Water Tribe
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The Water Tribe is a collective term for a nation of people in the fictional universe of the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. One of the series' "Four Nations," the Water Tribe is divided into two nation-states: the Southern Water Tribe, which inhabits the South Pole, and the Northern Water Tribe, which inhabits the North Pole. There is also a small population of Waterbenders located in the swamps of the Earth Kingdom. The Water Tribe is home to an order of men and women who practice Waterbending, the mystical art of hydrokinesis. According to Uncle Iroh, Waterbenders can adapt to different situations easily, as they manipulate water, the "element of change." As of The Crossroads of Destiny, the Water Tribe is the only nation left resisting the Fire Nation.
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[edit] Appearance
Ethnically homogeneous, members of both tribes typically have light or deep brown hair, blue eyes and light brown/tan skintone. Water Tribe clothing is typically a set of blue anorak and trousers lined and trimmed with white fur, and worn with mittens and mukluks. Men wear their hair in short ponytails (also known as "warrior's wolf tails"), while women plait and braid their hair in various styles, sometimes with accent beads, and many sport "hair loopies" in various styles. In the Northern Water Tribe, the people seem to be wearing a darker blue than Sokka and Katara, who are of the Southern Water Tribe.
[edit] National emblem
The national emblem of the Water Tribe is a circle comprised of a waning (if up is taken to be north and the orbit of the show's moon assumed to be the same as the Earth's Moon) crescent moon and three wavy horizontal lines representing water. It is displayed on the pennant of the watchtower in the Southern Tribe Village, and in the architecture of the Northern Water Tribe.
[edit] Government
The Southern Tribe operates on a patriarchal tribalist system of government. The Northern Tribe is a patriarchal monarchy but is more like a tribal group because the chief is the head of state. Labor division is dependent on gender: men serve as hunters, fishermen and warriors, and women serve as homemakers. These gender roles do not appear as imposed in the Southern Water Tribe as they are in the Northern Water Tribe, though this could be accounted to the lack of adult males in the former. If a Southern Water Tribe woman wanted to Waterbend or fight, she would be allowed to do so. In the Northern Water Tribe, she would be denied her wishes.
Compared to their sister tribe, there is no apparent monarchy in the Southern Tribe at the time of the series.
[edit] Culture
The Water Tribe is divided into three distinct groups, primarily based on their geography and affinity for Waterbending. The Southern Tribe occupies the Southern Pole with Katara as its only known bending member. The Northern Tribe consists of the majority of the official remnants of their civilization, occupying the North Pole with a multitude of able benders. The Foggy Swamp Tribe occupies a swamp in the Earth Kingdom, while most of its members are competent benders with some unique talents.
[edit] Southern Water Tribe
[edit] History
The Southern Water Tribe was once a beautiful city, like the Northern Water Tribe, but is currently in dire straits, teetering on the brink of extinction. Its remaining population is dwindling due to Fire Nation raids and is currently defenseless, as its warriors left for the Earth Kingdom to aid in the century-long war against the Fire Nation two years ago. With the departure of the sole remaining Waterbender, Katara, and warrior, Sokka, with Aang the Avatar, the people consist mostly of elderly and middle aged women and very young children. Recently a group of Waterbenders and healers from the Northern Tribe have been sent to the Southern Tribe to help rebuild.
[edit] Customs
[edit] Games
Penguin sledding is a game played amongst children of the Tribe, consisting of catching a penguin, and riding its back as a makeshift sled.
The Tribe has a unique rite of passage called "Ice Dodging." When a male tribemember turns fourteen, he is taken out on a boat with his father, and challenged to steer it through iceberg-studded waters. If and when the boy succeeds, he receives a mark on his forehead symbolizing his defining trait, and is declared a full member of the tribe.
Certain Southern Tribe members are more than willing to liberally adapt the ritual to new situations. In one instance, tribemember Bato took the fifteen-year-old Sokka, his younger sister Katara, and Aang, a twelve-year-old Airbender, on an "ice dodging" expedition in the rocky waters of the Earth Kingdom. When all cooperated in the ritual, he marked and declared them all full members of his tribe.
[edit] Locations
[edit] Village
The Village, positioned on a northern shoreline, is surrounded by a low, roughly circular snow wall, broken up by a snow watchtower (built by Sokka) to the north, and an ungated entrance to the south. Inside are eight residential tents, arranged semicircularly around a communal fire pit. A giant igloo hugs the east wall, while a handful of smaller ones cluster at the north wall. Outside, to the left of the entrance, is a small igloo-structure that serves as the village outhouse. The remaining population stands at less than two dozen, with ten married and/or elderly women, ten young children, and one domesticated polar bear.
Though the Avatar page on Nick.com stated that Hakoda, Katara's father, searched throughout the South Pole to find another Waterbender to teach Katara, suggesting that there is more than one village in the South Pole, it is currently unknown if there are other villages within the south pole.
[edit] The Shipwreck
West of the village lies a Fire Navy ship, torn open on jutting ice shelves. Though the shipwreck is a relic of the Fire Nation's long-ago first strike, its booby-traps are still in working order. In "The Boy in the Iceberg," Aang accidentally set off a flare that was meant to signal the Fire Nation.
[edit] Warriors
All adult male tribemembers are fully-trained warriors. Their weaponry includes clubs and spears made of bone (also used in spearfishing), bladed boomerangs and machetes with whale teeth on the dull side of the blade. Water Tribe warriors typically wear black and white warpaint before going into battle. Waterbending warriors wear mouthpieces and hoods. Two years ago all the men of the Southern Water Tribe were sent to fight in the war, leaving the village defenseless.
