Aiel
From Freepedia
In Robert Jordan's fantasy series The Wheel of Time, the Aiel are a race of people. They live between the "wetlanders" in the west and the Sharans in the east, in a desert which the Aiel call The Three-fold Land and which everyone else calls the Aiel Waste. They have earned a reputation as skilled warriors; little else is known about them in the wider world. Physically, Aiel can be recognized through their height, characteristic pale eyes, and red or blond hair. They are reminiscent of both Frank Herbert's fictional Fremen and real-world Native Americans.
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History
Modern Aiel are descended from the Da'shain Aiel, servants of the Aes Sedai during the Age of Legends, and sworn never to touch a sword (a non-violent philosophy known as the Way of the Leaf). Some time after the Breaking of the World, however, the Da'shain Aiel turned from one people into three: today's Aiel (which means "dedicated" in the Old Tongue), the Tuatha'an (also known as Traveling People or Tinkers), and the Jenn Aiel (literally, True Dedicated). The split between the Aiel and Tuatha'an was acrimonious: certain members of the Aiel had killed in self-defense, though they followed the letter of the law by using only spears and knives (a practice modern-day Aiel still hold to). The newly-christened Tuatha'an left, unable to accept violence, chased by accusations that they were abandoning their duty to the Aes Sedai. The Jenn Aiel, who still held to the Way of the Leaf, nevertheless remained with their brethren, and this compound group made their way across the Spine of the World into the Aiel Waste. They were helped, during their journey, by members of the people who would later become the nation of Cairhien. In the waste, the Aiel prospered while the Jenn Aiel dwindled; the last Jenn died hundreds of years ago, leaving only a holy city, Rhuidean.
Today, the Aiel have all but forgotten their ancient ways; only their leaders remember that they once served the Aes Sedai, and no trace of the Way of the Leaf remains in their culture other than a total unwillingness to touch a sword.
Reputation
Not much is known about the Aiel by the outside world. Any wetlanders (as they call those who live to the west) are killed on sight; only peddlers, gleemen and Aes Sedai are given free passage. Tinkers can also move freely in the Waste if they so choose, as no Aiel will go near them. Aiel have a reputation for being vicious fighters, and "black-veiled Aiel" is a common epithet for belligerence.
The Aiel once allowed a fourth class of wetlander to traverse their lands: the citizens of, in honor of the help they had given the Aiel during their wandering. The Cairhienin were allowed to travel through the Waste to Shara, where the Cairhienin were able to obtain precious silks, spices and other luxury goods. The Aiel also gave Cairhien a small tree: Avendoraldera, a cutting of Avendesora, the Tree of Life. Unfortunately, several centuries later, a Cairhienin king with more ambition than sense, Laman Damodred, cut down Avendoraldera to make himself a throne. The Aiel, outraged, boiled out of the Waste to bring back Laman's head. Four of the twelve Aiel clans went, led by a charismatic Tardaad clan chief named Janduin, but the assassination-in-force was complicated when several wetlander armies mistook the Aiel for an invasion force and started fighting back. The Aiel cut them to ribbons, and by 978 NE they had pushed the multinational force all the way back to Tar Valon. The battle there, known as the Blood Snow. saw the Aiel succeed in killing King Laman; the next day, they went home. Wetlanders call this the Aiel War; the Aiel call it business as usual. Since then, however, the Aiel have been even more hostile to the Cairhienin than to other wetlanders, calling them "treekillers" and "oathbreakers."
Customs
The Aiel have a number of cultural practices that are quite strange to outsiders. For example, women frequently become soldiers and fight alongside men. In addition, the taboo against nudity is much weaker amongst the Aiel than in some cultures (much to the astonishment of many of the series's main characters). The Aiel moral code is called ji'e'toh, an Old Tongue word which roughly translates to "honor and duty" or "honor and obligation"; it codifies the Aiel responses to honor and shame (which is essentially synonymous with obligation). Outsiders consider it labyrinthine--one Aes Sedai who studied it for a month reportedly ended more confused than she started--but the Aiel live and die by it.
gai'shan
One of the most bizarre convolutions of ji'e'toh has to do with the taking of gai'shain, "those sworn to peace in battle." Aiel earn honor and prestige for deeds in battle--or accumulate shame by misdeeds--but killing an opponent earns the least honor; any fool can kill, just as any fool can die. What earns the most honor is touching the opponent while holding a weapon, but without harming them (similar to the system of counting coup among certain Plains Indians). An Aiel so shamed is considered to have toh--obligation--to the person who touched them, and will march straight to that person and demand to be made gai'shain, at which point they don white robes, become that person's servant for a year and a day, and forswear to touch a weapon during that time. Becoming gai'shain is a way to annul toh; it is totally voluntary and can be used to atone for non-battle-related shaming as well. Gai'shain are not slaves, and any wetlander who suggests it is soon straightened out.
Wise Ones, blacksmiths, children, and women with a child under the age of ten cannot be taken gai'shain. Exact "ownership" of the gai'shain is a variable matter; though each gai'shain swears only to one person, they can be and are often instructed to obey commands from other people as well.
Gender differences
Though only men can become clan chiefs, only women can hold property. The owner of any given roof (house) or holding (settlement) is the roofmistress, and she must give permission to step under her roof. Only women, likewise, can become Wise Ones. Only women can ask for marriage; a man may accept or decline, but may not ask, although he may make his interest known in other ways.
