Markup View

Author: randomsurfer

Apr 10th 2012 at 9:51:07 AM

* ''Nomds of {{Gor}}'': Warriors of the Wagon Peoples (which is to say, [[ProudWarriorRace all adult males]]) earn scars to show how badass they are.  Each one is colored.  The first scar earned is the red Courage Scar, without which one can't get any other scars.  The scars are worked into the faces of the warriors over days or weeks; some have even died during the scarring process.
--->On the face of each there were, almost like corded chevrons, brightly colored scars. The vivid coloring and intensity of these scars, their prominence, reminded me of the hideous markings on the faces of mandrills; but these disfigurements, as I soon recognized, were cultural, not congenital, and bespoke not the natural innocence of the work of genes but the glories and status, the arrogance and prides, of their bearers. The scars had been worked into the faces, with needles and knives and pigments and the dung of bosks over a period of days and nights. Men had died in the fixing of such scars. Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin. The man facing me had seven such scars ceremonially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red ...I could read only the top scar, the red, bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the Courage Scar. It is always the highest scar on the face. Indeed without that scar, no other scar can be granted. The Wagon Peoples value courage above all else. Each of these men facing me wore that scar. 
** In a later book, the Alars (loosely FantasyCounterpartCulture to the {{Huns}}) have a slightly similar - and yet entirely different - set of scars.  Each healthy male child, just after it's born and before it gets any milk from its mother, is cut once on each cheek.  "It must learn to endure wounds before it receives the nourishment of milk." (Only healthy children are permitted to live.  Unhealthy are presumably exposed to let them be killed by the environment, or possibly just killed outright.  It isn't explored.)
* In the EarthsChildren series Those Who Serve The Mother - combination priests and medicine people - are tattooed on the face to mark their status.