Tuatha'an

The Tuatha'an are a fictional group of people in Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time".The Tuatha’an are also well known for their singing and dancing. They sing and dance at any opportunity, and Tinker camps are seldom without music. Sometimes the Tinker women will dance the tiganza, a dance capable of 'bringing mens’ blood to a boil'. The Tuatha'an paint their wagons in bright colors and themselves where brightly colored garments that often clash.

The Tuatha'an, also known as Tinkers and The Traveling People, are a nomadic group of people who travel via long trains of wagons throughout the world seeking "The Song". Exactly what the meaning of this song is is unknown*, but it is customary for the clan chief of the Tuatha'an , the Mahdi, to ask you "Do you have the song?" when you enter his camp. According to the Tuatha'an, they lost the song during the Breaking of the World, and that if they can find it again, the Age of Legends will return. As followers of the Way of the Leaf, the Tuatha'an are also a very pacifistic people. They do not believe in harming another person, even if they themselves are being harmed. At one point in the series, an entire group of them are killed by Shadowspawn.

It is discovered that the Tuatha'an have the same origin as the Aiel, but split away from the Aiel during their wanderings after the Breaking of the World. It is for this reason that the Aiel refer to the Tuatha'an as the "Lost Ones". The Tuatha'an are also one of the few groups of people who can pass through the Aiel Waste unmolested.

Aram is the only character of importance throughout the series who is a Tuatha'an. Strangely enough, he wields a sword (after his people are slaughtered and he can't do anything about it) and fights quite well with it. He stayed by Perrin Aybara's side, until madness took him. He attempted to kill Perrin, but was instead slain at the end of "Knife of Dreams".

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*Concepts in the Wheel of Time series