ABOUT BRANDS
Dina Kajira Wagon Peoples Torvaldsland Treve Tahari Schendi
Penalty Priest-Kings Kurii Acceptance Brand Thief Brand
Places for Brands Branding CeremonyABOUT BRANDS
"Eta smiled. She pointed to her brand. "Kan-lara," she said. She pointed to my brand. "Kan-lara Dina," she said. I repeated these words."
"Slave Girl of Gor" page 80"The girls are usually branded impersonally, perfunctorily, as cattle.(...)
Though they feel their mark intensely physically, it is felt, interestingly, even more intensely, more profoundly, psychologically; not unoften it, in itself, radically transform their self-images, their personalities; they are then only slaves, not permitted their own wills, rightless, at the bidding of masters; the mark in an impersonal designation; this is understood by the girls; when she is marked she understands herself not to be marked by a given man for a given man, to be uniquely his, but rather, so to speak, that she is marked for all men; to all men she is a slave girl; usually, of course, only one among them, at a given time, will be her master; the brand is impersonal;the collar is intensely personal; the brand marks her property; the collar proclaims whose property she is, who it is who has either, or paid for, her; that the brand is an impersonal designations of an absence of status in the social structure in perhaps another reason why masters do not often brand their own girls; the brand relationship to the free man is institutional; the collar relationship, on the other hand, is an intensely personal one; it is not uncommon for masters to pride themselves on the depth with which they know their slave girls."
"Tarnsmen of Gor" page 42"In theory, if not in practice, when the girl finds herself branded like an animal, finds her fair skin marked by the irons of a master, she cannot fail, somehow, in the deepest levels of her thought, to regard herself as something which is owned, as mere property, as something belonging to the brute who has put the burning iron to her thigh.
Most simply the brand is supposed to convince the girl that she is fully owned; it is supposed to make her feel owned. When the iron is pulled away and she knows the pain and degradation and smells the odor of her burned flesh, she is supposed to tell herself, understanding its full and terrible import, I AM HIS.
Actually I suppose the effect of the brand depends greatly on the girl. In many girls I would suppose the brand has little effect besides contributing to their shame, their misery and humiliation. With other girls it might well increase their intractability, their hostility. On ther other hand, I have known of several cases in which a proud, insolent woman, even one of great intelligence, who resisted a master to the very touch of the iron, once branded became instantly a passionate and obedient Pleasure Slave."
"Outlaw of Gor" page 189"When an individual captures a girl for his own uses, he does not always mark her, though it is commonly done. On the other hand, the professional slaver, as a business practice, almost always brands his chattels, and it is seldom that an unbranded girl ascends the block. The brand is to be distinguished from the collar, though both are designation of slavery. The primary significance of the collar is that it identifies the master and his city. The collar of a given girl may be changed countless times, but the brand continues throughout to bespeak her status."
"Outlaw of Gor" page 189"The girl was brought into the shop and stood in the branding rack, which was then locked on her, holding her upright. The metal worker placed her wrists behind her in the wrist clamps, adjustable, each on their vertical, flat metal bar. He screwed shut the clamps. She winced. He then shackled her feet on the rotating metal platform.
"Left thigh or right thigh?" he asked.
"Left thigh," said Ulafi. Slave girls are commonly branded on the left thigh. Sometimes they are branded on the right thigh, or lower left abdomen.
The metal worker turned the apparatus, spinning the shaft, with its attached, circular metal platform. The girl's left thigh now faced us. It was an excellent thigh. It would take the mark well. The metal worker then, with a wheel, tightening it, locked the device in place, so that it could not turn.
"Explorers of Gor" page 71TYPES OF BRANDS
"I have five brands," said the metal worker, "the common Kajira brand, the Dina, the Palm, the mark of Treve, the mark of Port Kar."
"Explorers of Gor" page 70Dina
"I had seen the design at the tip of the iron. It was a small flower, stylized; it was circular, about an inch and a half in diameter; it was not unlike a small rose; it was incredibly lovely and delicate."
