The Tuchuks do not extend worship to the Priest Kings in the same way most Goreans do, they do however hold many things holy the most important being the sky among other things such as the bosk and the skills of arms. Their belief is the sky with its rain formed the earth, the bosk and the Tuchuks. The proud Tuchuks pray to the sky, always mounted with weapons at hand and they approach not as a slave to a master but as a warrior would an Ubar.
The women of the wagons are not permitted to pray.
The Wagon People hold much consideration for the future and its signs although will claim otherwise, omen readings were commonly performed by haruspexes for a fee. In the past all tribes of the Peoples sacrificed slaves for readings though now only the Paravaci use this method. It is now thought the hearts and livers of slaves are untrustworthy for judging omens.
The haruspex is somewhat akin to a shaman, and besides reading omens they also supply the People with various items such as the popular magic strings that are bright and colourful and can be knotted in various ways depending on the users purpose and worn about the neck. They also sell many amulets, talismans, potions and various other trinkets. The women of the wagons do patronize the haruspexes.
REF: Nomads of Gor 27 28
�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.�
Calendar
The Wagon People use two calendars, the first which is kept by men, is divided into seasons not days and is calibrated from one Season of Snows to the next.
The second calendar is independant of the first and is kept by free women. This calendar follows the cycle of Gor's largest moon. It is divided into fifteen months, each named after a variety of bosk. Each month is represented by coloured pegs that are fixed to the sides of various wagons, a disc displaying the image of a bosk is placed over the pegs in various positions depending on what moon it is.
If you are reading this and it doesnt reside on the seven quivas site it has been stolen without permission and those who copy and paste dont often read what they steal in full. You can bet they will feel like an ass when you mention this to them though.
The Wagon People don't number their years, rather they name them towards the end after something signifigant that defines the year past. These names are kept within the memories of the Year Keepers, some who can recall the names of thousands of consecutive years. The majority of the Wagon People are illiterate, hence they have excellent memories. The People do not trust important matters to paper and parchment which can be destroyed easily. Those who can read have been trained elsewhere, away from the wagons though this is not common. Their histories are shared from one generation to the next through the Camp Singers and their extensive oral literature.
"The Moon of the Brown Bosk may at one time occur in the winter; at another time, years later, in the summer."
REF: Nomads of Gor 11 12
Beasts of the Plains - Quotes
Kaiila -
The kaiila of the south is unknown in the northern hemisphere of Gor. It is described as being mammalian, silken and lofty, carnivorous and longnecked the young are born vicious and by instinct hunt as soon as they get to their feet. The kaiila is agile and can easily out maneuver slower animals and it is possible for the kaiila to travel up to 600 pasangs in a day. They normally stand around 20 to 22 hands at the shoulder and their eyes have triple lids, assumed to be an adaptation to the climate and enviroment one set of these lids is transparent which allows the kaiila to move during storm and winds that often force other animals to ground. They are trained to evade the spear and are not used for breeding until this skill is accomplished, if they can not learn they are killed.
"The kaiila of these men were as tawny as the brown grass of the prairie, save for that of the man who faced me, whose mount was a silken, sable black..."
"The kaiila and its master fight in battle as one unit, seemingly a single savage animal, armed with teeth and lance."
Kailiauk -
"Even past me thundered a lumbering herd of startled, short-trunked kailiauk, a stocky, awkward ruminant of the plains, tawny, wild, heavy, their haunches marked in red and brown bars, their wide heads bristling with a trident of horns; they had not stood and formed their circle, she�s and young within the circle of tridents"
Prairie sleen
"I saw a pair of prairie sleen, smaller than the forest sleen but quite as unpredictable and vicious, each about seven feet in length, furred, six-legged mammalian, moving in their undulating gait, with their viper's heads moving from side to side continually testing the winds"
"As we passed among the wagons I leaped back as a tawny prairie sleen hurled itself against the bars of a sleen cage, reaching out for me with its sicx-clawed paw. There were four other prairie sleen in the cage, a small cage, and they were curling and moving about one another, restlessly, like angry snakes. They would be released with the fan of darkness to rum the periphery of the herds, acting, as I have mentioned, as shepherds and sentinels."
Rennels
"I was told by Kamchak that once an army of a thousand wagons turned aside because a swarm of rennels, poisonous, crablike desert insects, did not defend its broken nest, crushed by the wheel of the lead wagon."
Tumit
"beyond them I saw one of the Tumits, a large flightless bird whose hooked beak, as long as my forearm, attested only too clearly to its gustatory habits. I lifted my sheild and grasped the long spear, but it did not turn in my direction, it passed unaware.
