World of Gor

I was not particularly surprised at finding a bit of rep-cloth tied on the rence plant, for the delta is inhabited. Man has not surrendered it entirely to the tharlarion, the UI and the salt leach. There are scattered, almost invisible, furtive communites of rence growers who eke out their livelihood in the delta, nominally under the surzerainty of Port Kar. The cloth I found had probably been a trail mark for some rence growers.
---Raiders of Gor, p 6

Deep in the marshes of the Vosk's Delta, hidden by the designs and trappings of vines and the predators that fill its waters, thrives a community of what the rest of Gor sometimes refers to as the 'Highest of Peasants'; Rencers, their lives intricately woven to the rushes they harvest and rely on for survival.

They live on islands built of the same plant they use for most everything, giant boat houses made in intertwined plants and trees. Their land and homes are set deep into the intricate marshes that snake for pasangs through the Vosk's delta.

No one had been found who would guide me into the delta of the Vosk. The bargemen of the Vosk will not take their wide, broad-bottomed craft into the delta. The channels of the Vosk, to be sure, shift from season to season, and the delta is often little more than a trackless marsh, literally hundreds of square pasangs of estuarial wilderness. In many places it is too shallow to float even the great flat-bottomed barges and, more importantly, a path for them would have to be cut and chopped, foot by foot, through the thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine.

The most important reason for not finding a p guide, of course, even among the eastern rence growers, is that the delta is claimed by Port Kar, which lies within it, some hundred pasangs from its northwestern edge, bordering on the shallow Tamber Gulf, beyond wich is gleaming Thassa, the Sea.
---Raiders of Gor, p 5-6

Their trade is paper the make from the rence, a plant of a million purposes that grows in the marshes.

RENCE
The plant has many uses besides serving as a raw product in the manufacture of rence paper. The root, which is woody and heavy, is used for certain wooden tools and utensils, which can be carved from it; also, when dried, it makes a good fuel; from the stem the rence growers can make reed boats, sails, mats, cords and the kind of fibrous cloth; further, its pith is edible, and for the rence growers is, with fish, a staple in their diet; the pith is edible both raw and cooked; some men, lost in the delta, not knowing the pith edible, have died of starvation the the midst of what was, had they known it, an almost endless abundance of food. The pith is also used, upon occasion, as a caulking for boat seams, but tow and pitch, covered with tar or grease, are generally used.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 6-7

RENCE PAPER
A kind of paper is made from rence. The plant itself has a long, thick root, about four inches thick, which lies horizontally under the surface of the water; small roots sink downward into the mud from this main root, and several "stems," as many as a dozen, rise from it, often of the length of fifteen to sixteen feet from the root; it has an excrescent, usually single floral spike.

Rence paper is made by slicing the stem into thin, narrow strips; those near the center of the plant are particularyly favored; one layer of strips is placed longitudinally, and then a shorter layer is placed latitudinally across the first layer; these two surfaces are then soaked under water, which releases a gluelike substance from the fibers, melding the two surfaces into a single, rectangular sheet; these formed sheets are then hammered and dried in the sun; roughness in removed by polishing, usually with a smooth shell or a bit of kailiauk horn; the side of a tharlarion tooth may also be used in this work/ The paper is then attacked, sheet to sheet, to form rolls, usually about twenty sheets to a roll. The best paper is on the outside of the roll, always, not to practice deceit in the quality of the roll but rather to have the most durable paper on the outside, which will take the most weathering, handling and genteral wear/ Rence paper comes in various grades, about eight in all. The rence growers market their product either at the eastern or western end of the delta. Sometimes rence merchants, on narrow marsh craft rowed by slaves, enter some pasangs into the delta to negotiate the transactions, usually from the western edge, that bordering the Tamber Gulf. Rence paper is, incidentally, not the only type of writing material used on Gor. A milled linen paper is much used, large quantities of which are produced in Ar, and vellum and parchment, prepared in many cities, are also popular.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 6-7

A little history...

When the reader first encounters the Rencers, it is, for the purposes of consolidating the normal chaos of Gorean chronology, the year 10,119 Contasta Ar, that is, from the founding of Ar. At this time the marshes are still under the power and much at the mercy of Port Kar.