"Slave Girl of Gor" page 52Kajira or Kef
"Her brand, however, was not precisely the same as mine. It was more slender, more vertical, more like a stem with floral, cursive loops, about an inch and a half in height, and a half inch in width; it was, I would later learn, the initial letter in cursive script of the Gorean expression 'Kajira'; my own brand was the "dina"; the dina is a small, lovely, multiply petaled flower, short-stemmed, and blooming in a turf of green leaves, usually on the slopes of hills, in the northern temperate zones of Gor; in its budding, though in few other ways, it resembles a rose; it is an exotic, alien flower; it is also spoken of, in the north, where it grows most frequently, as the slave flower; it was burned into my flesh. In the south, below the Gorean equator, there the flower is much more rare, it is prized more highly."
"Slave Girl of Gor" page 61"The brand Eta wore was not the "Dina"; it was, as I would later learn, the initial letter in cursive script of the Gorean expression 'Kajira'; it, too, however, was, in its delicacy and floral nature, an incredibly beautiful and feminine brand; I recalled that I had thought that the brand I had heated might be too feminine to mark a man's properties, such as a saddle or shield, but that it would be perfect to mark something feminine in nature; now I realized that It marked me; both the brand that I wore and that which Eta wore were incredibly feminine; our femininity, whether we wished it or not, had been deeply, and incontrovertibly, stamped on us. It was natural, given the fact that the dina is the "slave flower," that eventually slavers, warriors and merchants, those with an interest in the buying and selling of womaen, should develop a brand based on the flower. Beyond this, there exists on Gor a variety of brands for women, though the Kajira brand, which Eta wore, is by far the most common."
"Slave Girl of Gor" page 62WAGON PEOPLES BRANDS
Tuchuk Brand
"I supposed that on the morrow Kamchak would call for the Tuchuk Iron Master, to brand what he called his little barbarian; the brand of the Tuchuk slave, incidentally, s not the same as that generally used in the cities. which for girls, is the first letter of the expression Kajira in cursive script. but the sign of the four bask horns that of the Tuchuk standard; the brand of the four bosk horns, set in such a manner as to somewhat resemble the letter "H." is only about an inch high; the common Gorean brand, on the other hand, is usually an inch and a half to two inches high; the brand of the four bosk horns, of course, is also used to mark the bosk of the Tuchuks, but there, of course, it is much larger, forming roughly a six-inch square; following the branding, I supposed that Kamchak would have one of the tiny nose rings affixed; all Tuchuk females, slave or free, wear such rings; after these things there would only remain, of course, an engraved Turian collar and the clothing of Elizabeth Cardwell Kajir."
"Nomads of Gor" page 62Kataii Brand
"The standard of the Kataii is a yellow bow, bound across a black lance; their brand is also that of a bow, facing to the left;"
"Nomads of Gor" page 106Kassar Brand
"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, is used to mark their bosk and slaves;"
"Nomads of Gor" page 106Paravaci Brand
"the Paravaci standard is a large banner of jewels beaded on golden wires, forming the head and horns of a bosk its value is incalculable; the Paravaci brand is a symbolic representation of a bosk head, a semicircle resting on an inverted isoceles triangle."
"Nomads of Gor" page 106Torvaldsland Brand
"The brand used by Forkbeard is not uncommon in the north, though there is less uniformity in Torvaldsland on these matters than in the south, where the merchant caste, with its recommendations for standardization, is more powerful. All over Gor, of course, the slave girl is a familiar commodity. The brand used by the Forkbeard, found rather frequently in the north, consisted of a half circle, with, at its right tip, adjoining it, a steep, diagonal line. The half circle is about an inch and a quarter in height. The brand is, like many, symbolic. In the north, the bond-maid is sometimes referred to as a women whose belly lies beneath the sword."
