Na'vi warfare

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

You have to think about the arrows in proprtion to humans. Navi are about 2x the height of a normal human adult, and so everything they have is bigger. A human arrow is around 3.5 ft long, so a Navi arrow would be from 6-7 ft long. The increased size means more weight, I'm guessing ~10lbs. The downward momentum coupled with a massive arrow would have no problem penetrating. Humans=very dead

[Txur’Itan]

They also seem fond of the death penalty, as we see when they want to execute Jake after his betrayal. Mayhaps a war could break out if they believe a member of another tribe betrayed them and they execute them. That would piss people royally off.

That is true, even from the beginning, Neytiri was about to kill Jake as first reaction to his presence and actions, which were clumsy, careless, and ignorant, but probably not worthy of killing someone...

Then again, we still do not exactly know, how badly the Na'vi were treated by the humans up to that point, it could be reactionary...

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

About arrows: they get a lot more power when being shot down, plus in the final battle they were a lot closer to the choppers than they were when they were on the ground at Hometree. So it would make sense that they had a lot more power behind it.

About Neytiri wanting to kill Jake: I don't see the first attempt at taking Jake life as the same as the execution. I bet Jake at this point was directly in the Omatikaya territory at this point, and dream walkers are strictly forbidden there. So I'm assuming it's just a sort of rule that they are killed on sight. Especially if they are making such racket. 

The execution is different because at that point he is considered one of them. While yes, he's probably still being treated a bit different, he is still an Omatikaya so they are executing one of their own for his betrayal. It has a much different feel.

Still both of these points make me want to shake my head when people call the Na'vi "tree huggers" and "blue hippies." Yes I know Jake says "tree hugging" once in the films but the Na'vi people are very fierce. They may be in tune with nature and have respect with the forest. But mess with them and they'll give you hell.

[Txur’Itan]

-- SNIP

About Neytiri wanting to kill Jake: I don't see the first attempt at taking Jake life as the same as the execution. I bet Jake at this point was directly in the Omatikaya territory at this point, and dream walkers are strictly forbidden there. So I'm assuming it's just a sort of rule that they are killed on sight. Especially if they are making such racket. 

The execution is different because at that point he is considered one of them. While yes, he's probably still being treated a bit different, he is still an Omatikaya so they are executing one of their own for his betrayal. It has a much different feel.

As I understand the words, Execution is a decision process or decree leading to or resulting in the death of someone, and Killing is the action of ending or stopping a life preventing its continued living.  Maybe you were thinking that I was meaning something related to Murder, which definitely more directly implies malice which was not my intent and obviously not in play here with Neytiri.  But that leads to another question, how do the Na'vi deal with murder?  A topic for another thread I suspect.

Still both of these points make me want to shake my head when people call the Na'vi "tree huggers" and "blue hippies." Yes I know Jake says "tree hugging" once in the films but the Na'vi people are very fierce. They may be in tune with nature and have respect with the forest. But mess with them and they'll give you hell.

As far as the Na'vi are concerned, and the information available now, only the humans are guilty of being this way.  It is not surprising that a clash of values led them into direct conflict.  And it has been established that the Na'vi are not hippies, hippies would have tried to give the AMP soldiers flowers, that would not have turned out well, Quaritch was in full bastard mode by then.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

I don't think Neytiri's first attempt to kill Jake was "murder." Murder being an unjustified killing. I merely was saying that I think the two acts were different. One was the extermination of an outsider while the other was the execution of a clan member, which have two very different thoughts behind it. To me execution is not the decree that someone will be killed but the actual act of killing him. When you say "someone was executed" you don't mean "it was decided that he would be killed" but rather that his death has already taken place. People also say "there is going to be an execution" which means the decree has already been made but the action hasn't followed.

Both cases show the Na'vi, or at least the Omatikaya, to be war minded individuals. The extermination of outsiders could be a new facet of their laws that they added after the humans treated them horribly. But there seems to be a ritual behind the execution, judging by the elaborate way they were tied up, which suggests that it has a more traditional standing among the tribe.

It would be curious to see how they deal with murder. As they have no jails or ways of containing the murderer it is possible that they are executed as there wouldn't be to many more options.

In fact that is another thing that could start a war. One tribe calls a killing justified while the other calls it murder and executes the accused.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

Seems like one of the larger sources is pride. The proposed killings would most likely be over a grave insult, as Na'vi aren't materialist, they have massive amounts of land between clans it seems, and the tribal setting creates an intimate setting where friendship would be very beneficial. Thus pride and honor are very important, and an insult could turn deadly.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

Yes, pride can be very dangerous.

You also make a few points that would make it easier for war to start out between clans. In a clan setting you become very close to nearly everyone. They see themselves as a large family. Now the other clans live pretty far away, enough where they probably don't have to much interaction with each other and where differently cultures could form. When they do come together the difference in culture and their tightness of a group they have the perfect set up for an "us them" fight. The "us" fighting against the "them." Differences bring about fear.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

Thus any human war ever on earth. With the exception of maybe the Trojan war, that was over love not differences.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

Hmm, Trojan war was more about pride and lust. Nothing about it feels very loving to me. She was taken against her will because she was the most beautiful woman and her husband really just felt that the taking of his property was an insult to his pride. Though that's really not a debate for these forums.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

 I posted this earlier, and it seems to fall in line with your take on the Trojan war[
quote author=Hawnuyu atìtse'a link=topic=1163.msg16609#msg16609 date=1262765776]
I mean like someone from one clan mated with someone from another and it turned into war somehow.
[/quote]

[Txur’Itan]

Yes, pride can be very dangerous.

