SWRPGNetwork and the HoloNet Forums > Star Wars Forums > Rumors and Speculation > What does a Jawa look like?
View Full Version : What does a Jawa look like?
Whenever I've seen Jawas depicted, either in movies or sourcebooks, they always have the trademark robe with only glowing eyes showing.
Does anybody know what a Jawa looks like?
If a Jawa was "unmasked" in a comic book or something, that would be new to me. I can't say I've read many of the comic books.
I hadn't thought of it until recently. I was trying to guess, but I really have no clue to what they would be.
Pale skin or even albino like?
Here's (http://www.theforce.net/fancomics/jawaforce/) a fan comic that has some images of Jawas sans their hoods. Not sure that totally fits how I see them but it's an interesting look nonetheless.
Not a bad representation. Sometimes, I think they were depicted as a little too tall though. And some of the earlier issues made them look a little too much like grey Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
http://swagonline (http://swagonline.net/view.php?photo_id=349&screen=1&action=search&keyword=Jawa&date=&type=search) This ones my personal favorite and the image I use in my campaign.
Jawas are fairly easy to find some referances to what they should look like. The encyclopedia and other referance materials state that Jawas are infact Pack Rats. They are a rodent. There should be a scene in the cantina of a Ranat (?) which is supposed to be a cousin of the Jawa. All I remember is that it looked like the standard Jawa robes but with the hood pulled back and a giant mouse head. I would say that Jawas probly have shorter snouts (kinda like those flat faced cats and dogs) but outside that not much differant. The whole glowing eyes could be caused by different things. Bioluminescent doesn't make to much sense, but the reflective retina that give your photos red eye and makes animals eyes stand out in low light might explain some of it and was probly what they were going for but no eye actually glows especially in complete dark from all angles. The easiest way is to say the like to wear goggles.
Now the Tusken Raiders are hard to figure out. I don't remember where but I thought there was a referance to 'spitting' streams of blood, which implies something similar to horny toads. But their wrapping is speculated to be used to keep moisture in and regulate temprature which implies warm blooded sweater which horny toad are neither.
Models of Jawas I have seen show them to have round heads, with black, heavily ridged faces with no nose.:jawa: This could be a model company making something up, but I can't say for sure.
I'm with Jaggard. The Jawas are rodents, this has been firmly established. The Tuskens on the other hand are indeed puzzling. Jaggard is right about their propensity for spitting "blood", but is that really what it is?
First of all, it could be some sort of other bodily fluid Tuskins are able to spray as a defensive mechanism. Secondly, it might not even be some thing they produce biologically. Instead the "blood-shooters" on the outside of their headgear could be part of a mechanical apparatus Tuskens use for this propose.
So what then are the Tuskins? They could be anything from an indigenous race or humanoids (presumably warm-blooded), to a near-human race evolved from a long-lost colony. The fact that they rely so heavily on their outfits and other gadgets to survive in the desert suggests they may have not evolved natural coping mechanism as other desert life-forms have.
What ever the answer the Tuskens aren't saying anything.
Jawas aren't rodents, and that rat-headed thing in the cantina isn't a Ranat -- it's a Chadra-Fan. The Jawas are described as pack-rats because they never throw anything away, rather than for anatomical reasons. Truth be told, noone knows what a Jawa really looks like because they smell so bad nobody cares to hang around long enough to find out.
JAWA : diminutive desert-dwelling scrap merchants on Tatooine, these repulsive little creatures have large, glowing eyes which peer out from dirty cloaks. Their smell was based on the unusual mixture of chemicals used to clean their clothing, a mixture which helped the fabric retain bdy moisture. Jawas also didn't bathe, seeing it as a waste of precious water.They have a randomly variable language, which makes it hard to interpret what they say. They are inherently cowards. Very few have ever seen what a Jawa looks like under their cloaks. They are pack animals, working together in small bands to collect anything and everything for resale to all buyers. It is believed by some xenologists that Jawas have human origins. Their normal body temperature is 116 degrees.
CHADRA-FAN : a race of small, humanoid rodents native to Chad, they have large ears, flat noses with four nostrils, and seven senses (sight, touch, taste, sound, smell, infrared sight, chemoreceptive smell). Because of their two senses of smell, Chadra-Fam rely heavily on smell as a guide and influence. The larger of their four nostrils detectes water-soluble odors, while the inner two nostrils contain specialized chemoreceptors. Because of the large number of tidal waves that have torn Chadra-Fan society apart over the millennia, they have an innate fear of death by drowning, and often the mere threat of drowning throws a Chadra-Fan into shock. They are a clan-based society in which interclan marriages are welcomed. The wedded couple is then "added" to the smaller clan, thus increasing the clan's size. Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina says the Chadra-Fan are from the planet Chadra.
