Taabe was a Comanche hunter on the northern Great Plains in 1719, played by Dakota Beavers in Prey. He was the older brother of Naru, and one of the camp's lead hunters before the band made him war chief. He finished a mountain lion that had taken a hunter, then left camp to find Naru after she stayed on a trail the other men would not follow. French trappers took both siblings and tied them out as bait for the Feral Predator. Taabe rode back on a horse, wounded that hunter, and died in the fight after telling Naru to bring it home.
Biography
Earlier Life
Taabe lived with a Comanche band on the northern Great Plains, and his younger sister was Naru. Their mother was Aruka. He told Naru how their father had taken him into the hills for Kuhtaamia, the hunt that would prove he was a hunter, while she was still little and went with their mother to gather medicine. On that trip rain ruined his bowstring, and he waited in the mud for the animal to circle back. In camp he gave Naru more room to hunt than the other men did, even as he still asked whether she was ready to hunt something that was hunting her.
On a morning by the river, Naru told him she had seen a thunderbird in the sky and that she was ready for her own Kuhtaamia. He asked if she really thought she was ready, and he warned her not to get her bowstring wet when she crossed the water. That talk showed how he saw her, as a younger sister he still measured against a hunt he had already finished with their father. He kept a hunter's kit of a bow, arrows, and a knife, and he knew the grass, the river, and the tree line around the camp as well as any of the men.
The Mountain Lion Hunt
A mountain lion took the hunter Puhi out of the camp's range, and Taabe led the search. Naru followed the party, and after they found Puhi still alive, Taabe told her to stay with the wounded man while he went after the cat. The other hunters wanted Puhi carried home, and Taabe stayed on the trail. Naru came back with Paaka and laid out a plan to bait the lion from a tree. Taabe agreed and said they would try it Naru's way, then told her he would lead the cat to them.
He also told Naru that this was her Kuhtaamia, and that when the lion came she should tell it, "This is as far as you go. No more. This is it." The lion killed Paaka, and Naru wounded the cat before she fell. Taabe carried Naru home, went back after the lion, finished the kill, and brought the carcass into camp.
Named War Chief
Taabe brought the lion home at night, and the camp gathered around the fire to receive him. Chief Kehetu came forward in ceremonial dress, with a horned war bonnet and a feathered staff, and stood with him in the firelight. There he named Taabe war chief of the band, the reward for finishing the hunt that had already cost Paaka his life.
After the ceremony, Naru came to her brother and asked to go back out beyond the ridgeline, because she had seen lightning in the trees. She asked him, "Do I need your permission, War Chief?" He told her he had killed the lion, that she had not brought it home, and that he would deal with anything still out there. It was the first time Naru answered to Taabe as a leader rather than only as her older brother.
Captured By Trappers
Naru went back out after that argument, and Taabe sent a party to bring her home. He later left camp to find her himself. A French party led by Big Beard took him in the woods. The trappers already had Naru, and when she would not talk they brought Taabe out and cut his chest. The next day they tied the siblings to posts in a dry valley and posted riflemen on the rim, hoping the Feral Predator would come for easy prey.
Bound beside Naru, he asked if she wanted to know how he had killed the lion. He told her it had been her plan, that the tree had worked, that she had weakened the cat, and that she could see what he missed. She was not sure the thing in the woods could be killed. He answered, "If it bleeds, we can kill it." The Feral Predator ignored them as bait and massacred the trappers. During that fight the siblings got free, and Taabe went for horses while Naru went back for her dog Sarii.
Fight With The Feral Predator
Sarii found Taabe, and he rode back into the trapper camp on a horse and went at the wounded hunter. He knocked the bio-mask off and put arrows into the Yautja. The hunter had already been hurt in the fight with the French, and Taabe used the speed of the horse to close the gap and keep the pressure on. Naru and Sarii pulled the fight sideways while he stayed on the attack from horseback.
Once he had the hunter off balance, Taabe threw its own combistick in combined form and impaled it through the shoulder. The Feral Predator was still standing after that wound, and it began to treat Taabe as the real threat in the clearing. Naru stayed in the fight beside him, but the hunter's attention had locked onto the man who had come in on the horse. That opening would not last.
Taabe's Death
The hunter activated a cloak and stabbed Taabe through the chest with its wristblades. Taabe still drove an animal skull into the hunter's foot and held it there so Naru could run. He told her the hunter thought he was the threat, then gave her the same words he had given her before the lion hunt. "This is as far as I go. No more. This is it. Bring it home." Naru escaped the clearing, and Taabe died there on the Great Plains in 1719.
Weapons And Equipment
Taabe hunted with a bow, a knife, and a quiver of arrows, and he was careful with a bowstring after the wet hunt of his youth. In the final fight he also fought from horseback, a skill that let him close on the Feral Predator, knock the mask off, and put arrows into it at speed. Once the hunter was on the defensive, he used the Yautja combistick as well, throwing the combined spear and driving it into the hunter's shoulder. The horse and the bow were the tools that defined his last stand, and he had no firearm of his own in that fight.
Behind The Scenes
Dakota Beavers played Taabe in his first acting role. A casting agent asked him to audition for what was described as a small part, he did several readings, and he was flown to Los Angeles for an in-person audition before he learned the film was a Predator story. He also auditioned in Comanche. Dan Trachtenberg directed Prey from a screenplay by Patrick Aison, from a story they shared, based on characters created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Comanche producer Jhane Myers worked on the film's language, customs, and historical detail.
The cast spent four weeks in a Calgary boot camp on weapons, stunts, fighting, and riding before cameras rolled. Beavers did his own horse work and stunts, and during a stretch of the shoot when Taabe was off camera he rode for hours with wrangler Mark Nugent in the Alberta wilderness. Myers had found no horses in an early draft and insisted they belonged in a Comanche story, which led the writers to add them and to write Taabe's horseback fight. Beavers later said that riding was one of the best parts of the work for him.
The day before photography began on Stoney Nakoda Nation land west of Calgary, Beavers took part in a pipe ceremony with Trachtenberg, Myers, Amber Midthunder, Stormee Kipp, and Stefany Mathias. The shoot also used Moose Mountain and the Elbow River, and the crew worked outdoors in natural light. Principal photography ran from June 2021 for about four months. The original cast later recorded a full Comanche-language cut of Prey, released on Hulu beside the English version on 5 August 2022.
Famous Quotes
- "You wanna hunt something that's hunting you?"
- "We'll try it Naru's way."
- "This is as far as you go. No more. This is it."
- "You can see what I miss. You always have."
- "If it bleeds, we can kill it."
- "Run, Naru. It thinks I'm the threat."
- "This is as far as I go. No more. This is it. Bring it home."
Conclusion
Taabe was Naru's older brother and the hunter the camp made war chief after the mountain lion hunt on the Great Plains in 1719. He gave her more room than the other men did, then told her, after the lion, that the kill had been his to finish. He later admitted that her tree plan had weakened the cat, rode back to fight the Feral Predator, and died holding the hunter in place so she could run. His last words sent her on the same hunt he had named for her before the lion, and she finished it.
Appearances
- Prey (2022)
Tag Categories: Predator Universe Characters | Predator Lore | Historical Predator Hunts
