Population Density for Mata-Nui

[Xboxtravis]

I decided to do something today, to try and reconcile a few different things we see in MNOG and the films like Mask of Light and Legends of Metru-Nui.

We know by now that it was original the intention of the story team for each tribe of Tohunga on Mata-Nui to have 12 Tohunga and 1 Turaga each. This is fairly well reflected in MNOG and Legends of Mata-Nui, where we tend to see very small villages and only a few Matoran in each settlement. This also carried true though out the Bohrok Animations and into MNOG II. However, Mask of Light retcons this with the Ta-Koro Kolhii match scene, where it seems there is about 150 to 200 Matoran or so for each of the three tribes represented in the arena. This carries into Legends of Metru-Nui where we see the Coliseum holding the entire city population with all six tribes represented in a massive arena scene. It has since been retconned by Greg that the population of Mata-Nui was about 1000 Matoran.

So this begs the question, were the early depictions of the villages in MNOG and other early media inaccurate, were they too small and should they have been much larger to support a population of at least 167 or so Matoran each? While 167 is a very small community by human standards, its certainly hard to believe that entire population would be able to fit into the village; especially when MNOG and MNOG II suggest most Matoran live in single dwelling homes, with characters such as Hehkii and Hahli both being shown in the games to live in their own dwelling. 

Is there a way to reconcile the small village sizes with the population of the island? Obviously my first thought was that Mata-Nui is a huge island. I found this old thread from the forums that suggest the land area of the island and decided to calculate population density off the 119269 square kilometers figure from that thread. That means there is 119.3 square kilometers (45 square miles or 29405 acres) for EACH Matoran on the island. In comparison Greenland the lowest population density on Earth, there is 7.14 square kilometers of space for each person. On Mata-Nui of course this is not counting of course the 3D variables for living space, such as the tunnels of Onu-Wahi, the trees of Le-Wahi or the water of Ga-Wahi that various Matoran have made homes in; suggesting that there is even more living space not visible by just observing land area compared to population density.

There is certainly a precedence for this in the story too, as we know Midak lives outside Onu-Koro in a lone homestead. But it begs the question, how many Matoran in each tribe are living like Midak in isolated homes apart from the village? 

So this is where the theory parts come in. If we assume about 1000 Matoran for the entire island, divided by six we end up with the 167 Matoran per tribe on average calculation. We can guess there is some variance, some tribes might be slightly smaller or larger (for example we know the Ta-Matoran population is a bit larger due to Takua a misplaced Av-Matoran living with them) but it shouldn't be any significant variance. Returning to the original story group ideas if we really limited each tribe to 12 prominent Matoran we could say that those main 12 per tribe are the only 12 living permanently in the villages, with the remaining 155 Matoran in each tribe living in rural homesteads, either alone like Midak or perhaps in communal homesteads. Its easy to imagine the various tasks that might cause a Turaga to send out tribal members to occupy different remote parts of their respective Wahi, fishers in Ga-Wahi, lava farmers in Ta-Wahi, Mahi herders in Po-Wahi, etc. It is still an insanely large amount of a tribal population living in rural isolation, suddenly making the villages in the franchise now seem to large for their lone 12 member population. We can retcon this though reasonably with a few assumptions. First some traders such as traders, caravans, or sailors would obviously need a home base or port to return too. So while there maybe say only 12 permanent residents in a village, the village needs housing to supply much larger visitor numbers when trading caravans or village guard on station there. So we can imagine a normal village on Mata-Nui maybe only being 12 residents on a slow day, but housing up to 30-50 visiting Matoran on a busier day.

The Matoran would need large fortified villages for another reason, a defensive one. Remember Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings? Picture the same function here. In practice during the heat of the Makuta-Matoran war prior to the arrival of the Toa, or the Bohrok Invasion the strong villages with their defenses form a backbone of defense. Its a place all the Matoran can fall back too, yes its a risk to leave behind their rural homesteads to the enemy but by bringing in all 167 tribal members to a village they can huddle and shore their defense to face the enemy. So while the village my comfortably fit only 12 permanent residents, I imagine there being stored supplies and bed rolls to house the entire 167 member tribe in case of an emergency event. Of course this can backfire incredibly, such as when the entire Fire, Water and Stone tribes were put at risk due to the Rahkshii attack on Ta-Koro after the discovery of the Mask of Light.

Lastly the Matoran would use their villages as a cultural and religious center. Each village is home to the Toa Suva which is tended to by the respective Turaga. It certainly lends the idea that large cultural gatherings (such as Mask of Light's Kohlii match) would be reason to bring in all the rural inhabitants to the central village. So while the population is spread out and dispersed, the village is always the hub of activity for cultural, religious and economic reasons in Matoran society.

I feel this kind of head canon exercise works well for Mata-Nui. Now how to explain that same tiny population in the City of Metru-Nui? That is a debate best left for somebody else to figure out, I can't explain that easily. 
 

[Sir Kohran]

I don't know if it's possible to get an exact answer about this. All I think can be said for sure is that after a while the story team settled on a Matoran number of one thousand(ish), but a lot of the media doesn't reflect this, probably because whoever was making it just didn't have that number in mind. The very early online stuff often shows very few Matoran then the movies show vast crowds.