[edit] Fauna
The Southern Water Tribe is home to exotic fauna. Its sea lions are brown, with the dark brown striping and large ears of tigers. Polar bears are miniaturized and domesticated, with a black stripe running from spine to muzzle. The native penguins have four flippers, and are curiously beakless, instead sporting otter-like bewhiskered faces. White Hamsters inhabit the Shipwreck.
[edit] Gender Equality
The Southern Water Tribe has been noted to be less segregated than the north, which has specific societal roles for men and women. Though the Northern Tribe forbids women from learning Waterbending in anything except a healers capacity, it is stated on Nick.com's Avatar Information that Katara's father recognized her bendng ability and searched for a master to teach her.
However, the Southern Tribe still retains elements of gender dominated society, as Sokka possessed a minor sexist attitude throughout the beginning of the series.
[edit] Northern Water Tribe
Unlike the obliterated Air Nomads and their southerly sister tribe, the Northern Water Tribe has survived a century of war with the Fire Nation, due to the defenses their icy terrain provides. Behind high walls of ice and an ice gate and canal lock system passable only by the use of Waterbending, there lies a large and bustling monarchic nation-state. Ruled by Chief Arnook, the capital city features a palace, an army, and many skilled warriors, Healers, Waterbenders, and a hidden oasis which houses Tui and La, the Moon and Ocean Spirits. Flanked by icy sidewalks, the city roadways are canals, which people travel by gondola.
The cultural landscape, however, is highly classist and stratified. Marriages are arranged when tribe members turn sixteen, with the bride in particular having no say in the matter. Engaged women wear "betrothal necklaces:" navy blue chokers bearing blue stone pendants carved by their husband-to-be. Women Waterbenders are further marginalized, forbidden by custom from learning Waterbending for fighting purposes. Instead, they are trained as Healers, able to use bending to heal wounds. While the Southern Tribe seems to have similar traditional roles, they are apparently much more strict in the North, as Katara, who was raised in the South, expresses surprise and anger when she is initially denied equal treatment in waterbending training. Bato, a Southern Tribe Male and a friend of Katara's father, showed no signs of disapproval when observing Katara's waterbending skills.
The most distinguishable fauna in the area consist of seals, which sport shells and flippers of sea turtles, and people have domesticated elk-yaks for riding.
In the aftermath of the Fire Nation's Siege of the North, select Benders and Healers from the Northern Tribe have left for the South Pole, in an effort to rebuild their ravaged sister tribe.
[edit] Foggy Swamp Tribe
The Foggy Swamp Tribe are a waterbending Tribe who live in a mystical swamp in the Earth Kingdom. The swamp itself actually consists, in large part, of a single, massive swamp tree, at least several hundred feet tall, whose roots and tree limbs have spread out for miles to form the foundation of the swamp. Though the Foggy Swamp tribe Waterbenders share the skill of waterbending, they were completely unknown to their polar cousins and vice versa, until Katara, Sokka, and Aang stumbled across the tribe. They speak with a Mississippi River Delta accent, with whom they share much of their stereotypes. Though technologically unsophisticated, they are powerful waterbenders. They can use waterbending to propel their river crafts to very high speeds. Members of the Swamp Tribe have also discovered how to bend swamp plants by controlling the water within them. Their diet consists of small game and giant insects, and they keep alligator-catfish as pets. The Foggy Swamp Tribe is also very in tune to their natural surroundings and have a keen understanding of the workings of the natural world and a belief that all life is connected and is reliant on each other, a philosophy which they teach Aang, who quickly accepts the concept.
Though they wear green as opposed to blue, it could be pointed out that the water in their area is green and they are thus consistent with the other cultures of the Avatar world in using their element as a primary color motif.
The Foggy Swamp Tribe's Waterbenders have a different style of bending then their polar cousins. While the North and South pole Benders flow with the water, Foggy Swamp Tribe seems more rigid and straight. This can expecially be seen when they are moving their boats using a much more straight backed style then when Northern benders move their gondolas.
The Foggy Swamp Tribe's ancestry lies in the Southern Water Tribe. Thousands of years ago, a group migrated from the Southern Tribe and found the Swamp. Feeling comfortable because of the large amount of water, they decided to stay. This information, however, has been lost to both tribes' history, resulting in neither of the two knowing the other exists. This is never mentioned on screen, but is stated on Nickelodeon’s official Avatar site.[1]
[edit] Influences
In many aspects, Water Tribe culture borrows heavily from that of the Inuit peoples. [citation needed] The newly discovered swamp tribe seems to share aspects of the stereotyped culture of the southern half of the United States, although their loincloths resemble those of South American Natives.
The design of the Northern Water Tribe's capital city bears some resemblace to Venice, Italy and Atlantis (which contrasts with the tribal theme of the Water Tribe, but relates to water nonetheless). [citation needed]
[edit] Notable figures
[edit] Southern Water Tribe
[edit] Northern Water Tribe
- Chief Arnook
- Master Pakku
- Princess Yue
- Yugoda the Healer
[edit] Foggy Swamp Tribe
[edit] See also
| Information |
| Episodes · Media information · Guest voices · Trading cards · Video game Water Tribe · Earth Kingdom · Fire Nation · Air Nomads · Spirit World · Chakra |
| Characters |
| Aang · Katara · Sokka · Appa · Toph · Zuko · Iroh · Azula Major secondary characters · Minor secondary characters · Creatures Waterbender · Earthbender · Firebender · Airbender |
