Salt

Accordingly, the Ubar, tears in his eyes, was publicly refused bread and salt, and under penalty of death, was ordered to leave Ar by sundown, never again to come within ten pasangs of the city.
Tarnsman of Gor page 216

The proprietor arrived with hot bread, honey, salt and to my delight, a huge, hot roasted chunk of tarsk. I crammed my mouth with food and washed it down with another thundering draught of Kal-da.
Outlaw of Gor page 79

Many are the objects for sale at the fair. I passed among wines and textiles and raw wool, silks, and brocades, copperware and glazed pottery, carpets and tapestries, lumber, furs, hides, salt, arms and arrows, saddles and harness, rings and bracelets and necklaces, belts and sandals, lamps and oils, medicines and meats and grains, animals such as the fierce tarns, Gor's winged mounts, and tharlarions, her domesticated lizards, and long chains of miserable slaves, both male and female.
Priest Kings of Gor page 12

I turned to the Attendant. "She is to have double salt ration each evening," I told him.
"Very well," he said.
Priest Kings of Gor page 201

From these raids the Wagon Peoples obtained a miscellany of goods which they are willing to barter to the Turians, jewels, precious metals, spices, colored table salts, harnesses and saddles for the ponderous tharlarion, furs of small river animals, tools for the field, scholarly scrolls, inks and papers, root vegetables, dried fish, powdered medicines, ointments, perfume and women, customarily plainer ones they do not wish to keep for themselves; prettier wenches, to their dismay, are usually kept with the wagons; some of the plainer women are sold for as little as a brass cup; a really beautiful girl, particularly if of free birth and high caste, might bring as much as forty pieces of gold; such are, however, seldom sold; the Wagon Peoples enjoy being served by civilized slaves of great beauty and high station; during the day, in the heat and dust, such girls will care for the wagon bosk and gather fuel for the dung fires; at night they will please their masters.
Nomads of Gor page 57

I observed the banquet tables, laid out in an open-ended rectangle, permitting slaves to enter at the open end, facilitating the serving, and, of course, allowing entertainers to perform among the tables. To one side there was a small altar to Priest-Kings, where there burned a small fire. On this fire, at the beginning of the feast the feast steward had scattered some grains of meal, some colored salt, some drops of wine. "Ta-Sardar-Gor," he had said, and this phrase had been repeated by the others in the room. "To the Priest-Kings of Gor." It had been the general libation for the banquet. The only one in the room who did not participate in this ceremony was Kamchak, who thought that such a libation, in the eyes of the sky, would not have been fitting. I partook of the libation out of respect for Priest-Kings, for one in particular, whose name was Misk.
Nomads of Gor page 89

Some of the men laughed. The slave who had won at hook knife turned white, sitting far below the salt.
Assassin of Gor page 91

His gruel had been salted to the point of being inedible; he stared disgustingly down at the wet mash of porridge and salt.
Assassin of Gor page 237

"What is wrong, Master?" inquired Elizabeth innocently.
"If I thought it was you," growled Ho-Tu, "who dared to salt my porridge, you would spend the night sitting on a slave goad."
"I would never think of such a thing," protested Elizabeth, wide-eyed.
Ho-Tu grunted. Then he grinned. "Kajuralia, Little Wench," said he.
Elizabeth smiled. "Kajuralia, Master," said she, and turning quickly about, still smiling, went on with her work.
Assassin of Gor page 238

"Was it you," I asked, "who salted the gruel of Ho-Tu?"
"It is possible," she admitted.
Assassin of Gor page 244

There was the odor of food in the kitchen, and of spilled drink. There were several yards of sausages hung on hooks; numerous canisters of flour, sugars and salts; many smaller containers of spices and condiments. Two large wine jugs stood in one corner of the room. There were many closed pantries lining the walls, and a number of pumps and tubs on one side. Some boxes and baskets of hard fruit were stored there. I could see the bread ovens in one wall; the long fire pit over which could be put cooking racks, the mountings for spits and kettle hooks; the fire pit was mostly black now, but, here and there, I could see a few broken sticks of glowing charcoal; aside from this, the light in the room came from one small tharlarion oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, near the side where the kitchen slaves were chained, presumably to facilitate the guard check which, during the night, took place each second Ahn; the other lamps in the room were now extinguished.
Assassin of Gor pages 271-272

To my astonishment bread, and salt, and a small, flaming brand were brought to him.
I could not believe my eyes.
Marlenus took the bread and broke it apart in his large hands. "You are refused bread," said Marlenus, placing the bread back on the tray.
There were shouts of astonishment in the court.
Marlenus had taken the salt, lifted it from the tray, and replaced it. "You are refused salt," he said.
"No!" came the shouts from hundreds of voices. "No!"
Marlenus then, looking at me, took the small brand of fire in his hand. There was a leaf of fire, bright yellow, at its tip. He thrust the brand into the salt, extinguishing it. "You are refused fire," he said.
Assassin of Gor page 404

