnancy Tricks they can perform, it still takes two to make a baby.

And two women can't do that...

 

Ha, I wouldn't be surprised to find out the GFFA has tech that lets two men or two women have a child (not naturally, but one with the right mix of genetics).

 

Tenenial was a galactic woman, and not living in clan society. It might be scandalous for her to have a son on Dathomir, but she wasn't all that Dathomiri anymore. And anyway, the son was pretty much an afterthought. A witch who wanted sons could have just sons just as easily as daughters. The basis of this retcon is that Dathomiri witches can control their reproduction and have a very strong preference for daughters.

The witches aren't the only women on Dathomir. There's also non-Force-sensitive commoner women, who don't have the option to choose the sex or timing of their baby in their Iron Age society.

We know it's possible for one man to make millions of babies. Isn't tech wonderful?

 

I wonder how the Dathomiri women act around Streen, since he went there with Kirana Ti, to help out after the vong war. I would assume that most would give treat male Jedi with some respect after Luke helped them and Han gave the head witch the deed to the planet.

 

Frodo 1: that no Forceful men were seen in COPL doesn't there aren't some, or have been isolated few.

Frodo 2: there isn't rebellion for two Sams:

men = mundane
women = wizards

It's realy that simple. Add the elf that there's no techonological civilisation outside the settlements in a wild world, and it makes pragmatic Pippin to stay, right?

Right?

Apart from minidressed lizard ladies too. And you can whuffa your way with prestige as well.

 

Wasn't it a daughter she was going to have in Dark Journay?

Page 169 is inconclusive: Ta'a Chume says: "She was expecting a second child, an heir to the throne of Hapes, or at the very least a son who might find a suitable wife..."

Can't find anything else right now, but I've heard elsewhere that she was having a girl.

 

sab: I think your analysis of the basic dynamics is excellent. The emphasis on a possible gender disparity in the population is brilliant, and there's a lot of sense in the idea of selective breeding to divide between an élite tending to be Force-sensitive and bear daughters, and a wider pool which supplies their male slaves...

However...

One major question:

How much information do we have on non-Force-sensitive "commoners"? I've found one mention on a quick skim of CoPL, but it would be just possible to retcon this to mean "men"...

A couple of quick clarifications:

1.) Geonosis and the Outer Rim establishes that the Great Canyon Clan was in existence before it became the "new Nightsisters": Brakiss must have performed an Imperial Intelligence infiltration of the group, and probably did things best left for the Sex Thread to the clan leaders. The subsequent equality granted to males is, I think, a little bit of Imperial cultural modification to better serve the ends of the Shadow Academy...

2.) Teneniel Djo is in solitary exile, and has been for several years; her inability to find a mate is to do with this, I think - and also perhaps her psychological disposition - rather than any lack of available males.

And perhaps an instinctive awareness that if she hangs around long enough, Farmboy will fall from the sky into her lap, too (on which see further below)...

And some stuff from the Ewok tangent:

I've been doing some rewriting on the relevant Wiki pages recently: here, here, and here... and I have another thought on the shape of Dathomiri society.

Dathomir's dominant native species is the rancor.

And rancors are matriarchal, too.

To control a rancor herd, you need to get along with the herd-mother; this requires the Force... but it also requires female Force-sensitives...

Thus, to transform the rancor's favourite prey into a viable planetary civilization, you need an élite of female Force-sensitives who're able to befrend and work in cooperation with the rancors...

Which is why Allya was so important...

I also have some other thoughts you may be interested in - but those are perhaps left for another thread...

One thing I will mention here, which I just realised:

---

[i]Groggily, he heard the girl yelling at him, realized that she straddled his chest, locking his arms with her strong legs, but Luke was too weak to fight her off. She held his jaw and shouted triumphantly, "I am Teneniel Djo, a daughter of Allya, and you are my slave!"[/i]
- Teneniel Djo to Luke Skywalker, [i]Courtship of Princess Leia[/i], chapter 14.[hr][/blockquote]
That's... the Dathomiri marriage ceremony, isn't it? /:) :-? :p

- The Imperial Ewok

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if it was explicitly illegal.

 

Interesting idea, and one that I think I more or less held to unwritten about the witches for years.

As far as availability of men goes...I'm sure there were more then enough "slaves" to pass around for wild weekends. I bet for a witch with a half dozen husbands clawing to get at her, she'd happily rent one out.

Perhaps the whole idea of high class witches keeping many husbands was a form of population control. Perhaps the whole thing was setup to keep the clans at subsistence levels.

 

Yeah, I mean that's more like Sith alchemy then real science.

 

Might help out those worlds where the genetic variety was starting to dry up.

 

Sorry, didn't read the whole thing, but maybe the witches just only ever trained the women. That way the men would never develop any real force abilities and would never be capable of overthrowing the women.