"Mauraders of Gor" page 87Brand of Treve
"If a girl is already branded," I said, causally, but frightened, "she would not be again branded, would she?" "Commonly not," said Ena. "Though sometimes, for some reason, the mark of Treve is pressed into her flesh." She looked at me. "Sometimes too," she said, "a girl may be branded as punishment, and to warn others against her." I looked at her, puzzled. "Penalty brands," she said. "They are tiny, but clearly visible. There are various such brands. There is one for lying, and another for stealing."
"Captive of Gor" Page 276"I have never seen a brand of Treve," I said.
"It is rare," said Ena, proudly.
"May I see your brand?" I asked. I was curious.
"Of course," said Ena, and she stood up and, extending her left leg, drew her long, lovely white garment to her hip, revealing her limb.
I gasped.
Incised deeply, precisely, in that slim, lovely, now-bared thigh was a startling mark, beautiful, insolent, dramatically marking that beautiful thigh as that which it now could only be, that of a female slave. "It is beautiful," I whispered.
Ena pulled away the clasp at the left shoulder of her garment, dropping it to her ankles.
She was incredibly beautiful.
"Can you read?" she asked.
"No," I said.
She regarded the brand. "It is the first letter, in cursive script," she said, "of the name of the city of Treve."
"Captive of Gor" page 277Tahari Brand
"With a heavy glove, Hassan pulled an iron from the brazier. "What do you think of this brand?" he asked. It was the Taharic slave mark. "It is beautiful," I said. "But let us assure ourselves that this will be a common slave, one fit to sell north." "A good idea," said Hassan. He returned the one iron to the brazier and reached for another. It glowed red. It was a fine iron, clean and precise. At it's tip, bright red, was the common Kajira slave mark of Gor. "
"Tribesmen of Gor" page 337"I had little doubt that it would be the Tahari brand which, white hot, would be pressed into the thigh of the new slave, marking her thenceforth as merchandise.
The contact surface of the iron would be formed into the Taharic character 'Kef,' which, in Taharic, is the initial letter of the expression 'Kajira,' the most common expression in Gorean for a female slave."
"Tribesman of Gor" page 148The initial printed letter of 'Kajira,' rather than the cursive letter, as generally, is used as the common brand for women in the Tahari. Both the cursive letter in common Gorean and the printed letter in Taharic are rather lovely, both being somewhat floral in appearance."
"Tribesmen of Gor" page 148/9Schendi Brand
"Rather like a tattoo, an appropriate design is cut into the thigh of a slave and a colored powder is rubbed into it. Used in the jungle of Schendi.
From the box he then took a small, curved knife and a tiny, cylindrical leather flask. I gritted my teeth, but made no sound. With the small knife he gashed my left thigh, making upon it a small, strange design. He then took a powder, orange in color, from the flask and rubbed it into the wound."
"Explorers of Gor" page 330Penalty Brand
"Four men held me, naked, near the brazier. I could feel the heat blazing from the cannister. The sky was very blue, the clouds were white.
"Please, no!" I wept.
I saw Rask, with a heave glove, draw forth one of the irons from the fire. It reminated in a tiny letter, not more that a quarter of an inch high. The letter was white hot.
"This is a penalty brand," he said. "It marks you as a liar."
"Please, Master!" I wept.
"I no longer have patience with you," he said. "Be marked as what you are." I screamed uncontrollably as he pressed in the iron, holding it firmly into my leg. Then, after some two to four Ihn, he removed it.
I could not stop screaming with pain. I smelled the odor of burned flesh, my own. I began to whimper. I could not breathe. I gasped for breath. Still the men held me.
"This penalty brand,' said Rask of Treve, lifting another iron from the brazier, again with a tyny letter at its glowing termination, "marks you also as what you are, as a thief."
"Please, no, Master!" I wept.
I could not move a muscle of my left leg. It might as well have been locked in a vise. It must wait for the iron. I screamed again, uncontrollably. I had been branded as a thief.
"This third iron," said Rask of Treve, "'is, too, a penalty iron. I mark you with this not for myself, but for Ute."
