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The Tribes of the Wagon Peoples
The Wagon Peoples claimed the southern prairies of Gor, from gleaming Thassa and the mountains of Ta-Thassa to the southern foothills of the Voltai Range itself, that reared in the crust of Gor like the backbone of a planet. On the north they claimed lands even to the rush-grown banks of the Cartius, a broad, swift flowing tributary feeding into the incomparable Vosk. � ---Nomads of Gor, 1:2 There are four nomadic tribes who roam the Turian plains. Each is ruled by its own chief, or Ubar, and each has its own customs. Most of the time the four tribes war amongst themselves in more or less minor skirmishes. Once in a great while, however, perhaps once in a hundred years, they are united beneath the standard of one powerful man, the Ubar San, who leads them as one brutal conquering force. This confederation of tribes is unstoppable and has been known to carry a tide of destruction as far as Ar and Ko-Ro-Ba. The Four Tribes of the Turian Plains, together with their respective standards and slave-brands, are discussed below. We, the Kassars, are known as the Blood People. The standard of the Kassars is that of a scarlet, three-weighted bola, which hangs from a lance; the symbolic representation of a bola, three circles joined at the center by lines, it is used to mark their bosk and slaves. ---Nomads of Gor, 10:106 The Kataii are black-skinned. Their standard is a yellow bow, bound across a black lance. Their brand is a yellow bow, facing to the left. The Paravaci are known as The Rich People. Their standard is a large banner of jewels strung on golden wires, forming the head and horn of a bosk. The value of such a standard is incalculable. The Paravaci brand is a stylized representation of a bosk head: a semicircle resting on an inverted isosceles triangle. It is a peculiarity of the Paravaci that they deck themselves with ropes of precious stones when going into battle. This is not, however, vanity on their part. It is a ploy to entice envy, and thus to provoke fights with their enemies. A Paravaci is fond of luxurious goods, but vain only in the matter of his courage. Lastly we come to the Tuchuks. Their standard is four bosk horns mounted upon a lance. Their brand is two pairs of spreading bosk horns, arranged more or less in the shape of the letter "H". Our Culture The third rider placed himself, reining in suddenly, pulling the mount to its hind legs, and it reared snarling against the bit, and then stood still, its neck straining toward me. I could see the long, triangular tongue in the animal�s head, behind the four rows of fangs. This rider, too, wore a wind scarf. Beneath it, however, partially concealed by the cloth, was apparently a mask of chain, presumably not unlike that of the first rider, the chain depending from the helmet. His shield was red. The Blood People, the Kassars. ---Nomads of Gor, 2:14 Nomads of Gor focuses on life within a Tuchuk encampment, and provides a rich and deep picture of their daily lives and their surroundings. It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to extrapolate similarities between the Tuchuk and the other tribes, but these details were obtained specifically from discussion of Tuchuk life. Our society is organized very simply, in fact far more simply than in the large cities of Gor. At the head of the tribe there sits a chief, known as the Ubar. His wagon, known as the First Wagon, is the largest in the encampment, and is typically located in a prominent position, perhaps on the highest ground. This enormous wagon requires sometimes as many as one hundred bosk to pull it. Kutaituchik�s bosk team were bedecked with jeweled gold nose-rings and necklaces of precious stones, attesting to his wealth. One would expect to see the war-standard of the tribe proudly planted by the Ubar�s personal wagon; for Kassar, the standard, with its scarlet three-weighted bola hanging from a lance would stand ripple magnificently in the soft plains breezes. Outside, the Ubar would hold court on a large wide, low dais, piled with rugs and furs. Kutaituchik himself sat upon a lowly gray boskhide, placed atop the other rugs, as his simple throne. Perhaps a Kassar Ubar might choose a dyed red boskhide as his throne. The First Wagon is a term that applies to any and all wagons that the Ubar might own; to be �of the First Wagon� means that one is either a household member or a possession of the Ubar himself. Kutaituchik owned over one hundred First Wagons; he was an extremely wealthy Ubar. Known primarily as nomadic herders, the Wagon Peoples grow no food of their own, nor will they eat anything that has touched the dirt, living instead off the meat and milk of the bosk. We, the Kassars, like the other tribes of the Wagon Peoples, love to wager, and will wager on almost anything. You might expect to see the popular tospit wagering on a regular basis in any wagon camp; in fact the Wagon Peoples have been known to wager upon something as simple