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Felagund
Rohan
May 17 2022, 11:37pm
Post #1 of 7
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postcards from the edge: Dunland & the Dunlendings / part III
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Conclusions: the backstory of my enemy is the friend of my enemy’s humanity
The fragmentary nature of ‘everything we know about Dunland and the Dunlendings’ necessarily elicits caution about whether Tolkien ever had a single narrative ‘plan’ for this people. In fact, I seriously doubt that he did, given the decades in between their introduction and further development. Not that this is uncommon when it comes to studies of the legendarium! And arguably, the Dunlendings and their ancestors serve more often than not to make points about other people, such as the destructive errors of the Númenóreans in their earliest dealings with Middle-earth or the clemency of the Rohirrim; or to provide some regularity and substance to the backstory of the Kingdom of Rohan, in the centuries between its founding and the events of the War of the Ring.
However, I would also argue that there is something a bit different going on with Tolkien’s treatment, directly or by proxy feigned historians and ethnographers, of the Dunlendings. Let’s compare the treatment of the Dunlendings with that of other humans who marched under the banner of a Dark Lord. Sam Gamgee’s reflections, upon witnessing the Rangers of Ithilien put to rout a column of Haradrim are illustrative in this context ('Of Herbs & Stewed Rabbit', LotR):
“It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face [of the slain Southron who had fallen near Sam]. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had really led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace…”
From a feigned historiographical point of view, the author(s) of the Red Book must have ‘interviewed’ Sam after the War of the Ring to garner pathos of this moment. And it’s not a million miles away from the sentiments expressed by Gamling, which I quoted in the second postcard of this series. These humans contingents marching under the White Hand or the Red Eye are enemies of the Free Peoples, but their presence in the field is explicable or at least potentially explicable. In my view, where the Dunlendings differ, narratively, from the Haradrim or indeed the Easterlings or Variags, is that even in fragments, there is far more ink spilled on explaining why the Dunlendings are predisposed as they are. Gondorian imperialism and the machinations of Sauron explain something of the experience and motivations of the peoples of Harad and Rhûn. Yet, they are not, to the best of my knowledge, ever described as serially invading Gondor and its client states to reclaim an ancient patrimony. Their objectives, or promised rewards, appear to have been pillage, enslavement, conquest or some combination of the above.
Compare this to the Dunlendings, who are explicitly given a specific and powerful reason for acting the way that they do, in joining their cause to that of Saruman’s: dispossession, generations old yet still burning bright in memory and grievance. Moreover, sadly for the Dunlendings, this was merely the second of two historic and violent dispossessions. An earlier one was added later by Tolkien, stretching back into the antiquity of the Second Age. These dispossessions in turn fuelled two exploitative enlistments into the schemes of tyrants. And the Dunlendings were further differentiated from the ‘genuine’ Men of Darkness, to return to Faramir’s received wisdom, by their (remote) kinship with the Númenóreans. And to further take the feigned historiography that Faramir represents at face value, that meant that the Dunlendings were also related (also remotely) to the Rohirrim – although Tolkien, either directly or through his feigned historians, doesn’t explicitly make the connection himself. Kin fighting kin isn’t unique in the legendarium but the diachronic calamity of the Dunlendings is particularly abject. The history of the Dunlendings, potted as it is, is more akin to tragedy and failed uprisings than a tale of a people inevitably drawn to the service and goals of evil despots.
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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Eldy
Tol Eressea
May 18 2022, 2:00am
Post #2 of 7
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I love these really deep, thorough examinations of all the evidence on a particular subject. As someone who has both warned of the dangers of syncretism and happily engaged in it myself, this sort of thing is maybe my favorite aspect of Lore, and I'm delighted I got to read such a great essay. I'm really glad that you made an argument throughout it (for the humanity of the Dunlendings and that their motivation is sympathetic) rather than just dryly recounting facts. A delight through and through. I'm partial to underdog stories and to questioning the Eldarin–Númenórean moral consensus, so I've long been more sympathetic to the Dunlendings than to any of their enemies, but I applaud the work you did to present a balanced view of the history and empower people to form their own opinions.
There are a couple things in the first two parts that I want to go back and comment on, but really, there's little I can add. I hope others will read this and, perhaps, begin a fruitful discussion!
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noWizardme
Half-elven
May 19 2022, 2:27pm
Post #3 of 7
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Well that's a bundle of history and no mistake
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Firstly and very importantly, Felagund, this is a carefuly-researched and well-argued essay and was a pleasure to read.
