Winkie Country


The Winkie Country is the Western region of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's classic series of Oz books, first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Winkie Country is in the West, noted by later being ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West.
This quadrant is strictly distinguished by the color yellow. This color is worn by most of the native inhabitants called the Winkies and predominates in the local surroundings. The Winkies are relatively normal in appearance with the exception of their yellow-tinted skin. Tin abounds there and it is said that the Winkies are some of the most skillful tinsmiths in the world. This was the country once ruled by the malevolent Wicked Witch of the West before Dorothy Gale "melted" her with a bucket of water, as narrated in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. After that, the Winkies asked the Tin Woodman to be their new monarch ruler which he gladly accepted. He now lives in a vast palace made of tin that his loyal subjects built in his honor as a present for their new king.

The Classic Oz books

The publishing company Reilly & Britton published, in the form of end-papers to the first edition of Tik-Tok of Oz, the only authenticated map that shows the Land of Oz in its entirety. For some undiscovered reason this map flip-flops the directions of east and west. The West and East subsection of the Wikipedia article on the Land of Oz discusses this error and the resulting contradictions. The revised version of the map published by the International Wizard of Oz Club corrects the directions and reverses the map. The map represents the entire area between the Winkie Country and the southern border of Oz as belonging to Quadling Country. The west country of Oz is bordered at the northeast by the Gillikin Country and to the south by the Quadling Country.
To the East lies the Emerald City and to the far east as well as to the west, north and south of Winkie Country lies the Deadly Desert. The Winkie Country is separated by the Deadly Desert from the underground Dominions of the Nome King. The Kingdom of Oogaboo, where items of value grow on trees, is separated from the Winkie Country by a mountain range.
The Black Forest is in the southern part of the Winkie Country. Gloma, the good witch, rules there.
In some of the Oz books by Ruth Plumly Thompson, the geography is inverted, with the Winkie Country in the Eastern part of Oz and the Munchkin Country in the West.

Political organization

The Winkie Country's many cities and kingdoms each have their own ruler, who in turn are subjects of the Tin Woodman, Nick Chopper, who himself acknowledges Ozma as supreme ruler of Oz.

Locations and inhabitants

Like all the countries of Oz, the Winkie Country contains various unusual sights, creatures, and places. Among them are:
The most famous depiction of the Winkies is in the 1939 musical film where they appear as the regimental army of the Wicked Witch of the West, marching in formation and chanting repeatedly. In the film, the Winkies bear little or no resemblance to their literary counterparts, dressing in blue uniforms based loosely on the uniforms of the Russian streltsy of some three and a half centuries earlier, and having green skin and pointed noses much like the Wicked Witch herself, and they are never referred to as Winkies in the film. The Winkie Country is only shown at night in the film, with the main colors being blue, black and gray. The scenery is very bleak and barren, with many mountains and rock formations.

In other works

In Gregory Maguire's revisionist Oz novels ' and Son of a Witch, this area is called the Vinkus, and it is revealed that "Winkie" is considered a derogatory term. The Vinkus is the largest of the four provinces, extending totally from south to north and standing on western Oz, this region is also almost completely isolated from the rest of the country, as it is bordered by deserts at north, west and south, and obstructed to the east by the Great and Lesser Kells mountains, being the only way in the Kumbricia's Pass, opened at certain times of the year, The Vinkus is the less populated and fertile land as well, being portrayed as a semi-desolated place with vast extenses of grasslands, mountains and deserts, there is only a poisonous lake, Kellswater, with oakhair forest, an oasis, by its side, the Vinkus River runs up to Kiamo Ko, home of the Tigelaar Family, leaders of the Arkiji Tribe and the only permanent settlement in the region. There are other places mentioned as well, such as Nether How, a group of diminute lakes, Applepress Farm, an abandoned warehouse formerly used by the maunts of Gillikin, The Thursk Desert, The Sour Sands, The Thousand Year Grasslands, a hunting place, Ugabu, disputed land in northern Vinkus and Kvon Altar, a strange place that is used as a sacred sanctuary by a dark occultist religión that is said to worship death, it is rumored that there are many underground water springs in the Vinkus.
It is inhabited by several semi-nomadic tribes, including the Scrow, the Yunamata, and the Arjiki.
Metallica sampled the chants of the Winkie guards outside the Wicked Witch's castle from The Wizard of Oz film on the intro to the track "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" on their 1988 album ...And Justice for All. The chants were also heard in the Experience Unlimited song "Da Butt".
In the 1995 television special ' which is based on the 1939 film, the Winkies appear without being dressed similar to Russian guards and holding pikes, but perform their chant until Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch.
In West End's version of The Wizard of Oz musical, the marching music introduction and chant are both heard in the musical's first song, "Nobody Understands Me". It is performed by the Kansas farm workers Zeke, Hickory, and Hunk.