Jondalar

Jondalar of the Zelandonii is the male main character of Jean Auel's Earth's Children speculative historical fiction series set in the Late Stone Age of Europe. He has long pale blond hair, vivid blue eyes, is six feet six inches tall, and is described as extremely handsome, skillful in many ways with a tendency to pull his hair back in a pony-tail.

Introduced early in the second novel of the series as a "co-star" of the book The Valley of Horses, he and his brother Thonolan are on the long Journey to see the end of the Great Mother River Danube. The Journey had been Thonolan's idea, and Jondalar had come along to keep an eye on his brother. Their adventures run as a parallel period of time to Ayla's years in her Valley. The stories alternate back and forth until the two main characters finally meet, when Jondalar and Thonolan are attacked by a cave lion. Thonolan is killed and Jondalar is seriously hurt. Ayla takes Jondalar to her cave and treats his wounds.

Jondalar is the son of Dalanar, leader of the First Cave of the Lanzadonii, and of Marthona, former leader of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. He has an older 'half'-brother Joharran, who was sired by Marthona's first mate Joconan. After Jondalar was born, Marthona and Dalanar "severed the knot;" she remates (remarries), and Jondalar has two younger 'half'-siblings by Willamar: brother Thonolan and sister Folara, who is nearly ten years younger than Jondalar. He also has a "hearth cousin", Joplaya, the daughter of Dalanar and his second mate Jerika, whom Dalanar met when her family came into Zelandonii territory (Jerika appears to be of Mongol or Asian descent; the territory of her people is never pinpointed in the books, making exact racial determinations impossible). The Zelandonii only consider whether or not people share a mother to determine sibling relationships; because men are not fathers, only 'men of the hearth', children born to the same father are considered 'hearth cousins' rather than siblings. It is not realized in the first five books, except by perhaps Ayla and the Zelandoni who is known as First Among Those Who Serve the Mother, that the act of sex or a man's semen are responsible for impregnating a woman; the belief is that the Earth Mother chooses the 'spirit of a man' to make a woman pregnant. Finally, in the sixth book, Ayla realizes that she has been given the Gift of Knowledge and shares with other zelandonia the insight that men and "sharing Pleasures" is what causes the conception of a baby. Jondalar has one child, Jonayla, his daughter with Ayla born at the end of The Shelters of Stone. Jondalar at first does not entirely believe that Jonayla is truly as much a daughter of his as she is to Ayla; the idea that men have children like women do is (according to the book) foreign to the Zelandonii and most other early inhabitants of the world. There is a possibility that he has fathered two other children: a child with the Hadumai woman Noria, to whom he gave First Rites during the journey with his brother which is recounted in The Valley of Horses. No details about this child are known, save that Haduma, leader of the Hadumai, believed that the child would have Jondalar's blue eyes. The other child would be that of a Shamadoi woman called Serenio with whom he lived while he was staying with the Sharamadoi people. Before he left she told him that she believed she was pregnant. When Jondalar returned with Ayla, he discovered that Serenio had left with a Mamutoi man with whom she fell in love, and though Roshario, a friend of Jondalar and Serenio, believed Serenio was pregnant, it was unconfirmed.

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