In the center of the camp a great circular brush lodge had been erected. Its high walls, some forty feet in height, built on poles, from platforms, and ceilinged with poles and branches, enclosed a dancing space, cleared, circular and packed down, of about fifty feet in diameter. In the center of this space was the pole which had been fromed, some days ago, from the tree which Winyela had felled. Fixed in the earth, buried to a depth of about seven or eight feet, and supported, too, with a circle of heavy stakes, to which it was bound, it was about twenty-two feet in height. Two forks had been left on the pole, one about ten feet from the ground and one about fifteen feet from the ground. In the lower fork, rolled in a bundle, were the jewelry and clothes Winyela had worn when she had cut down the tree. From the higher fork dangled two leather representations, one of a Kailiauk and the other of a male, with an exaggerated phallus. These representations were doubtless intended to be significant in the symbolism and medicine of the dance. This dance, to the red savage, is holy. It is sacred to him. It is a mystery medicine. I shall not, therefore, attempt to reduce it to simple terms or translate it into simplistic consepts. It does have to do, however, at least, obviously, with such things as luck, hunting and manhood.
"I am happy for you, Cuwignaka," I said.
"I have waited for years to enter the dance lodge," he said. "It will be one of the great things in my life."
"I am happy for you," I said.
Chapter 12
I UTILIZE THE ENTITLEMENTS OF THE BEADED QUIRT
"What do you want?" cried the boy, reining in his kaiila but feet before me. His words had a sibilant, explosive quality. This is a general characteristic of many of the languages of the red savages. It is even more pronounced, of course, when the speaker is excited or in an emotional state.
"Greetings, young man," I said, calmly. "You are Isanna, are you not?"
"I am Isanna," said the youth. "Who are you?" Another two lads, on kaiila, now approached me, remaining, however, some yards away.
"I am Tatankasa, a slave of Canka, of the Isbu," I said.
"He is a great warrior," said the youth, impressed.
"That is my understanding," I said.
"What are you doing here?" asked the youth.
"A man hunger is on me," I said.
"You should have a beaded quirt," said the youth.
"He is the slave of Canka," said another. "Let us not require the quirt."
"Behold," I smiled. I unwrapped the object which I carried.
"A beaded quirt," said the first youth, pleased.
"Yes," I said. About my left shoulder, in five or six narrow coils, there was a rope of braided rawhide. It was a light rope but it was more than sufficient for the sort of animal in which I was interested.
"You should have said you had the quirt," said the youth. Then he said to the two others, "Round them up!"
They raced away, through the grass.
"Follow me," said the first youth, and then turned his kaiila, and led the way from the place. These youth were naked save for the breechclout and moccasins. They carried ropes and whips.
In a few moments we had surmounted a small rise, and I was looking down into a wide, shallow, saucerlike valley, some half a pasang in width. "Hei! Hei!" cried the boys, in the distance, bringing together the members of the herd. Their ropes swung. Their whips cracked. Then the herd was together, well grouped by its young drovers. It now occupied, its members bunched and crowded closely together, a small, tight circle. It was now, in effect, a small, relatively fixed, directionless, milling mass. In such a grouping it may be easily controlled and managed. In such a grouping it has no purpose of its own. In such a grouping it must wait to see what is to be done with it. It must wait to see in what direction it will be driven.
"Hei! Hei!" called the young drovers, kicking their heels back into the flanks of their kaiila, waving their ropes, cracking their whips.
The herd now, the young drovers on either side of it, and slightly behind it, began to move in my direction.
"Hei! Hei!" cried the young drovers, ropes swinging, whips cracking. The herd then began to run towards me. I could see the dust raised. Lagging beasts were incited to new speeds, treated to the admonishments of hissing leather, falling across their backs, flanks and rumps. Then one of the lads sped his kaiila about the herd, heading it off and turning it. He had done this expertly. Not more than a few yards away, below me, below where I stood on the small rise, the herd was again in a small tight circle, turned in on itself, purposeless, milling, stationary.
"You boys drive them well," I said.
"Thank you," said the young man on the kaiila, with whom I had been waiting. "We practice it, of course. If danger should threaten we wish to be able to move them quickly into the vicinity of the camp."
"It is the same with kaiila," said another lad.
I nodded. These lads, and lads like them, were set to watch the herds, not to defend them. At the first sign of danger, such as the apperance of an enemy party, they were to bring the herds back to the village, sending one lad ahead to sound the alarm. Under no circumstances were they to engage the enemy. Red savages do not set boys to fight men. Too, the lads were in little danger. It would be very difficult for a mounted warrior, even if he wished to do so, to overtake a boy, lighter in weight than he, on a rested kaiila, by the time the lad could reach the lodges, usually no more than two or three pasangs away.
"It is a fine herd," I said. It was the third wuch herd I had looked at this morning.
"We think so," said the first lad, proudly. "There is one with nice flanks," he said, indicating a brunet with his whip."
"Yes," I said.
The girl, frightened, seeing our eyes upon her, tried to slip back, unobtrusively, among her fellow lovely beasts.
"I have used her myself," said the first lad. "Do you wish to have us cut her out of the herd for you?"
"No," I said.
"There is a pretty one," said another lad, "the one with brown hair and the little turned up nose."
"She is pretty," I said. "What is her name?"
The lads laughed. "These are herd girls," said one of them. "They have no names."
"How many are here?" I asked. I had not bothered to count.
"Seventy-three," said the first lad. "This is the larges of the Isanna girl herds."
"And the best," added another lad.
"They seem quiet," I said.
"In the herds they are not permitted human speech," said one of the boys.
"No more than she-kaiila," laughed another.
"They may, however," said the first, "indicate their needs by such things as moans and whimpers."
"This helps in their control," said another lad, "and helps them to keep in mind that they are only beasts."
"Do you drive them sometimes to water?" I asked.
"Of course," said one of the lads.
"We feed them on their knees," said another lad.
"They supplement their diets by picking berries and digging wild turnips," said the first lad.
"We make them chew carefully and watch closely to see that they swallow, bit by bit, in small swallows, sip roots, as well," said another.
"We then examine their mouths, forcing them widely open, to determine that they have finished their entire allotment of the root," said another.
I nodded. Sip roots are extremely bitter. Slave wine, incidentally, is made from sip roots. The slaves of the red savages, like slaves generally on Gor, would be crossed and bred only as, and precisely as, their masters might choose.
"Do you often have strays?" I asked.
"No," laughed a lad, slapping his whip meaningfully into his palm.
"At night," said another lad, "to make it hairder to steal them, we put them in twist hobbles and tie them together by the neck, in strings, thier hands tied behind their backs. These strings are then picketed near the village."