Free Women Quotes


Although Nomads of Gor offers a less than complete—or overly flattering—image of life for Tuchuk free women, we are nevertheless offered fascinating glimpses of facets and functions unique to Wagon culture—Not the least of which are the lovely golden nose ring and the ability to bear arms in the defense of one’s home.

“…the women of the Wagon Peoples, incidentally, keep a calendar based on the phases of Gor's largest moon, but this is a calendar of fifteen moons, named for the fifteen varieties of bosk, and functions independently of the tallying of years by snows; for example, the Moon of the Brown Bosk may at one time occur in the winter, at another time, years later, in the summer; this calendar is kept by a set of colored pegs set in the sides of some wagons, on one of which, depending on the moon, a round, wooden plate bearing the image of a bosk is fixed.”—Nomads, 12


“Tuchuk women, unveiled, in their long leather dresses, long hair bound in braids, tended cooking pots hung on tem-wood tri-pods over dung fires. These women were unscarred, but like the bosk themselves, each wore a nose ring. That of the animals is heavy and of gold, that of the women also of gold but tiny and fine, not unlike the wedding rings of my old world."—Nomads, 27


“…the women of the Wagon Peoples, it might be mentioned, are not permitted to pray; many of them, however, do patronize the haruspexes, who, besides foretelling the future with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy for generally reasonable fees, provide an incredible assemblage of amulets, talismans, trinkets, philters, potions, spell papers, wonder-working sleen teeth, marvelous powdered kailiauk horns, and colored, magic strings that, depending on the purpose, may be knotted in various ways and worn about the neck.”—Nomads, 28


“I saw several girls, here and there, clad Kajir; they were magnificent; they walked with the true brazen insolence of the slave girl, the wench who knows she is owned, whom men have found beautiful enough, and exciting enough, to collar. The dour women of the Wagon Peoples, I saw, looked on these girls with envy and hatred, sometimes striking them with sticks if they should approach too closely to the cooking pots and attempt to steal a piece of meat.
“’I will tell your master!’ screamed one.”—Nomads, 30


“There was a sudden thud of a kaiila’s paws on the grass between the wagons and a wild snorting squeal.
“I jumped back avoiding the paws of the enraged, rearing animal.
“’Stand aside, you fool!’ cried a girl’s voice, and to my astonishment, astride the saddle of the monster, I espied a girl, young, astonishingly beautiful, vital, angry, pulling at the control straps of the animal.

"She was not as the other women of the Wagon Peoples I had seen, the dour, thin women with braided hair, bending over the cooking pots. She wore a brief leather skirt, slit on the right side to allow her the saddle of the kaiila; her leather blouse was sleeveless; attached to her shoulders was a crimson cape; and her wild black hair was bound back by a band of scarlet cloth. Like the other women of the Wagons she wore no veil and, like them, fixed in her nose was the tiny, fine ring that proclaimed her people.
“Her skin was a light brown and her eyes a charged, sparkling black.
“’What fool is this!’ she demanded of Kamchak.
“’No fool,’ said Kamchak, ‘but Tarl Cabot, a warrior, one who has held in his hands with me grass and earth.’
“’He is a stranger,’ she said. ‘He should be slain!’
“Kamchak grinned up at her. ‘He has held with me grass and earth,’ he said.
“The girl gave a snort of contempt and kicked her small, spurred heels into the flanks of the kaiila and bounded away.
“Kamchak laughed. ‘She is Hareena, a wench of the First Wagon,’ he said.
“’Tell me of her,’ I said.
“’What is there to tell?’ asked Kamchak.
“’What does it mean to be of the First Wagon?’ I asked.
“Kamchak laughed. ‘You know little of the Wagon Peoples’ he said.
“’That is true,’ I admitted.
“’To be of the First Wagon,' said Kamchak, ‘is to be of the household of Kutaituchik…There are a hundred wagons in the personal household of Kutaituchik…To be of any of these wagons is to be of the First Wagon.’’
“'I see,’ I said. ‘And the girl—she on the kaiila—is perhaps the daughter of Kutaituchik, Ubar of the Tuchuks?’
“’No,’ said Kamchak, ‘she is unrelated to him, as are most in the First Wagon.’
"'...She seemed much different than the other Tuchuk women,' I said.
“Kamchak laughed, the colored scars wrinkling on his broad face, 'Of course,' said Kamchak, she has been raised to be a fit prize in the games of Love War.’"-- Nomads of Gor pg. 31-33

