Description of Kailiauk

View Towards the Thentis Mountains

The quotations below are all taken from Savages of Gor, and Blood Brothers of Gor, by John Norman.

  The Barrens, Description and Climate

"They will have difficulty recruiting efficient aid," said Samos, "for few white men are allowed to tread the Barrens, and those who are permitted to, encroach upon their fringes are normally permitted to do so only for purposes   of trade."

"Are you truly determined to enter the Barrens?" asked the fellow.   "Yes," I said. "How many kaiila do you have?'' he asked. "Two," I said, "one to ride, another for the trade goods."  "That is fortunate," said the fellow. "No more than 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 rules in Kailiauk?" I asked.   "They are the rules of the red savages," he said.  "Then," said I, "only small groups of white men enter the Barrens, or else they would be on foot, at the mercy of the inhabitants of the area."  "Precisely,” said the fellow.

I considered the Barrens. They are not, truly, as barren as the name would suggest. They are barren only in contrast, say, with the northern forests or the lush land in river valleys, or the peasant fields or meadows of the southern rain belts. They are, in fact, substantially, vast tracts of rolling grasslands, lying east of the Thentis Mountains. I have suspected that they are spoken of as the Barrens not so much in an attempt to appraise them with geographical accuracy as to discourage their penetration, exploration and settlement. The name, then, is perhaps not best regarded as an item of purely scientific nomenclature but rather as something else, perhaps a warning. Also, calling the area the Barrens gives men a good excuse, if they should desire such, for not entering upon them. To be sure, the expression 'Barrens' is not altogether a misnomer. They would be, on the whole, much less arable than much of the other land of known Gor. Their climate is significantly influenced by the Thentis Mountains and the absence of large bodies of water. Prevailing winds in the northern hemisphere of Gor are from the north and West. Accordingly a significant percentage of moisture-laden air borne by westerly winds is forced by the Thentis Mountains to cooler, less-heated air strata, where it precipitates, substantially on the eastern slopes of the mountains and the fringes of the Barrens. Similarly the absence of large bodies of water in the Barrens reduces rainfall which might be connected with large-scale evaporation and subsequent precipitation of this moisture over land areas, the moisture being carried inland on what are, in effect, sea breezes, flowing into low pressure areas caused by the warmer land surfaces, a given amount of radiant energy raising the temperature of soil or rock significantly more than it would raise the temperature of an equivalent extent of water.

   The absence of large bodies of water adjacent to or within the Barrens also has another significant effect on their climate. It precludes the Barrens from experiencing the moderating effects of such bodies of water on atmospheric temperatures. Areas in the vicinity of large bodies of water, because of the differential heating ratios of land and water usually have warmer winters and     cooler summers than areas, which are not so situated. The Barrens, accordingly, tend to be afflicted with great extremes of temperature, often experiencing bitterly cold winters and long, hot, dry summers.

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 ten 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 a 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.

"The issues are complicated," said Samos. "I do not know, truly, how I should cast my vote."

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 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 than the eggs of vulos. Many times such storms have destroyed flights of migrating birds.

  The City of Kailiauk

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, the feathers on their tall wands, which mark the beginning of the country of the red savages.

I had spent a night on the road and had arrived in Kailiauk, hungry and muddy, yesterday, shortly after the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon. Indeed, I had heard the striking of the time bar, mounted on the roof of the Administrator's store, as I had approached the town's  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 in 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 town, are great heaps of bone and horn, often thirty or more feet in height. These deposits represent the results of the thinnings 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. 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 Ihanke 

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, the feathers on their tall wands, which mark the beginning of the country of the red savages. (Savages of Gor, 77)

"It is here," said Grant, turning about on his kaiila. "See the wands?"

"Yes," I said. We were now some two pasangs east of Kailiauk.

 "Here is one," said Grunt, "and there is another, and another."

 "I see," I said, shading my eyes.

The grass was to the knees of the kaiila. It came to the thighs of the slave girls, in brief one-piece slave tunics, of brown rep-cloth, with deep cleavages, in throat coffle, bearing burdens on their heads.

The wand before us was some seven or eight feet high. It is of this height, apparently, that it 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, or, more literally, though in clumsier English, Out-of-the-sun-it-strikes, presumably from its habit of making its descent and. strike on prey, like the tarn, with the sun above and behind it. 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)

