Who Was Yoda's Jedi Master In Star Wars?

Ask a random "Star Wars" fan who the strongest Jedi in the franchise is, and there's a good chance they'll answer, "Yoda." Jedi Grand Master Yoda is easily one of the most powerful beings in "Star Wars," but he's also incredibly enigmatic. He speaks in a strange way and often obfuscates his meaning to teach a lesson. On top of that, the fans don't even know what species Yoda is. Another thing that has barely been covered was Yoda's own Jedi master, creating some rare trivia.

Yoda is incredibly old when we first meet him in "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back," so his Padawan training would have happened more than eight centuries prior to the Battle of Yavin. That places his training before the High Republic era. The stories of Yoda's master offer only scant details of who he was or if he was the only one who taught Yoda. If we've learned anything from the slow-growing Grogu, it takes a lot of time to school someone like them.

Yoda attained the rank of master when he was around 100, so it's very possible he required more than one teacher, given these newer details. The Jedi who is believed to be Yoda's primary teacher was a Hysalrian named N'Kata Del Gormo. The character was introduced relatively recently, having been first mentioned in canon in Steven Barnes' 2024 novel "Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss." There are other stories from Legends that predate this version, though.

When the "Star Wars" franchise premiered in 1977, it didn't take long for comics, toys, video games, and more to dominate the market. Much of the lore and many character backstories were fleshed out during this time into what became known as The Expanded Universe. When Disney bought Lucasfilm (and the "Star Wars" franchise) in 2012, most of this material was thrown into the newly created Legends classification. This included what scant information existed about Yoda's master and his early life in the Jedi Order.

Yoda's backstory is long and detailed, but he often remained secretive. According to legend, N'Kata Del Gormo was the Jedi who found Yoda and trained him in the ways of the Force. The story goes that N'Kata was living on a swampy planet (Dagobah) when he came across both a human and Yoda. They had crashed on the planet and sought help from the Jedi, and upon finding them both to be Force-sensitive, N'Kata trained them.

Later, Yoda traveled to Coruscant to continue his training, though it's unknown who assisted him at this point. N'Kata was designed by Chuck Hamilton for the "Design An Alien" contest in an issue of "Star Wars Galaxy Magazine" back in 1996. While not brought into canon then, the backstory Hamilton created did become an in-universe legend, according to @HolocronKeeper (Leland Chee, a Lucasfilm employee who assists in canon management) on X. That makes the story, of course, unofficial, but it is widely accepted by the fandom. Additionally, N'Kata was considered to be a part of canon by Chee in 2006, but his time on Dagobah was not.

When Disney threw N'Kata Del Gormo into the Legends bin, it took a while before he returned. Finally, in 2024, his name came up in "Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss," written by Steven Barnes, and along with him, some additional Legends material made the transition. Canonically, N'Kata is considered to be one of Yoda's early instructors. Yoda achieved the rank of Jedi Master in 796 BBY, which was 100 years after his birth. That element remained, but none of the rest of the old legend of Dagobah, nor any mention of Yoda's human friend, made it in.

"The Glass Abyss" is set one week after Qui-Gon Jinn's funeral, and it touches on the in-universe legend of Yoda's training. Mace Windu notices a sand sculpture of the Hysalria system in his quarters, which he identifies as such. This suggests to Mace that the legend of Yoda's early days is true and that N'Kata was his teacher. When Mace asks Yoda about the sculpture, the Jedi grand master dismisses it as if it were unimportant. He then uses the Force to resculpt the sand into an Alderaanian rose.

Before this incident, the 2015 book, "The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to Be a Jedi?," mentions Yoda's old master, but not by name. It is possible that this mention can be retroactively applied to N'Kata, as his name is the only one associated with Yoda's early training, even if it remains a canonized, yet unconfirmed, in-universe legend. It is even possible that Yoda's unusual speech is in honor of his master, though this too is unconfirmed.