The DARK History Of The Jawas And Tusken Raiders

The Tragic Full History Of The Tusken Raiders And The Jawas


As the Book of Boba Fett has shown, the Tusken raiders were not just savage brutes. Although territorial, they also had a rich culture, with much of their violence being a response to the encroachment of their ancestral land. As I've explored a few times over on my shorts channel, the dark history of the Tuskens and the Jawas is steeped in violence, exploitation, and tragedy. In fact, if things had gone slightly differently, The Tuskens and Jawas may have been one of and maybe even the dominant species in the Star Wars Galaxy. Today we will be exploring the dark and violent history of Tatooine, from the age of the infinite empire to the Skywalker era.

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To understand how the Tuskens and Jawas got to where they were during the Imperial era, we must first understand where they came from. Their distant past is highly fragmented, steeped in mystery and mythology as many oral histories are. However, as we shall see, this history, known in canon as the legend of Lehon, is certainly worth remembering.

Many tens of thousands of years ago, the sand people and Jawas did not yet exist. Their ancient ancestors were known as the Kumumgah, a bipedal species of great intelligence. Revan postulated that the Tuskens and humanity could be distantly related due to their resemblance of one another. Perhaps the Kumumgah were the descendants of the humans who left Coruscant on sleeper ships 10s of thousands of years before the clone wars, much like other near-human species such as the Chiss. Or perhaps they were brought to Tattooine by the celestials or their client races. Or maybe they evolved on this outer rim planet naturally, and their resemblance is a mere coincidence.


At this time, Tatooine was one of the most diverse and lush planets in the whole galaxy. Just like their Tusken descendants, the Kumumgah were deeply connected to nature and the jungles they resided in, forming shamanic tribes across the planet.

However, the Kumumgah eventually industrialised, creating great cities upon their world and eventually discovered Space travel. The Kumumgah elders warned that this march towards ever more advanced technology would bring nothing but the destruction of their beautiful world and the end of the Kumumgah people. However, the Kumumgah were enthralled by their new technology, seeing themselves as the masters of nature and believing that their destiny resided among the stars. Sadly they were very wrong.


The Kumumgah became completely dependent on their machinery, using it to expand outwards onto many worlds in the outer rim. Ancient carvings have been found on Corellia and even Coruscant, suggesting that the Kumumgah explored much of the Galaxy.


This exploration and colonization caught the attention of the dominant force in the Galaxy, the brutal Rakatan Empire. Using their advanced force-based technology, the Rakata drove them back to Tatooine, enslaving them and exploiting them for resources. However, the Kumumgah rose up against the Rakata, initiating a brutal conflict. The sand people claim that they drove the Rakata from their world but others such as HK-47 believe this is unlikely. What is known is that the Rakata glassed the surface of Tatooine, destroying the Kumumgah's cities and annihilating the planet's jungles.

However, the Kumumgah had anticipated this genocidal act and had hid deep underground in caves, saving them from the Rakatas wrath. Over time, the winds broke down the rubble into sand, creating the vast deserts Tatooine is now known for.

This marked the beginning of a period now known to the Tusken raiders as the long walk. Due to the harsh conditions of their new world and the many thousands of years spent in caves, the Kumumgah split into two separate species, the tall Ghorfas, and the smaller Jawas.


However, neither the Jawas nor the Ghorfas resembled the Kumumgah in any way. Both were primitive, superstitious, and had long forgotten how to use their technology. The Ghorfas saw technology as the reason for their fall, believing that if the Kumumgah had simply stayed one with nature, Tatooine would still be a lush jungle planet.

The two species soon worked out ways to deal with the intense desert heat. The Tuskens bound themselves in rags to prevent moisture from escaping while the Jawas wore hoods to dissipate the heat away from their bodies.


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