Quotes from

savages of GOr

Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 137


"No more then two kaiila are to be brought by any single white man into the Barrens. Too, no party of white men in the Barrens is permitted to bring in more than ten kaiila."
"These are the rules of the red savages, "he said.
"Then, " said I, "only small groups of white men could enter the Barrens, or else they would be on foot, at the mercy of the inhabitants of the area."

Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 102

The red savages do not use steel collars. The usually use high, beaded collars, tied together in the front by a rawhide string. Subtle differences in the styles of collars, and in the knots with which they are fastened on the girls necks, differentiate the tribes. Within a given tribe the beading, in its arrangements and colors, identifies the particular master. This is a common way, incidentally, for warriors to identify various articles which they own.


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 143

The wand before us was some seven or eight feet high. It is of this height, apparently, that I may be seen above the snow, during the winter moons, such as Waniyetuwi and Wanicokanwi. It was of peeled ka-la-na wood and, from its top, there dangled two long, narrow, yellow, black-tipped feathers, from the tail of the taloned Herlit, a large broad winged, carnivorous bird, sometimes in Gorean called the sun Striker........ Similar wands I could see some two hundred yards away, on either side, to the left and right. According to Grunt such wands line the perimeter, though usually not in such proximity to one another. They are spaced more closely together, naturally, nearer areas of white habitation.


Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Page 94

The number of kailiauk in the Barrens is prodigious, for it affords them a splendid environment with almost no natural enemies. Most kailiauk, I am sure, have never seen a man or a sleen.
The Barrens are transversed by a large number of herds. The four or five best known herds, such as the Boswell herd, for whom the Boswell Pass is named, and the Bento herd and the Hogarthe herd, named after the first white man who saw them, number, it is estimated, between two and three million beasts. The tremors in the earth from such a herd can be felt fifty pasangs away. It takes such a herd two to three days to ford a river. It has occasionally happened that enemy tribes have preyed on such a herd at different points and only afterwards, to their chagrin and amusement, realized their proximity to one another. Besides these, major herds there are several smaller, identifiable herds numbering in the hundreds of thousands of animals. Beyond these, as would be expected, there are many smaller herds, the very numbers of which are not even calculated by the red savages themselves, herds which often range from a few hundred to several thousand animals.


Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Pg 76-77

Fort Haskins..

...This lay at the foot of the Boswell Pass. Originally it had been a trading post, maintained by the Haskins Company, a company of Merchants, primarily at Thentis. A military outpost, flying the banners of Thentis, garrisoned by mercenaries, was later established at the same point. The military and strategic importance of controlling the eastern termination of the Boswell Pass was clear. It was at this time that the place came to be known as Fort Haskins. A fort remains at this point but the name, generally, is now given to the town which grew up in the vicinity of the fort, primarily to the West and south. The fort itself, incidentally, was twice burned, once by soldiers from Port Olni, before that town joined the Salerian Confederation, and once by marauding DustLegs, a tribe of the red savages, from the interior of the Barrens. The military significance of the fort has declined with growth of population in the area and the development of tarn cavalries in Thentis. The fort now serves primarily as a trading post, maintained by the caste of merchants from Thentis, as interesting recollection of the origins of the area.


Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Pg 77

Kailiauk.. City of

Kailiauk is the easternmost town at the foot of the Thentis Mountains. It lies almost at the edge of the Ihanke, or Boundary. From its outskirts one can see the markers, or feathers on their tall wands, which mark the beginning of the country of the red savages.

Pg 93
"I looked down into the broad, rounded, shallow pit,..waist high wooden railings. In the pit, about five feet below the surface of the ground, were 19 girls...wrist and ankle shackles...chained together by their neck. None stood, for its not permitted, unless ordered too..." there are two other pits.."....

Pg 93-94
I had heard the striking of the time bar, mounted on the roof of the administrator's store, as I approached the towns outskirts. In Kailiauk, as is not unusual in the towns of the perimeter, the Administrator is of the merchants. The major business in Kailiauk is the traffic of hides and kaiila. It serves a function as well, however, as do many such towns, as a social and commercial center for many outlying farms and ranches. It is a bustling town, but much of its population is itinerant. Among its permanent citizens I doubt that it numbers more than four or five hundred individuals. As would be expected it has several Inns and taverns aligned along its central street.

Its most notable feature, probably, is its hide sheds. Under the roofs of these open sheds, on platforms, tied in bundles, are thousands of hides. Elsewhere, here and there, about the town, are great heaps of bone and horn, often thirty or more feet in height. These deposits represent the results of the thinning of kailiauk herds by the red savages. A most common sight in Kailiauk is the coming and going of hide wagons, and wagons for the transport of horn and bones.

Pg 95
The smell of the hide sheds, incidentally, gives a very special aroma to the atmosphere of Kailiauk. After one has been there a few hours, however, the odor of the hides, now familiar and pervasive, tends to be dismissed from consciousness.


Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Pg 95

Kailiauk Migration

The kailiauk is a migratory beast, thusly, but only in a rather special sense. It does not, for example, like certain flocks of birds, venture annually in roughly linear paths from the North to the South, and from the South to the North, covering thousands of pasangs in a series of orthogonal alternations. The kailiauk must feed as it moves, and its simply too slow for this type of migration. It could not cover the distances involved in the times that would be necessary. Accordingly the herds tend not so much to migrate with the season as to drift with them, the ovoid grazing patterns tending to bend northward in the summer and southward in the winter.



Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Pg 85


DustLegs

"It is unusual, is it not, for the Dust Legs to be on the rampage?" I asked. I had understood them to be one of the more peaceful of the tribes of the Barrens. Indeed, they often acted as intermediaries between the men of the settlements and the wilder tribes of the interior, such as the Yellow Knives, the Sleen, and Kaiila.