I thought it followed on nicely from our previous discussion, of other writers critising Tolkien for being naievely positive. Plenty of realpolitik and not-very-nice behavour on show in the history of the Dunlendings.
It feels typical of Tolkien that he troubled to make the Dunlendings more than two-dimensional 'bad guys' whose motivation and history is so un-examined that they might as well be irate bankers trying to recover a defaulted loan (which would also explain their name!  ). We've already begun to discuss how more characterisation also undercuts orcs as unknowable monsters.
I enjoyed seeing the point of view 'swung round' - looking at who says what about the Dunlendings and why (within what seems reasonable from Tolkien's story, rather than making up something new) they might say that.
I'm also thinking about whether it Tolkien's stance as feigned-translator and feigned-historian of Middle-earth that gives him an interesting slight difference from the material, and makes such applicabilities as these possible. Or at least I think it opens up possibilities that would be harder to seize if Tolkien had made himself the omniscient creator-storyteller.
~~~~~~
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Felagund
Rohan
May 19 2022, 11:08pm
Post #4 of 7
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I like what you did there, and thank you noWizardme :)
Reading your post here prompted me to muse that the Dunlendings might be the only 'evil' humans who get to speak in LotR - if we set aside renegades like Bill Ferny and Gríma. I'm thinking of Gamling's 'translation' of what the Dunlendings were shouting at Helm's Deep; and the threatening talk of of the 'squint-eyed southerner' who Frodo witnessed in Bree. I can't think of anything similar from the Haradrim, Easterlings or Variags but others might dig something up. In contrast, the built-for-fantasy monsters, the Orcs get loads of dialogue.
Of course, my musings definitely crumble as soon as the First Age is brought into play, with the likes of Brodda the Easterling getting speaking parts.
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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GreenHillFox
Bree
May 20 2022, 2:19pm
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Congratulations, and thank you so much for sharing!
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uncle Iorlas
Rohan
May 21 2022, 3:51pm
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Thanks so much for all the trouble you put into this survey of a people who manage to stay well out of the spotlight in the text. I've often thought about the Dunlendings and their understandable grievances, but you've laid out an arresting portrait of a remnant people from a few traces. It's particularly startling to know they're descended from Haleth's people.
I had rather hoped and expected that you might pass into an investigation of Dunlending physiognomy from there. They're regularly described as "swarthy," but that's a very flexible word in Tolkien. It was recently pointed out that first age Bëorians were sometimes swarthy. Are we talking about Iberian, Mediterranean swarthiness? Do they have squinty eyes even when they aren't "people are saying" carrying orc blood as well?
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Felagund
Rohan
May 22 2022, 11:40am
Post #7 of 7
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some thoughts but possibly not answers!
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Thank you uncle Iorlas and I'm very pleased you enjoyed the read!
It's not that I deliberately steered clear of physiognomy questions but rather that I was more interested, at the time of writing, in how the Dunlendings and the Rohirrim both constructed ethnonyms for each other, based on how each people physically appeared to the other: 'swarthy people' and 'strawhead people', respectively. In my view, both are crafted as derogatory stereotypes, by people who were often in conflict with each other. I'll throw in a reminder that the dunn linguistic stem was also a reference to the dark hair colour of the Dunlendings, not just to skin ('Appendix F', LotR).
As you say, 'swarthy' seems to be flexible in the way it's applied in the legendarium, or at least not pinned down. The one instance that I can recall where Tolkien actually describes a human as 'black', in a physiological context, is in the narrative of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, specifically: the warriors from Far Harad. It's a passage that has understandably attracted scrutiny and criticism, over many years I suspect, in the depiction, and I admit that I find it uncomfortable reading, even as I recognise that Tolkien is of course a product of his times, like the rest of us. I raise it now though by way of Tolkien not using the word 'swarthy' (a very Tolkien Old English-derived archaism) to describe these particular Southrons. Perhaps there is a deliberate distinction going on here, as compared to the 'swarthiness' of the Dunlendings and the Bëorians that you mention. I'd add to this that the Men of Lossarnach are described as "shorter and somewhat swarthier" than other Gondorians - or at least those that Pippin, our 'witness' in this, had previously encountered ('Minas Tirith', LotR). The standard entries in dictionaries certainly provides for a range of interpretations of 'swarthy' when it comes to colour.
As for the 'squint-eyed southerner', he's actually described as "sallow", in Frodo's eyes at least ('A Knife in the Dark', LotR), so I'm not sure he's necessarily representative of either Dunlendings or Orcs, when it comes to your physiognomy exam question!
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