|
"...or the ill-tempered, cumbersome bosk, a shaggy, long-haired wild ox of the Gorean plains."
Book 2, Outlaw of Gor, page 125
"The Wagon Peoples grow no food, nor do they have manufacturing as we know it. They are herders and it is said, killers. They eat nothing that has touched the dirt. They live on the meat and milk of the bosk. They are among the proudest peoples on Gor, regarding the dwellers of the cities of Gor as vermin in holes, cowards who must fly behind walls, wretches who fear to live beneath the broad sky, who dare not dispute them the open, windswept plains of their world.
The bosk, without which the Wagon People could not live, is an oxlike creature. Its is huge shambling animal with a thick, humped neck and long shaggy hair. It has a wide head and tiny red eyes, a temper to match that of a sleen and two long, wicked horns that reach out from its head and suddenly curve forward to terminate in fearful points. Some of these horns, on the larger animals, measured from tip to tip, exceed the length of two spears.
Not only does the flesh of the bosk and the milk of its cows furnish the Wagon People with food and drink, but its hides cover the domelike wagons in which they dwell; its tanned and sewn skins cover their bodies; the leather of its hump is used for their shields; its sinew forms their thread; its bones and horns are split and tooled into implements of a hundred sorts, from awls, punches, and spoons to drinking flagons and weapon tips; its hooves are used for glue; its oils are used to grease their bodies against the cold. Even the dung of the bosk finds its uses on the treeless prairies being dried and used for fuel. The bosk is said to be the Mother of the Wagon People, and they reverence it as such. The man who kills one foolishly is strangled in thongs or suffocated in the hide of the animal he slew; if for any reason the man should kill a bosk cow with unborn young he is staked out, alive, in the path of the herd, and the march of the Wagon People takes its way over him."
Book 4, Nomads of Gor, page 4 - 5 ~才
"A consequence of the chronological conventions of the Wagon Peoples, of course, is that their years tend to vary in length, but this fact, which might bother us, does not bother them, any more than the fact that some men and some animals live longer than others; the women of the Wagon Peoples, incidentally, keep a calendar based on the phases of Gor's largest moon, but this is a calendar of fifteen moons, named for the fifteen varieties of bosk, and functions independently of the tallying of years by snows; for example, the Moon of the Brown Bosk may at one time occur in the winter, at another time, years later, in the summer; this calendar is kept by a set of colored pegs set in the sides of some wagons, on one of which, depending on the moon, a round, wooden plate bearing the image of a bosk is fixed.
....
every male of the Wagon Peoples is expected to be a warrior, to be able to ride, to be able to hunt, to care for the bosk, and so on."
Book 4, Nomads of Gor, page 12 ~才
"I heard the lowing of the milk bosk from among the wagons."
Book 4, Nomads of Gor, page 27 ~才
"The wagons of the Wagon Peoples are, in their hundreds and thousands, in their brilliant, variegated colors, a glorious sight. Surprisingly the wagons are almost square, each the size of a large room. Which is drawn by a double team of bosk, four in a team, with each team linked to its wagon tongue, the tongues being joined by "tem-wood crossbars. The two axles of the wagon are also of "tem-wood, which perhaps, because of its flexibility, joined with the general flatness of the southern Gorean plains, permits the width of the wagon.
The wagon box, which stands almost six feet from the ground, is formed of black, lacquered planks of tem-wood. Inside the wagon box, which is square, there is fixed a rounded, tentlike frame, covered with the taut, painted, varnished hides of bosks. These hides are richly colored, and often worked with fantastic designs, each wagon competing with its neighbor to be the boldest and most exciting. The rounded frame is fixed somewhat within the square of the wagon box, so that a walkway, almost like a ship's bridge, surrounds the frame. The sides of the wagon box, incidentally, are, here and there, perforated for arrow ports, for the small horn bow of the Wagon Peoples can be used to advantage not only from the back of a kaiila but, like the crossbow, from such cramped quarters. One of the most striking features of these wagons is the wheels, which are huge, the back wheels having a diameter of about ten feet; the front wheels are, like those of the Conestoga wagon, slightly smaller, in this case, about eight feet in diameter; the larger rear wheels are more difficult to mire; the smaller front wheels, nearer the pulling power of the bosk, permit a somewhat easier turning of the wagon. These wheels are carved wood and, like the wagon hides, are richly painted. Thick strips of boskhide form the wheel rims, which are replaced three to four times a year. The wagon is guided by a series of eight straps, two each for the four lead animals. Normally, however, the wagons are tied in tandem fashion, in numerous long columns, and only the lead wagons are guided, the others simply following, thongs running from the rear of one wagon to the nose rings of the bosk following, sometimes as much as thirty yards behind, with the next wagon; also, too, a wagon is often guided by a woman or boy who walks beside the lead animals with a sharp stick.
The interiors of the wagons, lashed shut, protected from the dust of the march, are often rich, marvelously carpeted and hung, filled with chests and silks, and booty from looted caravans, lit by hanging tharlarion oil lamps, the golden light of which falls on the silken cushions, the ankle-deep, intricatly wrought carpets. In the center of the wagon there is a small, shallow fire bowl, formed of copper, with a raised brass grating. Some cooking is done here, though the bowl is largely to furnish heat. The smoke escapes by a smoke hole at the dome of the tentlike frame, a hole which is shut when the wagons move."
Book 4, Nomads of Gor page 30 - 31 ~才
"The bosk is a large, horned, shambling ruminant of the Gorean plains. It is herded below the
Gorean equator by the Wagon Peoples, but there are Bosk herds on ranches in the north as
well, and peasants often keep some of the animals."
Book 6, Raiders of Gor, page 26
"I saw four small milk bosk grazing on short grass. In the distance, above the acres, I could see mountains, snowcapped. A flock of verr, herded by a maid with a stick, turned bleating on the sloping hillside. She shaded her eyes. She was blond; she was barefoot; she wore an ankle-length white kirtle of white wool, sleeveless, split to her belly. about her neck I could see a dark ring."
Book 9, Marauders of Gor page 81
|