The rence growers, in spite of the value of their product, and the value of the articles taken in exchange for it, and teh protection of the marshes, and the rence and fish which give them ample substenance, do not have an easy life. Not only must they fear the march sharks and the carnivorous eels which frequent the lower delta, not to mention the various species of aggressive water tharlarion and the winged, monstrous, hissing, predatory UI, but they must fear, perhaps most of all, men, and of these, most of all, the men of Port Kar.

As I have mentioned, Port Kar claims the suzerainty of the delta. Accordingly, frequently, bands of armed men, maintaining allegiance to on or the other of the warring, rival Ubars of Port Kar, enter the delta to , as they say, collect tazes. The tributes exacted, when the small communities can be found, are customarily harsh, often whatever of value can be found; typically what is demanded is great stocks of rence paper for trade, sons for oarsmen in cargo galleys, daughters for Pleasure Slaves in the taverns of the city.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 6-7

Rencers as we first encounter them then, lead mostly an isolated life, their contact with others of Gor, highly limited to the taking of wandering souls such as was Tarl Cabot among them. Their world much revolving around the marshes and what it allows them in terms of weapons, food and even cultural rituals. Hunting and fighting was done with marsh spears and throwing sticks, slave girls were unseen, free women worked and lived alongside men, wild marsh gants were domesticated to complete a diet of fish and rence paste, and trade, had more to do with en enslavement of sorts, by those of Port Kar, than it did an independant act.

Instantly there was a great cry from all sides, and, breaking through the rushes and sedge, dozens of rence craft, bound with marsh vine, thrust into view, each poled by one man, with another in the prow, a two- or three-pronged marsh spear uplifted. It was pointless to unsheath my sword, or to take up a weapon. From the safety of the yards of marsh water separating me from my enemies I could have been immediately slain, lost in a thicket of the two- or three-pronged marsh spears.
---Raiders of Gor, p 11

I heard some domestic marsh gants making their piping call. The wandered freely on the island, leaving it to feed, then returning later. Wild marsh gants, captured, even as young as gantlings, cannot be domesticated; on the other had, eggs, at the hatching point, gathered from floating gant nests, are sometimes brought to the island; the hatchlings, interestingly, if not permitted to see an adult gant for the first week of their life, then adopt the rence island as their home, and show no fear of human beings; they will come and go in the wild as they please, feeding and flying, but will always, and frequently, return to the rence island, their hatching place; if the rence island, however, should be destroyed, they revert entirely to the wild; in the domesticated state, it will invariably permit themselves to be picked up and handled.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 15-16

Their resistance to all things from the outside was a fierce one, rencers being by nature, proud and highly suspicious of outsiders.

Some of the men of the rencers, with their small shields or rence wicker, fought, but their marsh spears were not match for the stell swords and war spears of Gor. When they offered resistance they were cut down.
---Raiders of Gor, p 51

Ho-Hak looked at the man who wore the headband of pearls of the Vosk sorp.
"With such a bow," he said to that man, "we might live free in the marsh, free of Port Kar."
"It is a weapon of peasants," said the man with the headband, he who had been unable to bend the bow.
"So?" asked Ho-Hak.
"I," said the man, "am of the Growers of Rence. I, for one, am not a Peasant."
"Nor am I!" cried the girl.
The others, too, cried their assent.
"Besides," said another man, "we do not have metal for the heads of arrows, nor arrowwood, and Ka-la-na does not grow in the marsh. And we do not have cords of strength enough to draw such bows."
"And we do not have leather," added another.
"We could kill tharlarion," said Ho-Hak, "and obtain leather. And perhaps the teeth of the marsh shark might be fashioned in such a way as to tip arrows."
"There is no Ka-la-na, no cord, no arrowwood," said another.
"We might trade for such things," said Ho-Hak. "There are peasants who live along the edges of the delta, particularly to the east."
The man with the headband, he who had not been able to bend the bow, laughed. "You, Ho-Hak," said he, "were not born to rence."
"No," said Ho-Hak. "That is true."
"But we were," said the man. "We are Growers of the Rence."
There was a murmur of assent, grunts and shiftings in the group.
"We are not Peasants," said the man with the headband. "We are Growers of the Rence!"
There was an angry cry of confirmation from the group, mutterings, shots of agreement.
Ho-Hak once again sat down on the curved shell of the great Vosk sorp, that shell that served him as a throne in this domain, an island of rence in the delta of the Vosk.
---Raiders of Gor, p 20

By the end of Raiders, their reluctance to the use of the great bow has been won over by the apeal of greater independance.