RANAT : a small, rat-like race which was originally native to the planet Rydar II, Ranats appear at first to be a harmless race of rodents. They are, in fact, an intelligent race of ruthless killers. The name Ranat was given to the race by the humanoid Rydans, but they prefer to call themselves the Con Queecon, which means "the Conquerors." Several hundred years before the Galactic Civil War, Ranats were found to be stealing and eating Rydan infants. They were all but wiped out on Rydar, but three Ranats managed to stow away on a smuggling ship. The starship crashed on the planet Aralia after the three Ranats devoured the crew, and the Ranats were left there. They eventually consumed much of Aralia's native lifeforms, including the porcine roba. Ranats don't understand the concept of surrender, and will fight an opponent to the death. Any Ranat defeated in battle and left alive will return to its home and organize a vengeance party, attacking its attackers in order to restore its honor. They often sabotaged the construction of the Project Aralia amusement park, digging tunnels beneath support pylons and destroying buildings and attractions. The Empire attempted to eradicate them by hiring "pest controllers," but environmentalists protested that this violated Imperial laws against harming sentient races. The Empire decided to add the Ranat's to a list of semi-intelligent species, which meant that they had no rights to property and could be killed in self-defense, and made is illegal to arm a Ranat. However, the Ranats were never destroyed, and several Ranats found their way to Tatooine, where they took over Jabba's palace following the Hutt's demise. At one time during the New Order, Palpatine drugged Ranats with hallucinogens, then made the visions permanent with the Dark Side of the Force, and used the paranoid creatures as vicious guards. This freed up stormtroopers for more secret operations. More scientific experiments were also conducted by the Imperial Military to determine a way to use the Ranats against the Alliance.
I wpoldn't be much of a geek if I mistook Kabe the Chadra Fan for a Ranat. I was refering to a picture from the encyclopedia of Reegesk who is indeed a Ranat and the referance photo is from the collectors card game I think. It is a Jawa robe with a rat/wolf (not a bat) like face emerging from the hood, exposing fro tip of the muzzle to just above brow level.
The illustrated guide to the starwars universe is narated by in universe characters and Tatooine is done by Hoole (sp?) the shi'do anthropologist. He describes the Jawa as small-statured rodent like people.
I'm sure the essential guide to species also has a similar referance but can seem to locate mine.
Intresting to note the the illustrated guide has a picture of Tuskens around a fire listening to a story teller. One of the figures appears to be attired similar to them and as welcome company but without a mask. Is this a maskless Tusken, is this Hoole without the force masking the differances, or is it a prisoner?
Drth Fury, post a specific page, because i don't have time to look through the whole comic book, i might read it eventually, but...you know how it is.
Every time a PC has tried to lift a Jawa hood in my campaigns, I hastily come up with some interruption or other reason to avoid the topic. Gotta maintain the mystery.
Tusken Raiders are a human tribe. See the Outlander comic for further details. The blood-spitting, well... It'd have to be some kind of mechanical apparatus.
I mearly pointed out that it's there. I also don't have unlimited amounts of time to sift thru each issue to find a worthy depiction. But if you want instant satisfaction I did post 2 links to images found at SWAGonline about 5 or 6 posts before yours.
Tuskens were there before the first colonies arrived and got into a bloody conflict at a location called Tuskan, that is why they are Tuskan Raiders, also known as sand people.
Outlander has the tribes accepting humans into the group and even interbreeding as long as the new member lives by Tusken rules. They are in essence in that comic mogrels and the only people they refer to is their loose knit collection of tribes, it doesn't mean all are like that. And it finally that comic is just that, a comic. At the time they didn't have them spitting blood and no real differance between male and female, both of which were changed for Ep2 movie and referance materials. Now I'm inclined to believe that there may be tribes interbreeding, some with gender equality, and some tribes may be almost all humans who joined tusken tribes or children born to them. But Tusken culture and people are not human in origin.
Jedi Shared Hett (sp?) may have been humanoid (they never said he was human), and was adopted by the tusken tribe because he was a survivor and a skilled and cunning warrior but his son A'shared Hett (sp?) was possibly half tusken. Some sources say tuskens have a low reproduction rate and seek to increase that and include strong survivors into their gene pool to make themselves sturdier and able to increase their numbers. I've some times speculated that they may have had similar plans for Shmi after some kind of test (which might have been over about the time Annkin showed up) and the only reason she died was she saw her son as a 'hansom' young jedi and was 'complete' so she didn't feel the need to fight to stay alive. Had annakin taken longer he might have felt his connection fade and Shmi could have fought to stay alive until the trial was over and she was given a healing drink by a shaman type character. She'd then be garbed as a Tuskan and through the potion and brainwashing become one of them, forgetting her past or seeing it as a dream. Imagine toward the end of the republic a tusken child (perhaps of one or two survivors from a lost tribe if you still wanted anakin to kill them all) showing up on a moisture farm lost, stolen by another tribe, or orphaned. Found by the Jedi to be aware of her culture but still young enough to become a Jedi. Imagine the surprise when she is Half sister to Annakin, if they ever figure it out.