Lovers of Gor

Welcome on our beautiful Palm Island far out west in the Thassa!

It is the home of the fierce Sa Jerag, meaning Sisters forever. They are Talunas, Freewomen from Thorvaldsland, who came with the feared Longboats over the vast Thassa, like their Sisters in the jungles north of Schendi. They all fled the north, for unhappy Companionships, living well hidden in the equatorial region of Gor, never able to return in fear they could be enslaved or worse...

who are Talunas?

most of us live in the jungles on the gorean mainland:
equatorial gor..it is the rainforests…sometimes dense…dark below the canopy of trees…the place where the Kurii and their agents venture, where the invisibility ring was found. North of Schendi it is..the river Cartius, is located here, the large lake Ushindi, meaning “victory” the lake Ngao, meaning “Shield”, lake Shaba which is located high up in the mountains, named after the famous Scribe and Cartographer, who was the first civilized man to circumnavigate Lake Ushindi.

The Kamba- river, meaning ‘rope’ that flows leisurely into the Thassa, the Nvoka river that forms the natural harbour of the city of Schendi, a non fortified port and the only larger settlement in the tropics with daily storms and incredible rainfalls.

To the west of Lake Ushindi are floodlands, marshes and bogs. The people who live here are mostly black and they do rarely speak gorean. They have their own dialects, they have the drum- system to communicate and they are loosely governed by the mighty black Ubar, Bila Huruma. The land is not fertile, despite its lush vegetation crops do not grow well for the heavy rainfalls. So there are no permanent settlements except the port, Schendi. People live in villages and the Urbarate of Bila Huruma is a loose network. The rainforest is always dripping wet and steaming with heat and humidity.

there are about 1500 types of palm trees growing here and birds, snakes, monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, arachnids, insects, tarsiers, jit monkeys, black squirrels, leaf urts, jungle varts, giani, armored gatch, slees, ground urts, tarsk, six varieties of anteater, twenty kinds of small, single-horned tabuk, jungle larls, jungle panthers, many smaller catlike predators, and zeders. Sleens do not exist here.

“Bila Huruma, the black Ubar united the six ubarates of the southern shore of Lake Ushindi. He also collects tribute from the confederacy of a hundred villages on the northern shores of the lake. The tribute is primarily in kailiauk tusks and women. His control over the northern shores region is substantial but not total. Bila is a brilliant leader, a man of vision. His Ubarate is well organized, with districts and governors, courts, spies and messengers. He also has a well organized army that is well trained and disciplined. On a personal basis, Bila also has over two hundred companions and twice that many slaves.”

That depicts the environment. It is hot, humid, dangerous, the vegetation so dense in some parts that it is nearly impenetrable, in other parts it is dark below the canopy of leaves in the jungles.

Also, Mamba people live here, cannibals, filing their teeth, also pygmies…not bigger than five feet.

It is here, that Tarl Cabot sees the Talunas. Let me quote from the scrolls: “She was slender-legged and dark-haired. She wore brief skins. She ran down to the edge of the water. Her hands were not bound together but, from each wrist, there hung a knotted rope…. It was as though she had been bound and, somehow, had been freed. "Please save me!" she cried. "Help me!"
I examined the condition of the skins she wore. I noted, also, that she wore a golden armlet and, on her neck, a necklace of claws. She also had, about her waist, a belt, with a dagger sheath, though the sheath was now empty. "Save me, please, noble sirs!" she wept. She waded out a few feet in the water. She extended her hands to us piteously. She was quite beautiful. I considered the forest behind her. The trees were thick, the brush, near the river, heavy. …
"Please, please help me!" we heard the girl cry. Then we left her behind.
"Master," sobbed Janice.
"Be silent, Slave Girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Look!" cried Alice. "There is another!"
Now, on the shore, standing at a post, chains about her body, we saw a blond girl. "Please help me!" she cried, straining against the chains. She, like the first, was dressed in brief skins and, like the first, was ornamented, with an armlet and necklace. Too, about her left ankle, there was a golden bangle. We removed the paddles from the water. …
"I think we have lingered here long enough," said Kisu, looking about. "This is a dangerous place."
"Agreed," I said.
"Do not leave without her, please, noble masters," begged Janice. "Please, Master," begged Alice. "Please, Master," begged Tende.
"What little fools you all are, said Kisu. "Can you not see that it is a trap?" …
"They speak Gorean," I pointed out. "Thus they are not originally of the jungle. The color of their skins alone, white, should make that clear to you. ((Explorers of Gor))

So we learnt they wore golden ornaments. Every item of metal will soon be dull or corrode easily if worn in the rainforests every day. We can conclude it must be gold. Also, they do not speak the local dialects, they are fair skinned. I agree with Tarl, they cannot be descendants of the people who live here.