I, too, lifted my hand, acknowledging their salute. And I lifted my hand, too, to Ho-Hak, the rencer. I saw how his men used their bows. I had little doubt that having been taught the might of the great bow in the marshes, when I had freed them from the slavers in the barges, they had traded for the weapons and now had made them their own, and proudly, as much as the peasants. I did not think the rencers would any longer be at the mercy of the men of Port Kar. Now, with weapons and courage, perhaps for the first time, they were truly free men, for they could now defend their freedoms, and those who cannot do this are not truly free; at best they are fortunate.
---Raiders of Gor, p 300

At the foot of the keep we met Thurnock, Clitus and Ho-Hak. We embraced. "You have learned the lesson of the great bow well, I said to Ho-Hak. "You well taught it to us, Warrior," said Ho-Hak. Thurnock and Clitus, with Thura and Ufa, had gone for aid to the rencers, traditionally enemies of those of Port Kar. And the rencers, to my astonishment, had come to risk their lives for me.
---Raiders of Gor, p 301

"I do not think it wise for Rencers," said Ho-Hak, "to be over long in Port Kar. Under the cover of darkness we shall depart." "My thanks to you and your people," said 1. "The rence islands, now confederated," said Ho-Hak, are yours." "I thank you," I said, "Ho-Hak." "We can never repay you," he said, "for having once saved many of us from those of Port Kar, and for having taught us the lesson of the great bow."
---Raiders of Gor, p 301

It is only 8 books later, in the midst of the Ar vs Cos war, that Tarl returns to the marshes. By then, the great bow of peasants, has not ony been accepted among the marshes, but had become a trademark of those who live there, allowing them to establish an indeppendance from the tyranny of Port Kar and allow them a status of trade.

In the last few years, the use of the peasant bow, beginning in the vicinity of the tidal marshes, had spread rapidly eastward throughout the delta. The materials for the weapon and its missiles, not native to the delta, are aquired through trade. Long ago the rencers had learned its power. They had never forgotten it. By means of it they had become formidable foes. The combination of the delta, with its natural defenses, and the peasant bow, made the rencers all but invulnerable.
---Vagabonds of Gor, pp 127-128

Another important element of change in the Delta over the years, would be the status of women. It is said in the first encounter with Rencers, that their women somehow escaped the Gorean basic philosophy of male domination, at least in apearance.

The women of rence growers, when in their own marshes, do no veil themselves, as is common among Gorean women, particularly of the cities. Moreover, they are quite capable of cutting rence, preparing it, hunting for their own food and, on the whole, of existing, if they wish it, by themselves. There are few tasks of the rence communities which they cannot perform as well as men. Their intelligence, and the work of their hands, is needed by the small communities. Accordingly they suffer little inhibitiion in the matters of speaking out and expressing themselves.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 17-18

Indeed, passages of Vagabonds of Gor, confirm that slave girls were not present in the Delta. This of course makes much sense. At the time of Tarl Cabot's first stay in the land of Rencers, we are looking at a community that is isolated from all other Gorean cultures and has little to no contact with the rest of Gor. How then, would rencers aquire slave girls? We do see that they make Tarl slave, at his own request, to escape the death habitually reserved to those who wander passed the blood mark.

I now noted another bit of white re-cloth tied on the rence stem, larger than the first. I assumed it was another trail mark. I continued on. The calls of marsh gants, a kind of piping whistle, seemed more frequent now, and somewhat closer. I looked behind me, and to the sides. Yet, not surprisingly, because of the rence, the rushes and sedge, I could not see the birds.

