The man, placing heavy gloves on his hands, withdrew from the brazier a slave iron. Its tip was a figure some inch and a half high, the firest letter in cursive script, in the Gorean alphabet, of the expression Kajira.
Hunters of Gor; p.51
The brand is to be distinguished from the collar, though both are a designation of slavery. The primary significance of the collar is that it identifies the master and his city. The collar of a given girl may be changed countless times, but the brand continues throughout to bespeak her status. The brand is normally concealed by the briefly skirted slave livery of Gor but, of course, when the camisk is worn, it is always clearly visible, reminding the girl and others of her station.
The brand itself, in the case of girls, is a rather graceful mark, being the initial letter of the Gorean expression for slave in cursive script. If a male is branded, the same initial is used, but rendered in a block letter.
Outlaw of Gor; p. 187
I have wondered upon occasion why brands are used on Gorean slaves. Surely Goreans have at their disposal means for indelibly but painlessly marking the human body. My conjecture, confirmed to some extent by the speculations of the Older Tarl, who had taught me the craft of arms in Ko-ro-ba years ago, is that the brand is used primarily, oddly enough, because of its reputed psychological effect.
In theory, if not in practice, when the girl finds herself branded like an animal, finds her fair skin marked by the iron of a master, she cannot fail, somehow, in the deepest levels of her thought, to regard herself as something which is owned, as mere property, as something belonging to the brute who has put the burning iron to her thigh.
Most simply the brand is supposed to convince the girl that she is truly owned; it is supposed to make her feel owned. When the iron is pulled away and she knows the pain and degradation and smells the odour of her burned flesh, she is supposed to tell herself, understanding its full and terrible import, I AM HIS.
Actually I suppose the effect of the brand depends greatly on the girl. In many girls I would suppose the brand has little effect besides contributing to their shame, their misery and humiliation. With other girls it might well increase their intractability, their hostility. On the other hand, I have known of several cases in which a proud, insolent woman, even one of great intelligence, who resisted a master to the very touch of the iron, once branded became instantly a passionate and obedient Pleasure Slave.
But all in all I do not know if the brand is used primarily for its psychological effect or not. Perhaps it is merely a device for merchants who must have some such means for tracing runaway slaves, which would otherwise constitute a costly hazard to their trade. Sometimes I think the iron is simply an anachronistic survival from a more technologically backward age.
Outlaw of Gor; p. 189-190
Masters, incidentally, seldom brand their own slaves. To brand a girl well demands a sure hand, and, usually, experience. In training a man to use the iron slavers always give him poorer women at first, sometimes having him mark them more than once, until he becomes proficient. Usually by the fifteenth or the twentieth woman, the man is capable of marking them deeply, precisely and cleanly. It is important for the girl's thigh to be held immobile: sometimes it is held by more than one man; sometimes it is bound to a wagon wheel; sometimes, in the house of slavers, a heavy, vise equipped, metal branding rack is used. The girls are usually branded impersonally, perfunctorily, as cattle. Though they feel their mark intensely physically, it is felt, interestingly, even more intensely, more profoundly, psychologically; not unoften it, in itself, radically transforms their self-images, their personalities; they are then only slaves, not permitted their own wills, rightless, at the bidding of masters; the mark is an impersonal designation; this is understood by the girls; when she is marked she understands herself not to be marked by a given man for a given man, to be uniquely his, but rather, so to speak, that she is marked for all men; to all men she is a slave girl; usually, of course, only one among them, at a given time, will be her master; the brand is impersonal; the collar is intensely personal; the brand marks her property; the collar proclaims whose property she is, who it is who has either taken, or paid for, her; that the brand is an impersonal designation of an absence of status in the social structure is perhaps another reason why masters do not often brand their own girls; the brand relationship to the free man is institutional; the collar relationship, on the other hand, is an intensely personal one; it is not uncommon for masters to pride themselves on the depth with which they know their slave girls; this depth is far greater in my opinion than that with which the