Haradrim

The Haradrim of Middle-earth seem to be based on a medievalish view of the people of the Maghreb. In MERP however, Harad appears to be the analog of the entire African continent, with Far Harad being the equivalent of sub-Saharan Africa. I'm not sure how much of this can be considered canon, but I'm guessing probably not much.

As far as figures of the Haradrim are concerned, Dark Alliance has recently come out with two sets of Nomads, which are their take on the Southrons.

The first set consists of fairly standard medieval Middle Eastern type warriors.

The second set is made up of more exotic fantasy style Middle Eastern warriors.

The final image is a comparison of the Alliance figures with some figures from the War of the Ring boardgame (the standard game piece is red, while the white game piece is most likely a bootleg figure).

All the figures are well sculpted, though perhaps on the short side (Haradrim are described as being tall). Almost no clean up was necessary after the figures were removed from the sprue, though the bottom of the bases were not particularly even.

In any event, I look forward to more efforts from Dark Alliance in bringing the armies of Middle-earth to 1/72 scale.