[TOGGS]

I’ve just been re-reading RG to locate a comment passed by a few marines. In Book 4 Ch. 21 we get the POV of a number of different marines as they move in to link up with Fiddler and co at some un-named village, where a number of comments are passed about the Dal-Honese which got me wondering.

There was Badan Gruk who put the willies up the Edur due to is dark skin and other sergeants comment on how he seems to vanish at night. Meanwhile a corporal comments about a “population explosion or political upheaval” which sees a lot of Dal Honese turn up in the Malazan army.

So, are these guys another strain of Andii? Why the sudden movement? Does Shadowthrone/Das Ultor, also Dal Hon, have anything to do with this? Is Shadowthrone playing a deep game (yes another one!!) relating to controlling Kurald Galain?

Or are those marines just very dark-skinned and good at sneaking around?

TOGGS-LORD OF WOLVES AND SWIMWEAR

[Aptorian]

TOGGS;211019 said:

I’ve just been re-reading RG to locate a comment passed by a few marines. In Book 4 Ch. 21 we get the POV of a number of different marines as they move in to link up with Fiddler and co at some un-named village, where a number of comments are passed about the Dal-Honese which got me wondering.

There was Badan Gruk who put the willies up the Edur due to is dark skin and other sergeants comment on how he seems to vanish at night. Meanwhile a corporal comments about a “population explosion or political upheaval” which sees a lot of Dal Honese turn up in the Malazan army.

So, are these guys another strain of Andii? Why the sudden movement? Does Shadowthrone/Das Ultor, also Dal Hon, have anything to do with this? Is Shadowthrone playing a deep game (yes another one!!) relating to controlling Kurald Galain?

Or are those marines just very dark-skinned and good at sneaking around?

TOGGS-LORD OF WOLVES AND SWIMWEAR

It would be interesting if their very fark appearance was Andii related but I don't think the population explosion/upheaval thing you're speaking of is connected to anything the gods are up to. It's probably just some religious/ civil war'ish thing.

[Rat Mentor]

Is it not a rite of passage that the Dal Honese leave there villages / towns and see the world? I'm sure in Bonehunters that, hang on 'll try and look up the quote...

Yes, yes hear it is..

Masan Gilani - Dal Honese..

Bonehunters page 472,

Masan is day dreaming about home, while on Apsalars horse, just before the attack by the T'rolbarahl.

" her thoughts travelled far back to her life on the Dal Honese plains. She'd carried less weight back then. Tall, lithe, smooth-skinned and bright with innocence, The heaviness of her full breasts and the swell of her belly and hips came much later, after the two children she'd left behind to be raised by her mother and her aunts and uncles. It was the right of all adults, and of woman, to take the path of wandering; before the empire conquered the Dal Honese, such a choice had been rare enough, and for the children, raised by kin on all sides, their health tended by shamans, midwives and shoulder-witches, the abandonment of a parent was rarely felt.

The Malazan Empire had changed all that, of course. While many adults among the tribes stayed put, even in Masan Gilani's time, more and more men and women had set out to explore the world, and at younger ages. Fewer children were born; mixed-bloods were more common, once warriors returned home with new husbands or wives, and new ways suffused the lives of the Dal Honese. For that was one thing that had not changed over time - we ever return home. When our wandering is done".

That should answer some of your questions TOGGS...

[Abyss]

I took it that they were simply a dark skinned ethnicity who happened to be in abundance (per RM's quote above) when the Malazanz were forming the 14th.

The comparison to the Andii is coincidental, but brilliant via the fight at the village where the Edur, who, being a post MT prologue generation that had never faced Andii in battle, were freaking out because of these dark skinned warriors kicking their grey butts.

It's clear from the Shake storyline and elsewhere that some Tiste blood has entered the human race, but i don't think that has anything overt to do with the Dal Honese skin colour.

- Abyss, could make a joke about 'Shake, what yo momma gave ya' but won't...

[Cougar]

I'm with Abyss on this one (feline solidarity) I think they are just Ethnically dark humans. I did wonder about the Napans (I think) being described as dusky blue? Seems an odd colour for humans, as human melonin doesn't go blue. I mean that's not to say Erikkson is bound by Earth human physiology, but they are described as human so one assumes that the same rules apply.

Thoughts? am I misreading what dusky blue means, they have a saying in Barbados that someone who is very dark is 'so black they are blue' but I didn't read them as being a very black blue???? More like a light blue/grey.

[Clip]

since blue skin is genetic it could be that the environment they evolved in, for whatever reason, caused them to have blue skin.

or maybe it is because of breeding with another species, are there any other species with blue skin?

[Dolorous Menhir]

Mael had blue skin in the MT prologue!

Can't think of anything else.

[Aptorian]

Forkrul Assails are bluish? or just pale?

[Crop]

I thought their skin was like white marble

[Zanth13]

chrissloe;211097 said:

I thought their skin was like white marble

actually they are hot pink with purple dots... Cant believe yall forgot that stuff.......jk...actually you are right I believe.