Then I stopped short, for tied to a rence plant before me now was a sheaf of red cloth.
I then knew that the two pieces of cloth I had encountered earlier had not been simple trail marks but boundary signs, warnings. I had come into an area of the delta wehre I was not welcome, into a territory that must be claimed by some small community, doubless of rence growers.
---Raiders of Gor, p 8

We are told however, that visitors are usually simply killed.

"So," I asked, "what is to be my fate?"
"We did not ask you here," said Ho-Hak. "We did not invite you to cross the line of the blood mark."
"Return to me my belongings," I said, "and I shall be on my way and trouble you no longer."
Ho-hak smiled.
The girl beside me laughed, and so, too, did the man with the headband, he who had not been able to bend the bow. Several of the others laughed as well.
"Of custom," said Ho-Hak, "we give those we capture who are of Port Kar a choice."
"What is the choice?" I asked.
"You will be thrown bound to the marsh tharlarion, of course," said Ho-Hak.
I paled.
"The choice," said Ho'Hak, "is simple." He regarded me. "Either you will be thrown alive to the march tharlarion or, if you wish, we will kill you first."
I struggled wildly against the marsh vine, futilely. The rence growers, without emotion, watched me. I fought the vine for perhaps a full Ehn. Then I stopped. The vine was tight. I knew I had been perfectly secured. I was theirs. The girl beside me laughed, as did the man with the headband, and certain of the others.
"There is never any trace of the body," said Ho-Hak.
I looked at him.
"Never," he said.
---Raiders of Gor, p 21

If then Rencers have contact with the outside world only through those who wander into their territory by accident, it would make sense that they would be unfamiliar with slave girls. Indeed it would be unlikely for a branded girl or a free woman to go off on a boat ride by herself and get lost. Free women, on Gor, dd not travel alone. Slaves on Gor, did not take vacation. Runaway slaves, such as were Ho-Hak and Telima, may be taken in by the Rencers and become one of them, by the simple fact that they shared with them the hate of Port Kar.

It would seem that Rencers cared little about what status one had before they came to the marshes, especially if this status was one recognized by Port Kar. Invariably then, it is likely that one who was a slave in Port Kar would be given favorable prejudice, and one of high status in Port Kar, thrown to the marsh sharks.

He sat upon a giant shell of the Vosk sorp, as on a sort of throne, which, for these people, I gather it was... There was a rusted, heavy iron collar riveted about the neck of Ho-Hak, with a bit of chain dangling from it. I gathered that the rence growers did not have the tools to remove it. Ho-Hak might have worn it for years. He was doubtless a slave, probably escaped from the galleys of Port Kar, who had fled to the marshes and been befriended by rence growers. Now, years later, he had come to a position of authority among them.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 13-14

By the time Tarl Cabot returns to the marsh, it seems the treatment of women has begun to change albeit not evenly, not only with the discovery and aquisition of slave girls, but also, in the role of the free women of Rencers.

I had not known, incidentally, that the rencers now made use of slave hoods. They perhaps obtained them through trade, as well as additionnal women. Many things had changed since I had been in the marsh, long ago. Some rencers even charged tolls to freight moving through the marsh. Also, it was not always easy to transport female slaves through the marsh now. Rencers had apparently discovered their delights.
---Vagabonds of Gor, p. 243

"I have seen slaves", he said.
"There are slaves in your village?" I asked.
"No", he said, "but I was once taken to Ven by my father. There I saw slaves."...

..."There are some slaves in the Delta", he said, "here and there, but I have not seen them".
"Your mother would not approve?" I asked.
"No", he said.
"Perhaps there are some in the village of Tanrum?" I suggested.
"The women there", he said, "are all kept slaves. It was done to them two years ago."...

..."We need more such as she, only true slaves, in the delta," he said...

..."What are you thinking of?" I asked. "Nothing," he said. "Do you care to speak of it?" I asked.
"I was thinking of my father and mother," he said. "Oh?" I said.
"And how my father is held in, inhibited and frustrated, by my mother."...