Urt
"The urt is a loathsome, horned Gorean rodent; some are quite large, the size of wolves or ponies, but most are very small, tiny enough to be held in the palm of one hand."
Domestic Verr
"I passed fields that were burning, and burning huts of peasants, the smoking shells of Sa-Tarna granaries, the shattered, slatted coops for vulos, the broken walls of keeps for the small, long-haired domestic verr, less belligerent and sizable than the wild verr of the Voltai ranges."
Vulo
"She was a peasant, barefoot, her garment little more than coarse sacking. She had been carrying a wicker basket containing vulos, domesticated pigeons raised for eggs and meat."
REF: Nomads of Gor 2 10 13 14 27 28 125 138
Miscellaneous Passages of Interest
Piercing
"In his hand he held something which looked like a pair of pliers, except that the claws were extremely slender, and bent in such a way as to touch one another, at the tips scarcely more than a needle's width....I felt the back of the claws of the punch enter my nostrils, distending them. There was a tiny, sharp click. Tears burst into my eyes. I felt acute pain for an instant, and then a prolonged, burning, stinging sensation....I saw the leather worker approaching my face with a tiny, steel ring, partly opened, and a pair of pliers. As I was held he inserted the ring in my nose. It was painful. Then, with the pliers, he closed the ring, and turned it, so that its opening, where the closed edges met, was concealed within, at the side of the septum."
REF: Captive of Gor page 163 165
Ear Piercing
"Tuchuks," I remarked, "regard the piercing of ears as a barbarous custom inflicted on their slave girls by Turians." Elizabeth looked up, the tiny ring glinting in the light of the fire bowl
"Are your ears pierced?" I asked.
"No," she said, "but many of my friends on Earth who owned fine earrings, had their ears pierced."
"Did that seem so dreadful to you?" I asked. "No," she said, smiling.
"It would to Tuchuks," I said. "They do not even inflict that on their Turian slaves." I added, "And it is one of the great fears of a Tuchuk girl that, should she fall into Turian hands, it will be done to her."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 281
Grass and Earth
An unbreakable bond of brotherhood welcoming a stranger into the folds of the Wagon People.
Suddenly the Tuchuk bent to the soil and picked up a handful of dirt and grass, the land on which the bosk graze, the land which is the land of the Tuchuks, and this dirt and grass he thrust in my hands and I held it. The warrior grinned and put his hands over mine so that our hands together held the dirt and the grass, and were together clasped on it.
"Yes," said the warrior, "come in peace to the Land of the Wagon Peoples."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 26
Commissary Wagons
"together we had eaten some dried bosk meat and drank water, from one of the commissary wagons attached to one of Hundreds in the city. As commanders we could eat where we chose."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 307
Public Slave Wagons
"Among the wagons...the masters of the public slave wagons...buy, sell, and rent girls, providing warriors and slavers with a sort of clearing house and market for the feminine merchandise. The public slave wagons, incidentally, also provide Paga. They are a kind of combination Paga tavern and slave market. I know of nothing else precisely like them on Gor."
"Already a large, curtained enclosure had been set up near the slave wagon. For a fee, the proprietor of the wagon would permit visitors. These arrangements irritated me somewhat, for customarily, the chain dance, the whip dance, the love dance of the newly collared slave girl, the brand dance, and so on, are performed openly by firelight in the evening, for the delight of any who care to watch....I gathered that the little wench from Port Kar must be superb."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 118 147
The Gorean Female
"The Gorean girl is, even if free, accustomed to slavery; she will perhaps own one or more slaves herself; she knows that she is weaker than men and what this can mean; she knows that cities fall and caravans are plundered; she knows she might even, by a sufficiently bold warrior, be captured in her own quarters and, bound and hooded, be carried on tarnback over the walls of her own city. Moreover, even if she is never enslaved, she is familiar with the duties of slaves and what is expected of them; if she should be enslaved she will know, on the whole, what is expected of her, what is permitted her and what is not; moreover, the Gorean girl is literally educated, fortunately or not, to the notion that it is of great importance to know how to please men; accordingly, even girls who will be free companions, and never slaves, learn the preparation and serving of exotic dishes, the arts of walking, and standing and being beautiful, the care of a man�s equipment, the love dances of their city, and so on."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 63
Blue Sky Song
"Some of the Tuchuks began to sing the Blue Sky Song, the refrain of which is that though I die, yet there will be the bosk, the grass and sky."
REF: Nomads of Gor page 263
Zedojehn 2002
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