Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | The Fathers of the Fathers of the Stoors

Frodo was originally incredulous that Gollum, also called Sméagol, could be “of hobbit-kind”, even as Gandalf explained how he was likely related to “the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors”, the ancestors of the Brandybucks and other hobbits in Buckland and the East Farthing. As mentioned many months ago when discussing the three breeds of hobbits, this group had distinctive features. They were broad and strong, enjoyed boating along the river, and may have had unusually blue eyes. However, their culture was distinct from that of their distant relatives in the Shire. They appeared to respect matriarchal authority rather than patriarchal, and they built boats of reeds rather than wood. In this essay, I’m going to explore those differences and how they inspired my design of Sméagol and his relatives.

Matriarchal Culture

Sméagol was raised by his grandmother apparently after his parents had died, a parallel to Frodo living at Brandy Hall as a ward of his uncle Rorimac Brandybuck after the drowning of his own parents, Drogo and Primula. Like the Master of Buckland, the grandmother was wealthy and exercised immense power over other hobbit-kind in the community. As the matriarch, she determined who lived in her hole and who must be expelled, a fate that befell Sméagol after the Ring warped his personality. While matriarchal societies seem rare, at least in extant historical records, these have existed through time and around the world.

The mythological Amazons are often cited as the best-known matriarchal culture in the West. Depictions of these warrior women appear on pottery dating back over 2000 years. In Athens, amphorae showed muscular women on horseback chasing after men who are about to be struck down by their axes. Since Ancient Greek culture was patriarchal, independent women were often shown as hyper-masculine to explain where they gained their power. A woman carrying a shield and spear into battle was terrifying but fit the mold of what powerful people were supposed to look like. The Greco-Roman goddesses Athena/Minerva and Artemis/Diana were further examples of powerful women. Notably, neither of these goddesses married, with Athena remaining single and Artemis having several girlfriends. No god wanted to be overpowered by his immortal wife.

Among the most important elements in matriarchal society is right in the title: the ruling woman would be a matriarch or mother whether or not the father was heavily involved. This is evident in Christianity, especially Catholicism, with many followers displaying great admiration towards Mary the mother of Jesus Christ, also known as the Virgin Mary. In Luke 1:26–38, Mary is found to be “highly favored” by God the Father, allowing her to give birth to a son without the involvement of a mortal man such as her betrothed, Joseph, a descendant of King David.

In ancient Middle Eastern society, the paternity of a baby was considered highly important, more so than its maternity, as the status of the father determined the status of the baby. This is clearly seen elsewhere in the Bible, with an enslaved Egyptian woman named Hagar giving birth to Ishmael son of Abram on behalf of her mistress Sarai (Genesis 16:1–16), while servants Bilhah and Zilpah had sons for Jacob on behalf of their mistresses, bickering sisters Rachel and Leah (Genesis 30:1–13). Mary being the sole mortal parent of Jesus would give her much more authority than other mothers of her time, which is reflected in her veneration in Catholicism even today.

Outside of mythology and religion, matriarchal cultures exist outside the west. The Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy, a Native American government system in what is now New York that has lasted from around 1000 AD to today, is noted as a matriarchal culture, although the framework of gender is different than what is used in Western thought. The founding of the Confederacy was told orally through a story that greatly resembles the story of Mary and the virgin birth. The Great Peacemaker Dekanawida or De‑Ka-Nah-Wi-Da was born of a virgin who learned of her pregnancy in a dream from the Creator. In Iroquois culture, children inherit the status of their mother, and the “family line” is matrilineal, consisting only of women.

A similar culture exists among Mosuo people of southwestern China, an ethnic group with 40,000 members who are close relatives of Mongolians. Like Iroquois, they have matrilineal family lines and women own the property. However, the concept of marriage appears radically different. According to Chinese Singaporean researcher Choo Waihong, marriage does not exist for Mosuo. Both casual and lifelong relationships between men and women are traditionally acceptable, with the man not living in his partner’s household regardless of whether the pair has children. Instead, men help to raise the children of their sisters. Even so, many children know the identity of their father and develop a close relationship with him. However, their culture is rapidly changing with new laws regarding public schooling. Children now learn Mandarin and Han Chinese culture in school, which encourages them to pursue monogamy and legal marriage. Even their religion, once combining animism with the veneration of a Mother Goddess, has been syncretized with Tibetan Buddhism.

There is arguably one matriarchal culture remaining in Europe, which is on the isolated Estonian islands of Kihnu and Manija. Because these communities are surrounded by water, most men work on boats to hunt fish and seals, spending more time on the ocean than at home. Women have historically taken care of the farms and maintained the lighthouses, along with wearing traditional costumes no longer seen in the rest of Scandinavia. The islands were proclaimed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2003 for their crafts, stories told in Kalevala-verse, and music. When the culture was upgraded to the Representative List in 2008, only 600 people remained on the island. The organization SA Kihnu Kultuuriruum (Kinhu Cultural Space) works to preserve the culture, but its programming appears sporadic. I imagine in another generation, the culture will be preserved in legacy only, with the lived culture appearing similar to the rest of Estonia and Europe.

