Na'viyä 'Awvea Taktswìkyu
From the Early Pandora Wiki Na'vi legend Wiki lore Real world
Na'viyä 'Awvea Taktswìkyu ("the First Duck-Sucker of the People"), usually just Taktswìkyu (say tahk-TSWIK-yoo), was an enormous swamp plant of early Pandora. It is famous for catching and eating tak ducks, and for eating every last one. Today it is extinct. In English it is jokingly called the "Na'vi Duck Sucky Upper." Na'vi legend
Like the loreyu that came after it, the Taktswìkyu is thought of as a zooplantae, a living thing that is part plant and part animal: rooted like a plant, but able to move and hunt. Canon Wiki lore
Description
- Size: taller than three Na'vi standing on each other's shoulders, about 30 feet. Na'vi legend
- Stalk: one thick stalk, bright orange with purple stripes, twisting upward like a corkscrew. Na'vi legend
- Trumpet: at the top, a giant leaf rolled into a hollow tube that bends down toward the water. Na'vi legend
- Glow: a ring of golden light around the trumpet's mouth at night. A whole swamp of them looked like fallen stars. Na'vi legend
- Movement: it could not walk, but it could bend, sway and twist its trumpet like the neck of a direhorse. Its stalk gurgled. Na'vi legend
- Roots: twined together under the mud and "whispered" to the trees through Eywa. Na'vi legend
Sounds
| Sound | When you heard it |
|---|---|
| glug-glug-glug | Water moving up the stalk, all day long Na'vi legend |
| creeeak | The stalk twisting as the trumpet turned to follow a duck Wiki lore |
| SHHHLLLUUURRRP! | The big slurp Na'vi legend |
| bloop | The happy burp afterwards Na'vi legend |
| hmmmmm | A low hum on still nights when many plants glowed at once; the Na'vi said the swamp was "singing to itself" Wiki lore |
Life cycle
Wiki lore describes four stages in a Taktswìkyu's life: Wiki lore
| Stage | What it looked like | What it ate |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | A hard orange seed the size of a fingertip, carried by the water | Nothing; it waited in the mud for the rains |
| Sprout | A curled orange shoot, no taller than a Na'vi hand | Tiny water bugs, sipped through a little tube |
| Young stalk | As tall as a Na'vi, with a small trumpet that did not glow yet | Bugs, fallen fruit, small fish |
| Grown plant | About 30 feet tall, glowing gold at night | Mostly tak, about one a full moon |
A grown Taktswìkyu made a handful of seeds each year from a small pod below its trumpet. Most were eaten by fish or washed out to sea, so only a few new plants grew in each swamp, until the Long Rains. Wiki lore
How it fed
Unlike most plants, the Taktswìkyu did not drink through its roots. It lowered its trumpet and sucked food up the tube: water, bugs, fallen fruit and, above all, tak. Na'vi legend
The nectar trap
- Making the bait. At sunset it coated the inside rim of its trumpet with sticky golden nectar.
- Sending out the smell. The nectar smelled of honey and ripe fruit and drifted across the swamp.
- Turning on the light. The golden rim began to glow, like a ripe fruit hanging over the water.
- Leaving a trail. Drops of nectar floated on the water, leading the duck closer.
- Bending down low. The plant lowered its glowing mouth just above the water.
- The big slurp. The duck stretched up to sip, and then: SHHHLLLUUURRRP! A moment later came a little bloop, the plant's happy burp.
Na'vi legend
Why eat ducks at all?
Swamp mud is wet and sour, and it holds very little of the food plants need to grow, especially nitrogen. Wiki lore says the Taktswìkyu solved this the same way carnivorous plants on Earth do: by catching animals, which are full of exactly what the mud was missing. Wiki lore Real world
Real plants that hunt
There are more than 600 kinds of carnivorous plants on Earth, and most grow in bogs and swamps, just like the Taktswìkyu. Each one uses a different trap. Real world
| Plant | Its trick | Like the Taktswìkyu? |
|---|---|---|
| Bladderwort | Tiny underwater bags that suck in water fleas in less than a thousandth of a second, one of the fastest movements of any plant Real world | Yes: a suction trap, but tiny |
| Pitcher plant | A tube-shaped leaf with sweet nectar around the rim; insects slip in and cannot climb out Real world | Yes: a nectar-lined tube |
| Venus flytrap | Leaves that snap shut when a bug touches its trigger hairs twice Real world | A little: it moves to catch food |
| Sundew | Sticky, sparkly drops that glue insects in place Real world | A little: it uses sticky bait |
The anglerfish, a deep-sea fish, dangles a glowing light in front of its mouth to lure prey. A trick like this is called a lure. The Taktswìkyu used a smell, a light and a trail of nectar all at once. Real world Na'vi legend
Uses by the early Na'vi
Old dried stalks made strong ropes, and the hollow tubes made the very first drinking straws. Na'vi legend Wiki lore adds:
- Young hunters rubbed a little nectar on fishing lines to draw fish. Wiki lore
- The Reed Weavers dyed cloth with nectar, so it glowed softly gold at night. Wiki lore
- Children used dried trumpet tips as horns, blowing a long whooo to call each other across the water. Wiki lore
- Nobody was allowed to cut a living Taktswìkyu. Only stalks that had fallen naturally could be used. Wiki lore
Extinction
When the Long Rains came, the Taktswìkyu grew taller, wider and far more numerous. Bigger plants are hungrier plants, and the tak could not lay eggs fast enough. After the Great Hunger, every grown Taktswìkyu died. Na'vi legend
One sprout from the last seed survived. Ninat found it at the edge of the last swamp, and it became the ancestor of the loreyu. Na'vi legend
How it is remembered
Stone stalks of the Taktswìkyu still turn up in old riverbanks, orange and purple even after all this time. Na'vi children who find one are told to leave it where it lies and say "I See you, old hungry one." Na'vi legend Wiki lore