average husband of Earth knows his wife; the slave girl is not simply someone with whom the man lives; she is very special to him; she is a treasured possession; he owns her; he wants to know, profoundly and deeply, the background, history, the mind, the intelligence, the appetites, the nature and the dispositions of his lovely article of property; this knowledge, of course, puts her more at his mercy; by making it possible for him to manipulate her feelings, exploit weaknesses, drop asides, etc., she in the helpless condition of slavery, it gives him greater power over her. For example, it is common for a master to force his girl to speak at length and in detail to him of the secret sides of her nature, explaining and elaborating on her fantasies: if she is literate, she may be forced, naked, collared, on her knees at a small table, sometimes with her ankles shackled, to write them out; this supplies the master, of course, with abundant materials which may be used by him to make her further and more helplessly his; sometimes the girl attempts to deceive the master; it is not difficult to detect inauthenticity in such matters; she is then beaten; too, she may at times be ordered to invent fantasies, sometimes of a certain type; these, too, for she has invented them, are, to an astute master, instructive; these intellectual, emotional exercises, performed by the girl under a condition of slavery, particularly if coupled with an enforced exercise regime, posings under male surveillance, and such, can do much to sensitize her to her collar; they awaken her body and, of equal importance for the Gorean, though not for the Earthling, who sees sex with the perception of a hippopotamus, as a matter of body rubbings, her fantastic imagination and mind; she becomes curious, soon, about the deeper implications of what she is, a mere article of her master's property; then, with authority, with assurance and power, to the depth and height of her mind and imagination she is taught; the slave girl experiences a paradox of freedom; the free woman is physically free, but miserable, fighting to be what she is not; the slave girl, physically in bondage, even to the collar, sometimes chains, is given no choice by men but to be totally and precisely what she is, slave; such women, the slave girls, interestingly, are almost always joyful and vital; they are, paradoxically, in their feelings and emotions, liberated; they are not pinched, not psychologically restrained; why this should be I do not know; to see such women, their heads high, their eyes bright, their bodies, their movements, beautiful, as no Earth woman would dare to be, is quite pleasurable; some of them are so insolent, so proud of their collars, that I have cuffed them to my feet to remind them that they are only slaves.
Tribesmen of Gor; p.41-43
The girl I had originally seen had been a slave, and what I had taken to be the jewelery at her throat had been a badge of servitude. Another such badge was a brand concealed by her clothing. The latter marked her as a slave, and the former identified her master. One might change one's collar, but not one's brand.
Tarnsman of Gor; p. 46
“If a girl is already branded,” I said, casually, but frightened, “she would not be again branded, would she?”
“Commonly not,” said Ena. “Though sometimes, for some reason, the mark of Treve is pressed into her flesh.” She looked at me. “Sometimes, too,” she said, “a girl may be branded as a punishment, and to warn others against her.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
“Penalty brands,” she said. “They are tiny, but clearly visible. There are various such brands. There is one for lying, and another for stealing.”
“I do not lie or steal,” I said.
“That is good,” said Ena.
“I have never seen the brand of Treve,” I said.
“It is rare,” said Ena, proudly.
“May I see your brand?” I asked. I was curious.
“Of course,” said Ena, and she stood up and, extending her left leg, drew her long, lovely white garment to her hip, revealing her limb.
I gasped.
Incised deeply, precisely, in that slim, lovely, now bared thigh was a startling mark, beautiful, insolent, dramatically marking that beautiful thigh as that which it now could only be, that of a female slave.
“It is beautiful,” I whispered.
Captive of Gor; p. 276-277
I saw Rask, with a heavy glove, draw forth one of the irons from the fire. It terminated in a tiny letter, not more than a quarter of an inch high. The letter was white hot. “This is the penalty brand,” he said. “it marks you as a liar.”
“Please, Master!” I wept.
“I no longer have patience with you,” he said. “Be marked as what you are.”
I screamed uncontrollably as he pressed in the iron, holding it firmly into my leg. Then, after some two to four Ihn, he removed it. I could not stop screaming with pain. I smelled the odor of burned flesh, my own. I began to whimper. I could not breathe. I gasped for breath. Still the men held me.