 

Great analysis, for this you recieve my: "Sociological Award"

1) rancors are not native to dathomir, some guide or KOTOR said that I think, forgot the source... their homeworld is unknown.

2) Did the witches ever think about.. the kwi/kwa or other availeable "help" if there are no other man? aliens or.. others?

3) Lets look at the Hapan society, too please. Taa chume had several lovers at once, but no known true husband. Maybe teneniel did that, too and Isolder allowed it?

4) post COPL men should more or less become equals because massive reformations had been planned for Hapes and Dathomir. they failed at hapes, but dathomir was successful in most parts. dathomiri Jedi Kirana Ti had a husband and two daugthers, she left turning jedi, he trained the daugthers and was a male witch in the new dathomir society of the singing mountain clan.

5) rancors really native to dathomir? some guide or kotor said something different, I think KOTOR game did.. though I do not recall the exact quote

 

I want to flag this up, actually: that statement was already in Wookieepedia, so I left it in; Cracken's Threat Dossier is written from the POV that they're non-native, but that's written "in-universe", and thus unreliable...

Anyone else got any other references here?

Waa!

Now this is a very interesting suggestion, especially with regard to Ta'a Chume.

As she's not the one who carries the biological legitimacy, I suspect this would be more frowned-on with Teneniel; but then again, I'm half-convinced that Tenel Ka is Luke's daughter, as I already intimated above...

She did? Interesting...

I think this is definately part of it: part of the purpose of what Brakiss does in the Great Canyon Clan sees to be to tap the Force potential of the men...

But I do like sab's idea, too...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I don't have any exact references, but I remember several sources having the same gist: rancors are thought to be from Dathomir, but it isn't confirmed.

 

Let me be the first to say that this thread is sexist.

 

Commoners vs. others - Courtship has men and women of both sexes working, but witches don't seem to work at all. They're warrior-caste and focus on raising their daughters, protecting their clan from raids, hunting, dressing in swanky lizard skin, etc. Teneniel considers Isolder a commoner in relation to Luke. There's places where spellcasting and non-spellcasting women are differentiated. There are boys mentioned (a couple tend the rancors), but not around witches at all. With witches, only daughters (and granddaughters, etc.) are ever mentioned.

I don't believe that the men would have exactly the same potential but just need to harness it because that doesn't make sense in story. The Dathomiri train their daughters in front of their husbands. Clever men would soon realize that they could learn a few tricks. There's one (or two) examples of force-sensitive men, as opposed to the large and ever-growing numbers of witches. The general population of Dathomir is probably a lot more Force-sensitive on average than the galactic population, but probably more along the lines of one in 100 non-witches having talent (as opposed to the usual one in millions/billions). Commoner women will crop up with talent, and so will men. But rarely. In the case where we see both sexes being taught, we hear:

The Shadow Academy is picking off the bottom of the Dathomiri social hierarchy. It's not some massive revolution. They have one talented boy who they use to put on shows, and then outcasts, hopeful runaways, etc.

The status of men on Dathomir is kind of like women in a medieval army. Sure, a really really talented woman might be on par physically with some of the men, but there's never any threat of women taking over the army. It's not frowned on because it's a threat to the status quo, it's frowned on because it's silly. Training male witches if all males could be witches would be a huge threat to the status quo. But on Dathomir, the reaction to male witches isn't what would be expected if the Dathomiri had been carefully and desperately keeping their men ignorant of Force-talent. It's more along the lines of "hey, NEAT! I wonder how powerful our daughters would be!". We've got one example of a Nightsister keeping a Jedi for breeding already, along with Tenenial's Luke-fixation.

What's the source on Kirana Ti's husband and alleged Dathomir social revolution? It's not wholly unexpected that some men could be Force-sensitive. It' unlikely he's all that good at it. Note he's still firmly in the role of husband-slave, and he's training the girls because his wife (who was supposed to) ran off on him. Also note he has no sons There's definitely still slavery on most of Dathomir as of YJK, and that's quite late in the game.

 

It's the exact references I'm chasing here... but thanks!

sab: I'll get back to you when I've done a bit more ruttling...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

shadow academy shows only Nightsisters and a small part of dathomir, the imperial part. this part might still use slavery but, as quoted, equals man already though it is not very common yet due to their power levels.

the singing mountain clan and others might have different societies in that timeframe. the NJO and postNJO even has Streen and Kirana Ti found a Jedi Praxeum on dathomir post NJO training males and females together. that and Kirana Ti's husband training and educating her daughters implies not all dathomir is unified. some clans changed, others did not change.

 

We see the Singing Mountain clan in Shadow Academy. You know, the one Kirana Ti's from? Still traditionalist.

 

That just isn't coming off right...