Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Dunno if there's anything in the DE about this, I haven't even skimmed it yet. I'm guessing they're mostly vegan, since making food from animals takes several times more water than from plants, and their diets would obviously center around those plant-foods that require the least water.

I doubt they'd pass up an easy hunt, though. After all, they're fine with killing humans for water. But what would they do with it? Would they eat it raw to preserve its water content, or maybe pickle it? Or would they just do what they do with humans, and steal the water?

I think it would be interesting to try to eat like a Fremen for a while, other than just putting cinnamon in/on everything.

Paul stood beside Chani in the shadows of the inner cave. He could still
taste the morsel she had fed him--bird flesh and grain bound with spice honey
and encased in a leaf. In tasting it he had realized he never before had eaten
such a concentration of spice essence and there had been a moment of fear. He
knew what this essence could do to him--the spice change that pushed his mind
into prescient awareness.

There was the rabbit dish at the Dinner Party, too.

I see. Anything on whether they farmed animals or just hunted?

And I don't think the dinner party is very representative of the eating habits of Fremen, as it was held and attended by only the richest of Arrakis, and many of them were from off-world.

Snowball wrote:I see. Anything on whether they farmed animals or just hunted?

The concern on Arrakis was not with water, but with moisture. Pets were
almost unknown, stock animals rare. Some smugglers employed the domesticated
desert ass, the kulon, but the water price was high even when the beasts were
fitted with modified stillsuits.

And I don't think the dinner party is very representative of the eating habits of Fremen, as it was held and attended by only the richest of Arrakis, and many of them were from off-world.

No, but the staff, especially the housekeeper, was Fremen.

Snowball wrote: After all, they're fine with killing humans for water...

There was only one Sietch where that was a common practice, Sietch Jacurutu.

The Fremen (casually) killed and reclaimed water out of neccessity I'd say. I don't mean to imply they'd kill just anyone if feeling a little thirsty but their culture is superbly adapted to the harsh condisitons on Arrakis. So for example, when Paul and Jessica first encounter the Fremen in the basin, they were regarded at first as weak offworlders and if taken in, a resource drain within the tribe so killing them and taking their water would not be an act of cruelty, but a consequence of a people having survived in a desert world for generations. It is just as well that Stilgar was a wise leader and spared time to evaluate these two outsiders.

Another voice called from the basin's rim to their left. "Make it quick,
Stil. Get their water and let's be on our way. We've little enough time before
dawn."

The Fremen of Seitch Jacurutu were water stealers and in a sense they were hunters, killing Fremen from other tribes specifically to rob their bodies water. An important difference.

But Stilgar's voice could be filled with many valuable things.
"There were in olden times certain tribes which were known to be water
hunters. They were called Iduali, which meant 'water insects,' because those
people wouldn't hesitate to steal the water of another Fremen. If they caught
you alone in the desert they would not even leave you the water of your flesh.
There was this place where they lived: Sietch Jacurutu. That's where the other
tribes banded and wiped out the Iduali. That was a long time ago, before Kynes
even -- in my great-great-grandfather's days. And from that day to this, no
Fremen has gone to Jacurutu. It is tabu."

Anything on whether they farmed animals or just hunted?

I've now got this bizarre image of a cow in a stilsuit stuck in my head. Thanks for that.

Ziggy wrote:

Anything on whether they farmed animals or just hunted?

I've now got this bizarre image of a cow in a stilsuit stuck in my head. Thanks for that.

The hardest part about that is teaching the cow to breath in through it's mouth and out it's nose.

wonder if they had little stillsuits for their blue heelers ....

They didn't have pets.

Unless you count the sandworms...



"Down, boy! DOWN! Bad wormie! NO! BAD!"

blue heelers ain't pets ....

I don't have my PDF here, but in CoD last night I read one of the passages that starts every chapter, and it mentioned that the Fremen had accepted themselves as foraging and gathering animals. This seems to support a primarily vegitarian diet. I would guess that they also ate as much meat as they could easily hunt/trap, because meat only becomes so highly inefficient when you farm it or waste too much time hunting it, but other than that I'd doubt if they raised any animals for food at all, simply too wasteful, even without considering the water cost.

Good find! Kind of thing I would easily miss during a reading. It's from the epigraph to the chapter where Duncan goads Stilgar into killing him.

Fremen were the first humans to develop a conscious/unconscious symbology
through which to experience the movements and relationships of their planetary
system. They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a
semi-mathematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the
external relationships. The language itself was part of the system it described.
Its written form carried the shape of what it described. The intimate local
knowledge of what was available to support life was implicit in this
development. One can measure the extent of this language/system interaction by
the fact that Fremen accepted themselves as foraging and browsing animals.
-The Story of Liet-Kynes by Harq al-Ada