“This penalty brand,” said Rask of Treve, lifting another iron from the brazier, again with a tiny letter at its glowing termination, “marks you also as what you are, as a thief.”
“Please, no, Master!” I wept.
I could not move a muscle of my left leg. It might as well have been locked in a vise. It must wait for the iron.
I screamed again, uncontrollably. I had been branded as a thief.
“This third iron,” said Rask of Treve, “is, too, a penalty iron. I mark you with it not for myself, but for Ute.”
Through raging tears I saw, white hot, the tiny letter.
“it marks you as a traitress,” said Rask of Treve. He looked at me, with fury. “Be marked as a traitress,’ he said. Then he pressed the third iron into my flesh. As it entered my flesh, biting and searing, I saw Ute watching, her face betraying no emotion. I screamed, and wept, and screamed.
Still the men did not release me.
Rask of Treve lifted the last iron from the fire. It was much larger, the letter at its termination some one and a half inches high. It, too, was white hot. I knew the brand. I had seen it, on Ena’s thigh. It was the mark of Treve. Rask of Treve had decided that my flesh should bear that mark.
“No, Master, please!” I begged him.
“Yes, Worthless Slave,” said he, “you will wear in your flesh the mark of the city of Treve.”
“Please,” I begged.
“When men ask you,” said he, “who it was that marked you as liar and thief, and traitress, point to this brand, and say, I was marked by one of Treve, who was displeased with me.”
“Do not punish me with the iron!” I cried.
I could not move my thigh. It must wait, helpless, for the blazing kiss of the iron.
“No,” I cried. “No!”
He approached me. I could feel the terrible heat of the iron, even inches from my body.
“Please, no!” I begged.
The iron was poised.
I saw his eyes and realized that I would receive no mercy. He was a tarnsman of Treve.
“With the mark of Treve,” he said, “I brand you slave.”
Captive of Gor; p. 310-311
The girl, Elizabeth Cardwell, once a secretary in New York, was one of the most delicious wenches I had ever seen in slave silk, Her thigh bore the brand of the four bosk horns.
Marauders of Gor; p. 17
The brand used by Forkbeard is not uncommon in the north, though there is less uniformity in Torvaldsland on these matters than in the south, where the merchant caste, with its recommendations for standardization, is more powerful. All over Gor, of course, the slave girl is a familiar commodity. The brand used by the Forkbeard, found rather frequently in the north, consisted of a half circle, with, at its right tip, adjoining it, a steep, diagonal line. The half circle is about an inch and a quarter in width, and the diagonal line about an inch and a quarter in height. The brand is, like many, symbolic. In the north, the bond-maid is some times referred to as a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword.
Marauders of Gor; p. 87
I did not understand the purpose for which the iron was being heated. It was clearly a marking, or branding, iron. Yet there was no animal in the camp to be marked. I had expected one to be brought in, perhaps one which had been somewhere acquired, but none was brought in. I then conjectured that one of the men, perhaps my captor, since it was be who had had me tend the brazier, wished to mark something which he owned, imprinting in it an identificatory design, perhaps a harness or belt, or the leather of a brass-hooped shield. It seemed to me a sensible idea. I had seen the design at the tip of the iron. It was a small flower, stylized; it was circular, about an inch and a half in diameter; it was not unlike a small rose; it was incredibly lovely and delicate. I thought the design was very beautiful; I certainly would not have minded marking something I owned with it. The only reservation I had pertaining to the design was that I thought it might be a bit too delicate and lovely, like a lovely rose, to appropriately mark goods of a gross masculine nature, such as, say, harnesses or shields. It seemed it might, considering its resemblance to a rose, much more appropriately mark something feminine. The sun was down now and the supper would soon be ready. The coals in the brazier glowed.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 52
Then, head down, helpless, held, I was branded a Gorean slave girl.
The marking, I suppose, took only a few seconds. That is doubtless true. Objectively I grant you the truth of that. Yet a girl who has been marked finds this obvious truth difficult to accept psychologically.