Through raging tears I saw, white hot, the tiny letter.
"It marks you as a traitress," said Rask of Treve. He looked at me, with fury.
"Be marked as a traitress," he said. Then he pressed the thrid iron into my flesh. As it entered my flesh, biting and searing, I saw Ute watching, her face betraying no emotion. I screamed, and wept, and screamed. Still the men did not release me.
"Rask of Treve lifted the last iron from the fire. It was much larger, the letter at its termination some one and a half inches high.
It, too, was white hot. I knew the brand. I had seen it on Ena's thigh. It was the mark of Treve. Rask of Treve decided that my flesh should bear that mark. "No, Master, please!" I begged him.
"Yes, Worthless Slave," he said, "you will wear in your flesh the mark of the city of Treve."
"Please," I begged.
"When men ask you," said he, "who it was that marked you as a liar and a their, and traitress, point to this brand, and say, I was marked by one of Treve, who was displeased with me."
"Captive of Gor" page 310Priest-Kings Brand
Incidentally, there are many brands on Gor. Two that almost never occur on Gor, by the way, are those of the moons and collar, and of the chain and claw. The first of these commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serve as headquarters for agents of the Priest-Kings; the second tends to occur in the lairs of Kurii agents on Earth; the first brand consists of a locked collar and, ascending diagonally above it, extending to the right, three quarter moons; this brand indicates the girl is subject to Gorean discipline; the chain-and-claw brand signifies, of course, slavery and subjection with the compass of the Kur yoke."
"Explorers of Gor" page 12Kurii Brand
Incidentally, there are many brands on Gor. Two that almost never occur on Gor, by the way, are those of the moons and collar, and of the chain and claw. The first of these commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serve as headquarters for agents of the Priest-Kings; the second tends to occur in the lairs of Kurii agents on Earth; the first brand consists of a locked collar and, ascending diagonally above it, extending to the right, three quarter moons; this brand indicates the girl is subject to Gorean discipline; the chain-and-claw brand signifies, of course, slavery and subjection with the compass of the Kur yoke."
"Explorers of Gor" page 12Acceptance Brand
"The street was lined by throngs of Tuchuks and slaves. Among them, too, were soothsayers and haruspexes, and singers and musicians, and, here and there, small peddlers and merchants, of various cities, for such are occasionally permitted by the Tuchuks, who crave their wares, to approach the wagons. Each of these, I was later to learn, wore on his forearm a tiny brand, in the form of spreading bosk horns, which guaranteed his passage, at certain seasons, across the plains of the Wagon Peoples. The difficulty, of course is in first obtaining the brand. If, in the case of a singer, the song is rejected, or in the case of a merchant, his merchandise is rejected, he is slain out of hand. This acceptance brand, of course, carries with it a certain stain of ignominy, suggesting that those who approach the wagons do as slaves."
"Nomads of Gor" page 34Thief Brand
"The thief's scar in Port Kar is a tiny, three-pronged brand, burned into the face over the right cheekbone. It marks the members of the Cast of Thieves in Port Kar. That is the only city in which, as far as I know, there is a recognized caste for thieves."
"Mercenaries of Gor" page 239NORMS FOR BRANDS
Places for Brands
�The thighs and the lower left abdomen are the brand sites recommended by Merchant Law.�
"Fighting Slave of Gor" page 349"But her left thigh worn no brand. Her right thigh, too, as I soon noted, did not wear the slave mark, nor did her lower left abdomen. These are the three standard marking places, following the recommendations of Merchant Law, for the marking of Kajirae, with the left thigh being, in practice, the overwhelmingly favored brand site."
"Fighting Slave of Gor" page 312"Left thigh or right thigh?" he asked. "Left thigh," said Ulafi. Slave girls are commonly branded on the left thigh. Sometimes they are branded on the right thigh, or lower left abdomen."
"Explorers of Gor" page 71"Yes, left thigh,' said Samos to one of the guards. I liked the left-thigh branded girl. A right-handed master may caress it while he holds her in his left arm."