..."You are thinking," I said, "of how she would look at your father's feet, branded and in a collar."
"I love her very much," he said, "but it is where she belongs."
"I have no doubt about it," I said.
"Perhaps I shall speak to my father," he said.
"The decision, of course, is his." I said.
"If women were there," I said, it would certainly be easier for their sons to become men."
"True." he said.

Mothers in Tharna, of course, are kept as slaves. Indeed, they are not merely kept as slaves; they are slaves.
---Vagabonds of Gor, p 355

The comment that pertains to Tharna at the end of this quote, is of interest because it seems to indicate that societies where a form of equality has existed, turn to the Gorean mindset of male domination with almost a vengeance. The words of the young Rencer about the rence island of Tanrum and the condition of the women there, oddly ressembles the total turn about of Tharna, post Silver mask rule.

This complete reversal of status is at odds with the well known fierceness of Goreans to defend their own women. You will seldom find in your readings, situations where men enslave women of their own home/City/Culture. As a rule, it is the women of the ennemy who are enslaved, it is women of other areas and Cities who will serve them. But as the Rence changes and wakes to the principles known to Goreans as 'the order of things', they, like Tharna, as if waking from a long sleep, seem intent on ensuring the past will never be repeated, literally removing free women from their reality by enslaving their own.

Life in the Delta

Rence

In the stem of the girl's rence craft, she poling the craft from the stern, I knelt, cutting rence. It was late in the year to cut rence but some quantities of the rence are cut during the fall and winter and stored on covered rence rafts until spring. These stores of rence are not used for adding in the making of rence paper, but in the weaving of mats, for adding to the surface of the island, and for the pith, used as a food.
"Cut there," said the girl, moving the rush craft into a thicket of rence.
One holds the stem of the plant in the left hand and, with the right, with a small, curved, two-inch knife makes a diagonal upward stroke.
We were towing a small rence raft and there was already much rence upon it.
We had been cutting since before dawn. It was now late in the afternoon.
I cut again, dropping the tufted, flowered head of the rence stem in the water, and then I tossed the stem onto the raft of rence, with the piles of others.
---Raiders of Gor, p 26

If rence paper is the item of trade Rencers bring to the Gorean world, the rence plant to them, is much more.

It is what their land is built of literally. What the Rencers call island, is in fact what might be best described as a huge pontoon of woven plants. These Islands, movable in defense situations albeit not easily hidden.

The rence islands, on which the communites of rence growers dwell, are rather small, seldom more than two hundred and fifty feet. They are formed entirely from the interwoven stems of the rence plants and float in the marsh. They are generally about eight to nine feet thick and have an exposed surface above the water of about three feet; as the rence stems break and rot away beneath the island, more layers are woven and placed on the surface. Thus, over a period of months, a given layer of rence, after being the top layer, will gradually be submerged and forced dower and lower until it, at last, is the deepest layer and, with its adjacent layers, begins to deteriorate.

To prevent an unwanted movement of the island, there are generally several tethers, of marsh vine, to strong rence roots in the vicinity. It is dangerous ot neter the water to make a tether fast becasue of the predators that frequent the swamp, but several men do so at a time, once man making fast the tether and the others, with him beneath the surface, protecting him with marsh spears, or pounding on metal pieces or wooden rods to drive away, or at least to disconcert and confuse, too inquisitive, undesired visitors, such as the water tharlarion or the long-bodied, nine-gilled marsh shark.

When one wishes to move the island the tethers are simply chopped away, and the community divides itself into those who will handle the long poles and those who will move haead in rence craft, cutting and clearing the way. Most of those who handle the poles gather on the edges of the island, but within the island there are four deep rectangular wells through which the long poles may gain additional leverage. These deep center wells, actually holes cut in the island, permit its movement, though slowly when used alone, without exposing any of its inhabitants at its edges, where they might fall easier prey to the missile weapons of foes. In times of emergency the inhabitants of the island gather behind wickerlike breastworks, woven of rence, in the area of the center wells; in such an emergency the low-ceilinged rence huts on the island will have been knocked down to prevent an enemy from using them for cover, and all food and water supplies, usually brought from the eastern delta where the water is fresh, will be stored within; the circular wickerlike breastworks then form, in the center of the island, a more or less defensible stronghold, particularly against the marsh spears of other growers, and such.

