Kad'Dala

Give me Mandalorian smiths whose stylistic works vary from clan to clan. Craftsmen from all over the planet, masters of their local wood, each one  as beautiful and unique as the rest. Weavers whose dye choices, pigments and patterns too vary on clan and location– not one piece is ever alike.  Artists whose styles tell you what clan, what regioun you are from since no one artist works the same. Pots still made in clays and metals, that tell of history longer than most of the galaxy cares to admit– they were the first children of Coruscant, and banished to the stars to find their new path.

Give me Mandalorian clans stuck living hand to mouth in the vast deserts post bombardment, each clan having their own natural signposts they follow, their own hidden wells, where oases become literal towns overnight and suddenly gone. Mandos who’ve learned the best tricks to conserve water, their under armor not unlike Fremen stillsuits.

Give me jungle dwelling Mandalorians, that live in the and with the trees, or live on the river, going wherever the current takes them. Seafaring, or island dwelling Mandos that live by the shore, navigating by boat to get where they need. Still fishing with spears and bone hooks, naturally woven nets. Decorated in shell and bone.

Nonhuman Mandalorians keeping the cultures of their homeworld, but blending with the culture into some really interesting blend that will only continue to change with each generation, but all the same the evolution of it is just as beautiful as it’s original concept.

All this is awesome, and all I could think was, “what if cosplayers started working this into their armor?” So much of Mando cosplay relies on cliches like padawan braids to count coup, or scratch marks across the plates, or Taung decals. What if they replaced the old cliches with actual culture?

Mandos in the desert would wear stillsuits under their armor, and long cloaks to block out sand and sun. They’re herders; they paint their livestock on their armor. They braid bantha hair into elaborate bracelets; they paint complex geometric patterns on their armor.

Mandos by the sea wouldn’t have scratch marks, they’d have tooth marks and suction cup scars. They carry fishing line and fish hooks and paint moko on their armor. To count their coup, they hang shark teeth and fish scales from their belts.

Mandos in the north wear quilted jumpsuits with heating coils beneath their armor. They hang carved wooden charms from their pauldrons and entrenching tools at their belts to dig through snow. They paint their plates with woad.

The stripes on their faces feel familiar to the lives they're in charge of.

Their knives tell a story of teeth, and panthers and long lost Illum.

The kamas are leather because fabric burns too easily, stamped and marked with arrowhead teeth patterns, stripes, broken moons.

They smell of firewood and incense, always with a warm cloak and some kind of an electro-baton to keep huge cats in line, heat or not.

Slughthrowers are just as good against energy shields which block vibroblades. Shock grenades confuse AI as well as a mind. Whips do the rest.

We don't fly because it's convenient, we fly because we can always take our beloved fire with us, against the cold only your cat can save you from...as long as you treat it with love.

Food has to be spicy, to wake up frostbitten fingers and numb faces...even if we no longer live in ice.

Our eyes reach the galaxy and you know it as well as you does your enemy.

SOMEONE ONCE TRANSLATED 

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

INTO MANDALORIAN FOR ME BUT NOW I CAN’T FIND IT

“I do not hold in my heart the sword for sharpness, or blaster for speed, or warrior for glory. I love only that which they defend ”

God: I can work with that.

Unnamed prostitute: I’ve slept with many men.

God: I can work with that.

Zaccheus: I’ve robbed my community of thousands.

God: I can work with that.

Moses: I have no idea what I’m doing in life.

God: I can work with that.

Women at the well: I have divorced many times.

God: I can work with that.

Timothy: I am really young.

God: I can work with that.

Esther: I am just a woman.

So, the concept of a villain who controls based on blood.  They lurk at the edges of a family’s proud legacy, slowly moving the blood of others to suit their ends.

One child escapes the trap woven around their family, and undertakes a journey across the world to find a way to break the spell.  Some beings help them as an individual, while others hinder based on clan histories.

They walk through maze-like caves and war-torn deserts, strange forests and treacherous seas.  Along this perilous journey, they learn that,though they don’t deserve to have their will stolen by a sorcerer, their family weren’t necessarily the best people - prideful and perhaps somewhat blinkered.  

The medbay was quiet as many wounded were attempting to sleep the best they could.

Ace winced, trying to will away the tear rolling down her cheek.

"Does the Firebird need to die to be born?"

The woman encased in black beskar asked.

The molten scar on her cheek was warmer that day. My chains are broken...

The only line her captors failed to understand.

With every day her return was drawing closer, and this time, their chains would prove laandur, fragile as glass.