"I have been refused bread, and fire and salt." I said to Elizabeth.
She nodded. "Yes," she said. She looked at me, bewildered. "Hup told me yesterday it would be so."
Assassin of Gor page 406

Accordingly I did not carry, in these first voyages, any abundance of precious metals or jewels; nor did I carry rugs or tapestries, or medicines, or silks or ointments, or perfumes or prize slaves, or spices or canisters of colored table salts.
Raiders of Gor 138

On these barges, moving upriver, I could see many crates and boxes, which would contain such goods, rough goods, as metal, and tools and cloth. Moving downstream I could see other barges, moving the goods of the interior downriver, such objects as planking, barrels of fish, barrels of salt, loads of stones, and bales of furs.
Captive of Gor page 81

We could see stone, and timber and barrels of fish and salt stored on docks on the shore.
Captive of Gor page 85

There was a strong smell of fish and salt in the air.
Captive of Gor page 86

We, and the wagons, passed between wooden sleds, with leather runners, on which there were squared blocks of granite, from the quarries eat of Laura; and between barrels and hogsheads of fish and salt; and between bales of sleen fur and panther hides, from the forests beyond.
Captive of Gor pages 87-88

Too, from Laura, much in evidence, were great barrels of salt, stacks of lumber, and sleds of stones, on wooden runners, from the quarries to her east.
Hunters of Gor page 44

Thurnock brought to me the wine and oil, and the salt. I stood at the rail. My men stood.
In a moment, Rim was again on deck, and he, too, stood watching.
Hunters of Gor page 73

"Ta-Sardar-Gor. Ta-Thassa," said I, in Gorean. "To the Priest-Kings of Gor, and to the Sea."
Then, slowly, I poured the wine, and the oil into the sea, and the salt.
Hunters of Gor page 73

There was much of some value, though mostly bulk goods. I found quantities of slave meal, which is mixed with water; and silks, and bowls, and collars, not inscribed, and lengths of dried meat, stretched and salted; and coils of rope and chains.
Hunters of Gor page 210

They fed from bowls of slave meal, mixed with water. Too, I cut each of them a piece of the dried, salted meat taken from the abandoned camp of the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.
Hunters of Gor page 214

"What if the food is poisoned?" asked the blond girl, in her ankle ring.
"Eat," I told her.
She looked at me.
"Eat, Slave," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
Looking at me, apprehensive, she chewed and swallowed.
"Quickly," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
Swiftly, frightened, she finished the bowl of slave meal and the piece of salted, dried meat.
Hunters of Gor page 214

We had poured oil, and wine, and salt into the sea. We were enroute to Port Kar.
Hunters of Gor page 319

The trade is largely in furs from the north, exchanged for weapons, iron bars, salt and luxury goods, such as jewelry and silk, from the south, usually brought to Kassau from Lydius by ten-oared coasting vessels.
Marauders of Gor page 28

We had shaken hands over the board.
"Friend," he had said.
"Friend," I had said.
We had then tasted salt, each from the back of the wrist of the other.
Marauders of Gor page 70

Earlier, before he had begun his tour of inspection, Pudding had come to him, and knelt before him, holding a plate of Sa-Tarna loaves. The daughter of Gurt, the Administrator of Kassau, was being taught to bake. She watched fearfully as the Forkbeard bit into one. "It needs more salt," he had said to her. She shuddered.
Marauders of Gor page 103

"See then," said he, "that your baking improves!" "Yes, my Jarl," she said, and fled away. "It's not bad bread," said Ivar Forkbeard to me, when she had disappeared from sight. He broke me a piece. We finished it. It was really quite good, but, as the Forkbeard had said, it could have used a dash more salt.
Marauders of Gor page 103

On the long side of the hall, on the north and south, there were long tables, with benches. Salt, in its bowls on the tables, divided men into rankings. Those sitting above the salt were accorded greater prestige than those sitting below it. If one sat between the salt and the high seat, one sat "above" the salt; if one sat between the salt and the entrance to the hall, one sat "below" the salt. At the high-seat table, that at which the high seat sat, all counted as being "above the salt." Similarly, at the tables parallel to the high-seat table, smaller tables flanking the long fire on both sides, the table nearest the high seat counted as being above the salt, those farthest away being below the salt. The division was made approximately at the third of the hall closest to the high seat, but could shift, depending on the numbers of those in attendance worthy to be above the salt. The line, so to speak, imaginary to be sure, but definitely felt as a social reality, dividing those above from those below the salt, was uniformly "drawn" across the width of the hall. Thus, it was not the case that one at a long side table, who was above the salt, would be farther away from the high seat than one at one of the center tables, who was "below" the salt.
Marauders of Gor pages 186-187