as the direction a bird might take in flight, such is their love of a good wager. We are a proud people with a confidence in ourselves that many consider arrogant, seeing city dwellers as miserable wretches and cowards who fear to face the plains life under the sun and moons and stars, living instead in their little roof-covered holes, unable to face the elements on a day to day basis. We take what we like and do exactly as we say, even if death is the result. Courage is above all, and honor resides in our hearts. Typically, the Wagon Peoples do not ally themselves with any cities nor regard any such alliances as valid when any of the other tribes have made them. They will ally with the other three tribes, but they will not recognize those the other tribes ally with who are not of the Plains. Mistrust of strangers is legendary on Gor where the words for enemy and stranger are the same, and even more so among the Wagon Peoples. Any not of the tribes are often run from the plains, captured or slain. Insular to the extreme, the Wagon Peoples have little interest in mingling with those of other cultures. The Wagon Camps There are few things more impressive than the sight of a large Kassar encampment springing up out of the desolate prairies of Gor. Composed of thousands of wagons, each gaily painted, and some with roofs of gold brocade, the camp is an iridescent mass of colors. In addition, it is always teeming with movement and sound: the lowing of the bosk, the sharp voices of the Freewomen, the bells of slaves and the hearty laughter of warriors. We, the Kassars, are a nomadic people, and consider ourselves children of the Endless Sky. For this reason, most of our domestic tasks are handled out in the open air. As a visitor walking through the Camp, you would find yourself surrounded by cooking fires tended by dour Freewomen in their long leather dresses or leather outfits and braided hair. You would smell the rich aroma of roasting meat and hear the ringing of metal tools as warriors tended to their weapons. You might hear the guttural singing of Kassar war-songs between the wagons, or the tuneless wail of a haruspex foretelling the future. Our wagons are almost square and quite large, about the size of a large room. Amassed in huge numbers, hundreds and even thousands, they are painted in bold, bright colors and sometimes with detailed designs and present a wondrous, gaily colored picture of the more whimsical side of these fierce people. Each wagon requires a team of eight bosk to draw it. The wagon box itself stands almost six feet above the ground, comprised of lacquered black tem-wood. Inside the square box is erected the tent frame, over which is tautly stretched the painted bosk hides that form the living or working areas. The frame is set within the box confines so that a deck area clears around all four sides of the wagon. Perforations around the sides of the wagon box provide arrow ports for defense with the preferred small horn bow of the Wagon Peoples. The wagons are borne on quite enormous wheels, the rear ones being a good ten feet in diameter and slightly smaller front wheels that give the somewhat canted look similar to the Conestoga wagon. These wheels are also carved of tem and brightly painted, and covered with thick strips of boskhide to provide protection. These rims must be replaced three to four times a year. Inside the wagons, you will find a sharp contrast to the somewhat austere impression the Wagon Peoples often offer; thick, rich carpets and silk cushions covering the floor, tapestry hangings adorning the leather walls, chests and items of booty taken from raids, all lighted by the soft, golden light of hanging tharlarion oil lamps. You may find a small, shallow copper fire bowl and grating for heat, mostly, although some cooking may be done inside the wagon. A smoke hole at the center of the dome allows for the escape of smoke. Most cooking, as well as other activities, however, is done outside, under the sun and moons and stars of the plains. The Social Structure�Clans The Wagon Peoples, of all those on Gor that I know, are the only ones that have a clan of torturers, trained as carefully as scribes or physicians, in the arts of detaining life. � ---Nomads of Gor, 2:9 The Wagon Peoples do not have a system of formal castes, but instead, they have hereditary clans who perform certain tasks, over and above their primary duties as men of the Wagon Peoples: war, hunting, and tending the bosk. There are clans of healers, salt-hunters, leatherworkers, scarers, iron masters, clerks and torturers. There are also other functionaries of society, such as Haruspexes, Camp Singers and Year Keepers, all of whom perform important tasks, but who are still expected to be, first and foremost, "of the wagons." All are warriors, all are hunters, all are protectors of the bosk. The Social Hierarchy--Scars I was looking on the faces of four men, warriors of the Wagon Peoples. On the face of each there were, almost like corded chevrons, brightly colored scars. The vivid coloring and intensity of these scars, their prominence, reminded me of the hideous markings on the faces of mandrills; but these disfigurements, as I soon recognized, were cultural, not congenital, and bespoke not the natural innocence of the work of genes but the glories and status, the arrogance and prides, of their bearers. The scars had been worked into the faces, with needles and knives and pigments and the dung of bosks over a period of days and nights. Men had died in the fixing of such scars. Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin. The man facing me had seven such scars ceremonially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red, the next yellow, the next blue, the fourth black, then two yellow, then black again. The faces of the men I saw were all scarred differently, but each was scarred. The effect of the scars, ugly, startling, terrible, perhaps in part calculated to terrify enemies, had even prompted me, for a wild moment, to conjecture that what I faced on the Plains of Turia were not men, but perhaps aliens of some sort, brought to Gor long ago from remote worlds to serve some now-discharged or forgotten purpose of Priest-Kings; but now I knew better; now I could see them as men; and now, more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered of once before, in a tavern in Ar, the terrible Scar Codes of the Wagon Peoples, for each of the hideous marks on the face of these men had a meaning, a significance that could be read by the Paravaci, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Tuchuks as clearly as you or I might read a sign in a window or a sentence in a book. At that time I could read only the top scar, the red, bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the Courage Scar. It is always the highest scar on the face. Indeed, without that scar, no other scar can be granted. The Wagon Peoples value courage above all else. Each of the men facing me wore that scar. ---Nomads of Gor, 2:16 The scars of the Wagon Peoples differentiate between the men of the tribes and the boys. Those boys who are moving toward adulthood and do not attain their courage scars are the object of scorn, contempt and ridicule, unable to even own property. It has never been specified in the books but in the tradition of Kassar roleplay online, the scars have been identified as follows, Red: Courage Scar, Yellow: Leadership Scar ,Blue: Loyalty Scar ,Black: Combat Scar The Social Conscience--Spirituality The bosk, and the skills of arms, but chief of all things before which the proud Kassar stands ready to remove his helmet is the sky, the simple, vast, beautiful sky, from which falls the rain that in his myths, formed the earth and the bosk and the Kassars. The Kassar prays while mounted upon his kaiila, and with his weapons at hand. He approaches the sky as a warrior approaches an Ubar. Even in prayer he is proud. The women of the Kassars are forbidden to pray to the sky, but they also have an active spiritual life which centers on the divinatory powers of the haruspexes. A haruspex is a kind of shaman who reads portents and tells the future, as well as furnishing various amulets and potions to women who seek magical protection or intercession. One particularly popular object is a colored string, which receives its magical powers from the sequence of knots tied into it by the haruspex. �I heard a haruspex singing between the wagons; for a piece of meat he would read the wind and the grass; for a cup of wine the stars and the flight of birds; for a fat-bellied dinner the liver of a sleen or slave. ---Nomads of Gor, 5:27 Another belief of the Kassars revolves around the selection of a name for male offspring, for no name is given at birth. Instead, the male-child is known simply as First Son or Second Son until such time as he masters the use of all the weapons of war and the hunt. We regard names as being precious; they are not to be wasted on those who have yet to survive long enough to learn the skills necessary to keep them alive in the harsh nomadic life of the Wagon Peoples. Celebrations and Gatherings Slave Dance The dances of the Wagon Peoples kajirae are legendary. Their dancing is expressive, wild and uncontrolled, designed to heat men�s blood and incite their quite savage lust. They are love dances, seductive in the extreme, and go a long way towards explaining why the Turians so value the slave girls of the plains. Their passion is unparalleled, their heat fierce. To hold such a girl enslaved in the collar of submission is an experience without equal on Gor. The girl looked at him gratefully and she, with the others, rose to her feet and to the astounding barbarity of the music performed the savage love dances of the Kassars, the Paravaci, the Kataii, the Tuchuks. They were magnificent. One girl, the leader of the dancers, she who had spoken to Kamchak, was a Tuchuk girl, and was particularly startling, vital, uncontrollable, wild. It was then clear to me why the Turian men so hungered