Atiniir. That was her name, her reason.

general holidays:

cuyan’tuur (survivor day)

happens every year at the end of winter into the beginning of spring

it’s an ancient festival. since mandalorians tend to be a rather darkly humorous people, it’s a celebration of those who survived the harsh season. in modern times, with winter posing less of a threat, it’s used merely as an excuse to celebrate

there are feasts and celebrations, and it’s customary to give surviving family members gifts. there’s an old concord dawn tradition where it’s bad luck to propose and get married before you’ve both made it to survivor day

aay’han (bittersweet perfect moment of mourning and joy)

this is a slightly more solemn ceremony that happens in late summer. it is a celebration of all those who have passed

the celebration is twofold - the more boisterous part of the ceremony occurs in the community, where children perform mandalorian legends for crowds, and there are battle re-enactments

it’s a largely social event, and those freshly mourning tend not to attend. when a young widower attends, it is assumed they are ready to get back out there, so to speak. this isn’t a hard rule; mainly it’s just considered rude to pursue a widower who has yet to attend aay’han

at home, older family member tell stories of fallen loved ones and maybe perform a few traditions that those who passed on used to do. for example, if your father always had a beer with dinner, you might have one, too, even if you hate beer. it’s a way of the fallen living through you for the night

this is also when you would be permitted to repaint or repurpose any armor you’ve been passed down. it’s considered bad form to do so earlier. if you are in dire need of the armor, you are allowed to modify it so long as on aay’han you make appropriate apologies and treat the armor with care (buff out dents, fresh coat of paint, etc.)

bralovla davaab (successful execution)

this ceremony celebrates the successful completion of the verd’goten. while mandalorians celebrate individually with family, this celebration is held every spring to commemorate the 13-year-olds who have completed their rite of passage. it’s also something of a “coming out” of the new adults - so that they may socialize with other new adults and understand the culture of mandalorian adulthood

however, most mandalorians don’t consider 13 to be the real age of adulthood anymore, and so while the focus of the celebration is the trial-goers, it’s also something of a variety show and social for teenagers

adults go to applaud and to supervise, but really it’s a good social event for young mandalorians. young people excelling in certain areas (shooting, jet pack ability, piloting, hand-to-hand combat, etc.) may compete to be declared “alor” (leader or chief) of that skillset

personal holidays:

gote‘tuure (birthdays)

varies from household to household, but almost always involves uj cake, and, for mandalorian adults, ne’tra gal

though children get excited for their birthdays, beyond 13, there really aren’t many milestones for mandalorians - everything is by the parents’ discretion and, later, your own, so birthdays aren’t usually considered important

(slightly nsfw hc) young married mandalorians sometimes will try very hard to conceive a child around birthdays - a symbolic representation of your youth, in a way. this is mostly just an excuse for more sex though, especially between parties that don’t particularly want children or can’t have them

verd’goten

there is no prouder day for a mandalorian parent than when their child completes the verd’goten

together, the family recalls past verd’gotene. then the new adult and any witnesses to their accomplishment will retell their rite in exciting detail

younger children are encouraged to ask questions, and if there are none, other adults will excitedly ask

similarly to birthdays, there is uj cake and the new adult’s first taste of ne’tra gal - since it is a beer, a mugful won’t affect the kid much. harder alcohols aren’t encouraged for three to five more years

if a trusted adult (a parent or older sibling) close to the new adult has died before their rites, other adults will tell them all about their loved one’s verd’goten, and tell them how proud they’d be of the new adult

miscellaneous

all mandalorian celebrations involve music. singing, dancing, and instrumentation are all key parts of mandalorian culture

they also tend to involve lots of food and lots of drinking. as a result, there are often fights, but rarely ones that result in long-held grudges. the offending parties usually laugh it off after the fact, with a rare few exceptions

it’s considered bad form to fight on aay’han, and elders and other adults will escort you out or simply knock you out. it’s also considered tasteless to propose or get married on aay’han

a lot of marriage proposals occur impulsively between teenagers on bralovla davaab. this is part of why you’re meant to wait until survivor’s day has come and gone to marry - after almost a year, it’s usually clear if it was just a heat of the moment decision

mandalorians tend to take marriage very seriously, as the assumption is that any child you find or have you will raise together, and to abandon your spouse and child is highly dishonorable, since everything is about children and foundlings

"Moff Gideon would really like to be a Mandalorian, and there’s a reason for it. That’s his psychological, real problem. He really wants to be a Mandalorian because the strength and power of the Mandalorians is not necessarily that they are individuals. It’s that they are part of a group that have an ideal and a morality."