But we know more from the scrolls:

“Moonlight filtered in through the thatched roof and between the sticks which formed the sides of the hut. She was sleeping within, in her brief skins. Her weapons were at the side of the hut. She lay on a woven mat, her blond hair loose about her head. I examined her thighs, moving back the skins she wore. They had never been branded. She turned, restlessly. She was the girl who had feigned being chained at the post, to lure us into a trap. She was, I was sure, the leader of the talunas. She had given commands in our pursuit. She did not share her hut with another girl. She threw her arm restlessly over her head. I saw her hips move. I smiled. She was a woman in need. She moaned. I waited until her arms were again at her sides, and she lay upon her back. I saw her lift her haunches in her sleep. She was starved for a man’s touch.”

So now learnt that they aren t branded, so they are no escaped slaves. And they do not live there because they dislike men…

let me quote some more for you now:

"I am, too, made comfortable by the thickness of the brush and trees in these areas, both before and now. They seem fit to conceal the numbers of an ambuscade." …
As our canoe moved away we looked back. "After them!" cried the girl. She slipped from her chains and bent to the grass beside her, seizing up a light spear. From the bush about her appeared numbers of girls similarly clad and armed. We saw canoes being thrust into the water. "Perhaps now you will paddle with a better will," I said.
"Yes, Master!" said Janice.

This quote tells us they use light spears and they hunt for slaves in bands of about 40. A large band to capture only 6 people!

Here is another quote from Tarl’s scrolls:

"How came you to the rain forests?" I asked.
"I, and Fina, and the others," she said, "fled undesired companionships."
"But now you have fallen slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Your entire band," I said, "will doubtless know no nobler fate."
"Yes, Master," she said. She shuddered. "We now, all of us, belong to men."
"Yes," I said.
"You left our vine collars on," she said. "You knew, did you not, that we would beg slavery?"
"Yes," I said.
"But how could you know?" she asked.
"Though you and the others have fought your femininity," I said, "yet you and they are both beautiful and feminine."
"You knew that we were natural slaves?" she said.
"Of course," I said.
"I will no longer be permitted to fight my femininity, will I?" she asked.
"No," I said. "You are now a slave girl. You will yield to it, and fully."
"I'm frightened," she said.
"That is natural," I said.
"It will make me so loving and helpless," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Can I dare, too, now," she asked. "to be sensuous?"
"If you are not fully pleasing in all the modalities of the slave girl, sensuous and otherwise," I said, "you will be severely punished."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Or slain," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.

this quote tells us they came TOGETHER. We already learnt they do not come from this area. Their willingness to accept the collar tells us they long to be back in gorean society.

Now with all that we learnt, let me give you MY interpretation of this rare phenomenon: White skinned, sometimes blond girls, alienated in the jungles, talking a different language than the natives of the jungles. They own gold, but they do not own any dresses they may have worn where they fled from, they survive in the jungles, they use spears, but they are homesick and may have a strong inner urge to be back and pick up a normal gorean life.

A band of forty, aquainted to wielding spears and to fight, not poor and from FAR away: It is unlikely that a band of this size wanders over a large portion of gorean lands unnoticed and finally settles in the jungles. my personal conclusion is that they came by boat or ship. Women on Gor are not really known to be sailors, except the women in the far north who are of course growing up in the presence of longboats and sailing as fishing is part of daily life. You will maybe counter that women in harbours should know that too, however the Ports of Gor are Cities, and a large sailing vessel is guarded and it is not easy to sail and needs professional seamen. Also, these girls were NOT Freewomen of the Cities of Gor, at times forbidden to even leave their dwellings without male protection. These girls wer ABLE, they survive in the jungles, they can sail a boat. This supports my theory that they come from the far north.

Despite my quotes, all of this may be a far shot for you, but it is the reason why a longboat, run aground on a reef in the Thassa next to a tropical island is a typical place where Talunas may dwell, other than those that Tarl Cabot met and later enslaved. *smiles*

Now why should they band together and flee at all, if they re so unhappy with their newfound life as refugees in these murderous jungles?

"I, and Fina, and the others," she said, "fled undesired companionships."

A good reason, I believe. and she did NOT say they were not content with their life as Freewomen. Then why are they so many? Gor is in war, it is an archaic society, it may well be that there are less men available than women, due to deaths in war. UNdesired can therefore mean many things. A pity that Tarl did not insist and ask them where they are from.

Now what about their kajirae? They OWN girls, that much is clear from the scrolls of Tarl “I took two pairs of slave bracelets from the loot of the taluna camp. Girls such as talunas keep such things about in case slave girls should fall into their hands. They are extremely cruel to slave girls, whom they regard as having betrayed their sex by surrendering as slaves to men.”