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The mulefa are a fictional race of sentient beings who inhabit a parallel Earth in the novel The Amber Spyglass, the third part of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Image File history File links Merge-arrows. ... // See Lyra Belacqua Lyra Belacqua (also known as Lyra Silvertongue by Iorek Byrnison) is a young girl who inhabits a parallel universe to our own. ... FicTioNaL is a Gaming Legend. ... This article is about Earth as a planet. ... The Amber Spyglass is the third and final novel in the His Dark Materials series, written by British novelist Philip Pullman, and published in 2000. ... The trilogy (U.K versions), in order of succession from left to right. ... A trilogy is a set of three works of art, usually literature or film, that are connected and can be seen as a single work, as well as three individual ones. ... Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is a British writer. ...

The mulefa are sentient beings who evolved in a radically different fashion than humans. An individual is referred to as a zalif. They possess an anatomy based on a diamond-framed skeleton lacking a spine, have hide, short horns and a trunk. Lacking hands, the mulefa make much use of trunk-gestures in communicating - small movements and "flicks" are an integral part of their vocabulary. The creatures simply referred to as "grazers", and appearing to be genetically simliar to the Mulefa, are a source of milk, meat, hides and other materials to the mulefa. They form close-knit communities, closer than most human groups met in the novel. One of the reasons for the closeness of their communities is that, lacking two hands, it usually requires two or more mulefa trunks working together to accomplish complex tasks like tying knots. Not to be confused with sapience. ... Human beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. ... Human heart and lungs, from an older edition of Grays Anatomy. ... For other uses, see Skeleton (disambiguation). ... A glass of cows milk. ... This article is about the food. ...

A notable feature of the mulefa is their use of large circular seed pods from their world's "wheel-pod trees" to travel around their countryside; the disc-shaped pods fit neatly onto a spur on their two side legs when each zalif reaches a certain age. They then propel themselves using their front and rear legs, like a cyclist without pedals. Ancient lava flows (now solidified into smooth rivers of rock running across the land) serve as roads to ease transport. As the book notes, it is the three combined elements of seed-pod, spur and rock formation which leads to the current mulefa existence. For other uses, see Bicycle (disambiguation). ... Look up lava, Aa, pahoehoe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

From a technological point of view, the Mulefa's civilisation is considerably backward, reminiscent of humanity in the stone age. Mulefa live in wattle-and-daub villages and use hand tools - there is no evidence of any form of mechanisation in their world. They do not use metal for any technological purposes (it is only used as ornaments). However, the mulefa have a symbiotic relationship with the seedpod trees - their use of the pods on the "roads" allows the extremely hard exterior to crack and the seeds to emerge. These are germinated by the mulefa, allowing the wheel-pod trees to survive. Reference is also made to their culling of the grazer herds, their non-intrusive use of trees to make lacquer and their distilling of acid from rocks. One of their few natural enemies are huge white birds called tualapi which habitually destroy settlements with chilling ferocity, something the Mulefa have no real defence against (save retreating further inland where the Tualapi do not go). The Mulefa also appear to lack any sort of organised government; they appear to live in village groups with little or no contact between settlements (which also seems to prevent any large scale warfare in their world). The reasons for the Mulefa's less advanced technology are probably their less dextrous hands and their slower thought processes; their state of harmony with their natural environment (to the extent that it supplies them with everything they need) may also preclude much need for further development. Categories: Stub | Construction ... The Tualapi are a fictional species from Philip Pullmans fantasy/science fiction book trilogy His Dark Materials. ...

The mulefa view the world differently than humans, and by their own admission to Mary Malone they have much slower thought processes and do not so easily visualize abstract concepts such as mathematics or establish links and patterns. They have an extraordinary race memory though, remembering all of their history from the previous 33,000 years. At that time, it seems that they first interacted with the wheel-pod trees, symbolized in a story that is their equivalent to the Adam and Eve fable, although they see the event in a very positive light (the period of 33,000 years coincides with the time frame given in the books for the awakening of human consciousness in other worlds, as evidenced by Mary Malone's anthropological research regarding Dust). They are able to see Dust directly without the aid of an instrument such as the amber spyglass. The oil from their pods, awash with Dust or sraf as the mulefa call it, make them aware that they are mulefa, conscious beings with the ability to reason and remember. Michelangelos Creation of Adam, from the Sistine Chapel. ... Spoiler warning: Dust in Philip Pullmans trilogy of novels His Dark Materials is a fictional form of dark matter (as we call it in our world), an elementary particle that is of fundamental importance to the novels. ...

References

• Gribbin, John and Mary (2005). The Science of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Knopf Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0-375-83144-4.