Perhaps I may be granted that those seconds, those few seconds, seem very long seconds.
For an hour it seemed I felt the iron. It touched me firmly, kissing me, then claiming me.
I screamed, and screamed. I was alone with the pain, the agony, the degradation, the relentless, hissing object, so hurting me, the men. Mercifully they let me scream. It is common to let a girl scream, a Gorean kindness, while she is being marked with a white-hot iron. Afterwards, however, once the iron is pulled out of her body, and she is fully marked, Gorean males are less likely to. accord her such consideration for her feelings. They are less likely, then, to be so indulgent with her. This makes sense. Afterwards, she is only a branded girl.
It begins swiftly, almost before you can feel it. I felt the iron touch me and almost instantaneously, crackling, flash through my outer skin and then, firmly, to my horror, enter and lodge itself fixedly in my thigh. It was literally in my body, inflexibly, burning. The pain then began to register on my consciousness. I began screaming. I could not believe what was being done to me, or how much it hurt. Not only could I feel the iron, but I could hear it, hissing and searing in the precise, beautiful wound it was relentlessly burning in my thigh. There was an odor of burning flesh, mine. I smelled burning, as of a kind of meat. It was my own body being marked. I could not move my thigh. I threw back my head and screamed. I felt the iron tight in my body, then, to my horror, pressing in even, more deeply. The marking surface of the iron, then, lay hissing, literally submerged, in my flesh. I could not move my thigh in the least. I threw my head from side to side, screaming. The marking surface of the iron is some quarter of an inch in depth. It was within my flesh. It was lodged there, submerged, hissing and burning. Taking its time, not hurrying, it marked me, cleanly and deeply. Then, swiftly, cleanly, it withdrew.
I smelled burned meat, my own. The men released my thigh. I began to choke and sob. Men regarded the mark. My captor was commended on his work. I gathered I had been well marked.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 57-58
“La Kajira,” said Eta, indicating herself. She drew up the brief garment she wore, turning to me, exposing her left thigh. It, too, bore a brand. She, too, was truly branded. I now realized that I had seen the mark before, in torchlight and half darkness, yesterday evening, when she had been stripped, hooded and belled, and set as lovely quarry to run for the amusement of the men. I had not even understood it at that time, not well seeing it, as a brand. It had never even entered my mind that it might have been a brand. It had been only a puzzling mark of some sort. I would not have believed, yesterday night, that a woman could have been branded. But now, after my recent experience with the iron, I was prepared to believe the evidence of my senses. Women, on this world, could be branded. Eta and I were, in a profound sense, I realized, now the same; we were both branded women; no longer was I her superior; a mark had been put upon me by a hot iron at the pleasure of men; I was now exactly the same as Eta; whatever she was I, too, I knew, was now that, exactly that, and only that. Her brand, however, was not precisely the same as mine. It was more slender, more vertical, more like a stem with floral, cursive loops, about an inch and a half in height, and a half inch in width; it was, I would later learn, the initial letter in cursive script of the Gorean expression ‘Kajira’; my own brand was the “dina”; the dina is a small, lovely, multiply petaled flower, short-stemmed, and blooming in a turf of green leaves, usually on the slopes of hills, in the northern temperate zones of Gor; in its budding, though in few other ways, it resembles a rose; it is an exotic, alien flower; it is also spoken of, in the north, where it grows most frequently, as the slave flower; it was burned into my flesh; in the south, below the Gorean equator, where the flower is much more rare, it is prized more highly; some years ago, it was not even uncommon for lower-caste families in the south to give the name ‘Dina’ to their daughters; that practice has now largely vanished, with the opening and expansion of greater trade, and cultural exchange, between such cities as Ko-ro-ba and Ar, and the giant of the southern hemisphere, Turia. In the fall of the city of Turia, some years ago, thousands of its citizens had fled, many of them merchants or of merchant families; with the preservation of the city, and the restoration of the Ubarate of Phanias Turmus, many of these families returned; new contacts had been made, new products discovered; even of those Turians who did not return to their native city, many of them, remaining in their new homes, became agents for the distribution of Turian goods, and for the leathers and goods of the Wagon Peoples, channeled through Tuna. That in the north the lovely dina was spoken of as the “slave flower” did not escape the notice of the expatriated Turians; in time, in spite of the fact that “Dina” is a lovely name, and the dina a delicate, beautiful flower, it would no longer be used in the southern hemisphere, no more than in the northern, as a name for free women; those free women who bore the name commonly had it changed by law, removed from the lists of their cities and replaced by something less degrading and more suitable. Dina, in the north, for many years, had been used almost entirely as a slave name. The reason, in the north, that the dina is called the slave flower has been lost in antiquity. One story is that an ancient Ubar of Ar, capturing the daughter of a fleeing, defeated enemy in a field of dinas there enslaved her, stripping her by the sword, ravishing her and putting chains upon her. As he chained her collar to his stirrup, he is said to have looked about the field, and then named her “Dina.” But perhaps the dina is spoken of as the slave flower merely because, in the north, it is, though delicate and beautiful, a reasonably common, unimportant flower; it is also easily plucked, being defenseless, and can be easily crushed, overwhelmed and, if one wishes, discarded.
