I would disagree that anyone can know this for sure in an internal sense (within the story).
Christopher
Tolkien stated only the following regarding the rejected version:
"...
it may be noted that in a rejected version of the present passage there was only one Nazgûl in Dol Guldur (not named as Khamûl, but referred to as 'the Second Chief (the Black Easterling)'). "
Why did Christopher Tolkien raise a note that JRRT had rejected and its readers did not want to read it? Why did Christopher say "
it may be noted" for the rejected version of the present passage? Christopher Tolkien obviously cared about something quoted here, which he also stated in "
Hunt for the Ring", and added some information to the Index chapter. Christopher Tolkien explicitly stated that
Khamul had two epithets, as I showed below. Considering a literary text; much can be written in the entire rejected version. Christopher Tolkien added only 1 sentence from the rejected version of JRRT's notes, which he thought would be useful for the reader, to the "
Hunt for the Ring" chapter.
Also; if there were different and contradictory notes on the same topic left by JRRT, Christopher Tolkien has also stated these contradictions and added comments to eliminate the contradictions in UT, we know. The contradicting situation between the rejected version and the present version was related to the numbers of
Nazguls in Dol Guldur, I think. Since the epithet SE and BE did not conflict, the following quote was included in the index chapter which was containing information;
“
Khamûl: Second to the Chief, dwelt in Dol Guldur after its reoccupation in the Third Age. Called the Shadow of the East, the Black Easterling.” –
Unfinished Tales, ‘Index (Christopher Tolkien stated that this chapter was not just a classic index for determining page numbers, but an informative and descriptive index).
He or she said:
" "
Men proved easier to ensnare
[compared to the Dwarves, who were all but unaffected by their Seven Great Rings]. Those who used
the Nine Rings
became mighty in their day,
kings, sorcerers and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing."
So they need not have started out that way, as kings, sorcerers and warriors, but with the help of the Nine Rings became so.
It is hypothetically conceivable from this that Khamul was not
in origin an Easterling, but was sent east by
Sauron to be his, Sauron's, lieutenant there - the east having been from the
First Age seen (from a western standpoint) as being much under the sways of the Dark Lords, whether
Morgoth of Sauron. For the far more "Dark-Lord-friendly" east one could have sufficed for his purposes. But centuries or even millennia later, those in the west might not have known anything about this Nazgûl except his involvement with the east, and might have therefore have
assumed him to be an Easterling, while he might actually have been a non-Easterling to whom Sauron had delegated control (subservient to himself) of that region.“
When we think within the framework of the Tolkien Universe, giving a "Black
Easterling" epithet to a character in the burned, ripped or rejected note; and then giving the "Shadow
of the East" epithet to the same character, that is very compatible with the BE epithet, in the revised version will never show us that Khamul is not an Easterling. There was no Tolkien's work that made this friend's (transmitted to me via PM) hypothesis meaningful or stuffed.
What I'm trying to say is this: It is possible that Khamul's BE epithet was also rejected with the entire rejected version. While determining whether Khamul was an Easterling or one of the eastern people; the epithet BE (even BE was rejected or even if another epithet was used instead of BE) can help us at least because it did not contradict the SE epithet. Based on simple general referance terms: Men
of the East”: Eastern
Peoples and “Men
of the West”: Western Peoples and also, “Shadow
of the East”: Eastern Khamul (We reach this result more easily because BE is compatible with SE and completes SE). How do you (not
@Elthir ) claim the opposite of what I want to tell?
