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The en�safora
A switch was put in the hands of Eta. She stood over me. I put down my head. She did not strike me. I looked up at her. I realized then that she was first girl in the camp, and that I must obey her, that she had been empowered to set me tasks and duties. Suddenly I feared her. . . . Now I realized I must, without question, take slave instructions from her and discharge swiftly and well whatever menial duties she might place upon me. . . . I had little doubt she would use the switch, and richly, upon me, did I not work well. .
Slave girls compete for the attentions of masters. Each strives to be more pleasing to them than the other. The quality of a slave girl's life is commonly a direct function of her pleasingness to her master.
When more than one slave girl stands in a relationship of slave girls, as when they serve in the same shop or house, or adorn the same rich man's pleasure gardens, it is common for the master, or masters, to appoint a "first girl." Her authority is then to the other girls as is that of the master. This tends to reduce squabbling. The first girl is usually, though not always, the favorite of the master. There is usually much competition to be first girl. First girls can be cruel and petty but commonly, they attempt to govern with intelligence and justice. They know that another girl, at the master's whim, may become first girl, and that they themselves may then be under her almost absolute power.
. . . in a group of female slaves, for example, in a pleasure gardens, a fortress or a tavern, there will usually be a girl appointed First Girl. Indeed, if there is a large number of slaves, there are sometimes hierarchies of "first girls," lower-level first girls reporting to higher-level first girls, and so on. The lower-level slaves will commonly address their first girl as "Mistress."
The suspension of brush-and-comb privileges is also used, upon occasion, by the first girls as a disciplinary measure, within the coffle. Other disciplinary measures practiced among girls themselves involve such things as bonds, the control of rations and switchings. Girls, thus, under the control of first girls, reporting to the masters, commonly keep a good order among themselves. All, of course, including the first girls, are in all things subject, ultimately, to the total authority of the master. The Duties of the first girl of Kassar are as follows:
She will train new slaves. |