Savages of Gor
By John Norman
Pg 65

Tornadoes and booming, crashing thunder can characterize the Barrens. In the winter there can be blizzards, probably the worst on Gor, in which snows can drift as high as the mast of the light galley. The summers can be characterized by a searing sun and seemingly interminable droughts. It is common for many of the shallow, meandering rivers of the area to run dry in the summer. Rapid temperature shifts are not unusual. A pond may unexpectedly freeze in En'Kara and, late in Se'Var, a foot or two of snow may be melted in a matter of hours. Sudden storms, too, are not unprecedented. Sometimes as much as twelve inches of rain, borne by a southern wind, can be deposited in less than an hour. To be sure, this rain usually runs off rapidly, cutting crevices and gullies in the land. A dry river bed may, in a matter of minutes, become a raging torrent. Hail storms, too, are not infrequent. Occasionally the chunks of ice are larger then the eggs of vulos. Many times such storms have destroyed flights of migrating birds.


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 65

At the edge of the Thentis Mountains, in the driest areas the grass is short. As one moves in an easterly direction it becomes taller, ranging generally from then to eighteen inches in height; as one moves even further east it can attain a height of several feet, reaching as high as the knees of a man riding on kaiila. On foot, it is easier to become lost in such grass than in the northern forests. No white man, incidentally, at least as far as I know, has ever penetrated to the eastern edge of the Barrens. Certainly, as far as I know, none has ever returned from that area. Their extent, accordingly, is not known.


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 50

Red Savages..." they believe that if they are unworthy of the kailiauk, he will go away. And they believe that this once happened, long ago"

" ..They do not lie on the hide of the kailiauk. It would be the last place in the world that they would choose to lie. On the hide of the kailiauk one may paint only truth"

"It is a belief of the red savages that if they are unworthy, or do not speak the truth, that their shield will not protect them. It will move aside or will not turn the arrows and lances of enemies. Many warriors claim to have seen this happen. The shields, too, are made of the hide of the kailiauk, from the thick hide of the back of the neck, where the skin and musculature are thick, to support the weight of the trident and turn the blows of other tridents, especially in the spring buffetings, attendant upon which follows mate selection"


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Pg 50


"The red savages depend for their very lives on the kailiauk." said Kog. "He is the major source of their food and life. His meat and hide, his bones and sinew, sustain them. From him they derive not only food, but clothing and shelter, tools and weapons...."


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
P 47-48



....eccentricities of tribal warfare; first, actual war parties, though common, are formed less often then parties for stealing kaiila; in this sport the object is to obtain as many kaiila as possible without, if possible, engaging the enemy at all; it is a splendid coup, for example, to cut a kaiila tether strap which is tied to the wrist of a sleeping enemy and makes off with the animal before he awaken; killing a sleeping enemy is only a minor coup; besides, if he has been killed, how can he understand how cleverly he has been bested; imagine his anger and chagrin when he awakens; is that not more precious to the thief than his scalp; in actual warfare, itself large-scale conflicts almost never occur. The group of men, some ten to fifteen in number, which enters enemy country, strikes, usually at dawn, and makes away, almost as soon as it came, with scalps and loot; sometimes, too, a woman or two of the enemy is taken; men of most tribes are fond of owning a woman of the enemy; male prisoners are seldom taken; because of their camaraderie and the sporting aspect of their warfare a group of red savages will usually refuse to follow even a single enemy into rock or brush cover; it is simply too dangerous to do so. similarly the red savages will almost never engage in a standing fight if they are outnumbered; often, too, they will turn their backs on even an obvious victory if the cost of grasping it seem too high; sometimes, too, large number of red savages will retreat before an unexpected attack of a small number of enemies; they prefer to fight on their own terms and at times of their own choosing; they may not have had time to make their war medicine.


Savages of Gor
by John Norman
Ch 1 pg 35-36


"This is," said Kog, to Samos "a story skin."
"It is an artifact of the red savages," said Kog, "from one of the tribes in the Barrens."
"The story begins here," said Kog, indicating the center of the skin. From this point there was initiated, in a slow spiral, to be followed by turning the skin, a series of drawings and pictographs. As the skin is turned each marking on it is at the center of attention, first, of course, of the artist, and later, as he follows the trail, of the viewer. The story, then, unanticipated, each event as real as any other, unfolds as it was lived.
"In many respects," said Kog, "this story is not untypical. These signs indicate a tribal camp. Because of the small number of lodges, this is a winter camp. We can also tell this from these dots, which represent snow."
I looked at the drawings. they were exactly, and colorfully done. They were, on the whole, small, and precise and delicate, like miniatures. The man who applied the pigments to that hide canvas had been both patient and skillful. Too, he had been very careful. This care is often a feature of such works. To speak the truth is very important to the red savages.


Pg 35

I watched Kog slowly turn the skin. The drawings are first traced on the skin with a sharp stick. Many of them are then outlined in black. The interior areas, thus blocked out, may then be colored in. The primary pigments used were yellows, reds browns and blacks. These are primarily obtained from powdered earths, clays and boiled roots. Blues can be obtained from blue mud, gant droppings and boiled rotten wood. Greens can be obtained from a variety of sources, including earths, boiled rotten wood, copper ores and pond algae. The pigments, commonly mixed with hot water or glue, are usually applied by a chewed stick or a small brush, or pen, of porous bone, usually cut from the edge of the kailiauk's shoulder blade or the end of its hip bone. Both of these bones contain honeycombed structures useful in the smooth application of paint.

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