Ghashiun's band of desert bandits captured Appa in 100 AG. A teenager of Si Wong tribal origin, Lek, was a friend and one of Avatar Kyoshi's earthbending teachers in 296 BG. Thanks to the desert's inaccessibility, the Earth Kingdom's government never managed to fully subdue the tribes.
The Si Wong tribes settled in the Si Wong Desert some time after the beetle-headed merchants, though they eventually became the predominant ethnic group of the region.