You also make a few points that would make it easier for war to start out between clans. In a clan setting you become very close to nearly everyone. They see themselves as a large family. Now the other clans live pretty far away, enough where they probably don't have to much interaction with each other and where differently cultures could form. When they do come together the difference in culture and their tightness of a group they have the perfect set up for an "us them" fight. The "us" fighting against the "them." Differences bring about fear.

Hmm, Trojan war was more about pride and lust. Nothing about it feels very loving to me. She was taken against her will because she was the most beautiful woman and her husband really just felt that the taking of his property was an insult to his pride. Though that's really not a debate for these forums.

I think pride has respect or disrespect causality.  Other than mate stealing, what other methods of respect or disrespect would have a positive or negative impact on the perceived honor status?  I suppose we would have to consider how this works with Na'vi in more psychological and cultural dimensions?

For humans, I believe there is a psychological term called "social capital" that represents this concept, respect is like currency or a perceived value of ones self worth, the more respect you have the higher your self worth, thus the higher your "social capital" must be valued with those who respect you.  You can use social capital to gain favor or support, leaders tend to receive higher social capital values if they are good at their jobs... 

If Eytukan was a wise and fair leader, his social capital must have been pretty highly valued, Tsu'Tey respected Eytukan as an example of this possibility.

So what if there is a leader who is unpredictable, unjust, or even despot like?  Could such a leader exist in Na'vi society? Hypothetically, what if one of the Toruk Makto united the clans by force, and it became necessary to respect the role on pain of death?   I suspect that eventually war could break out between clans to try to overthrow her/him.

[Txepa-utral Atxkxe]

I guess then it would depend on the role of the clan leader in the first place. Is his word law, or does he lead mostly by example, etc? Obviously it would vary from tribe to tribe, but not so much that it wouldn't be recognizable, since it is implied that the Na'vi are pretty much all tribal. Tribal leaders are rarely, if ever despotic.

Still, mate stealing makes even less sense now that I think about it. The Na'vi are tribal, and genetically similar within their tribes. Eventually wouldn't they have to have a big get together with the other clans and swap members to maintain genetic health? As far as I know this is another tribal practice to prevent inbreeding, so probably not a huge cause for war.

Toruk Makto...well, then it would come down to why he might want to forcibly unite all the Na'vi tribes. Aside from power, I guess, but either way that would lead to disaster, as that kind of population density would upset Pandora's balance, I suppose.

[Txur’Itan]

We are definately wandering into a ton of unknowns now.

Cultural History and Rules of Conduct for:

• Toruk Makto
• Leadership for clans
• mating practices
• Conflict resolution
• Tribal Migration

[Eyamsiyu]

I don't think there's too much involved with the mating practices outside of the Olo'eyktan and the Tsahìk, and those next in line to take those roles.  And that was probably one of the reasons why Tsu'tey reacted as such: because the future Olo'eyktan and the future Tsahìk are to be together. and Jake disregarded that (granted Neytiri consented to it, but who would the Omatikaya be willing to blame first?). 

As of now, that is all we know about their mating practices.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

I guess then it would depend on the role of the clan leader in the first place. Is his word law, or does he lead mostly by example, etc? Obviously it would vary from tribe to tribe, but not so much that it wouldn't be recognizable, since it is implied that the Na'vi are pretty much all tribal. Tribal leaders are rarely, if ever despotic.

Still, mate stealing makes even less sense now that I think about it. The Na'vi are tribal, and genetically similar within their tribes. ventually wouldn't they have to have a big get together with the other clans and swap members to maintain genetic health? As far as I know this is another tribal practice to prevent inbreeding, so probably not a huge cause for war.

Toruk Makto...well, then it would come down to why he might want to forcibly unite all the Na'vi tribes. Aside from power, I guess, but either way that would lead to disaster, as that kind of population density would upset Pandora's balance, I suppose.

When I say mate stealing I didn't mean that inter-clan breeding would count as it. I meant if someone who was betrothed to one person mated to another. If they were meant to be clan leaders this could break out in war. But yeah, it's something we really don't know enough about yet.

I was reading the pandorapedia page on the Na'vi and came across this tidbit that relates back to how the Na'vi deal with murder.

Na'vi have been known to sever the interface of criminals or enemies, thus forever severing their connection to Eywa and drastically reducing their effectiveness in hunting and combat, as the victim can no longer partner with a direhorse or banshee. This punishment is reserved only for very serious crimes, as it is seen by many to be worse than simply killing the victim.

I noticed this when watching the movie again tonight. When Jake first comes to Hometree as a captive they hold onto his neural link and held a blade to it.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

omg how cruel  that would only happen if like an olo'eyktan was murdered for his beads. Which might also start a war.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

I bet it could be done for a bit less than that, though not much. If they've done something that greatly upset Eywa or something along those lines.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

Or for breaking mating customs (more than one mate). That would seem a fit punishment.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

They use the term criminal, which suggests that it also counts for people who break things other than rituals. I know that they don't have that much idea of ownership when compared to Western humans, but they seem to have an attachment to their weapons. (Neytiri's father gives her his bow when dying.) Perhaps the theft of a personal boy made from Hometree would be considered criminal.

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

Criminal, yes, but war-starting? We have to draw the line somewhere.