Dornish Civilization

93 needlework. She wants to marry a knight and becoming the queen of love and beauty at a tournament is the best thing that has ever happened for her. However, her closeness to the norms of Southern civilization’s group feeling ends there. She doesn’t know the cunning, manipulative manners of the court life. In comparison with Sansa’s description of the Neck as a horrible place, Meera Reed’s account of the Neck seems marvelous:

“Once there was a curious lad who lived in the Neck. He was small like all crannogmen, but brave and smart and strong as well. He grew up hunting and fishing and climbing trees, and learned all the magics of my people.”

“[…] he could breathe mud and run on leaves, and change earth to water and water to earth with no more than a whispered word. He could talk to trees and weave words and make castles appear and disappear” (ASoS 337).

People of the land connect with the land, learn its secrets and adapt to its ways. It is quite like the difference between a Northern godswood and a Southern godswood. While the godswood in King’s Landing is a garden with beautiful flowers, fountains and sweet scents, the godswood in Winterfell has an eerie image with the weirwood trees, a stagnant pond and dense trees. The difference is the environmental perception. The way Southern civilization regards the wilderness, the frontier through its geographical, religious and sociological ways creates the chasm between human and nature. This isolation from nature creates the ignorance towards the seasonal change, probably causing the perish of Southern civilization in winter.

94 along the banks of the river they named the Greenblood. Though meager when compared to the Mander, the Trident, or the Blackwater Rush, the waters of the Greenblood are truly the lifeblood of Dorne” (376).

Half of Dorne’s population being the descendants of the Rhoynar immigrating a thousand years ago, Rhoynar tradition and worldview still has a strong influence on the Dornish Civilization. The importance of water in a desert region becomes significantly sorrowful when we think about from where these people originated. Their motherland was the city- states through the coast of River Rhoyne. They called it Mother Rhoyne and believed in its fertility and its bounty. “Though united by blood and culture and the river that had given them birth, the Rhoynish cities were elsewise fiercely independent, each with its own prince … or princess, for amongst these river folk, women were regarded as the equals of men” (47). The egalitarian practices of the Rhoynar reflects a Mother Goddess society. The agrarian communities of these kind of society knows the value of earth, water and sun. They are connected with their surroundings even if they live in cities, because the river runs through the city as a constant reminder of nature’s moving and transitory manner. It is also very central that these people not only connect with the land on a utilitarian principle, but they hold earth and water sacred. They showed little interest in expansion because “the river was their home, their mother, and their god, and few of them wished to dwell beyond the sound of her eternal song” (47).

However, after the wars and terrible defeat against Valyrian Freehold, the Rhoynar followed Nymeria across the Narrow Sea to Dorne and there, she burnt her ten thousand ships, declaring Dorne home. The Rhoynar never truly recovered from the shock of finding a complete opposite geography in Dorne than they are used to and the trauma of bereavement from Mother Rhoyne. According to the attachment theory, loss of a parent if traumatic and not recuperated in a lenient manner, causes people to have trust issues and difficulty at building successful intimate relations. The Rhoynar by way of Nymeria’s marriage to House Martell, seems to successfully settle relationships in Dorne. However, this is not true. These people never really got over the trauma of being ripped off of the breast of a fertile river and left on dry sandcastles. The scarcity of water resources causes them to lose connection with land, sort of passive-aggressively resisting to building a

95 connection with earth. “Some of the Rhoynar mourned the loss of the ships, and rather than embracing their new land, they took to plying the waters of the Greenblood, finding it a pale shadow of Mother Rhoyne, whom they continued to worship. They still exist to this day, known as the orphans of the Greenblood” (53).

However, we also see that their alliance with House Martell taught some of the Rhoynar to love the land and join their different traits for survival. Martell sand and Rhoynar water combined, created the Dornish mud. Barristan Selmy’s account of Quentin Martell is an example of this trait.

That one is his father's son. Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful ... but not the sort to make a young girl's heart beat faster.

And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to play the innocent. Like all good queens she put her people first—else she would never have wed Hizdahr zo Loraq—but the girl in her still yearned for poetry, passion, and laughter. She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud. You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time (ADwD 914).

Dornish mud is a significant material used in building huts that protect from the relentless sun in addition to being effective on Dornish character. Although, this is not the only type of people Dorne has. Oberyn Martell with his short and hot temper, and his poisonous spears is the striking image of a viper or a desert scorpion, as was mentioned in former chapters.

The banner of House Nymeros Martell is merger of the two coats of arms; Rhoynish sun and Dornish spear are worked together. This banner reflects the cruel reality of Dornish deserts. According to the Targaryen kind Dorean “The arms of House Martell display the sun and spear, the Dornishman's two favored weapons, but of the two, the sun is the more deadly” (AFfC 438). Any enemy coming to the vast wastelands passing the Red Mountains, encounters the dangers of the poisonous desert animals, thirst and more importantly the sun burning like a fireball on the clear desert sky, “for every man who stumbled on a well, a hundred must surely have died of thirst beneath the blazing Dornish sun” (TWoIaF 376). Ironically for Dornishmen who know the crevasses of desert caves

96 and shadows of the rocks, this barren land is not an enemy after getting used to it. They blend in wearing mostly yellow and orange silk clothing.

“Moving from desert oasis to desert oasis, crossing the sands with the aid of what wells they know of in the midst of the wastes, raising their children along with their goats and their horses. It is the sandy Dornish who are the chief breeders of the famed sand steeds, considered the most beautiful horses in the Seven Kingdoms. Though light-boned and unable to easily bear the weight of a knight in armor, they are swift and tireless, able to run through a day and a night with no more than a few drinks of water. The Dornish love their sand steeds almost as much as they love their children (385).

As it can be seen, the loss of Mother Rhoyne is somewhat redeemed with the gaining of their distinct culture and beautiful steeds that they love. It could be said, even though living in quite horrible conditions, Dornishmen blend in with earth and stay connected with their environment however they are traumatized, and will always be, to a degree because of their bereavement.

According to Archmaester Brude Dorne and Northern Westeros have much in common.

“One is hot and one is cold, yet these ancient kingdoms of sand and snow are set apart from the rest of Westeros by history, culture, and tradition. Both are thinly peopled, compared to the lands betwixt. Both cling stubbornly to their own laws and their own traditions. Neither was ever truly conquered by the dragons. The King in the North accepted Aegon Targaryen as his overlord peaceably, whilst Dorne resisted the might of the Targaryens valiantly for almost two hundred years, before finally submitting to the Iron Throne through marriage. Dornishmen and Northmen alike are derided as savages by the ignorant of the five ‘civilized’

kingdoms, and celebrated for their valor by those who have crossed swords with them” (375).

However, growing apart from the nature that used to be a nourishing mother and coming to a hostile land is not an easy wound to heal. In this regard what was once comely and familiar becomes a stranger therefore uncanny for people. This change and loss of religion causes Dornishmen to never establish a religious bond and they do not consider anything sacred. As Arianne Martell tells Ser Balon Swann “Even death is not sacred to a Dornishmen” (ADwD 588). This is where the Dornish Civilization differs from the Northern Civilization. The Dornish as it can be seen have a deep connection with nature but not a sacred and prophetic one like the Northmen have, because of their traumatic experience of forced migration and exile.

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