Reed Boats

Sméagol paddled around his cave in a boat, apparently not a wooden boat as often depicted but one of reeds. Perhaps it was Déagol’s boat he took after murdering his closest friend to get the Ring. Reed boat designs predate wooden designs. The oldest boat remains were excavated in As-Sabiyah, Kuwait and date back to the Ubaid period, or over 7,000 years ago, which is between 5500 and 5000 BC. These Neolithic people lived along the banks of the Persian Gulf not far from the well-known Tigris and Euphrates rivers. To keep the reed boats from sinking, the sides were covered in bitumen, also known as asphalt. Not all archaeologists are sold on this bitumen being boat bitumen (try saying that ten times fast). If this bitumen turns out to be bitumen from another source, then the oldest known boat dates to two thousand years later, or about 3000 BC.

Boat building along the Nile seems to have begun around the time the country was united under a single king or pharaoh for the first time, about 3150 BC. As mentioned when discussing the Anduin, the Nile is regarded as the longest river in the world and is known for its seasonal flooding, which creates rich, dark soil along its banks, ideal for growing food and harvesting fish. Ancient Egyptians designed two types of boats, one for each direction on the river: hnti included a raised sail for traveling south against the flow of the river, while hdi had a lowered sail or no sail for traveling north along the flow of the river. Both versions had oars for steering and paddling. The favorite type of reed for making these boats was papyrus, the same material used for scrolls, and the boats were coated much like the Neolithic boats.

A description of a tiny boat even appears in Exodus 2:3, when the mother of Moses coated a papyrus basket with tar and pitch before placing her baby in it and putting him in the Nile. A similar description of full-sized boats appears in Isaiah 18:1–2, where the prophet describes the boats of Cush, a country to the south of Egypt with similar technology, as a place that “sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water”. A version of these boats, called tankwa in the Semitic language Ge’ez, are still used in modern Ethiopia by Wayto people who travel across Lake Tana to visit Christian monasteries.

Outside of the Mediterranean, Uros people of Lake Titicaca in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia have lived on free-floating islands made of totora reeds for hundreds of years to avoid colonizers: first Inkas, then Spanish, and now the Peruvian government. Uros people love totora, as it makes not only their islands, but also boats, housing, food, drink, and medicine. A neighboring community, Aymara people, live on shore and make similar boats. Production seems to have peaked in the 19th century, as large boats weighing up to 4 tons (8,000 pounds; 3630 kg) could carry sixty people at a time, or a farmer and a pair of oxen. Archaeologists reconstructed a boat that carried a 9 ton stone (18,000 pounds; 8170 kg) with a draft of 38 centimeters (15"), proving that this technology may have been used when building local pyramids.

It is tempting to romanticize people who use historical technology in modern life. However, Uros people have taken advantage of solar panels, motorboats, and radios. Their cultural costumes have also changed, as they turn modern cloth dyed with eye-popping colors into trendy skirts, trousers, and blouses, along with wearing fun European-style hats. While non-Uros researchers worry that the culture has become “corrupted” and is in danger of being “assimilated” due to a rise in tourism, 2022 community president Nelson Colia Lujano seemed to view the changes as positive. Uros people now have better access to the Peruvian capital Lima to advocate for themselves, receive regular income from tourism, and have the chance for their community to become known as “an official wonder of the world”.

Among the best-known reed boats are those of Polynesian people, including mōkihi made of reeds known as raupō by Maori of New Zealand. Raupō has many traditional usages, including building materials, bedding, and food, while modern New Zealanders use the plant for water purification at farming and mining sites. It is also worth mentioning the Kon-Tiki, perhaps the best known Polynesia-style boat. While made of balsa-wood instead of reeds, Norwegian archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl constructed and sailed this boat to show how ancient people might have crossed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Polynesia. Heyerdahl’s methods ran counter to current research methodologies, but modern DNA testing has proved his theory to be correct in some cases.

Illustrating Sméagol’s Home Culture

By combining previous depictions of ancient Stoors with illustrations of the Anduin and reed boats, I hope to show a culture of people who share common ancestors with the Bucklanders and yet have a radically different lifestyle: no ponies, beer, or patriarchal Master. Even so, many of their living conditions seem similar, with all relations dwelling in the grandmother’s hole as hundreds of Brandybucks settled at Brandy Hall, and with both groups loving their boats and the river. While this culture will be explored in-depth for only one section of one episode in the entire series, I hope to give enough information for viewers to understand how Sméagol comes from a different world from Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam, causing a cultural clash even as their similarities draw them together.