(08-01-2015, 11:26 AM)Naunet Wrote:(08-01-2015, 07:15 AM)Foxberry Wrote:lions.org Wrote:"Those black lines down their face are called "tear marks" and they are also to prevent glare from the hot overhead Sun."http://www.lions.org/cheetah.html
Which means the marks could be because of the heat Miqo'te often deal with. I'm not sure what their homelands were like however.
I guess the ladies don't deserve to be protected from the glare.
If we wanted to look way too deeply into it...
Male Miqo'te have tear marks. Female Miqo'te do not. Tear marks help prevent glare from the sun while a cat is hunting.
Which suggests that at some point in the Miqo'tes' history, males were the predominant hunters, while females may have tended to the tribal camps. Then somewhere along the way, the roles switched, and the dwindling male population began ensuring the continuation of the population. Such a drastic change in the gender roles may have been caused by a near extinction event, of which the world has had seven to date. Namely, the Age of Endless Frost (Fifth Umbral Era), which we know from Sightseeing Lore was a time period marked by famine, pestilence, and plague.
So here's how my headcanon goes: On Meracydia, male Miqo'te were the predominant hunters while females covered domestic aspects of the Tribe. For thousands of years this tradition persists until the last few years of the 4th Astral Era. The world becomes colder, food sources become scarce, and the male population of Miqo'te begins dwindling from plague-ridden game.
Meracydia's land is still recovering from the devastation of the Allagan Wars only 2,000 years before. And with colder weather settling in on a normally hot desert, the herds begin to migrate north across the ice towards Hydaelyn's equator in search of warmer climates. Now almost completely without food, their homelands ravaged by famine, plague, and war, 26 Tribes decide to follow their Totems north into Eorzea (while other Tribes remain in their homeland or follow their Totems to other continents). Now, in a strange land with a sick and dwindling male population the women are forced to take over hunting while the men's focus becomes repopulating their kind. Over time, those reversed gender roles became the norm, as the population never truly recovered. (Miqo'te per lore are the scarcest race in Eorzea.) So the Miqo'te tribal culture warped into what we see today.