  Stores

We stood within the compound of Ram Seibar, a dealer in slaves. It is a  reasonably large compound, for he also handles kaiila. It is, I would estimate, something  over three hundred feet square, or, say, a bit less than a tenth of a pasang square. It contains several slave pits but only three were now occupied. It also contains several  larger and smaller wooden structures, primarily holding areas, barracks for men and various ancillary buildings. The entire compound is enclosed by a wooden palisade. On the largest building, the main sales barn, about seventy feet wide and a hundred and twenty feet in  length, there flies the pennon of Seibar, a yellow pennon on which, in black, are portrayed shackles and a whip.
"Do you know Grunt, the trader?" I asked the fellow.   
"Yes," said he.
"Is he in the vicinity?" I asked.   
"I do not know," said the man. I had sought this fellow in the various inns and taverns of Kailiauk. I could find no one who seemed to know of his whereabouts. Indeed, I had begun to despair of finding him.   This morning, at the Five Horns stables, in Kailiauk, I had bought two kaiila. Bridles,  a saddle, various sorts of gear, supplies, and trading goods, too, I had purchased in the town, at the store of Publius Crassus, of the Merchants, who is also Kailiauk's  Administrator. Too I had purchased a short bow, modeled on the sort used by the savages,  fit for clearing the saddle, and a quiver of twenty sheaf arrows.

A distinction must be drawn between the side blocks and the central, or main, block, in a vending area. I shall describe the situation, specifically, as it exists in the sales barn of Ram Seibar. It is not untypical of the arrangements in many such places, particularly in outlying areas. To be sure, there is, it seems, from market to market, and from city to city, an almost infinite variety of ways in which women may be, and are, displayed and sold. This is not surprising since the institution of female slavery, on Gor, is both extremely successful and quite ancient.
In the central hall of the sales barn of Ram Seibar, which is open to the public, there are twenty-one blocks. Twenty of these are subsidiary blocks, or side blocks. These occur, aligned, ten to a side, along the walls, to the left and right, as one enters. They are spaced rather evenly, in order not to suggest distinctions among them. Too, they are placed a few feet out from the walls. At one's convenience, then, one may walk entirely about them. They are about a yard high and five feet in diameter. In the center of each there is an iron ring. The central block, which must be ascended by stairs, lies at the far end of the hall as one enters, opposite the door. It is about seven or eight feet in height and some twenty feet in diameter. Girls are seldom auctioned from the side blocks. Occasionally fixed prices are set on them. If this is the case the price is usually written on their body, either with a grease pencil or a lipstick. Usually, however, of course, they find themselves being bargained for. The girl usually hopes that her master will pay enough for her to convince him that   she is of at least minimal value, and will not pay so much that he will be angry with the merchant, for in such a case he is almost certain to take his dissatisfaction out on her lovely hide. "Side-block girl," in the argot of the slave girl, like 'pot girl' and 'kettle-and-mat girl,' is a term of disparagement. It must be admitted there is more prestige in being auctioned from a major, or central, block than there is in being casually purchased from a side block. One might as well be sold off a slaver's public shelf, in a city, or out of a cage, or kneeling in the mud outside a village, from a "slaver's necklace." To be sure, a girl who is once sold off a side block may, in time, her femininity blossoming under the discipline of the whip and the harsh tutelage of masters, become a treasure, a slave so beautiful and desirable that men will pay fortunes to have her at their feet. I wandered over to the left wall to look at some of the side blocks.

  Currency

There are one hundred copper tarsks to one silver tarsk in Kailiauk. The ratio is ten to one in certain other cities and towns. The smallest Gorean coin is usually a tarsk bit, usually valued from a quarter to a tenth of a tarsk. Gorean coinage tends to vary from community to community. Certain coins, such as the silver tarsk of Tharna and the golden tarn of Ar, tend, to some extent, to standardize what otherwise might be a mercantile chaos. This same standardization, in the region of the Tamber Gulf and south, along the shore of Thassa, tends to be effected by the golden tam of Port Kar. Coin merchants often have recourse to scales. This is sensible considering such things as the occasional debasings of coinages, usually unannounced by the communities in question, and the frequent practice of splitting and shaving coins. It is, for example, not unusual for a Gorean coin pouch to contain parts of coins as well as whole coins. Business is often conducted by notes and letters of credit. Paper currency, however, in itself, is unknown

  Slave Attire on the Barrens

I felt a small tug at my sleeve, and then felt my arm delicately held. I felt a soft cheek pressed against my arm." Master," whispered a voice. I looked down, and the girl, with loose, auburn hair, looked up. She smiled. "Accompany me to Randolph's tavern," she said. "I will give you much pleasure." About her throat, narrow, sturdy and closely fitting, was a steel collar. I stepped back, that I might see her better. She wore a short, fringed, beaded shirtdress. This came high on her thighs. It was split to her waist, well revealing the sweetness and loveliness of her breasts. It was belted upon her with a doubly looped, tightly knotted rawhide string. Such a string is more than sufficient, in its length, and in its strength and toughness, to tie a woman in a number of ways. She was barefoot. About her left ankle there was, about two inches high, a beaded cuff, or anklet. Her garb was doubtless intended to suggest the distinctive, humiliating and scandalously brief garment in which red savages are sometimes pleased to place their white slaves. One difference, however, must surely be noted. The red savages do not use steel collars. They 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.   
"It is my hope that Master will find Ginger pleasing," she said.