"You frown upon me, and would put me below the salt," said Ivar Forkbeard, "because I am outlaw."
Marauders of Gor page 190

To the oases caravans bring various goods, for example, rep-cloth, embroidered cloths, silks, rugs, silver, gold, jewelries, mirrors, kaiilauk tusk, perfumes, hides, skins, feathers, precious woods, tools, needles, worked leather goods, salt, nuts and spices, jungle birds, prized as pets, weapons, rough woods, sheets of tin and copper, the tea of Bazi, wool from the bounding Hurt, decorated, beaded whips, female slaves, and many other forms of merchandise.
Tribesmen of Gor page 37

He pulled his sand veil, yellow, from his dark face, down about his throat. He thrust his burnoose back further over his shoulders. He was Harif, said to be the finest blade in Tor.
"Bring salt," he said to the judge.
The judge gestured to a boy, who brought him a small dish of salt.
Tribesmen of Gor pages 59-60

"Let there be salt between us," he said.
"Let there be salt between us," I said.
He placed salt from the small dish on the back of his right wrist. He looked at me. His eyes were narrow. "I trust," said he, "you have not made jest of me?"
"No," I said.
"In your hand," he said, "steel is alive, like a bird."
The judge nodded assent. The boy's eyes shone. He stood back.
"I have never seen this, to this extent, in another man." He looked at me. "Who are you?" he asked.
I placed salt on the back of my right wrist. "One who shares salt with you," I said.
"It is enough," he said.
I touched my tongue to the salt in the sweat of his right wrist, and he touched his tongue to the salt on my right wrist.
"We have shared salt," he said.
Tribesmen of Gor page 60

The judge, on the testimony of Ibn Saran, and that of two white-skinned, female slaves, one named Zaya, a red-haired girl, the other a dark-haired girl, whose name was Vella, had sentenced me as a criminal, a would-be assassin, to the secret brine pits of Klima, deep in the dune country, there to dig until the salt, the sun, the slave masters, had finished with me.
Tribesmen of Gor page 117

From the secret pits of Klima, it was said, no slave had ever returned. Kaiila are not permitted at Klima, even to the guards. Supplies are brought in, and salt carried away, by caravan, on which the pits must depend.
Tribesmen of Gor pages 117-118

Probably, other than his own men, only some few hundred know of it, primarily merchants high in the salt trade, and few of them would know its exact location. Whereas salt may be obtained from sea water and by burning seaweed, as is sometimes done in Torvaldsland, and there are various districts on Gor where salt, solid or in solution, may be obtained, by far the most extensive and richest of known Gor's salt deposits are found concentrated in the Tahari. Tahari salt accounts, in its varieties, I would suspect, for some twenty percent of the salt and salt-related products, such as medicines and antiseptics, preservatives, cleansers, bleaches, bottle glass, which contains soda ash, taken from salt, and tanning chemicals, used on known Gor. Salt is a trading commodity par excellence. There are areas on Gor where salt serves as currency, being weighed and exchanged much as precious metals. The major protection and control of the Tahari salt, of course, lies in the remoteness, the salt districts, of which there are several, being scattered and isolated in the midst of the dune country, in the long caravan journeys required, and the difficulty or impossibility of obtaining it without knowing the trails, the ways of the desert. A lesser protection and control of the salt, though a not unformidable one, lies in the policing of the desert by the Salt Ubar, or the Guard of the Dunes. The support of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar comes from fees supplied by high salt merchants, the measure of which fees, of course, they include in their wholesale pricing to lesser distributors. The function of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar, thus, officially, is to administer and control the salt districts, on behalf of the Tahari salt merchants, primarily by regulating access to the districts, checking the papers and the credentials of merchants, inspecting caravans between Red Rock, and certain other oases, and the salt districts, will travel under an escort of the Guard of the Dunes. Many salt caravans, incidentally, travel only between the local oases and the distant points, often culminating with Kasra or Tor. Some caravans, of course, journey through from distant points to the salt districts, accepting the danger and inconvenience of trekking the dune country, but thereby avoiding the higher charges of picking up salt from the storehouses in the local oases. Even these caravans, of course, once in the dune country are accompanied by the men of the Guard of the Dunes. The Guard of the Dunes, however, does not obtain the title of the Salt Ubar by virtue of his complacent magistracy of the salt districts, subservient to the Tahari merchants. There are those who say, and I do not doubt it true, that it is he, and not the merchants, who controls of the salt of the Tahari. Nominally a sheriff of the Tahari merchants, he, ensconced in his kasbah, first among fierce warriors, elusive and unscrupulous, possesses a strangle hold on the salt of the Tahari, the vital commerce being ruled and regulated as he wills. He holds within his territories the right of law and execution. In the dunes he is Ubar and the merchants bow their heads to him. The Guard of the Dunes is one of the most dreaded and powerful men in the Tahari.
Tribesmen of Gor pages 208-209

