Water Tribe

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Water Tribe Avatar Temple

The Water Tribe is a collective term for a nation of people in the fictional universe of the Nickelodeon animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. One of the series' four nations, the Water Tribe is divided mainly into two nation-states: the Southern Water Tribe and the Northern Water Tribe, who inhabits the South and North Poles, respectively. Also, a branch of the Water Tribe exists in the Earth Kingdom swamp, called the Foggy Swamp Tribe. The Water Tribe is home to an order of men and women who practice waterbending, the mystical art of hydrokinesis. According Uncle Iroh, Water is the element of change; its people thrive on change and can easily adapt to different situations, as reflected in Waterbending.

Due to relentless attacks on the Southern Water Tribe by the Fire Nation, the Northern Water Tribe constitutes the majority of the remaining waterbenders.. The Foggy Swamp Water Tribe was hidden and forgotten and isolated until the Avatar and his friends stumbled upon it. Most of its members are competent benders with some unique talents.

Appearance

Ethnically homogeneous, members of both tribes typically have light or deep brown hair, blue eyes and light brown/tan skintone. Water Tribe clothing is typically a set of blue anorak and trousers trimmed with white fur, and worn with mittens and mukluks. Men may wear their hair long and half-up or in short ponytails, referred to by Sokka as "a warrior's wolf tail." Women plait and braid their hair in various styles, sometimes with accent beads, and many sport "hair loopies" in various styles. In the Northern Water Tribe, males appear to wear a darker blue than those of the Southern Water Tribe.

National Emblem

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The Water Tribe national emblem

The Water Tribe's national emblem is a circle comprising of a white waning crescent moon and, in black, three wavy horizontal lines representing ocean waves. It is often present in the architecture of the Northern Water Tribe and as a symbol on the homemade watchtower in the Southern Water Tribe. Like the Earth Kingdom's national emblem, it has a literal and figurative meaning to the Water Tribe. The crescent moon and the ocean waves in the emblem symbolize, Tui and La, the Moon and Ocean Spirits, which give their people life and strength.

The two spirits as portrayed in the Spirit Oasis and the national emblem, while moving and flowing, are in perfect harmony with each other, the moon's effect on the ocean tides, exerting a push and pull effect. Not only is this element of constant change and harmony a crucial part of Waterbending, it also reflects the characteristics and philosophies the Water Tribe strives to maintain.

Season

Each of the Four Nations is influenced by their own distinct, dominant season. The Water Tribe's dominant season is winter. To an effect, more Waterbenders are born during winter than any other season and their powers are at their strongest during the season due to the longer nights. In actuality, both polar Tribes experience winter-like weather consistently, with snow falling year-round.

Culture

The culture of the Water Tribe is divided into three distinct groups, largely based on their geography and a specific affinity for their element.

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The Southern Water Tribe's decimated people and home

The Southern Water Tribe is currently in dire straits, teetering on the brink of extinction due to raids from the Fire Nation years ago. Its bending population was decimated to leaving only Katara as its sole Waterbender, due to multiple waterbenders, such as Hama, either dying in battle or captured by the Fire Nation, in the first Fire Nation raid. Its remaining population is currently defenseless, as its warriors left for the Earth Kingdom to aid in the century-long war against the Fire Nation two years ago, leaving the sparse and scattered tribe virtually cultureless. However, in the aftermath of the Fire Nation's siege of the North Pole, a select group benders and healers from the Northern Tribe left for the South Pole in an effort to rebuild their ravaged and cultureless sister tribe.

Before the war, while they were separated, the Northern and Southern Water Tribes kept in contact with one another and often came together during the first new moon of winter. The Northern and the Southern Water Tribes both were heavily influenced by the Inuit tribes of North America.

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The proseperous Northern Water Tribe

The Northern Water Tribe has survived the century of war, largely due to the harsh terrain surrounding the North Pole, and thus, so did its culture as did its versatile array of waterbenders of all skills and sexes. When honored guests arrive at the North Pole, the Northern Tribe holds a feast in their honor, as well as a cultured waterbending performance accompanied by Water Tribe drums, that take the appearance of a modern-day timpani.

In the north, they are much harsher and more strict when it comes to gender roles, operating in the more traditional ways. It is forbidden for women to take part in battle or other male-dominated fields, forcing female Waterbenders to only learn the Waterbending art of healing. It is unclear whether male Waterbenders are forced to learn how to fight and heal using Waterbending or just fight. Further more, arranged marriages of all classes take place; the more powerful or wealthier your family is, the more serious is the arranged marriage. While the young man apparently has a say in the matter, the young woman does not.

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Members of the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe

The Foggy Swamp Tribe occupies a swamp in the Earth Kingdom, while most of its members are highly skilled benders who have discovered the unique waterbending talent of bending the water within plants to control plant life. The people of the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe dress very differently than their northern and southern counterparts. They use loincloths, armbands, hats and other materials fashioned out of plants to cover themselves. Instead of worshipping the Moon and Ocean Spirits, they worship the Swamp itself, and the giant tree in the center of it, believing that the Swamp is what gives them life and power.

Members of the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe are fashioned after people who lived reclusively within the Mississippi river delta. The Foggy Swamp Tribe's ancestry lies in the Southern Water Tribe. Thousands of years ago, a group migrated from the Southern Tribe and found the Swamp. Feeling comfortable because of the large amount of water, they decided to remain. This information, however, has been lost to both tribes' history, resulting in neither of the two knowing the other exists.