"Do not listen to her, Master," purred a voice from my other side. "Come with me, rather, to Russell's tavern. I will make your night a delight." I looked to my left. A dark-haired girl was there. She, too, obviously, was a tavern girl, but she was garbed quite differently from Ginger. The taste or business sense of their masters, I gathered, differed. Slaves, of course, are garbed precisely as their masters please. "I, too, am a barbarian," she said. "I am Evelyn."   
She wore a black, tight, off-the-shoulder bodice and a short, black, silk skirt, decorated with red thread and ruffles, and stiffened with crinoline. A black ribbon choker was placed behind the steel collar on her throat. A red ribbon, matching the decorations on her skirt, was in her hair. She had not been permitted stockings or footwear. Such things are normally denied the Gorean slave girl. Her costume, like that of Ginger, the short, fringed, beaded shirtdress of tanned skin, with the beaded anklet, intended to resemble the garb in which red masters sometimes saw fit to clothe their white female slaves, if permitting them clothing, suggested its heritage of other times and other places. Most Gorean garments, of course, of the sorts worn by humans, trace back to terrestrial antecedents. I looked at the white bosom of Evelyn, lifted, shaped and confined in the tightness of the bodice, for the interest of masters. What man, I wondered, would not wish to unlace or tear away that bodice, to subject its treasures, like the woman herself, to the ravishments of his mouth and hands.

  Military

In my opinion one of the mistakes of the white cavalries of the perimeter areas was their reliance on the crossbow, which is primarily an infantry weapon. It does, of course, have various advantages. It has considerable striking power, it may be kept ready to fire almost indefinitely, and, for most men, it is easier to fire with accuracy from the saddle  than the straight bow. It will also, at short ranges, penetrate most of the hide shields  used by the red savages.   Its major disadvantage is its slowness in rate of fire. The cavalry crossbow does have  an iron stirrup in which the rider, without dismounting, may insert his foot, thus gaining the leverage necessary for drawing the cable back with both hands. If the rider is right  handed he usually inserts his right foot in the stirrup and leans to the right in drawing  the cable; this procedure is reversed, of course, usually, if the rider is left handed. While this procedure permits the rider to reload without dismounting and tends to improve, at some cost to striking power, the bow's rate of fire, it still provides, in my opinion, no adequate compensation for the loss of rapidity of fire. I think it not unlikely that the red savage could discharge three to five shafts in the time a single quarrel could be set  in the clumsier weapon. In my opinion, if the crossbow, of the lighter, more quickly loading type, had proved to be a superior missile weapon in the typical combats practiced in the  Barrens the red savages would have had recourse either to it, or to something analogous to it. But they have not.
I opted, accordingly, taking them for my authorities in the matter, for a weapon similar  in design to theirs, one which had, apparently, proven its usefulness in the abrupt, sudden and fierce engagements characteristic of war on the vast grasslands of the Barrens. Unable  to find Grunt, I feared I must enter the Barrens alone. Already, early this morning, the Lady Mira of Venna, and Alfred of Port Olni, with their mercenaries, had left Kailiauk.

  Kaiila Ranches

"Make way!" we heard. "Make way!" There was then the thudding of the clawed pads of kaiila, several of them, almost upon us. "Ho! Ho!" called their drovers, riding behind them, swirling their coiled rawhide ropes in the air. I and the others backed against the wall of the compound of Ram Seibar. The kaiila, perhaps a hundred and fifty of them, thundered past. I did not think such beasts should be run through the streets, but it sometimes pleases their drovers to do so. It had happened more than once since I had been in Kailiauk. The kaiila were presumably from the northern ranches and would be sold in Kailiauk, and in the towns to the south.
"It is needless for that to be done in that fashion," said a fellow near me.
"There are shorter routes to the corrals and the wired pastures."
"Individuals are sometimes injured," said another man.   "The tavern girls live in terror of them," said another fellow.   I looked down at the girlin my arms. I saw that what he said was true. This pleased me. It was fitting that slave girls lived in terror of free men.
"They do not come that often to Kailiauk," said a fellow, cheerfully.
"When they come," said another, "it is with a thirst for paga and the wenches of the taverns."   
"Who can blame them?" said another.   The kaiila ranches, I supposed, were remote, desolate places. Land, which is suitable for farming, and in proximity to towns, is seldom, along the perimeter, put to the uses of grazing.   
"They are generally good fellows," said another man.
"They spend their money freely," added another.   
"That is a point in their favor," said another.   
"A point in our favor," said another.
"Some are dangerous and cruel." said another man.   
"Let us hope there will be no killings," said another.
Killings among such men, hot-tempered and aflame with paga, I supposed might occur not infrequently. Too often, I suspected, a suspicion of cheating at stones or disks, or a dispute over a slave, might lead to the flash of steel, the sudden movement of a knife.

