Scar Codes
Tidbits
The Scars of the Wagon People..
afixed by those that are from the Clan of Scarers..
this Clan is found only amongst those OF the Wagon People, for none other would have use of them..
this is another area that many feel the.. 'need' to embellish upon..
there are many v/t Goreans that claim to be of/from the Wagon Peoples, yet.. they feel, and find the need to add different colors of scars than those described within the books..
in the books of Gor that were written by John Norman, he DOES tell the shape of the scars..
~chevrons~
he does tell that the scars were done mostly in pairs..
he does list the colors..
red, yellow, blue, black..
he DOES say that the red was for Courage..
and that it must FIRST be obtained before any others..
NEVER.. not ANYWHERE.. does he expound upon the details or reasons/ways that the other scars were earned..
yes.. EARNED..
the scars were NOT just randomly given out to just anyone
it was considered a prestigious honor to be scarred
the Free Males of all four of the Wagon People Tribes proudly wore and displayed their scars..
even the black skinned Kataii proudly bore the scars..
in Nomads of Gor, Tarl Cabot remarks that at first, he was even unsure if these men were in fact MEN.. and not aliens..
going as far as to describe them as resembling a mandrill..
a mandrill, for those that are unsure:
a mandrill is a baboon of west Africa with red and blue markings upon their muzzle and hindquarters
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 genetic. They
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 ceremo-
nially 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, page 16
"..from the distant, treeless plains of the south, though I did not know him; it was not by the epicanthic fold that I recognized him; it was by the courage scars, high on his angular cheekbones." Hunters of Gor,pgs 41-42
"He had, to their satisfaction, demonstrated his prowess with
weapons, but they would laugh at him. "You do not even
own a kaiila," they would say. "You do not even wear the
Courage Scar." I supposed that the young man would never
be likely to wear the scar, without which, among the stern,
cruel Tuchuks, he would be the continuous object of scorn,
ridicule and contempt."Nomads of Gor, Page 68
"Without the Courage Scar one may not, among the Tuchuks, pay court to a free woman, own a wagon, or own more than five bosk and three kaiila. The Courage Scar thus has its social and economic, as well as its martial, import."Nomads of Gor, pg 113
"It should be worth the Courage Scar," said Harold from
above, "don't you think so?"
"What?" I asked.
"Stealing a wench from the House of Saphrar and return-
ing on a stolen tarn."
"Undoubtedly," I grumbled. I found myself wondering if
the Tuchuks had an Idiocy Scar. If so, I might have nomi-
nated the young man hoisting himself up the rope above me
as a candidate for the distinction. Nomads of Gor
"That in entering Turia and escaping as we
did even bringing tarns to the camp we the two of us
won the Courage Scar."
I was silent. Then I looked at him. "But," I said, "you do
not wear the scar."
"It would have been rather difficult to get near the gates
of Turia for a fellow wearing the Courage Scar, would it
not?"
"Indeed it would," I laughed.
"When I have time," said Harold, "I will call one from the
clan of Scarrers and have the scar affixed. It will make me
look even more handsome." Nomads of Gor
