Have Island, Will Rebel
© Michael Martinez
Numenor must have seemed a very strange place compared to Middle-earth. The first people to dwell there were Men, not Elves or Dwarves. And there were no Dwarves, or Hobbits, and few Elves (who may have actually "lived" in the huge garden-region of Nisimaldar that they helped to cultivate) for any length of time. Numenor was for all intents and purposes a "Mannish" state and society.
Of course, Tolkien says the Eldar of Tol Eressea visited the island almost from the very start, and the Elves taught the Dunedain many things. What things? Why didn't the Eldar teach the Edain all these neat ideas during the 140 or so years of relative peace that the Edain enjoyed in Beleriand before the Dagor Bragollach?
Well, there was the art of ship-building. Not that the Numenoreans needed ships, but the greater part of the population lived along the coasts in towns and villages which supported a great fishing industry. It just seems sort of odd that the Dunedain whose ancestors had lived happily in the highlands of Dorthonion and the woods of Brethil would have taken to life on the seashore.
Of course, every Dunadan family had to eat, and fishing should have been one of the easiest ways for the early arrivals to provide for themselves. You weave a few nets, carve out some boats, make a few spears, and go skidding across the waves to find a good shoal were the local fishies haven't figured out that Men are not good things (for the fishies, that is).
Tolkien tells us that most of the Dunedain lived in the eastern regions of Numenor, in fact the greatest population was in the Arandor, the Kings land. The Dunedain must have been brought to shore by Cirdan's mariners approximately where Romenna lay, and from there colonists moved inland and gradually spread throughout the island. The westernmost peoples appear to have been primarily of Beorian descent, and it was from them who came many of the Faithful centuries later.
The early society of the Dunedain must have been rather clannish, perhaps even multi-tribalish. In the essay on Numenor Tolkien writes that "the King and most of the great chieftains possessed swords as heirlooms of their fathers; and at times they would still give a sword as a gift to their heirs." Who were these "great chieftains"? Undoubtedly there must have been families of prominent men who became leaders in their communities in the absence of their rightful lords, whose families were finally represented only by Elrond and Elros.
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