  The Kailiauk Herds

The kailiauk in question, incidentally, is the kailiauk of the Barrens. It is a gigantic, dangerous beast, often standing from twenty to twenty- five hands at the shoulder and weighing as much as four thousand pounds. It is almost never hunted on foot except in deep snow, in which it is almost helpless. From kaiilaback, riding beside the stampeded animal, however, the skilled hunter can kill one with a- single arrow. He rides close to the animal, not a yard from its side, just outside the hooking range of the trident, to supplement the striking power of his small bow. At this range the arrow can sink in to the feathers. Ideally it strikes into the intestinal cavity behind the last rib, producing large-scale internal hemorrhaging he closely behind the left shoulder blade, thence piercing the eight-valved heart.
Savages of Gor, 40

The kailiauk bull is 'Tatanka. The suffix 'sa' designates the color red, as in 'Mazasa', 'Red Metal', 'Copper. The expression 'Kailiauk' is used by most of the tribes for the kailiauk, which is not an animal native to Earth. The expression 'Pte' designates the kailiauk female, or kailiauk cow. It is also used, colloquially, interestingly, for tire kailiauk in general. This is perhaps because the "Pte" is regarded, in a sense, as the mother of the tribes. It is she, in the final analysis, which makes possible their hunting, nomadic life. Like any similar peoples, the red savages have generally a great reverence and affection for the animals in their environment. This is particularly true of the animals on which they depend for their food. The useless or meaningless slaughter of such would be unthinkable.

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 traversed by a large number of herds. The four or five best-known herds, such as the Boswell herd, he for whom the Boswell Pass is named, and the Bento herd and the Hogarthe herd, named after the first white men 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, are many smaller herds, the very numbers of which are not even calculated by the red savages themselves,  herds often range from a few hundred to several thousand animals.

It is speculated that some of these smaller herds may be subherds of larger herds, separating from the major herd at certain points during the season, depending on such  conditions as forage and water. If that is the case then the number of kailiauk may not be quite as large as it is sometimes estimated. On the other hand, that their numbers are incredibly abundant is indubitable. These herds, too, interestingly enough, appear to have  their annual grazing patterns, usually describing a gigantic oval, seasonally influenced, which covers many thousands of pasangs. These peregrinations, as would be expected, tend to take a herd in and out of the territory of given tribes at given times. The same herd,     thus, may be hunted by various tribes without necessitating dangerous departures from their own countries.

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 it is 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 seasons as to drift with them, the ovoid grazing patterns tending to bend northward in the summer and southward in the winter. The smell of the hide sheds, incidentally, gives a very special aroma to the atmosphere of Kailiauk. After one has been there for a few hours, however, the  odor of the hides, now familiar and pervasive, tends to be dismissed from consciousness.
Savages of Gor

I looked beyond Hci to the beasts, some two to three pasangs away. The kailiauk is a large, lumbering, shaggy, trident-horned ruminant. It has four stomachs and an eight-valved heart. It is dangerous, gregarious, small-eyed and short-tempered. Adult males can stand as high as twenty or twenty-five hands at the shoulder and weigh as much as four thousand pounds.
Blood Brothers of Gor,10

A Smooth Horns is a young, prime bull. Its horns are not yet cracked from fighting and age. The smoothness of the horns, incidentally, is not a purely natural phenomenon. The bulls polish, them, themselves, rubbing them against sloping banks and trees. Sometimes they will even paw down earth from the upper tides of washouts and then use the harder, exposed material beneath, dust scattering about, as a polishing surface. This polishing apparently has the functions of both cleaning and sharpening the horns, two processes useful in intraspecific aggression, the latter process improving their capacity as fighting instruments, in slashing and goring, and the former process tending to reduce the amount of infection in a herd resulting from such combats. Polishing behavior in males thus appears to be selected for. It has consequences, at any rate, which seem to be in the best interests of the kailiauk as a species.
Blood Brothers of Gor, 63


  The Red Savages

For more on the Red Savages, follow the link below or the official Kaiila Band of the Isbu page on the Links page of this site.

The Red Savages, as they are commonly called on Gor, are racially and culturally distinct from the Red Hunters of the north. They tend to be a more slender, longer-limbed people; their daughters menstruate earlier; and their babies are not born with a blue spot at the base of the spine, as in the case with most of the red hunters. Their culture tends to be nomadic, and is based on the herbivorous, lofty kaiila, substantially the same animal as is found in the Tahari, save for the wider footpads of the Tahari beast, suitable for negotiating deep sand, and the lumbering, gregarious, short-tempered, trident-homed kailiauk. To be sure, some tribes do not have the kaiila, never having mastered it, and certain tribes have mastered the tam, which tribes are the most dangerous of all.