"Beasts of Gor" page 25"Where are we branded?" She said. "A girl is commonly branded on the left or right thigh," I said, "sometimes on the lower left abdomen."
"Beasts of Gor" page 229"I also checked certain less common brand sites, such as the lower left abdomen, the interior of the left forearm, and the high instep area of the left foot."
"Players of Gor" page 191"I had seized her, half lifted her, and turned her from side to side, examining her slim, attractive thighs for the tiny brand which would confirm the matter. The most common brand sites, that on the left thigh, the favorite, and that on the right thigh, lacked slave marks. This determination, given the nature of her garmenture, could be instantly made. I then put her on her feet. "Oh!" she said. She was not branded on the lower left abdomen. That is perhaps the third most favored brand site. I then checked several other brand sites, such as the inside of the forearms, the left side of the neck, behind and below the left ear, the backs of her legs, and her buttocks. I even examined the insteps of her left and right feet. Her body was not branded."
"Renegades of Gor" page 124Branding Ceremony
"Do you wish to mark her?" asked Hassan, "Yes," I said. I would place the mark on her left thigh, above that of the four bosk horns. It would be the common Gorean female slave mark, fitting for a low girl, such as she, one who had not been fully pleasing. I held up the iron, white hot, for the girl's inspection. "You will soon be branded,Girl," I told her. "Don't brand me!" she cried. "Please don't brand me!" she wept. Hassan regarded her with interest. "We are now ready," I told her. She looked at me, then at the glowing, white-hot marking surface of the iron. She watched it with horror, as it approached her. I held it poised at her thigh. "Don't!" she cried. "Don't!" "You are now to be branded, Slave Girl," I told her. "No," she screamed. Then I branded her. For five long Ihn I held the iron, Pressing it in. I watched it sink in her thigh, smoking and crackling and hissing. It was a larger brand than the at of the four bosk horns; I made sure it marked her more deeply. We three, Hassan, I and the girl, smelled the marked, burned slave flesh of her. Then, swiftly, cleanly, I withdrew it. Her head was back. She was screaming and weeping. "A perfect brand," said Hassan. looking on. "Perfect!" I was pleased, Such a brand would be envied by other girls. It would improve the sleek little animal's value. I removed the locking device, and spun loose the twist handles, releasing her thigh. I freed her of the snap bracelets. I carried her, naked, branded, weeping, to the small cell where I had thrown her tiny garment, to be retrieved later. I put her down on the straw. Her throat was bare, for I had, the preceding night, the collar of Ibn Saran removed from her throat. "Assume the posture of female submission," I told her. She did so, kneeling back on her heels, her arms extended, wrists crossed, her head between them, down, She was weeping. "Repeat after me," I told her, " 'I, once Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of the planet Earth-'" "I, once Miss Elizabeth Cardwell of the planet Earth-" she said. "'-herewith submit myself, completely and totally, in all things-'" "-herewith submit myself, completely and totally, in all things-" she said. "'-to him who is now known here as Hakim of Tor-'" "-to him who is now known here a Hakim of Tor-" she said. "'-his girl, his slave, an article of his property, his to do with as he pleases-'" "-his girl, his slave, an article of his property, his to do with as he pleases," she said. Hassan handed me the collar, it was inscribed 'I am the property of Hakim of Tor'. I showed it to the girl. She could not read Taharic script. I read it to her. I put it about her neck. I snapped it shut. "'I am yours, Master,'" I said to the girl. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, her neck in my locked collar. "I am yours, Master," she said. "Congratulations on your slave!" said Hassan. "She is lovely meat. Now I must attend to my own slave." He laughed, and left. The girl sank to the straw, and looked up at me. Her eyes were soft with tears, She whispered. "I am yours now, Tarl." she said. "You own me, Your truly own me." "What is your name?" I asked. "What ever master wishes." she whispered.
"Tribesman of Gor" page 358