“…also, too, a wagon is often guided by a woman or boy who walks beside the lead animals with a sharp stick.”—Nomads, 31

“Kamchak picked up the clothing which lay near her on the grass. He took also the shoes. He wadded it all together in a soiled bundle. He threw it to a nearby woman. ‘Burn it,’ said Kamchak.
“The girl watched helplessly as the woman carried the clothing, all she had of her old world, to a cooking fire some yards away, near the edge of the wagons.
“The crowd had opened a passage for the woman and the girl saw the clothing cast on the open fire.”—Nomads, 38

"...free women, incidentally, among the Wagon Peoples are not permitted to wear silk; it is claimed by those of the Wagons, delightfully I think, that any women who loves the feel of silk on her body is, in the secrecy of her heart and blood , a slave girl, whether or not some Master has yet forced her to don the collar."—Nomads, 58

“… 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.”--Nomads of Gor, 63

“At last she had finished the garment, and Kamchak unchained her that she might rise and put in on.
“Not surprisingly, but to my amusement, I noted that it hung several inches below her knees, indeed, only about four inches or so above her ankles. Kamchak took one look and, with a quiva, shortened it considerably…
“’But it was the length of the leather dresses of the Tuchuk women,’ Elizabeth had dared to protest.
“I translated.
“’But you are a slave,’ had said Kamchak.”—Nomads, 64

“She, and others like her, had been encouraged and spoiled from childhood in all their whims, unlike most other Tuchuk women, that they might be fit prizes, Kamchak had told me, in the games of Love War. Turian warriors, he told me, enjoy such women, the wild girls of the Wagons. 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.”—Nomads, 67.

"Aphris of Turia, pleased with herself, assumed her place between the merchant and Kamchak, kneeling back on her heels in the position of the Gorean Free Woman. Her back was very straight and her head high, in the Gorean fashion."-- Nomads of Gor, 94

“The games of Love War, in themselves, do not constitute a gathering of the Wagon Peoples, for normally the herds and the free women of the peoples do not approach one another at these times; only certain delegations of warriors, usually about two hundred from a people, are sent in the spring to the Plains of a Thousand Stakes.”—Nomads, 115-116

“When the bosk horns sound the women cover the fires and prepare the men’s weapons, bringing forth arrows and bows, and lances. The quivas are always in the saddle sheaths. The bosk are hitched up and the slaves, who might otherwise take advantage of the tumult, are chained.
“Then the women climb to the top of the high sides on the wagons and watch the war lanterns in the distance, reading them as well as the men. Seeing if the wagons must move, and in what direction.
”I heard a child screaming its disgust at being thrown in the wagon.”—Nomads, 175-6


“Shortly after dawn we discovered the Paravaci forming in their Thousand away from the herd, repairing to strike the wagons from the north, slaying all living things they might encounter, save women, slave or free. The latter would be driven in front of the warriors through the wagons, both slave girls and free women stripped and bound together in groups, providing shields against arrows and lance charges on kaiilaback for the men advancing behind them.”—Nomads, 261

“Some of the rear flanks actually climbed fallen and struggling comrades and leaped over the wagons to the other side, where they were cut down by archers and dragged from their kaiila to be flung under the knives of free Tuchuk women.”—Nomads, 262

“Free women, and even some Turian slave girls, went to and fro, bringing water, and, here and there, where there was point in it, binding wounds"--Nomads, 263

“She was looking at herself in the mirror, holding her head this way and that. I was amused. She was seeing how the nose ring might be displayed to most advantage. Then she began to comb her long dark hair, kneeling very straight as would a Gorean girl. Kamchak had never permitted her to cut her hair. Now that she was free I supposed she would soon shorten it.”—Nomads, 288

“’There is no freer nor higher nor more beautiful woman,’ I said, ‘than the Gorean Free Companion. Compare her with the average wife of Earth.’
“’The Tuchuk women,’ said Elizabeth, ‘Have a miserable lot.’
“’Few of them,’ I said, ‘Would be regarded in the cities as a Free Companion.’—Nomads, 290

Although these next quotes are not taken from Nomads, they do offer insight into the often harsh realities and laws imposed upon free women. The following passages can apply to all free women, whether of the Wagons or of the high-walled, many-towered cities Nomads scorn and despise.