His new armor even has the ka'rta beskar on it, so it's really not just that he's stolen beskar alloy to make himself a cool set of armor: it is Mandalorian-style armor specifically. However, it's also armor based explicitly on the armor of Death Watch Maul loyalists.

It's reasonable to conclude that Moff Gideon would alike himself to Maul, an outsider who was able to inherit Mandalorian identity only through the possession of the darksaber. He would see Maul as a legitimizing path to Mandalorian-ness. I could easily see him idolizing Maul.

Bo-Katan - who rejected Maul instantly - would indeed be someone that Gideon would wish to destroy, but not by killing her. He once mocked Bo-Katan for needing the darksaber to legitimize herself, but his glee wasn't simple cruelty. He was delighted that she was legitimizing the darksaber itself, which in turn would legitimize him if he possessed it.

I think it's also telling that the episode goes out of its way for Din to say that no, the darksaber isn't important, and the belief that it is is a disservice to us. The darksaber isn't really what makes Bo-Katan a good leader.

you can’t tell me that Mandalorian diasporic markets don’t have dedicated blocks for just tea, and just spices. and just dried roots and herbs. 

you can’t tell me that mandalorians don’t have their own “traditional remedies” — and they’re remedies that work. 

but every. single. galactic citizen might take one look, or smell, or taste, of these remedies and immediately reject/turn their noses up at them, because they’re not “acceptable” inasmuch as what a “normal” galactic citizen might consider acceptable.

mandalorian diasporic markets that have oils and ointments and creams that burn and hurt (and … lmao, that metal coin that hurts like hell to be rubbed on your back, but it helps to relieve all kinds of illnesses. some of you might know what I’m talking about, others are prob like “wtf lmao?”) among other remedies.

ingredients that can be combined by a trained and thoroughly capable mandalorian doctor who’s also knowledgeable in traditional mandalorian healing practices and combines the best of both worlds to make a remedy specific to the issue at hand. healers who have family-specific specialties and recipes that differ from shakraan to shakraan. 

give me family-specific recipes that have been altered, changed, modified based on the new area they’re now in — this new area that is “Little Mandalore” on a planet in a sector that has nothing to do with mandalorians.

“why are you sticking needles in your skin you masochist” “but it’s healthy for you” “w hat” “look mate, thousands of years of it working means it’s legit ok”

all the gweilo aruetii practically running away from mandalorian traditional medicine

until some human on some core world decides “y’know what, i’m taking this shit and calling it ‘new age’”

This is more than a little complicated due to the nature of the word surrender, as its meaning is incredibly contentious depending on who you ask, who says it, and in what situation. If anything, mandalorians should have multiple words meaning surrender, depending on severity. But let’s start with what exists and why it’s bullshit as the sole word.

There is a word that is close: cetar — kneel in submission (from cetare, boot; as in licking someone’s boots), however … I don’t trust anyone that uses this word in a casual sense, and I suggest you follow suit, bc this follows an incredibly negative connotation attached to the definition of submission / submit, and tbh fits a toxic masculinity that is very much in line with Karen Traviss’ gross misunderstanding of war, fighting, and tactics. I mean sure, you can refuse to surrender, and where will that lead you? The death of everyone who follows you. The death of your people. Good job. Way to go.

It’s entirely misaligned with one of the core beliefs of mandalorians, and the reason why they still exist even after facing what would have been certain death to any other people: survival. It’s literally in the resol’nare poem. It’s said again and again. Survival is a common, repeated, but often never discussed theme, that is intrinsically tied with mandalorians and their history.

Surrendering means survival. It means living to fight another day. It means being able to reassess your plans and come back wiser than before. It makes me think of the phrase: He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.

Surrendering also means knowing when to stop fighting, having the wisdom to end the battle so that you don’t lead all of your people to certain death … which almost happened to mandalorians, specifically (and did happen to the original species of mandalorians, the Taung). Thanks to the efforts of Mandalore the Ultimate, whose incredible leadership lead mando’ade to near total extinction.

This hut’uun was executed in the Battle of Malachor — and with him, the majority of the mandalorian people. It was horrible enough, extensive enough, that most of the galaxy (and most of the surviving mandalorians themselves!) genuinely believed that they would never recover from it. Most believed they would have died out during the old republic, and they would have if it wasn’t for the intervention of one person and a shitload of luck.

So. To tie mandalorians, and mando’a, with a negative understanding of “surrender” is to be completely ignorant of mandalorian history and what almost happened to them (more than once, actually, lmao) as a direct result of continuing to fight when it was foolish to do so, and obviously so. 