Quote

'...a tall figure (Serenity), spectral, its skin white, its hair pallid yellow and hanging in limp strands. It was wearing a leather harness that looked wrinkled and blackened with rot. There was something strange about its limbs....it possessed extra joints in the arms and the legs, and there was some kind of hinge across the creature’s breastbone. Its motion was oddly loose. '(MT, UK Trade, p.589)

[Mentalist]

Hmmm, i'll toss in my 2 cents here
I'm pretty sure that the reason for the population upheaval can be explained by the incorporation of Dal Hon into the Empire. From RG gather that prior to that the Dal Honese were a rather isolated lot, probably constantly involved in meaningless feuds amongst the various clans, as well as the feuds between the jungle and plain dwellers,who in turn found themselves with the Seti to the North. The subjugaton of the Dal Honese plains and the Forest Horn and their incorporation into the Empire probably not only led to the end of the internal squabbles, but also expanded the limited outlook of an average Dal Honese, who wuddently found themselves as citizens of an empire, with 2 men of Dal Honese origin in command (Kellanved and Dassem Ultor). It is easy to imagine them (the Dal Honese), interpreting this fact incorrectly by assuming that the Malazan Empire was, in fact the Dal Honese Empire, thus encouaging a large number of youths to enlist in the ever-expanding Malazan armies, driven by what is referred to as "native sons" factor--desire to help out a fellow Dal Honese.
Evolutionary-wide we never hear anything about the Dal Honese being related to Tiste Andii. Indeed, the only characteristic trait describing the Dal Honese that we are given points out to them being rather eccentric, which is a stark contrast to the Tiste Andii's caqlm and reserved demeanor. Likewise, form the scant descriptions of Dal Honese traditional culture that we get, we fail to notice anything Andii related, like we do with the Shake. As described in BH, the Dal Honese Pantheon seems ot be la rgely animisti, lacking an ovearching creaton deity, such as Mother Dark or anything that might resemble her.

[Zanth13]

yeah Dal hones = black people (africans) of our world

Tiste Anii = canadians.... I mean aliens.

[Rat Mentor]

Traveller is a Dal Honese, his description is....

House of Chains, page 529,

"Cutter guessed that he was Dal Honese, dusky-skinned, grey-shot black curled hair on his head cut short - though his eyes were, incongruosly, a deep blue."

Blacked skinned are the Dal Honese....

[Aptorian]

Rat Mentor;211114 said:

Traveller is a Dal Honese, his description is....

House of Chains, page 529,

"Cutter guessed that he was Dal Honese, dusky-skinned, grey-shot black curled hair on his head cut short - though his eyes were, incongruosly, a deep blue."

Blacked skinned are the Dal Honese....

You know I think I remember Quick called dusky skinned, and I'd call 7C people brown compared to Dal Hons Black as night.

Ooohh... What color was Dassems eyes again?

Apt, kicking up the dust

[Kurt Montandon]

Aptorian;211121 said:

You know I think I remember Quick called dusky skinned, and I'd call 7C people brown compared to Dal Hons Black as night.

Both Kalam and Quick are specifically described - starting with Tattersail's first POV and repeatedly after - as black skinned.

"Dusky" is occasionally used to describe the Itko Kanese (sort of Asian looking) and Dal Honese (analogous to sub-Saharan Africans). I've always thought of Seven Cities peoples as being a variety appearance wise, with some being North African looking (brown rather than black), some being sub-Saharan African looking (much darker, black), and the majority being Middle Eastern in appearance. As well as some whites, per Samar Dev's POV in Bonehunters when describing Feather Witch.

Makes me wonder about the Gral, if Fiddler could pass as one with nothing more than a tan and the right clothes ... but I suspect there's such a variety of ethnicities in Seven Cities that anything goes, and you're physical appearance is the last thing that's used to identify you, after a first look at any tattoos you might have, then what clothes you wear.

[Dolorous Menhir]

kud13;211109 said:

Hmmm, i'll toss in my 2 cents here
I'm pretty sure that the reason for the population upheaval can be explained by the incorporation of Dal Hon into the Empire. From RG gather that prior to that the Dal Honese were a rather isolated lot, probably constantly involved in meaningless feuds amongst the various clans, as well as the feuds between the jungle and plain dwellers,who in turn found themselves with the Seti to the North. The subjugaton of the Dal Honese plains and the Forest Horn and their incorporation into the Empire probably not only led to the end of the internal squabbles...

The Empire is over 100 years old. The Dal Honese reside somewhere on Quon Tali (right?), and would have been an early conquest.

The events the original poster is asking about are recent, so the immediate cause of them cannot be upheaval due to that conquest.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Quote:
"Traveller is a Dal Honese, his description is....

House of Chains, page 529,

"Cutter guessed that he was Dal Honese, dusky-skinned, grey-shot black curled hair on his head cut short - though his eyes were, incongruosly, a deep blue."

Blacked skinned are the Dal Honese...."

and dassem ultor is dal honese too.... hmm more evidence that traveller is dessembrae

[Mentalist]

Dolorous Menhir;211146 said:

The Empire is over 100 years old. The Dal Honese reside somewhere on Quon Tali (right?), and would have been an early conquest.

The events the original poster is asking about are recent, so the immediate cause of them cannot be upheaval due to that conquest.

As far as i gathered, the "upheaval" they mention is commenced with their conquest. I don't have the page reference right now, but im pretty sure its somewhere in RG where they describe the 3 Dal Honese squads.....

[TOGGS]

Aye, I'll go with the quote from Masan Gilani, that works for me. But I'm still not convinced about the bloodlines. Someone (terrible with names) pointed out the Dal lack the morose nature of the Andii. Ok fine, but we also hear about two marines, (they were discussing killing Stormy/Gesler), who are the perfect combination of two race traits, my apologies also, just as I finished typing that last line it felt like I was writing Mein Kampf.

TOGGS-LORD OF WOLVES AND SWIMWEAR

[Sinisdar Toste]

those marines were falari. they were a mix of the original phillipinoesque islanders and the scottishlike conquerers, which coincidentally(sp) makes for excellent marines