Ironically, it is not of much use against an organized attack of well armed warriors, such as those of Port Kar, and those against whom it might be fairly adequate, other rence growers, sledom attack communites like their own. I had heard there had not been general hostilities among rence growers for more than fifty years; their communities are normally isolated from one another, and they have enough to worry about contending with "tax collectors" from Port Kar, without bothering to give much attention to making life miserable form one another. Incidentally, when the island is to be moved under siege conditions, divers leave the island by means of the well and, in groups of two and three, attemp to cut a path in the direction of escape; such divers, of course, often fall prey to underwater predators and to the spears of enemies, who thrust down at them from the surface. Sometimes an entire island is abandoned, the community setting it afire and taking to the marsh in their marsh skiffs. At a given point, when it is felt safe, several of these skiffs will be tied together, forming a platform on which rence may be woven, and a new island will be begun.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 12-13

It is what builds their dwellings:

She followed me into the hut. It was eight feet long and five feet wide. Its ceiling was continuous with its wall, and in its curve, stood not more than four feet from the rence surface of the island. The rence hut is commonly used for little else than sleeping. She struck together, over a copper bow, a bit of steel and flint, the sparks falling into some dried petals of the rence. a small flame was kindled into which she thrust a bit of rence stem, like a match. The bit of stem took the fire and with it she lit a tiny lamp, also sitting in a shallow copper bowl, which burned tharlarion oil. She set the lamp to one side.
Her few belongings were in the tiny hut. There was a bundle of clothing and a small box for odds and ends. There were two throwing sticks near the wall, where her sleeping mat, of woven rence, was rolled. There was another bowl and a cup or two, and two or three gourds. Some utensils were in the bowl, a wooden stirring stick and a wooden ladle, both carved from rence root. The rence knife, with which I had cut rence, she had left in the packet in her rence craft. There were also, in one corner, some coils of marsh vine.
---Raiders of Gor, p 32

It is what they feed on, what they feed in, what they feed with and what they drink:

At such times there is drinking of rence beer, steeped, boiled and fremented from crushed seeds and the whitish pith of the plant; singing; games; contests and courtship, for the young people of the rence islands too seldom meet those of the other communities.
---Raiders of Gor, pp 17

Bring the past of rence!" cried the girl. "Unbind his ankles. Take these ropes from his neck."
A woman left the group to bring some rence paste, and two men removed the marsh vine from my neck and ankles. My wrists were still bound behind my back.
In a moment the woman had returned with a double handful of wet rence paste. When fried, on flat stones it makes a kind of cake, sprinkled with rence seeds.
"Open you mouth, Slave," said the girl.
I did so and, to the amusement of those watching, she forced the wet past into my mouth.
"Eat it," she said. "Swallow it."
Painfully, almost retching, I did so.
---Raiders of Gor, p 24

It is what they wear:

She wore a brief, sleeveless garment of yellowish-brown rence cloth; it was worn well away from both shoulders to permit her freedom of movement; the brief skirt had been hitched up about her thighs that it might in no way bind her in her hunting. Her hair was tied behind her head with a strip of purple cloth, dyed rep-cloth.
---Raiders of Gor, p 9

He wore a sleeveless tunic of rence cloth, like most of the rence growers.
---Raiders of Gor, p 15

Signals

At one point the girl stopped the craft, and the others did too. She, and one or two of the others, then put back their heads and uttered a kind of piping whistle, the call of the marsh gant. This answered from various points about us, most of which were several yards away. Soon other rence craft, with their curved prows and sterns, had joined us. The rence growers, I had learned, communicate by means of such signals, disguised as the cries of marsh gants.
---Raiders of Gor, p 12

Festival and the unusual dance of marsh free women

Normally, as I may have mentioned, these communities are isolated from one another, but it was now near the Autumnal Equinox, and the month of Se'Kara was shortly to begin.

