North African?
My reading of the description of the warriors at the battle (skirmish) of Ithilien seemed to have the Southrons resembling Masai warriors (exotic-animal hide shield, feathers, broad-bladed spear, etc.). Wouldn’t that be sub-Saharan?
It was in Unfinished Tales – the article on the Druedain in Part IV.
FWIW, by the way, I ran into the term Variag (the folks from Khand) outside Tolkien, as “wariag” – which had the meaning of “bandit.”
Thanks, Poly. I’m not that familiar with the apocryphal volumes (Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, Lays of Beleriand, HOME, etc.)
And it should be noted that I use the term “apocryphal” in the sense that Christopher Tolkien couldn’t really know whether or not the good professor intended to append them to the main storyline or not, or in what condition.
Don’t have the book in front of me at moment, but Im fairly certain that the Silmarillion mentioned the men of Numenor setting up bases and essentially throwing their weight around while at the height of their power and by the time of Sauron’s deception (and the fall of numenor) I recall that they had gotten pretty agressive (treating all other races of men as their vassals).
That sort of history would certainly go a ways to push these other races to side with Mordor
ACtually in JRRT’s notes, from "Peoples of Middle Earth " HOMES volume 12, he reveals that the Dunlendings were descended from the people of Haleth. They declined to go to Numenor, and stayed in middle-earth. They grew estranged from their fellow Edain when the Numenorian Sea-kings became tyrants and stripped the coast of middle earth of its forests, which the people of Haleth (later Dunlendings) loved.
Thanks for that correction, Qadgop. Like I said, I’m not terribly familiar with the posthumous works other than the Sil.
For Eru’s sake, jayjay! it’s only 12 volumes, replete with more editorial footnotes than actual text! And long, involved discourses on subtle language variants and minimally or majorly altered versions of texts! Get cracking!
Now if the ghost of Perfesser Tolkien would only drop the bunch of them under my tree this year, I might be able to catch up. I have browsed a few of them, and I have to say they’re worlds more palatable than certain offspring-instigated posthumous profit-reaping other authors’ children have committed coughHerbertcough. I guess because Christopher presented them as they were left, and didn’t invite a hack writer to cobble them into a storyline that rapes continuity…sorry. 
I get emotional about that…
It’s worth the effort to learn about Melko’s Vala buddies Measse and Makare. Also about Bingo Baggins and Trotter the hobbit-ranger. And Farahslax, brother of Bromosel of Tudor…
Sorry, wrong book!
You want bad continuations of great series? The new Amber novels are truly execrable!
May Iluvatar grant you your Christmas wish!
New Amber novels? :eek: I hadn’t even caught wind of these…
Is it a contract requirement that all good speculative fiction authors must arrange to have hacks crank out bad sequels when they die?
Frankly, I’m sorry I mentioned it. I’d have preferred to treasure my Amber experience with memory untainted by John Betancourt.
But get into HOMES!!! One pans thru a lot of gravel, but frequently finds large and small nuggets of pure JRRT gold!
Eh, I looked the Betancourt bull up on Amazon. It looks like a rehash of Corwin’s saga writ badly. Revelations of the main character’s background (to himself as much as the reader), nasty relatives, into the wild shadows, new Pattern, etc.,etc…
Why are they always prequels? sigh
And I’m getting itchy library fingers again, so I just may attack HOMES soon…
Just a refresher (as there does appear to be some mixed interpretations of what frankly isn’t described in more than a few sentences):
“He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, green arrow feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword.”
So Brown skinned, braided black hair, some kind of ‘scale’ armour and a fondness for gold adornment. It doesn’t really evoke a historical culture to me but some kind of strange amalgam of elements that would seem ‘exotic’ to your average European/Western reader. Also…this guy that ‘Sam’ wonders about (not Faramir) is a Southron according to the text yet looks for all the world like the ‘Easterlings’ entering the Black Gate in the Two Towers film, just another of the weird liberties taken by the filmmakers.
Interesting… I had always pictured (though without much evidence) the Rohirrim as being decended from the people of Haleth. I think it’s the comparison between Eowyn and Haleth… One can easily imagine Haleth being an ancestor of Eowyn.
Well, they may be, Chronos. The rohirrim are descended from a branch of the 3 houses that didn’t cross into Beleriand. I always assumed they were from the House of Hador because of their blond hair though.
Thanks, CaptEgo. I don’t know where I inserted those details from. Probably a commercial for “Shaka Zulu” was running on the TV in the next room while I was reading it one time.