The brand Eta wore was not the “dina”; it was, as I would later learn, the initial letter in cursive script of the Gorean expression ‘Kajira’; it, too, however, was, in its delicacy and floral nature, an incredibly beautiful and feminine brand; I recalled that I had thought that the brand I had heated might be too feminine to mark a man’s properties, such as a saddle or shield, but that it would be perfect to mark something feminine in nature; now I realized that it marked me; both the brand that I wore and that which Eta wore were incredibly feminine; our femininity, whether we wished it or not, had been deeply, and incontrovertibly, stamped upon us. It was natural, given the fact that the dina is the “slave flower,” that eventually enterprising slavers, warriors and merchants, those with an interest in the buying and selling of women, should develop a brand based on the flower. Beyond this, there exists on Gor a variety of brands for women, though the Kajira brand, which Eta wore, is by far the most common. Some merchants invent brands, as the dina was invented, in order to freshen the nature of their merchandise and stimulate sales. Collectors, for example, those who are rich, sometimes collect exotic brands, much as collectors on Earth might collect stamps or coins, populating their pleasure gardens not only with girls who are beautiful but diversely marked. A girl, of course, wants to be bought by a strong master who wants her for herself, muchly desiring and lusting for her, not for her brand. When a girl is bought, of course, it is commonly because the man wants her, she, the female, and is willing to put down his hard-earned money for her and her alone, for she is alone; all she brings from the block is herself; she is a slave; she cannot bring wealth, power, or family connections; she comes naked and sold; it is she alone he buys. There are, of course, men who buy for brands. To meet this market various brands are developed and utilized. The “slave flower” brand was a natural development. Unfortunately for these entrepreneurs, their greed and lack of control over the metal shops resulted in the widespread proliferation of the dina brand. As it became more popular, it was becoming, simultaneously, of course, a fairly common brand. Girls branded as I was were already spoken of on Gor, rather disparagingly, as “dinas.” Collectors now seldom sought for dinas. This development, though perhaps a disappointment to certain merchants and slavers, was not unwelcome to the girls who bore the brand, though few cared for their feelings. The girl who is bid upon and sold from the block wants to be bought because men have found her desirable, so desirable that they are willing to part with their very gold to buy her; how miserable she would be to learn that it is only for her brand that she is valued. There were other brands in my captor’s camp. Yet I had been made a “dina.” He had not done this for economic reasons. He had “sized me up,” my nature and my body. He had decided the dina brand would be, for me, exquisitely “right.”
Accordingly, he had burned it into my flesh. Now, in my body, deeply, I wore the “slave flower.”
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 61-63
Eta smiled. She pointed to her brand. “Kan-lara,” she said. She pointed to my brand. “Kan-lara Dina,” she said. I repeated these words.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 80
I was, however, branded. Gorean free women, no more than the free women of Earth, do not wear brands. Only slave girls, on Earth or Gor, are branded. On Earth, where slavery is practiced, commonly only troublesome girls are branded. On Gor, on the other hand, all slave girls are branded.