While I do remember the 'twelve Matoran in each village' idea, I don't know if it was decided from the start, and I think Greg soon stated they were dropping it due to the Kohlii match in the first film showing a lot more than just twelve. The second MNOLG might have been made with it in mind, given that there seem to be fewer Matoran than were shown even in the original MNOLG.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Sir Kohran

[Cheesy Mac n Cheese]

I...don’t buy that each village had only 12 residents. First of all, it would mean basically everyone in Ta-Koro was on the Ta-Koro Guard, everyone in Le-Kori was on the Gukko Force, etc. Plus, I swear you see more than 12 Onu-Matoran, when you combine everyone you see in the village proper, everyone you see in the mines and Midak.

We don’t exactly get a 360 degree of every village in the games, but Onu-Koro is huge, and Ta-Koro seems pretty big too. Ko-Koro, on the other hand, is not shown much in the first game (you basically walk straight to the Sanctum from the gate and that’s it). Traveling outside the villages was often discouraged, too, due to surges in Rahi attacks.

But there were some Matoran living outside village limits. In addition to Midak, we have Golyo, who herded Mahi maybe about a mile away from the village, plus there was a Ta-Koro Guard outpost on the border of Ko-Wahi. It’s probably safe to assume there were at least a few more such Matoran. I also kind of want to point out the Kumu Islets, where an attempt at colonization was made and failed, and I would guess at least a few Matoran died at some point after migrating to Mata Nui (Teridax was very careful not to seriously harm anybody and relied mostly on scare tactics, but wild Rahi and accidents are out of his control).

Edited November 1, 2020 by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

[That Matoran with a Vahi]

I think there's definitely evidence to back up this theory.

On the one hand, I don't think the twelve-matoran-per-village thing was ever strictly adhered to: it is exactly how many Matoran are shown per village in MNOG II (with the exception of Le-Koro, where half the inhabitants are out on Gukko patrol, and Ta-Koro which has twelve-plus-Takua), which I think is where the number comes from, but even that doesn't strictly correlate with previous media. For example, we see several Matoran in the first MNOG who don't match any of the named characters depicted in the second; plus, in comic #5, To Trap a Tahnok, looking closely at the scene where Tahu is rallying the Ta-Koronans, reveals about twenty Matoran visible in a single panel (although they're clustered close together, so the most that can be seen of several of them is just the very top edge of their masks!).

But that's tangential; as I was saying, comic #6, Into the Nest, gives us this little insight from Pohatu:

Quote

"I was just remembering when these canyons were full of life. The Matoran used to live in the caves above -- before the Bohrok drove them away."

In addition, while I know that it's non-canon, 2003's Bionicle: the Game backs up this idea too: all throughout the various Wahi the Toa explore, there are various clusters of Matoran huts set apart from the main village; though we see very few inhabitants in any of them, the fact that such buildings are there definitely points to the idea that many Matoran live apart from the main villages.

Those are just my observations to add to this, at least ^^

Edited November 1, 2020 by That Matoran with a Vahi

[Xboxtravis]

On 11/1/2020 at 8:11 AM, That Matoran with a Vahi said:

I think there's definitely evidence to back up this theory.

On the one hand, I don't think the twelve-matoran-per-village thing was ever strictly adhered to: it is exactly how many Matoran are shown per village in MNOG II (with the exception of Le-Koro, where half the inhabitants are out on Gukko patrol, and Ta-Koro which has twelve-plus-Takua), which I think is where the number comes from, but even that doesn't strictly correlate with previous media. For example, we see several Matoran in the first MNOG who don't match any of the named characters depicted in the second; plus, in comic #5, To Trap a Tahnok, looking closely at the scene where Tahu is rallying the Ta-Koronans, reveals about twenty Matoran visible in a single panel (although they're clustered close together, so the most that can be seen of several of them is just the very top edge of their masks!).

But that's tangential; as I was saying, comic #6, Into the Nest, gives us this little insight from Pohatu:

In addition, while I know that it's non-canon, 2003's Bionicle: the Game backs up this idea too: all throughout the various Wahi the Toa explore, there are various clusters of Matoran huts set apart from the main village; though we see very few inhabitants in any of them, the fact that such buildings are there definitely points to the idea that many Matoran live apart from the main villages.

Those are just my observations to add to this, at least ^^

Yeah I'd heard the 12 per village thing, but its kind of anecdotal. 

I do really dig though those quotes about Matoran living in the canyons of Po-Wahi, it definitely suggests there were smaller settlements outside the main village. 

[Turaga of Force]

 

On 10/30/2020 at 8:58 PM, Xboxtravis said:

We know by now that it was original the intention of the story team for each tribe of Tohunga on Mata-Nui to have 12 Tohunga and 1 Turaga each. This is fairly well reflected in MNOG and Legends of Mata-Nui, where we tend to see very small villages and only a few Matoran in each settlement

 

Are you only basing this on the number found in the games, or was there some source that specifically said that the original intent was 12 Tohunga per Koro? Greg told me that there were 1000 Matoran on Mata Nui (source). I understand this was later so I don't mean to imply that it contradicts your claim that the original plan was 12 Tohunga per Koro. However, Greg did say that when Bionicle started, he was told 1000 (source), implying that was the plan at the very beginning.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Turaga of Force