House Sengar

House Sengar was a powerful, noble family of the Hiroth Tiste Edur. Many of its members became very important characters throughout the series.

Members

• Uruth Sengar, matriarch
• Tomad Sengar, patriarch
• Fear Sengar, first son
• Trull Sengar, second son
• Binadas Sengar, third son
• Rhulad Sengar, fourth son

Sengar longhouse

The ancestral Sengar home was a longhouse located in the centre of their village. Its outer walls were decorated with centuries of trophy shields and whale bones clung to the underside of the roof's overhang. The doorway to the house was decorated with totems stolen from rival tribes, including strips of fur, beaded hide, shells, talons, and teeth.^[1]

The home's walls were decorated with tapestries and stretched furs and lit by oil lamps set in niches. Scores of weapons were hung from crossbeams in the home's ceiling. At the centre of the chamber was the traditional hearthstone where families used to cook meals before kitchens operated by slaves were moved outside to reduce the risk of fire. The house possessed no dividing walls, instead "rooms" were marked out by the placement of Blackwood furniture.^[2]

Near the hearthstone was the bole of a living blackwood tree in which an Emurlahn-forged blade was embedded. The presence of the sword marked the Sengars as a family of noble blood. Uruth Sengar maintained the family's bloodline tapestry detailing the family's accomplishments.^[2]

Nobles slept within the longhouse on thinly padded mattresses or mats^[3] while slaves slept on sleeping pallets within the longhouse's small alcoves.^[4]

History

Members of the Sengar bloodline had come to the Malazan world with Scabandari Bloodeye leading one of his legions as officers. They had been the first to draw Tiste Andii blood on the day of betrayal.^[5]

Notes and references