for the wenches of the Wagon Peoples. ---Nomads of Gor, 9:98-99 The games of Love War Spring on the southern prairies of Gor heralds the Love War, an ancient and traditional gathering between representatives of the Wagon Peoples and Turia, fraught with implication in the exchange of goods, particularly human property, as well as the demonstration of the prowess of the warriors of either side. Meeting on the Plains of a Thousand Stakes, warriors of either side fight, sometimes to the death, for the enemy�s woman, secured by steel to one of easily a thousand stakes, stretching off into the distance, each with its prize held tightly to it. Only the best and fiercest warriors mass on the plains, resplendent upon their silken, carnivorous kaiila, to await the procession from Turia. Imposing warriors, erect in their saddles, carrying the traditional small and powerful horn bow and the small, round shield, the conical helmets commonly fur-rimmed and faces obscured by depending chains or wind-scarves, presenting an ominous sight while awaiting the gathering of foes. To the cadence of tharlarion drums marches the long procession of ponderous tharlarion mounted by the Turian warrior in his helmet, carrying the long tharlarion lance and the oval, metal-embossed Turian shield, accompanied by men-at-arms, vendors and musicians and Turian citizens, all come to witness the games. Following behind, chained slaves bear upon their shoulders the elegantly screened palanquins that contain the beauties of Turia, coming to stand at the stake for their city�s pride. A quite different entrance brings the wild, savage girls of the Wagons, as they race between the lines of the stakes to the thunder of kaiila paws on the turf, pulling up on rearing and squealing mounts to jump to the sand and shake their small fists at the Turian warriors in defiance. It is said that while the games of Love War provide the warriors of each side the opportunity to remind the other of their skill and ferocity, thus discouraging predation, the secret justification is as simple as the acquisition of the enemy�s women and their subsequent degradation to the status of lowly slave flesh. Girls of the Wagon Peoples are especially selected and raised to be wild and proud little beasts, intended for the stakes on the plains. Haughty and arrogant free women of Turia would find to their dismay that they had become the property of barbarian nomadic masters. The Omen Year The Omen Year, which comes once every ten years, is a time of truce between the tribes of the Wagon Peoples. More accurately described as several seasons, the Omen Year traverses the fall through the winter and completes in the spring as the migration returns to the south, near Turia. The first phase is called the Passing of Turia, taken in the fall as the tribes migrate to winter in the warmer north nearer the equator. The second phase is simply called the Wintering, north of Turia, and finally the third phase, the Return to Turia which brings us back home during the spring Season of Little Grass. Tribes gather and the usual commerce of bosk and slave trading takes place, as well as some exchange of free women. For this reason alone, the Omen Year traditions keep the genetics of the our people and the bosk healthy and vigorous, but also reminds and cements the differing tribes of our essential similarities, allowing us to unite to meet a common foe in times of crisis. During this final season, haruspexes gather to take the omens, mostly from verr livers and bosk blood, determining the favorability of electing the Ubar San of the Wagon Peoples, he who would lead all the tribes as one People. There had not been, I knew, a Ubar San in more than a hundred years. It did not seem likely, either, that one would be elected in the spring. Even in the time I had been with the wagons I had gathered that it was only the implicit truce of the Omen Year which kept these four fierce, warring peoples from lunging at one another�s throats, or, more exactly put, at one another�s bosk. � Indeed, I found few who wished a Ubar San to be chosen. The Tuchuks, like the other Wagon Peoples, are intensely independent. Yet, each ten years, the omens are taken. I originally regarded the Omen Year as a rather pointless institution, but I came to see later that there is much to be said for it: it brings the Wagon Peoples together from time to time, and in this time, aside from the simple values of being together, there is much bosk trading and some exchange of women, free as well as slave; the bosk trading genetically freshens the herds and I expect much the same thing, from the point of view of biology, can be said of the exchange of the women; more importantly, perhaps, for one can always steal women and bosk, the Omen Year provides an institutionalized possibility for the uniting of the Wagon Peoples in a time of crisis, should they be divided and threatened. ---Nomads of Gor, 8:56 Read Nomads of Gor to learn more about the culture of Kassar and the Wagon Peoples. |
