Fremen
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The Fremen are a group of free people in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert, who based them on the Bedouin and the Kalahari Bushmen.[1]
The Fremen inhabit Arrakis, also known as Dune, the desert planet that is the sole source of the spice melange in the Known Universe. The Fremen come to Dune thousands of years before the events of the novel Dune (1965) as the Zensunni Wanderers, a religious sect in retreat. As humans in extremis, over time they adapt their culture and way of life for their survival in the incredibly harsh conditions of Dune. They take to calling themselves the Free Men of Dune, later shortened to Fremen; in an early, alternate Dune outline Frank Herbert called Spice Planet, the Fremen are literally the "Free Men" — convicts who had been transported to "Duneworld" to work for the spice operation of the "Hoskanners" in exchange for a reduction in their sentence.[citation needed]
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[edit] Origins
In Dune, Lady Jessica undergoes the spice agony and gains access to the memories of her ancestors as well as those of the Fremen Sayyadina Ramallo.[2] This reveals to Jessica that "the Fremen culture was far older than she had suspected. There had been Fremen on Poritrin ... a people grown soft with an easy planet, fair game for Imperial raiders to harvest and plant human colonies on Bela Tegeuse and Salusa Secundus ... Jessica saw the slave cribs on Bela Tegeuse ... saw the weeding out and the selecting that spread men to Rossak and Harmonthep."[2] Herbert elaborates in "Terminology of the Imperium," the glossary of Dune, by noting that the planet Poritrin is "considered by many Zensunni Wanderers as their planet of origin, although clues in their language and mythology show far more ancient planetary roots."[3] The former Imperial capital (and later prison world) Salusa Secundus is "the second stopping point in migrations of the Wandering Zensunni. Fremen tradition says they were slaves on S.S. for nine generations."[3] The "third stopping place" is noted as Bela Tegeuse,[3] and Harmonthep is the "sixth stop."[3] According to the oral tradition of the Sayyadina, the Fremen consider themselves to originate from the Sunni people of the Misr, which is the Arabic term for Egypt.
[edit] Customs
[edit] Culture
The Fremen are organized into communities called sietches. Each sietch has a naib leader who decides what the people in the sietch will do (sending patrols, collecting spice, moving to a new place, etc.) and leads the sietch men into battle. A naib can be challenged by another fremen for leadership, and every new naib makes a ceremony in which he swears he will never fall alive into the enemy's hands. The Fremen practice polygamy, apparently as a means of pinpointing male infertility. Because their diet is rich with the spice melange, adult Fremen have blue-in-blue eyes.
Each sietch has a Sayyadina, a wise woman trained in the spiritual traditions of her people who frequently functions as an acolyte to a Fremen Reverend Mother, comparable to a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. A Sayyadina can also function as a spiritual leader in her own right. There are hints in the novels that the Sayyadina rite preceded the adoption of the role and title of the Bene Gesserit equivalent.
[edit] Justice
The Fremen system of justice relies ultimately on trial by combat. The naib of the tribe is the person who killed the previous naib in single combat. Any Fremen may challenge another to a duel to the death over matters of etiquette, law, or honour; the winner of the duel is responsible for the wife, children, and certain possessions of the loser, as well as the right of the circumstances leading to the duel. Because a duel is fought without the water-retaining stillsuit, the victor is entitled to the deathstill-reclaimed water to make up for the moisture sacrificed in the fight.
[edit] Combat
Fremen are some of the best hand to hand combatants in the universe. Their difficult upbringing and spartan existence ensure that only the strongest survive.
In Dune, Herbert writes that "Paul recalled the stories of the Fremen — that their children fought as ferociously as the adults." Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV later notes, "I only sent in five troop carriers with a light attack force to pick up prisoners for questioning. We barely got away with three prisoners and one carrier. Mind you, Baron, my Sardaukar were almost overwhelmed by a force composed mostly of women, children, and old men."
Due to the invention of the personal body shield, hand to hand combat has re-entered human conflict; all forms of projectile weapons have been made semi-obsolete. Energy weapons — lasguns — react violently with a shield, creating an explosion comparable to sub-atomic fusion, killing operator and shield wearer. Body shielding may be compromised, but only by moving an edged weapon at a speed slow enough to penetrate the tuning of a shield. Additionally, shields are known to drive the fiercely territorial sandworms of Arrakis into a killing frenzy. For this reason, shields are not used on Arrakis's open regions with any frequency and as a result of these plot devices, Fremen have an edge in hand to hand combat because they do not slow their weapons when attacking, unlike those used to attacking a shielded enemy. Fremen use different archaic weapons to great effect (firearms, crossbows), but the most deadly and prized possession of a Fremen warrior is the crysknife — a personally tuned blade ground from the tooth of a sandworm. An untreated crysknife will disintegrate soon upon the death of its owner unless it is close to human flesh. Fremen tradition also demands that a drawn crysknife must not be sheathed until it draws blood. In Dune, Paul Atreides (in his role as Muad'Dib) personally trains a force of Fremen "death commandos" (known as Fedaykin) in the use of the Weirding Way.