I have seen his image held up by “mandalorian fans” asking “why is this not badass anymore?” and I can only rub my forehead in fucking fury lmao because Mandalore the Ultimate is responsible for the mandalorians nearly being wiped out, permanently, from the galaxy, forever. Why anyone would hold him up in veneration instead of using him as a cautionary tale is beyond me, but lmao. Toxic masculinity and an inability to take things with nuance in context apparently comes par for the course with a huge swathe of mandalorian fandom. But I digress.

So. What is a good word for surrender?

We can either redefine cetar, or we can create a new word that carries a neutral-to-positive connotation, so that we can keep cetar for its original incredibly negative intention (which does have its uses and is a necessary word).

Here’s what I suggest:

For serious occasions, we have

kyrte’anir — surrender ; quit while you’re not too far behind

From kyr, to end, and Te Ani’la, Ultimate. Simple, but straightforward.

For light / less serious occasions, there’s

kyrjar’anilar / kyrj’anilar — surrender, give in ; end ultimate foolishness

Again, from kyr, to end, jareor, recklessly risk your life, act suicidally (negative connotation - foolish, not brave (which, lmao, is what YOU ARE when you refuse to tactically surrender)), and again Te Ani’la, Ultimate.

Both words are tied inextricably with Te Ani’la Mand’alor, Mandalore the Ultimate. There’s an arrogance tied in with calling one’s self the Ultimate Mand’alor, a blind kind of arrogance — and given that he was one of the last of the Taung, it’s doubly tragic (almost exterminated all mandalorians, did exterminate all Taung). 

Generally, mando’ade have a tendency to form words from names as cautionary tales — in remembrance of significant moments or people in history (look at, for example, demagolka’s origins). 

They also do, in fact, have multiple other words with the same meaning, usually to carry different weight to meaning, in case anyone wants to comment on “why do we need another word for x.” Like … Mandalorians have MULTIPLE ways to say stupid or foolish. They have multiple words for knives. Multiple ways to apologize. You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that they only have one word for something as significant as surrender, and that its only flavor is coached in such a language as to deter someone from ever surrendering. 

There is no excuse to have mando’a carry clever ways to call someone foolish, and not also ridicule them for getting everyone under their command killed because they were too arrogant, too brainless, and too cowardly to tactically surrender. 

Tbh, crush this idea that all mandalorians, always, refuse to surrender. It’s an idea that’s only supported in a fragile sense of masculinity and pride, and has no basis in the reality of their history and survival.

If it’s the victory/death viewpoint, then the history is irrelevant - it would be seen as glorious and worth repeating.  If not, or if they looked at their history and said, “well shit let’s not do that again,” then they’d have to adjust their POV in order to be comfortable with surrendering … or at least put the option on the table.  After all, they don’t necessarily have to have comfortable surrender words just to make themselves feel better about it.  It’s entirely possible they detest surrender and equate it with total submission, but do it anyway out of necessity, because the drive to survive is more important that pride (but pride takes a hit, anyway).

Either way, it makes sense for the Mandalorians to have nuanced words for surrender.  And given how divided the Mandalorians are, anyway, I’m betting that various camps will have different ideologies when it comes to how surrender is pursued, if at all.  Some camps may view surrender as perfectly honorable if warranted, but others might see it as cowardly - death being the appropriate reward if you are not strong enough to win.

Here’s more context for the word cetar, which I think is relevant to the discussion:

The root cet- (from whence cetar and cetare) comes from the soundtrack of the Republic Commando game written by Jesse Harlin, i.e. it’s pre-Traviss Mando’a. Here’s the relevant part of the lyrics for context:

Motir ca'tra nau tracinya.

Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a.

Aruetyc runi solus cet o'r.

In English:

Those who stand before us light the night sky in flame.

Our vengeance burns brighter still.

Every last traitorous soul shall kneel.

To reiterate: this is Mandalorians making their enemies kneel in defeat in front of them. It is in fact a war chant—propaganda of sorts. It’s a word choice in the same vein as the other lines in the song, i.e. not neutral at all.

Here’s what Traviss has to say about this word (from this interview):

In creating words, I looked at the words I already had from the lyrics and evolved a few from there, just as a real language would. For example, the word for kneel suggests the word for boots to me, because getting your enemy to kneel before you—as in the song—became licking your boots.

