Tonowari: The Metkayina Clan Leader in Avatar

Tonowari is the head of the Metkayina, the sea clan of Pandora, and he shares that leadership with Ronal, played by Kate Winslet. Cliff Curtis plays him in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), where he is billed sixth, and again in Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), where he is billed eighth. Both films were directed by James Cameron.

In the Na'vi language the title for a clan leader is Olo'eyktan, and Tonowari holds that role for the Metkayina, as Eytukan did for the Omatikaya in the first film. Ronal leads beside him as the clan's spiritual figure.

He is absent from Avatar (2009), which stays entirely with the forest people. The Omatikaya are the clan of Jake Sully and Neytiri, and the Metkayina are a different people, the sea-dwelling reef clan. If you want the wider picture of how the peoples of Pandora differ, our guide to the Na'vi clans and the page on Pandora set out the geography.

His introduction comes when the Sullys, sixteen years after the first film, run out of places to hide. Jake leads the Omatikaya in a guerrilla war against the returning RDA, and a recombinant copy of Colonel Quaritch is hunting him. The family flees to the reef people, and Tonowari and Ronal are the leaders who receive them. For anyone asking about the water clan in Avatar, this is the clan.

Tonowari's most important tie on screen is with Ronal, who co-leads the Metkayina and is played by Kate Winslet. The two lead the reef clan together, and their children are part of the Metkayina youth who meet the Sully children: their son Aonung and their daughter Tsireya.

His second set of relationships is with the Sully family. Jake and Neytiri are the parents whose request for shelter he must weigh, and their children are the ones who disrupt the reef's routine. The Sully youngsters clash with the Metkayina youths early on, and the rescue in the battle shows how far that has changed: Neteyam pulls Tsireya out alongside Lo'ak and Spider. Kiri also forms her own bond with the Metkayina Spirit Tree, which links the clan's beliefs to the Sully story. You can follow those threads on the pages for Lo'ak, Kiri and Spider.

His opponents are the humans and their allies. Quaritch is the threat that brings war to the reef in the second film, and in Fire and Ash Varang leads the Mangkwan, a harsh Na'vi clan, into the Metkayina village alongside him. The page on Quaritch covers the colonel's own arc.

In my opinion, the best Tonowari moment is the welcome that follows Neteyam's funeral. Jake had planned to leave the Metkayina to spare them further danger, and Tonowari instead declares the Sullys part of the clan. It is a short scene, but it reverses the logic of the whole film: the reef people have just seen what Quaritch does to Na'vi villages, and they choose to stay beside the family that attracted him.

A second moment is the setting that scene grows out of. The Sully children clash with the local youths early on, and the rescue in the battle, where Neteyam pulls Tsireya to safety, shows how far that has changed. It could be argued that this makes the welcome land harder, since the clan takes in a family whose arrival was far from smooth.

The third film gives the Metkayina a heavier moment with the loss of Ronal in the fleet battle. It reframes the earlier hospitality, since the clan's shelter for the Sullys has now cost them one of their two leaders. That makes Tonowari one of the saga's better examples of a supporting character whose decisions carry the plot. If you are new to the saga, follow the watch order and come to this character after The Way of Water.