Some quotes on the Scar Codes
"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 congenital, and bespoke
not of natural innocence of the work of genes but of
glories, and status, the arrogance the prides, of their
bearers. The scars had been worked into the faces, with
needles and knives and pigments and the dung of bosk over
the period of days and nights. Men had died in the fixing
of such scars. Most 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
ceremonially 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
discarded or forgotten purpose of the Priest Kings; but
now I knew better; now I could see them as men; as now
more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered
of once before, in a tavern of Ar, the terrible Scar
Codes of the Wagon Peoples, for each of the hideous marks
on the face of these men had 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."
From Nomads of Gor pg.
15-16
"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."
From Nomads of Gor, pg
113
"To
a Tuchuk," said Harold, "success is courage -
that is the important thing- courage itself - even if all
else fails - that is success."
From Nomads of Gor, pg
273
A
young man, blondish-haired with blue eyes, unscarred,
bumped against the girl's stirrup in the press of the
crowd. She struck him twice with the leather quirt in her
hand, sharply, viciously. I could see blood on the side
of his neck, where it joins the shoulder.
"Slave!" she hissed. He looked up angrily.
"I am not a slave," he said. "I am
Tuchuk." "Turian slave!" she laughed
scornfully. "Beneath your furs you wear, I wager,
the Kes!" "I am Tuchuk," he responded,
looking angrily away. Kamchak had told me of the young
man. Among the wagons he was nothing. He did what work he
could, helping with the bask, for a piece of meat from a
cooking pot .........................
He did not have his own wagon or his own bosk. He did not
even own a kaiila. He had armed himself with castoff
weapons, with which he practiced in solitude. None of
those, however, who led raids on enemy caravans or
sorties against the city and its outlying fields, or
retaliated upon their neighbors in the delicate matters
of bask stealing, would accept him in their parties. 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.
From Nomads of Gor, pg
??
"You
are a coward!" cried Kamras. I wondered if Kamras
knew the meaning of the word which he had dared to
address to one who wore the Courage Scar of the Wagon
Peoples.
From Nomads of Gor, pg.
??
"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
returning on a stolen tarn."
"Undoubtedly," I grumbled. I found myself
wondering if the Tuchuks had an Idiocy Scar. If so, I
might have nominated the young man hoisting himself up
the rope above me as a candidate for the distinction.
From Nomads of Gor, pg
??
"And
while you are remembering things," remarked Harold,
'you might recollect that we two together won the Courage
Scar in Turia."
"No," I said, "I will not forget that
either."
From Nomads of Gor, pg.
340
