World of the Mulefas
A savanna world of seed-pod trees and lava-flow roads, home to the wheeled Mulefa.
The world of the Mulefa is a parallel Earth in The Amber Spyglass, inhabited by the Mulefa and the Tualapi. It has a savanna or prairie climate, and the creatures there have a diamond-like skeleton. It is the setting for much of The Amber Spyglass.
Quick Facts
- Inhabitants
- Mulefas (wheel-riding sentient beings)
Lore & Background
The Mulefa are elephant-like sapient creatures with four legs, short horns and a prehensile trunk. They use large, disc-shaped seed pods from their world's enormous seed-pod trees as wheels; the pods fit onto a spur on their front and rear legs. Ancient lava flows, which solidified into smooth rivers of rock running across the land, serve as roads. One of their few natural enemies are huge white birds called tualapi, which regularly destroy settlements.
Reader's Guide
The physicist Mary Malone arrives in this world and finds that the trees the Mulefa rely on have been dying. The Mulefa can see Dust directly, which they call 'sraf'. Will opens a window from the Land of the Dead into the world of the Mulefa, through which the ghosts can leave and dissolve. Lyra and Will escape with their dæmons to the Mulefa world, where Mary tells them of her own past. At the end, every window between the worlds must be closed except the one from the underworld to the world of the Mulefa.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do the Mulefas possess external daemons?
Dæmons are said to occur in every world, but only in Lyra's universe do they take an external shape.
What does the Mulefa civilization teach about consciousness?
The Mulefa can see Dust directly, and the oil from their seed pods allows them to 'grow up', making them more self-aware.
More in Worlds & Parallel Universes
Elsewhere in His Dark Materials
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