Wenny Boggs was one of the planet Tatooine's moisture farmers. While hunting a herd of womp rats one day, Boggs discovered that he had traveled too far into the desert to return home under the safety of daylight. Fearing an overnight encounter with a Tusken Raider hunting party, Boggs set up camp to await morning. During the night, Boggs was awoken by hauntingly sad singing, which he soon found to be coming from a Tusken mourning over a dying elder. As he witnessed the singing Tusken's anguish over the death of his comrade, Boggs began tearing up, moved by the emotion shown by the normally savage creature. He came to see that the Tuskens were not simply mindless monsters as he had believed.

Biography[]

Stranded in the desert[]

Wenny Boggs was a young moisture farmer who resided on the^[1] Outer Rim desert planet^[2] Tatooine. One day^[1] in 0 ABY,^[3] Boggs embarked upon the Tatooine wastes in a landspeeder, hunting an elusive herd of womp rats, when he eventually realized that he had journeyed farther out into the desert than planned. Noticing Tatooine's twin suns rapidly setting in the sky, and wary of the nomadic Tusken Raider hunting parties that owned Tatooine's night, Boggs reasoned that it would be safer for him to camp out for the night than risk traveling kilometers of barren sand in the dark. He soon settled into a cranny in a rise of rocky hills, which he found neither roomy nor comfortable, but it provided him a defensible position from which to wait out the night.^[1]

Armed with a blaster rifle at his side and stocked with a hunk of SoroSuub Insta-Meal to sustain himself, Boggs, soothed by the desert darkness and soft sounds of the night, eventually drifted off to sleep, despite his best efforts to stay awake. After a time, he awoke with a start, having heard singing off in the distance, though when the desert night went quiet again, he was unsure if he had simply dreamed the sound. When the singing, a somber chant, started again, echoing over the rocky peaks from behind him, Boggs found himself captivated. Curiosity piqued, he grabbed his rifle and climbed over the rocks to see the singer.^[1]

Tusken Raider dying ceremony[]

At first, Boggs found only a single bantha waiting at the mouth of a narrow canyon, riderless, though strapped with packs and pouches that clearly belonged to a Tusken Raider. Although no one was in sight, the singing continued, luring Boggs into a series of tall crags at the end of the canyon. He eventually came upon a hollow circle surrounded by high walls of stone, at the center of which lay a flat stone platform, ringed with painted, rocky totems honoring some ancient gods. There, Boggs found his singer, a Tusken Raider bending over an aged, feeble-looking figure resting on the stone platform. The singing Tusken had removed his breathing filter, and, though Boggs could not see his face, he found the Tusken's unencumbered song surprisingly melancholy and dreamy, not frightening, as he would have imagined.^[1]

As Boggs watched, the aged figure grasped the hand of the singing Tusken and whispered a short series of words into his ear before his own hand fell away and he died. The Tusken's song stopped just as quickly, and the creature began wailing in anguished torment over his dead comrade, which echoed through the canyon. Boggs bowed his head as tears came to his eyes, never imagining that the hostile Tuskens could feel emotion as he did. Giving a final nod to the expired elder, Boggs quietly returned to his cranny to await the dawn.^[1]

Personality and traits[]

As one of Tatooine's moisture farmers, Wenny Boggs was duly cautious of the savage Tusken Raiders,^[1] who were notorious for regularly attacking Tatooine's Human settlers, isolated moisture farmers included.^[4] After Boggs found himself trapped out in the desert with not enough daylight to safely return home, he opted to seek shelter, not wanting to confront a hunting band of the fearsome creatures at night.^[1]

Boggs came to reevaluate some of the surface impressions he held of the creatures upon discovering the singing Tusken in mourning over his aged, dying comrade. Boggs was transfixed by the Tusken's song, unable to offer resistance as it pulled him to its source in the Tusken ceremonial rock circle. The Tusken's singing, sad and lilting, belied the creatures' typical growling vocals, which surprised Boggs, who found the singing strangely wistful rather than harsh and frightening, as expected—of course, he never imagined that Tuskens could sing in the first place. Boggs' most profound revelation came as he witnessed the singing Tusken agonizing over the death of the elder, discovering for himself that Tuskens were not mindless monsters but instead beings of feeling and emotion.^[1]

Behind the scenes[]

Wenny Boggs appeared in the short narrative Song for a Fallen Nomad, originally published by West End Games in the 1987 The Star Wars Sourcebook, written by Bill Slavicsek and Curtis Smith. The story provides a rare insight into the intimate social rituals of the Tusken Raiders,^[1] who earned a common reputation as savage brutes among Tatooine's other inhabitants.^[5]

Appearances[]

• "Song for a Fallen Nomad" — The Star Wars Sourcebook (also reprinted in Second Edition) (First appearance)

Notes and references[]