Avatani

Avatan Wanderer

The Avatani (Av. "Refusing Men", sing. Avatan) were an enigmatic people of the First Age. They were likely descendants of the first men who awoke in Hildorien and became pupils of the Avari Elves, and at last to some degree lesser descendants of the "warped men" who had served the First Temple, which is why they considered themselves "Greater Men". After the Battle of Palisor, they fled eastwards and began to settle the vast lands east of the Orocarni, subjugating or driving out the Sûrk Kaelân and wild Woodmen of the Far east who had lived there before. Four of their tribes, the Wôm, Wômakh, Krawân-Góak, and Narîg, formed the people later known as the Wômaw. Other related tribes were the Rûlurk and Aegaw. In the Westlands the Avatani and their descendants were called "the Black Easterlings".

Genealogy of the Avatan People

• Hildor
  • refugees from Palisor
    • Asrabi
      • Avatani
        • Narîg
        • Krawân
        • Wôm
        • Wômac
          • Wômaw
            • Cuivac Wômaw
            • Góakaw
            • Móakaw
            • Wôm Shryac
              • Ôn
          • Dúrakhani
        • Rûlurk
      • Men of the Orocarni
        • Valg
          • Men of Haen (mixed with Wômaw settlers)
      • Woodmen of the Far east
        • Micghiná (mixed with Wômaw settlers)
        • Ilhian (mixed with Wômaw settlers)
          • Aegaw
        • Lemnbarbátsi
      • Sûrk Kaelân
        • Kaelaw
        • Sûrk
          • Sûrk-Wômaw (mixed with Wômaw settlers)
            • Argaw
            • Lôkaw
              • Lôkhans (mixed with indigenious braric Tribes)
            • Vu'ulmaw
              • Vulmaw
      • Zori (mixed with Talataerim)
        • Cloud-Lords
        • Dúrakhani
        • Wôrim
          • Lân
        • Sulini

Notes

Original form in MERP: Avaradan → Avatani

The Avaradan-peoples are influenced by the American Indian and eastern Asian Cultures; the Wômarin culture bears elements of eastern Asian society, while the descriptions of their physical form are more akin to those of Native American tribesmen. A possible real-world parallel could be the Itelmen of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

In MERP the Avaradan are described as "High Men," with a supposed "Half-Elven" lineage. Yet, noting the stated scarcity of pure Elvish blood in the terrestrial world, and the natural association with the Avari, this Elvish ancestry seems therefore less probable than theorized in their culture, if possible at all. Two sources may be predicted for their pride: either they descend from Mannish pupils of the Avari in Hildorien, who fled eastwards, rather than westwards, from the yoke of Morgoth; or they descend from Men who, twisted in the Original Sin prompted by Morgoth himself, worshipped him, and spread throughout the East in oppression of their neighbors who they deemed lesser.