For rence growers, the first of Se'Kara, the date of the Autumnal Equinox, is a time of festival. By that time most of the year's rence will have been cut, and great stocks of rence paper, gathered in rolls like cord wood and covered with woven rence mats, will have been prepared. Between Se'Kara and the winter solstice, which occurs on the first of Se'Var, the rence will be sold or bartered, sometimes by taking it to the edge of the delta, sometimes by being contacted by rence merchants, who enter the delta in narrow barges, rowed by slaves, in order to have first pick of the product.

The first of Se'Var is also a date of festival, it might be mentioned, but this time the festival is limited to individual, isolated rence islands. With the year's rence sold, the communities do not care to lie too closely to one another; the primary reason is that, in doing so, they would present too inviting a target for the "tax collectors" of Port Kar. Indeed, I surmised, there was risk enough, and great risk, coming together even in Se'Kara. The unsold stores of rence paper on the islands at this time would, in themselves, be a treasure, though, to be sure, a bulky one.
Raiders of Gor, p 16

"Tomorrow is Festival," she said...

I had been aroused at dawn by Telima, and unbound, that I might help in the preparations for festival.
In the early morning the other rence islands, four of them, which had been tethered close by, were poled to the one on which I was kept, and now, joined by flat rence rafts, acting as bridges, they had been tied to one another, now forming, for most practical purposes, a large single island.
I had been used in the fastening of the bridges, and in the drawing up and tying of rence craft on the shore, as other rencers, from distant islands, arrived for festival. I had also been used to carry heavy kettled of rence beer from the various islands to the place of feasting, as well as strings of water gourds, poles of fish, plucked gants, slaughtered tarks, and baskets of the pith of rence.
Then, about the eighth Gorean hour, Telima had ordered me to the pole, where she bound me and placed on my head the garland of rence flowers.

I had stood at the pole the long morning, subject to the examination, the stares, and the blows and abuse of those who passed by.
Around the tenth Gorean hour, the Gorean noon, the rencers ate small rence cakes, dotted with seeds, drank water, and nibbled on scraps of fish. The great feast would be in the evening.

Around this time a small boy had come to stare at me, a half-eaten rence cake in his hand.
"Are you hungry?" he had asked.
"Yes," I had told him.
He had held the rence cake up to me and I bit at it, eating it.
"Thank you," I had said to him.
But he had just stood there, staring up at me. Then his mother ran to him and struck him across the side of the head, scolding him, dragging him away.

The morning was spent variously by the rencers. The men had sat in council with Ho-Hak, and tehre had been much discussion, much argument, even shouting. The women who had men were busied with the preparation of the feast. The younger men and woman formed opposite lines, shouting and jeering at one another delightedly. And sometimes one or the other boy, or girl, would rush to the opposite line to strike at someone, laughing, and run back to the other line. Objects were thrown at the opposite line, as well as jocose abuse. The smaller children played together, the boys playing games with small nets and reed marsh spears, the girls with rence dolls, or some of the older ones sporting with throwing sticks, competing against one another.

It was now about the twelfth Gorean hour, well past noon.
I had been examined earlier by the girls who would compete for me.

Ho-Hak, with Telima, had summoned them away for the contests.
Most of these took place in the marsh. From where I was bound, over the low rence huts and between them, I could see something of what went on. There was much laughter and shouting, and cheering and crying out. There were races, poling rence craft, and skill contests maneuvering the small light craft, and contests with net and throwing stick. It was indeed festival.
At last, after an Ahn or so, the group, the girls, the men watching, the judges, turned their several rence craft toward the island, beaching them and fastening them on the woven-mat shore.
Then, the entire group came to my pole, with the exception of Ho-Hak, who went rather to speak with some men carving rence root and talking, on the other side of the island....

...Now go and help the women to prepare the feast -- Slave!"
I turned away, and, as they laughed, went to help the women in their work, preparing food for festival.
It was now late on the night of festival, and most of the feast had been consumed.
Torches, oiled coils of marsh vine wound about the prongs of marsh spears, thrust butt down in the rence of the island, burned in the marsh night.