I did not think I could well escape with my brand. It marked me too well as a slave.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 98
“Dina,” said the girl with the bruise to me. She had called me that because of my brand, the Dina, or Slave Flower. Girls who wear the brand are sometimes spoken of as Dinas. As she had said “Dina,” it had been a term of abuse. The Dina brand is one of the more frequently found of the specialized brands on Gor. Dinas, such as I was, were relatively common girls.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 126
Her thigh, freshly branded, bore the common slave mark of Gor, the initial letter, in cursive script, of the Gorean expression ‘Kajira,’ which means Slave Girl.
Slave Girl of Gor; p. 158
The brand was the common Kajira mark of Gor, the first letter, about an inch and a half in height and a half inch in width, in cursive script, of the expression ‘Kajira’, which is the most common expression in Gorean for a female slave. It is a simple mark, and rather floral, a staff, with two, upturned, frondlike curls, joined where they touch, the staff on its right. It bears a distant resemblance to the printed letter ‘K’ in several of the Western alphabets of Earth, and I suspect, in spite of several differences, it may owe its origin to that letter.
Explorers of Gor; p. 9
I saw the brand on her thigh. Although the brand was the first letter, in cursive Gorean script, of the most common Gorean expression for a slave girl, ‘Kajira’, its symbolism, I think, is much richer than this. For example, in the slave brand, the ‘Kef’, though clearly a Kef and in cursive script, is more floral, in the extended, upturned, frondlike curls, than would be the common cursive Kef. This tends to make the mark very feminine. It is at this point that the symbolism of the brand becomes more clear. The two frondlike curls indicate femininity and beauty; the staff, in its uncompromising severity, indicates that the femininity is subject to discipline; the upturned curves on the frondlike curls indicate total openness and vulnerability. It is a very simple, lovely brand, simple, as befits a slave, lovely, as befits a woman.
Incidentally, there are many brands on Gor. Two that almost never occur on Gor, by the way, are those of the moons and collar, and of the chain and claw. The first of these commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serve as headquarters for agents of Priest-Kings; the second tends to occur in the lairs of Kurii agents on Earth; the first brand consists of a locked collar and, ascending diagonally above it, extending to the right, three quarter moons; this brand indicates the girl is subject to Gorean discipline; the chain-and-claw brand signifies, of course, slavery and subjection within the compass of the Kur yoke. It is apparently difficult to recruit Goreans for service on Earth, either for Priest-Kings or Kurii.
Explorers of Gor; p. 11-12
“I have five brands,” said the metal worker, “the common Kajira brand, the Dina, the Palm, the mark of Treve, the mark of Port Kar.”
Explorers of Gor; p. 70
“Left thigh or right thigh?’ he asked.
“Left thigh,” said Ulafi. Slave girls are commonly branded on the left thigh. Sometimes they are branded on the right thigh, or lower left abdomen.
Explorers of Gor; p. 71
On an iron table, to the right of the rack, there was a flat box. ‘Lie on your right side, exposing your left thigh,’ he said. ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. From the box he then took a small, curved knife and a tiny, cylindrical leather flask. I gritted my teeth, but made no sound. With the small knife he gashed my left thigh, making upon it a small, strange design. He then took a powder, orange in color, from the flask and rubbed it into the wound. ‘Kneel,’ he said. I did so. From the flat box he then took a yellow neck belt, two inches in height, and beaded. It is fastened with a thong, which ties before the throat ‘Say “I am a slave. I am your slave, Master,”’ he said. ‘I am a slave,’ I said. ‘I am your slave, Master.’ He then put the neck belt on me, tying it shut with the thong, with what I knew must be a slave knot From the box then he took a yellow leather disk, which had a small hole, possibly drilled with a tiny stone implement, near its top. There was writing in some barbaric script upon it. He threaded an end of the thong through the hole and then, using the other end of the thong, too, knotted the disk snugly at the very base of the collar, in the front, below my throat He looked down at me. ‘You have been knife branded,’ he said.