Culture
The Aiel are organized on several different levels. There are twelve Aiel clans, each of which has a clan chief; clans are further divided into septs, and septs subdivide into holdings (which are individual settlements; each clan and sept also has a central hold). Aiel warriors also affiliate themselves with various warrior societies, of which there are twelve: Mountain Dancers, Thunder Walkers, Stone Dogs, Brothers of the Eagle, etc. The only society to accept women is the Far Dareis Mai, the Maidens of the Spear; their members 'marry' their spears and are forbidden to take men into their lives on a permanent basis without forfeiting membership. The lines of loyalty amongst clan, sept and society are tangled; but, roughly, allegiance to one's warrior society trumps clan allegiance. This appears counter-intuitive until one remembers that the clans are in a state of almost perpetual twelve-way warfare; since Aiel from any clan can join any society, and will not raise spear against fellow society members, this allows open lines of diplomacy between all clans at all times. (Some Aiel even sojourn with their societies to avoid participating in clan feuds.)
Clans and septs
The thirteen Aiel clans (including the ancient Jenn Aiel), and their known septs. [1]
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The twelve Aiel clans are similar to the Tribes of Israel. There is a thirteenth clan, not counted among them: the Jenn Aiel, who built the city of Rhuidean, a repository of Aiel history, equivalent to the Hebrew Levites. In modern times, the Jenn Aiel are believed to be entirely extinct.
Warrior Societies
- Far Dareis Mai (Maidens of the Spear)
- Shae'en M'taal (Stone Dogs)
- Aethan Dor (Red Shields)
- Seia Doon (Black Eyes)
- Far Aldazar Din (Brothers of the Eagle)
- Rahien Sorei (Dawn Runners)
- Sha'mad Conde (Thunder Walkers)
- Hama N'dore (Mountain Dancers)
- Sovin Nai (Knife Hands)
- Cor Darei (Night Spears)
- Tain Shari (True Bloods)
- Duadhe Mahdi'in (Water Seekers)
- Mera'din (the Brotherless, described above)
Rhuidean
After the Breaking of the World, the Aiel, like all peoples, wandered the land looking for safe refuge from the depredations of the insane male channelers; this brought the Aiel to the Three-fold Land in the first place, and the Aes Sedai who accompanied them, with the Jenn Aiel clan, built the first and only city there, which they named Rhuidean. The city was never strongly inhabited, and was abandoned after the disappearance of the Jenn Aiel; however, it is still used for raising clan chiefs and Wise Ones.
Wise Ones
Aiel women who can channel are not sent to the White Tower; instead, they remain among the Aiel and become Wise Ones. Some Aiel women are also skilled in walking Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams; they too become Wise Ones (even if they cannot channel). Wise Ones undergo a grueling testing period, culminating in a trip to Rhuidean; inside there are ter'angreal which administer the final test.
Clan Chiefs
Aiel clan chiefs must also undergo this test. They come out marked with an iridescent dragon tattoo around one forearm--or do not come out at all. Women receive no such marking. Two of three who go, do not return; what happens to them and what is learned in Rhuidean has been a mystery to most Aiel until recently. Eventually, it is told, that a man will emerge from Rhuidean at daybreak with two dragons, one on each forearm; a Car'a'carn, a chief-of-chiefs, He Who Comes With The Dawn.
Prophecy
There is also a Car'a'carn, a chief of chiefs, spoken of in prophecy, who will lead the clans and destroy them: "He shall spill our the blood of those who call themselves Aiel as water on sand, and he shall break them as dried twigs, yet the remnant of a remnant shall he save, and they shall live" (The Shadow Rising, pg. 285). Of late, Rand al'Thor has been proven to be that man. The arrival of "He Who Comes with the Dawn" has caused a number of upheavals to the Aiel way of life.
Shaido
At least one of the twelve clans, the Shaido, has splintered off from the Aiel proper; its now-deceased leader, Couladin, claimed to be the real Car'a'carn and led the Shaido across the Dragonwall into Cairhien. His claim was bolstered by markings on his arms identical to those Rand received in Rhuidean; presumably Asmodean placed them there to so dissent. His claim has been supported posthumously by his wife Sevanna, although to what continuing effect remains to be seen.
The bleakness
At Alcair Dal, Rand also revealed the secret he learned in the Rhuidean test, the secret that drove two Aiel of three to insanity: that the Aiel had once been the Da'shain Aiel, and served the Aes Sedai, and followed the Way of the Leaf. To a culture that lives and dies by its oaths, the news that they were all oathbreakers was devastating, and many Aiel have since succumbed to the resulting "bleakness." Some take on permanent gai'shain white, in hopes of paying off a debt that can never be repaid. More forsake spear and cadin'sor and attempt to live the Way of the Leaf in the wetlander cities--or among the Tinkers!--as their ancestors would have. Others simply disappear. And some of them run to join the Shaido, hoping for a return to an earlier, simpler time.
Brotherless
Because of this, the Shaido ranks are swelling, but these runaways, having abandoned their clan and sept, are scorned by the Shaido, and their warrior societies will not accept them. This resulted in the unofficial creation of a thirteenth warrior society, peculiar to the Shaido: the Mera'din, the Brotherless, those who have lost everything (we have not seen any Maidens of the Spear make this decision, as yet).
At present, the heads of the other eleven clans remain loyal to al'Thor, but as battle and the bleakness take their tolls, the number of loyal Aiel diminishes daily.