The men sat cross-legged in the outer circles, and, in the inner circles, in the fashion of Gorean women, the women knelt. There were children about the periphery of the circles but many of them were already asleep on the rence. There had beeen much talking and singing. I gathered it was seldom the rencers, save for those on a given island, met one another. Festival was important to them.
Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans...

...I had carried about bowls of cut, fried fish, and wooden trays of roasted tarsk meat, and roasted gants, threaded on sticks, and rence cakes and porridges, and gourd flagons, many times replenished, of rence beer...

...Then, suddenly, the crowd stopped clapping and singing.
There was silence.
Then there came a drumming sound, growing louder and louder, a man pounding on a hollowed drum of rence root with two sticks, and then, as suddenly as the singing and clapping, the drum, too, stopped.

And then to my astonishment the rence girls, squealing and laughing, some protesting and being pushed and shoved, rose to their feet and entered the clearing in the circle.
The young men shouted with pleasure.
One or two of the girls, giggling, tried to slip away, fleeing, but young men, laughing, caught them, and hurled them into the clearing of the circle.
The the rence girls, vital, eyes shining, breathing deeply, barefoot, bare-armed, many with beads worn for festival, and hammered copper bracelets and armlets, stood all within a circle.
The young men shouted and clapped their hands.
I saw that more than one fellow, handsome, strongfaced, could not take his eyes from Telima.
She was, I noted, the only girl in the circle who wore an armlet of gold.
She paid the young men, if she noticed them, no attention.

The rence communities tend to be isolated. Young people seldom see one another, saving those from the same tiny community. I remember the two lines, one of young men, the other of girls, jeering and laughing, and crying out at one another in the morning.
Then the man with the drum of hollow rence root began to drum, and one fellow had bits of metal, strung in a circular wire, and another a notched stick, played by scraping it with a flat spoon of rence root.
It was Telima who began first to pound the woven rence mat that was the surface of the island with her right heel, lifting her hands, arms bent, over her head, her eyes closed.

Then the other girls, too, began to join her, and at last even the shiest among them moved pounding, and stamping and turning about the circle. The dances of rence girls are, as far as I know, unique on Gor. There is some savagery in them, but, too, they have sometimes, perhaps paradoxically, stately aspects, stylized aspects, movements reminiscent of casting nets or poling, of weaving rence or hunting gants. But, as I watched, and the young men shouted, the dancers became less stylized, and became more universal ot woman, whether she be a drunken housewife in a suburb of a city of Earth or a jeweled slave in Port Kar, dances that spoke of them as women who want me, and will have them. To my astonishment, as the dances continued, even the shiest of the rence girls, those who had to have been forced to the circle, even those who had tried to flee, began to writhe in ecstasy, their hands lifted to the three moons of Gor.

It is often lonely on the rence islands, and festival comes but once a year.
The bantering of the young people in the morning, and the display of the girls in the evening, for in effect in the movments of the dance every woman is nude, have both, I expect, institutional roles to play in the life of the rence growers, significant roles analogous to the roles of dating, display and courtship in the more civilized environments of my native world, Earth.
It marks the end of a childhood when a girl is first sent to the circle.

Mostly these girls, saving for a moment or two to humiliate me, danced their beauty for the young men of the cicles, that they might be desired, that they might be much sought.

After a time I saw one girl leave the circles, her head back, hair flowing down her back, breathing deeply, and scarcely was she through the circles of rencers, but a young man followed her, joining her some yards beyond the circle. They stood facing one another in the darkness for an Ehn or two, and then I saw him, gently, she not protesting, drop his net over her, and then, by this net, she not protesting, he led her away/ Together they disappeared in the darkness, going over one of the raft bridges to another island, one far from the firelight, the crowd, the noise, the dance.

Then, after some Ehn I saw another girl leave the circile of the dance, and she, too, was joined beyond the firelight by a young man and she, too, felt a net dropped over her, and she, too, was led away, his willing prize, to secrecy of his hut.

The dance grew more frenzied.

The girls whirled and writhed, and the crowd clapped and shouted, and the music grew ever more wild, barbaric and fantastic.
---Raiders of Gor, pp39-47