Explorers of Gor; p. 330
As I lifted my head, miserable, cringing, my back and legs lacerated and bloody, I saw, truly noticing it for the first time, a deep mark, a lovely mark, about an inch and a half high and a half of an inch wide, incised in Lola's left thigh. I was startled. It was a brand. Lola had been branded. The mark was exquisite in her flesh. The design was rather floral. It consisted of what seemed to be a straight line, rather severe, with what appeared to be, adjacent to it, to its right, two fronds, curled and graceful. I would later learn that this was, in cursive script, the initial letter of the Gorean expression 'Kajira', which is the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. The design also, according to some, is supposed to have symbolic significance. The straight line is supposed to represent the staff of discipline and the two fronds the beauty of a woman. The significance of the whole, then, would be beauty subject to the staff of discipline. Interestingly, the design also bears a remote resemblance, if one thinks about it, to the English letter `K'. Since the first sound in the expression 'Kajira' would be represented in English by the letter `K' it is quite possible that this resemblance is more than a coincidence. Certain letters of the Gorean alphabet, not all of them, bear a very clear resemblance to certain letters in certain of the alphabets of Earth. This, I suppose, was to have been expected, given the doubtless Earth origin of all, or most, of the human Goreans. The Gorean name for the letter in question, if it is of interest, is 'Kef'.
Fighting Slave of Gor; p. 68-69
the brand of the Tuchuk slave, incidentally, is not the same as that generally used in the cities. which for girls, is the first letter of the expression Kajira in cursive script. but the sign of the four bask horns that of the Tuchuk standard; the brand of the four bask horns, set in such a manner as to somewhat resemble the letter "H." is only about an inch high; the common Gorean brand, on the other hand, is usually an inch and a half to two inches high; the brand of the four bosk horns.
Nomads of Gor; p. 62
These, like Kamchak, rode rather near their respective standard bearers. The standard of the Kassars is that of a scarlet, three-weighted bole, which hangs from a lance; the symbolic representation of a bola, three circles joined at the center by lines, is used to mark their bask and slaves; both Tenchika and Dina wore that brand; Kamchak had not decided to rebrand them, as is done with bosk; he thought, rightly, it would lower their value; also, I think he was pleased to have slaves in his wagon who wore the brand of Kassers, for such night lie taken as evidence of the superiority of Tuchuks to Kassars, that they had bested them and taken their slaves; similarly Kamchak was pleased to have in his herd bask, and he had several, whose first brand was that of the three-weighted bole; the standard of the Kataii is a yellow bow, bound across a black lance; their brand is also that of a bow, facing to the left; the Paravaci standard is a large banner of jewels beaded on golden wires, forming the head and horns of a bosk its value is incalculable; the Paravaci brand is a symbolic representation of a bask head, a semicircle resting on an inverted isoceles triangle.
Nomads of Gor; p. 106
I felt her left thigh. Most girls are branded on the left thigh. Perhaps this is because most masters are right-handed. The brand, then, as one controls the slave, may be easily caressed. But her left thigh wore no brand. Her right thigh, too, as I soon noted, did not wear the slave mark, nor did her lower left abdomen. These are the three standard marking places, following the recommendations of Merchant Law, for the marking of Kajirae, with the left thigh being, in practice, the overwhelmingly favored brand site.
Fighting Slave of Gor; p. 312
"I could, of course, examine your thighs, your lower left abdomen, your body generally," I said. The thighs and the lower left abdomen are the brand sites recommended by Merchant Law. Masters, of course, may brand a girl wherever they please. She is theirs. Sometimes brands are placed on the left side of the neck, on the left calf, the interior of the left heel, and on the inside of the left forearm. The customary brand site, incidentally, is high on the left thigh. That is the site almost invariably utilized in marking Gorean kajirae.
Fighting Slave of Gor; p. 349
"My brand," she said, "is the common Kajira mark. I hope it pleases Master." I regarded it, the staff and fronds, delicate and incisive, beauty subject to discipline.