So cetar really is “to kneel in submission” as in “to beg for mercy” or “to grovel” or “to submit to the mercy of someone” and that’s how we get the grovelling apology ni ceta. It is not and never was a general word for surrender. In fact, I would go as far as to say “surrender” might be a bit of a mistranslation in most contexts, where “submit” or “be subjugated” might do better.

It is a rather specific word and the specificity itself suggests that this is a concept that for Mandalorians requires distinctions. That is, one size fits all word doesn’t work for them and they need several more specific words.

Back to Traviss, whatever you think of her attitudes (and I’m reading the RepComm novels now and I do not generally disagree with Izzy), let’s also cut her some slack:

The dictionary she created is a little over a thousand words. Like, that’s not even covering the most basic vocabulary. You’d need twice that to manage basic conversations. I speak some languages where I know maybe 3-4k words and I can manage in a grocery store but I’m lost as soon as I start having a conversation about anything meaningful. Vocabularies of fluent speakers are tens of thousands of words. Of course a dictionary of that size is going to be missing a lot of even very basic words, never mind several synonyms for different shades of meaning. Traviss’s goal was to provide colour for her novels, not to create the next Esperanto.

Traviss was working back from an even smaller vocabulary of just about 70 words (depending on how you you count what appear to be phrasal expressions—she did of course also add many more roots and words). The word she was deriving from that material is the quotidian “boots”. Now in doing that, did she give an incredibly negative connotation to the word cetar? You bet she did. But if you look at the song, it’s not necessarily misplaced as much as it’s misinterpreted.

Which brings me to my third point, languages need words with negative connotations too. Fictional languages as well. How would you ever talk about problematic things if there were no words about them? I am a strong proponent for equal rights and I’m all sorts of queer myself, but I have added slurs and words with negative connotations to my expanded dictionary. Why? Because I want fiction writers to be able to write characters who would use them. Not to glorify those attitudes, but because the world is not all rainbows and unicorns and fiction is one way to grapple with that. I want writers to be able to write stories that deal with issues like xenophobia in Mandalorian culture, but to do that they need to have tools. There’s never going to be a culture that doesn’t grapple with some baggage. When it comes to irl cultures, that baggage can teach us to do better. When it comes to fictional cultures, it gives us that juicy juicy conflict (which in the hands of a good writer, can also teach us).

Which oddly fits with the motto I gave for Ace's squad.

Arue dar'cetarir.

Which can have the double meaning of:

Never kneel (meant as dishonor oneself/make oneself less just, not the act of tactical surrender) before the enemy.

It’s a peace of lack of resistance. Another is the peace of one who has fought for so long, resisted and fought and fought , and who finally gets to sit down and learn how to just be, like maybe they aren’t ready to get back on the freedom trail helping others just yet, but just a peace of learning to heal. and the last can be the peace after the rain, the peace after all the chains are broken, after all the depur’s are overthrown, after the celebrations, just the peace of finally having won(2/2 

Nice! I could definitely see this being the case.

Actually, I can see it leading to some translation issues because two concepts that are quite different in Amatakka would both be called “peace” in Basic. And, because Basic uses that word for several different nuances of meaning, but people rarely specify their meaning when using it, native Amatakka speakers may have difficulty figuring out which kind of peace the other person is talking about.

Most of the time these translation issues are fairly minor, but sometimes they can lead to massive misunderstandings which are never addressed because no one realizes they’re using the same words but talking about different things.

See, I’m fairly sure that the Mando’a for peace, naak, is etymologically “not war” (I’m still in the progress of mapping the exact change). If a language has a pair of “this”/“not this” words, it says a lot about the culture which word is the unmarked “this” and which is the marked “not this”. For Mando’a, it’s unmarked akaan, “war”, and marked naak, “not war”.

Why does it matter? Because for Mandalorians, war is not a bad thing. It’s a necessary thing. It’s the struggle that makes us grow—and if there’s no struggle, we stagnate. And it’s not just war: the nature of life is to struggle, and all kinds of struggles are valid. You can see it in the arasuum “stagnation” / darasuum “forever” pair too: to last forever is to never stagnate, but to continuously change. It’s even in the Mandalorian mythology where the god of war Kad Ha’rangir (the god the ancient Mandalorians worshipped) is in eternal struggle with the sloth god Arasuum.

akaan (n): war; conflict, strife, struggle; struggle, the drive and work required to overcome challenges

So.

When you’re struggling with depression, but determined to beat that bitch and at least get out of bed and brush your teeth? Akaan.

When you’re bad at math, but goddammit you’re going to learn that shit and get to the university program you want? Akaan.

Adoption is complicated and messy and it defines every living generation of my family.