Mingar was born to Shaido Aiel in the Waste. He grew up as most Aiel children do, learning the spears and hand-to-hand combat as a natural childhood pasttime. From the age of 12, he knew he wanted to be a warrior, and trained with the Brothers of the Eagle for quite some time. His mother was a Wise One, and his father belonged to the Red Shields warrior society and was a great friends with the clan chief for quite a while.
Mingar went to Rhuidean to become a clan chief (at the ripe old age of 24), but instead found he could channel. Before he could go to Shayol Ghul to fight the Dark One, Rand came and was proclaimed the Car'a'carn. Then he thought, "Well, obviously I'm not the Dragon Reborn, so why should I fight the DO when I know I won't win? To Shayol Ghul with tradition! -- I'm gonna do something with my life!" So he joined the Car'a'carn's army of Aiel as a Dragonsworn, moving westward with his warrior society, Far Aldazar Din, Brothers of the Eagle, forsaking his clan. One day when he was out scouting, an army of Whitecloaks approached (okay, not an army, a troupe). Unwittingly, Mingar blasted out with the Power in addition to using his spears and hands and feet, until suddenly he found someone at his side doing about the same thing (only with a quarterstaff instead of spears). The Whitecloaks gone, she introduced herself as Qirien and said,
"Don't worry, I'm not going to gentle you, or at least, not in the way you think." After Healing Mingar's wounds, she then said, "You seem to be pretty good with those spears there. Do you shoot a bow as well?" With a sly and inconspicuous Aiel smirk he nodded. She proceeded to challeng him to an archery contest, and, being rather proud of his skills, he consented. At fifty paces, all three of her arrows hit dead in the center of the gnarled burl on the tree they had set for a target. Mingar's hit close, but not close enough. Undaunted, he asked politely "Let's try it at 150, shall we?" Although she gave him an odd, piercing Aes Sedai look, he merely shrugged innocently. "150 paces it is," she said. And they shot, and although it was rather close, Mingar did win. Not realizing that he was the first to beat her at archery since she was 13 (she hasn't met Birgitte yet), Mingar said, jokingly, "Now you have toh to me." After looking at him rather oddly for several minutes, she then asked, "You would make a good Warder, you know that?" Flabbergasted, he replied, "Uh, not that kind of toh," but she overrode him and said with a very non-Aes Sedai-ish grin, "Well? Do you want to be my Warder or not?"
Inevitably, she bonded Mingar and, after bidding farewell to his clan, Mingar and Qirien both headed to Tanchico to see if they could recover more ter'angreal.
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