Government

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The Northern Water Tribe's counsel chambers and the chieftain council

The Northern Water Tribe is a patriarchal chiefdom also containing the aspects of a tribal group's leader as the chief of state. The Northern Water Tribe is ruled by a former warrior, Arnook, and his counsel of chieftains, composed of Waterbending masters, warriors, healers, noblemen, and his daughter, Princess Yue.

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The Southern Water Tribe's leader, Kanna, on the left

Scattered all across the South Pole in groups due to the war separating and dwindling their people, the Southern Water Tribe has a patriarchal tribalist system of government, as each village has a designated leader. While initially all the leaders are male, due to the war, each of the villages leaders can be both male and female, accidentally becoming both a patriarchal and a matriarchal tribal system. Prior to leaving to fight in the war, the southernmost tribal village was led by the warrior Hakoda. It is currently populated by the elderly, women and small children.

Natural Resources and Food

Inhabiting frozen poles and ice caps near seas and oceans, the Water Tribes inherently are dependent on the oceans for a majority of their natural resources as well as the bounty of the frozen tundra. Sea prunes are a favorite, while giant sea crabs are considered a delicious delicacy to those in the Northern Sea. Squid and seaweed can be used to make a wide variety of dishes, including soup, seasoning, and even bread and cookies.

Skins from seals are used to create decorative tents, while pelts from polar bears and other furry animals are used as clothing and to cover barren surfaces. Naturally, hunters and fishermen of the Water Tribes are some of the best in the world in their field.

For the people of the Foggy Swamp Tribe, they depend on the swamp itself and its odd assortment of animals, such as cat gators for companions and hunting and squirrel fish, possum chicken and other assortments of weird creatures for food. While use plant leaves, roots, and bark to provide their natural resources, they depend heavily on their waterbending and swampbending for hunting and cooking meals.

Military

As a result of the strong customary theme expressed by the two major sects, the Water Tribes militia is considerably less sophisticated than that of the more modern Earth Kingdom or the industrialized Fire Nation. Nevertheless, the tribes also exhibit deep pride and willpower akin to that of a warrior race.

Warriors

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The Southern Water Tribe men charging in for battle

All adult male tribe members are fully-trained warriors. Their weaponry includes clubs, bladed boomerangs, spears made of bone (also used in spearfishing), scimitars, and machetes laced with whale teeth on the dull side of the blade. Water Tribe warriors typically wear black and white warpaint on their full face before going into battle. In severe combat, Southern Water Tribe warriors don protective battle gear, denoted as lunar wolf armor.

Wearing dark blue body armor, black and blue grey plated arm and leg guards along with a silver helmet shaped into wolf's head, and a fierce moon symbol unique to each warrior is designed to intimidate the enemy, as when warriors charge, they resemble a pack of wild wolves.

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Master Waterbending warriors from the Northern Water Tribe

For the Northern Water Tribe, the normal warriors follow the same traditions but the Waterbending warriors of the Northern Tribe are all masters of their element and wear dark hooded suits and with blue face masks that cover their mouths to give the enemy an air of mystery and danger. They also work together in units rather fight alone. In the "Siege of the North" episodes it shows how no one of the warriors is alone but always have at least one other Waterbender with them. The defense of the Northern Water Tribe is almost entirely benders, and when the lunar eclipse occurs they were left virtually defenseless due to them relying almost totally on Waterbending.

The Foggy Swamp Water Tribe doesn't have a conventional military and when dealing with hostile outsiders, the Foggy Swamp Tribe relies on the swamp itself, its wildlife and fauna, and then Hu, the waterbender who can bend swamp vines and roots and the rest of the tribe's waterbenders, such as Due and Tho.

Navy

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The Waterbending-themed battle ships used to traverse and guard the terrain surrounding the Northern Water Tribe

The ships of the Southern Tribe seem to be cutter sailing ships, containing wooden hulls and utilizing the wind for propulsion. The boats are shown to be operated by at least two people, one to maintain the main sail and one to control the jib, a smaller sail at the rear. The ships appear to be designed more for use as a transport vessel than combat.

The Northern Water Tribe's most common ship is a double-hulled vessel powered by waterbending. Though its small, compact size enables it to be used for a variety of applications, including transporting civilians across the canals within the city, its main purpose is to be used for short, open ocean trips. Even though its not necessarily designed for long voyages, it is capable of being used to travel over a thousand miles and withstanding the harshest ocean conditions. Warriors use this ship to patrol and protect the waters just outside the Northern Water Tribe.

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Water Tribe's newest addition to their navy

Conceptualized by Sokka and constructed by the Earth Kingdom inventor the Mechanist, waterbending-powered submarines were actively used by members of the Water Tribe during the early stages of the Fire Nation invasion. Resembling a smiling whale-dolphin, these large underwater vehicles possess a hull composed of waterproof wood and metal equipped with watertight glass windows that allows them to traverse deep beneath the ocean surface. The watercrafts function by propelling through the ocean with flexible fins on each side and the rear while sinking or floating by means of the Waterbenders riding inside. The submarines are also equipped with firepower in the form of torpedoes encased in ice. Crafted by pouring blasting jelly into a hollowed out section of a torpedo and freezing it along with the lit fuse, the projectile is launched via waterbending and designed to explode upon making contact with its target. There was only one real flaw that the vessels retained, that being their limited air supply, which makes it necessary to resurface periodically for air. While this is largely Waterbender-orientated, for the time being, it seems to be universal for the remaining Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom freedom fighters.

See also

• Waterbender
• History of the Water Tribes
• Earth Kingdom
• Fire Nation
• Fire Nation Leaders
• Air Nomads