[edit] Water conservation
The most notable custom of the Fremen is their water conservation. Living in the desert with no natural sources of water has spurred the Fremen to build their society around the collection, storage, and conservative use of water. The Fremen think about moisture conservation, not simply water conservation. Dune (Arrakis) is a desert planet parched to such a degree that no natural open water exists on the entire planet. Thus water conservation is of utmost importance for survival. The Fremen have also evolved an extended large intestine for greater absorption of water [4].
[edit] Collection
Water is collected from the atmosphere in windtraps that condense the humidity and add it to the underground water store. Water can also be collected from dead animals and people (especially outside wanderers) and processed in a deathstill which removes the water from the carcass for addition to the sietch water store. The Fremen who caused or discovered the death of the animal or person is then given a set of waterrings whose markings denote a volume of water equal to the amount of water collected.
These rings are used as a form of currency, and are backed by fixed volumes of water (analogous to the historical gold standard). Water rings have a profound significance in matters of birth, death, and courtship ritual.
[edit] Storage
Each sietch has its own water store underground. This store can hold millions of decaliters of water and is accounted for literally to the last drop. This store is used as a bank for all the water owned by members of the sietch through water rings, as well as for the sietch's own store of water for the eventual transformation of their planet into something other than desert.
[edit] Conservation
The Fremen spend all time out of their sietch in a stillsuit, a special body-enclosing suit designed to collect and recycle all the moisture the body releases, from urine, feces and sweat, to the exhalation of water vapor in the breath.
The special fabric is a micro-sandwich designed to dissipate heat and filter wastes while reclaiming moisture. The water is then held in catchpockets and made available to drink through a tube.
A Fremen in a well-kept suit can survive weeks in the desert without any other source of water.
Because of their culture's focus on water conservation, it is generally considered a great sign of respect (though often interpreted otherwise) for a Fremen to spit before a person.
Fremen, because of their conservation routine, also put a great cultural reverence on crying and tears. Tears shed for someone who has died are referred to as "Giving Water for The Dead."
[edit] Language
The Fremen language is not actually given in the books, although Chakobsa, the so-called magnetic language, is used by them for ritual purposes. The samples of this language given in the book are, in fact, a Roma dialect. There are numerous items in the books which derive from Arabic, a fact which leads people to suppose that Chakobsa is Arabic based. It has no similarity, either in phonetics, vocabulary or grammar. The Arabic terms in the books are not part of the Chakobsa language adopted by the Fremen, but derive from the even more ancient origins of the Fremen. This Arabic aspect is most likely derived from their origins as Zensunni (a fictional syncretic religious belief combining principles of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam).
[edit] Mythology
A significant part of the Fremen mythology was created by the Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva, through the manifestation of a Messiah legend. Diverse fail-safes and Bene Gesserit beliefs were inserted into the Fremen culture, to allow a Bene Gesserit-trained adept to exploit them to her advantage.
[edit] Population
In Dune: House Atreides, Pardot Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist to Arrakis conducted the first Fremen census, to determine the total population of Fremen there are on the planet. Until that time, Imperial and Harkonnen estimates totalled the number of Fremen on Dune to be in the thousands, up to possibly a million. When news reached Kynes' ears (who was regarded as an "Umma", or Fremen Prophet by then) by a young Fremen Sandrider, however, there were well over 500 sietches on Arrakis, and 10 million Fremen inhabiting those sietches. Adding that to Kynes and Frieth's (his wife and Stilgar's sister) newborn son, Liet-Kynes, the Fremen now "number ten million and one".
[edit] Notable individuals
There are several individual Fremen who play a significant role in the saga of Dune. For a comprehensive roster, see List of Dune Fremen.
[edit] In the Dune games
The Fremen have been featured in the Dune series of games, playing a vital role in the plots of nearly all of them. The first Dune game (1992) and Frank Herbert's Dune (2001) are tied closely to the original book by Frank Herbert, retelling Paul Muad'Dib's rise to becoming the Fremen's Messiah, and leading them against the Harkonnens and the Padishah Emperor under the Atreides banner.
In Dune II (1992) and Dune 2000 (1998), the Fremen are special Atreides units, native elite guerillas invoked from the Palace.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ McNelly, Willis E. (February 3, 1969). "Interview with Frank Herbert and Beverly Herbert". http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm. Retrieved on 2008-10-29. "Willis E. McNelly: It began fifteen years ago, then. Well, what made you or at what point did you go from the sand dunes of Oregon and the ecological background there to the decision to utilize let’s say the Arabian mystique as another counter notion or contrapuntal notion working within the novel?
Frank Herbert: Well, of course, in studying sand dunes, you immediately get into not just the Arabian mystique but the Navaho mystique and the mystique of the Kalahari primitives and all...
WM: Kalahari primitives?
FH: Yes, the Kalahari desert, the black foot (people) of the Kalahari and how they utilize every drop of water. You can’t just stop with the people who are living in this type of environment: you have to go on to how the environment works on the people and how they work on their environment." - ^ a b Herbert, Frank (1965). Dune.
- ^ a b c d Herbert, Frank (1965). "Terminology of the Imperium: PORITRIN, SALUSA SECUNDUS, BELA TEGEUSE and HARMONTHEP". Dune.
- ^ Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