"This harsh treatment, incidentally, when she is thought to deserve it, may even be inflicted on a free companion, in spite of the fact that she is free and usually much loved. According to the Gorean way of looking at things a taste of the slave ring is thought to be occasionally beneficial to all women, even the exalted free woman. Thus when she has been irritable or otherwise troublesome even a Free Companion may find herself at the foot of the couch looking forward to a pleasant night on the stones, stripped, with neither mat nor blanket, chained to the slave ring precisely as though she were a lowly slave girl. It is the Gorean way of reminding her, should she need to be reminded, that she, too, is a woman, and thus to be dominated, to be subject to men. Should she be tempted to forget this basic fact of Gorean life the slave ring set in the bottom of each Gorean couch is there to refresh her memory. Gor is a man’s world."—Priest-Kings, 67

“Elizabeth, besides speaking boldly out on a large number of delicate civic, social and political issues, usually not regarded as the Province of the fairer sex, categorically refused to wear the cumbersome Robes of Concealment traditionally expected of the free woman. She still wore the brief, exciting leather of a Tuchuk wagon girl and, when striding the high bridges, her hair in the wind, she attracted much attention, not only, obviously, from the men, but from women, both slave and free.”—Assassin, 74

"It is slaves who are assessed and have prices. Free women are priceless.”—Kajira, 97

"Goreans, in their simplistic fashion, often contend, categorically, that man is naturally free and woman is naturally slave. But even for them the issues are far more complex than these simple formulations would suggest. For example, there is no higher person, nor one more respected, than the Gorean free woman. Goreans do believe, however, that every woman has a natural master or set of masters, with respect to whom she could not help but be a complete and passionate slave girl. These men occur in her dreams and fantasies. She lives in terror that she might meet one in real life.”-- Hunters of Gor, 311

“Only slave girls, on Gor, reveal their navels.”—Explorers, 334

“The men, save I, rose as one to their feet, for Gorean men commonly stand when a free woman enters a room.”—Guardsman, 255

“Some Goreans think of the Free Companionship as being a form of contract slavery; this is not, of course, precisely correct; on the other hand, if more women took that definition seriously, I have little doubt but what free companionships would be far more rewarding than they now are, for many couples. They might then, under that interpretation, and held contractually enforceable on the woman, be that next best thing to her actual slavery.”--Blood Brothers, 246

“I inclined my head, ‘Lady,’ said I, acknowledging the introduction. To a free woman considerable deference is due, particularly to one such as the Lady Rowena, one obviously, at least hitherto, of high station.”—Players, 12

"’I am a free woman,’ she said. ‘How can you, a free man, deny me anything I want?’
"’Easily,’ I said.
“She looked at me, angrily.
‘"Many free women believe they can have anything they want, merely by asking for it, or demanding it,’ I said, ‘but now you see that that is not true, at least not in a world where there are true men.’ “—Players, 119

"If and when a free woman should utter this, in the Gorean culture, of course, this sort of thing is very significant. Indeed, in some cities such things as kneeling before a man, or addressing him as 'Master' effects legal imbondment on the female, being interpreted as a gesture of submission." Players, 139

"’Beware your words,’ I cautioned her.
"’I am a free woman,’ she said. ‘I can speak as I please.’
“I could not gainsay her in this. She was free. She could, accordingly, say what she wished, and without requiring permission.”—Mercenaries, 7

"'You were not struck for such and absurd reason,' I said, 'You are, after all a free woman, and free women are entitled to insult, and attempt to demean and destroy men. It is one of their freedoms, unless men, of course, should decide to take it from them. You were struck rather, because you were attempting to manipulate me.' She nodded, putting her head down." - Mercenaries, 422

"Only a true slave begs to be free; that act brands a woman uncontrovertibly as a slave." –Tribesmen,350

"The principle he had alluded to pertains to conduct in a free woman which is taken as sufficient to warrant her reduction to slavery. The most common application of this principle occurs in areas such as fraud or theft. Other applications may occur, for example, in cases of indigence and vagrancy. Prostitution, rare on Gor because of female slaves, is another case. The women are taken, enslaved, cleaned up and controlled. Indulgence in sensual dance is another case. Sensuous dance is almost always performed by slaves on Gor. A free woman who performs such dancing publicly is almost begging for the collar. In some cities the sentence of bondage is mandatory for such a woman." -- Renegades, 372

"Any free woman who couches with another's slave or readies for such, becomes, by law, herself a slave and the property of said slaves owner."—Magicians, 7

 

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