Rogue of Gor; p. 204
Now, as she lay, the small, fine brand high on her left thigh, just below the hip, could be seen. I had put it there myself, at my leisure, once in Ar.
Savages of Gor; p. 8
I could see the small, incisive brand marks on their left thighs, high, just below their left hips.
Savages of Gor; p. 63
"It will be the common Kajira mark," he said, "indicating that you are beautiful, but only another slave girl."
"Thank you, Master," she said. I thought the cursive Kef, sometimes referred to as the staff and fronds, beauty subject to discipline, would look well upon her thigh.
"I am already branded, Master," said the girl at my feet. She looked up at me. It was true. She wore the Kef high on her left thigh, just under the hip. This is the most common brand site for a Gorean slave girl.
Savages of Gor; p. 75
The most common brand site in a Gorean slave girl is the outer side of the left thigh, closely beneath the hip. In this brand site the identificatory mark is thus placed high enough to be covered by the brief cloth of a common slave tunic and is available for convenient and immediate inspection if the tunic is lifted. The time it takes to brand several women can be reduced by the common expedient of heating several irons, but most iron masters will not work with more than two or three irons at a given time. Similarly, in a given house, normally only one fellow, at a time, attends to the branding.
Savages of Gor; p. 108-109
When her left hand wished to stray to her brand he took it and placed it again, firmly, palm down, on her thigh.
"Yes, Master," whispered the girl, in English. I was pleased to see that she was intelligent. A fresh brand is not to be disturbed, of course.
Savages of Gor; p. 139
"She is not branded, I do not think," said a woman. I
pulled back. I felt hands checking my left and right thighs, the two most common brand sites for a Gorean slave.
Kajira of Gor; p. 253-254
"Look," said the first man, taking me by the uppper arm, and turning it to the light. "The barbarian brand."
I did not see how I could explain this vaccination mark the men without making clear that my origin was not Gorean. The vaccination was in connection with a disease which, too, as far as I knew, did not even exist on Gor.
Kajira of Gor; p. 258
Too, her thigh now wore a brand, the common Kajira mark, high on her left thigh, just under the hip. I had had it put on her two days after leaving the vicinity of Samnium, at the town of Market of Semris, well known for its sales of tarsks. It had been put on in the house of the slaver, Teibar. He brands superbly, and his prices are competitive. No longer could the former Lady Charlotte, once of Samnium, be mistaken for a free woman.
Mercenaries of Gor; p. 19
He thrust Boabissia's dress up, high over her breasts. He examined her thighs, and the usual brand sites on a Gorean female slave.
Mercenaries of Gor; p. 120
“I do not detect any brands on your body,” I said, “at least in the normal brand sites. Perhaps you are telling the truth,” The most common branding sites for a Gorean slave are on the left or right thigh, high, near the hip. Others may wear their brands variously, for example, low on the left abdomen, on the inside of the left forearm, on the left breast, or, very tiny, behind the left ear. I myself do not approve of brands on the breast. A woman’s breasts, in my opinion, are too beautiful for a brand. On the other hand I do not object to temporarily marking them in such a place, say, with a grease pencil, lipstick, or paint, as many slavers do. The ideal, of course, given the necessity of marking women, the importance of which anyone recognizes, is to do it in such a fashion that it does not detract from a woman’s beauty, but rather enhances it, and considerably. The thigh brand, for one, has this effect. It also, put in her flank, below her waist, helps her to understand what her slavery is all about.
Mercenaries of Gor; p. 389
She, wincing, turned toward me, in the straw. “An excellent brand,” I said. It was the common kajira mark, as I had expected, a small, delicate, and beautiful, the cursive Kef, the stand and fronds, lyrically feminine, but unmistakable, a brand marking property, worn by most Gorean female slaves.
Mercenaries of Gor; p. 438
I had now been branded, a small, graceful mark burned into my left thigh, high, under the hip. It had a vertical bar, a rather strict one, with two curling, frondlike extensions, rather near its base, as though in submiss