The men are fed twice, once in the morning, once at night, when the hood is opened, and thrust up some inches to permit eating. Food is thrust in their mouths. It was generally dried fruit, crackers and a bit of salt, to compensate for the salt loss during the day's march, consequent on perspiration.
Tribesmen of Gor page 226

"Take salt," said a voice. It was Hassan!
"You live!" I cried.
"Take salt," he said.
He fell to his knees, and thrust his face into the salt. He bit at the crusts. He licked crystals from them.
I followed his example. We had not had salt in four days.
Tribesmen of Gor page 234

At Klima, and other such areas, salt is an industry.
Tribesmen of Gor page 238

Similarly, the heavy cylinders of salt, mined and molded at Klima, are carried on the backs of salt slaves from storage areas at Klima to storage areas in the desert, whence they are tallied, sold and distributed to caravans.
Tribesmen of Gor page 238

A man handed me a bag of food. It contained dried fruit, biscuits, salt.
"My thanks," I said. We had not expected food.
Tribesmen of Gor page 267

I saw T'Zshal, who was riding past, leading his thousand lances. He reined in, and his men behind him.
"We are returning to Klima," he said.
"But you have kaiila," I said.
"We are slaves of the salt, slaves of the desert," he said. "We return to Klima."
"The Salt Ubar is gone," I said.
"We will negotiate with local pashas and regulate the desert, and discuss the prices of the varieties of salt," said T'Zshal.
"The price of salt will soon rise," I suggested.
"It is not impossible," said T'Zshal.
Tribesmen of Gor page 347

"We will need taverns, cafes, at Klima," he said. "The men have been too long without recreation."
"With control of much salt," I said, "you may have much what you wish."
"We shall confederate the salt districts," said T'Zshal.
"You are indeed ambitious," I said. T'Zshal, I saw, was a leader.
Tribesmen of Gor page 348

Salt, Red
Only Kamchak seemed solemn. Near him, in places of honor, at a long, low table, above the bowls of yellow and red salt, on each side, sat many of the high men of Turia, clad in their finest robes, their hair oiled, scented and combed for the banquet.
Nomads of Gor page 253

It had been expected, I gathered, that I would sit at one of the two long side tables, and perhaps even below the bowls of red and yellow salt which divided these tables. The table of Cernus itself, of course, was regarded as being above the bowls. Ho-Tu sat beside me, on my left.
Assassin of Gor page 86

Salt, incidentally, is obtained by the men of Torvaldsland, most commonly, from sea water or from the burning of seaweed. It is also, however, a trade commodity, and is sometimes taken in raids. The red and yellow salts of the south, some of which I saw on the tables, are not domestic to Torvaldsland.
Marauders of Gor page 187

We went to the man. "This is Ibn Saran, salt merchant of the river port of Kasra," said Samos.
The red salt of Kasra, so called from its port of embarcation, was famed on Gor. It was brought from secret pits and mines, actually, deep in the interior, bound in heavy cylinders on the back of pack kaiila. Even cylinder, roped to others, weighed in the neighborhood of ten stone, or some forty pounds, a Gorean "Weight."
Tribesmen of Gor page 20

Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt, red from the ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and Lower Fayeen.
Tribesmen of Gor page 238

Salt, White
Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt, red from the ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and Lower Fayeen.
Tribesmen of Gor page 238

Salt, Yellow
Only Kamchak seemed solemn. Near him, in places of honor, at a long, low table, above the bowls of yellow and red salt, on each side, sat many of the high men of Turia, clad in their finest robes, their hair oiled, scented and combed for the banquet.
Nomads of Gor page 253

It had been expected, I gathered, that I would sit at one of the two long side tables, and perhaps even below the bowls of red and yellow salt which divided these tables. The table of Cernus itself, of course, was regarded as being above the bowls. Ho-Tu sat beside me, on my left.
Assassin of Gor page 86

Salt, incidentally, is obtained by the men of Torvaldsland, most commonly, from sea water or from the burning of seaweed. It is also, however, a trade commodity, and is sometimes taken in raids. The red and yellow salts of the south, some of which I saw on the tables, are not domestic to Torvaldsland.
Marauders of Gor page 187