quote:

---

'Gor,' he said, 'is the name of this world. In all the languages of this planet,the word means Home Stone.' He paused, noting my lack of comprehension. 'Home Stone,' he repeated. 'Simply that.'
-Tarnsman

---

quote:

---

'In peasant villages on this world,' he continued, 'each hut was originally built around a flat stone which was placed in the centre of the circular dwelling. It was carved with the family sign and was called the Home Stone. It was, so to speak, a symbol of sovereignty, or territory, and each
peasant, in his own hut, was a sovereign.'

'Later,' said my father, 'Home Stones were used for villages, and later still for cities. The Home Stone of a village was always placed in the market; in a city, on the top of the highest tower. The Home Stone came naturally, in time, to acquire a mystique, and something of the hot, sweet emotions as out native peoples of Earth feel towards their flags became invested in it.'
-Tarnsman

---

quote:

---

'These stones,' said my father, 'are various, of different colours, shapes, and sizes, and many of them are intricately carved. Some of the largest cities have small, rather
insignificant Home Stones, but of incredible antiquity, dating back to the time when the city was a village or only a mounted pride of warriors with no settled abode.'
....
'Where a man sets his Home Stone, he claims, by law, that land for himself. Good land is protected only by the swords of the strongest owners in the vicinity.'
'Swords?' I asked.
'Yes,' said my father, as if there was nothing incredible in this admission. He smiled. 'You have much to learn of Gor,'
he said. 'Yet there is a hierarchy of Home Stones, one might say, and two soldiers who would cut one another down with their steel blades for an acre of fertile ground will fight side by side to the death for the Home Stone of their village or of the city within whose ambit their village lies.
-Tarnsman

---

quote:

---

Young men and women of the city, when coming of age, participate in a ceremony which involves the swearing of oaths, and the sharing of bread, fire and salt. In this ceremony the Home Stone of the city is held by each young person and kissed. Only then are the laurel wreath and the mantle of citizenship conferred. This is a moment no young person of Ar forgets. The youth of Earth have no Home Stone. Citizenship, interestingly, in most Gorean cities is conferred only upon the coming of age, and only after certain examinations are passed. Further, the youth of Gor, in most cities, must be vouched for by citizens of the city, not related in blood to him, and be questioned before a committee of citizens, intent upon determining his worthiness or lack thereof to take the Home Stone of the city as his own. Citizenship in most Gorean communities is not something accrued in virtue of the accident of birth but earned by virtue of intent and application. The sharing of a Home Stone is no light thing in a Gorean city.
- Slave Girl

---

quote:

---

"You claim to be of Ar," said he. "Yet you cannot describe her Home Stone. Explain to me then in precise detail the ceremony of citizenship, or, perhaps, the performances enacted upon the Planting Feast."
"I cannot," she stammered.
"Shall I have you taken before the magistrates of Ar," he inquired, "to substantiate your claim of citizenship?"
"No," she mid, "no!" She looked at him, terrified. To claim a Home Stone as one’s own when it is not is a serious offense among Goreans. Elicia Nevins shuddered. She had no wish to be impaled upon the walls of Ar.
- Slave Girl

---

quote:

---

The love of their city tends to become invested in a stone which is known as the Home Stone, and which is normally kept in the highest cylinder in the city. In the Home Stone - sometimes little more than a crude piece of carved rock, dating back perhaps several hundred generations to when the city was only a cluster of huts by the bank of a river, sometimes a magnificent and impressively wrought, jewel- encrusted cube of marble or granite - the city finds its symbol. Yet to speak of a symbol is to fall short of the mark. It is almost as if the city itself were identified with the Home Stone, as if it were to the city what life is to man. The myths of these matters have it that while the Home Stone survives, so, too, must the city.
But not only is it the case that each city has its Home Stone. The simplest and humblest village, and even the most primitive hut in that village, perhaps only a cone of straw, will contain its own Home Stone, as will the fantastically appointed chambers of the Administrator of so great a city as Ar.
-Outlaw

---

quote:

---

The Home Stone of a city is the centre of various rituals.
The next would be the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, the Life-Daughter, celebrated early in the growing season to ensure a good harvest. This is a complex feast, celebrated by most Gorean cities, and the observances are numerous and intricate. The details of the rituals are arranged and mostly executed by the Initiates of a given city. Certain
portions of the ceremonies, however, are often allotted to members of the High Castes.
- Tarnsman

---

quote:

---

"You understand further, of course," said he, "that under Gorean merchant law, which is the only law commonly acknowledged binding between cities, that you stand under separate permissions of enslavement. First, were you of Ar, it would be my right, could I be successful, to make of you a slave, for we share no Home Stone. Secondly, though you speak of yourself as the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers, you are, in actuality, Miss Elicia Nevins of the planet Earth. You are an Earth girl and thus stand within a general permission of enslavement, fair beauty quarry to any Gorean male whatsoever."
Earth girls had no Home Stones. No legalities, thus, were contravened in capturing them and making of them abject slave girls.
- Slave Girl

---

quote:

---

She had thought herself, in virtue of the possession of significant and secret information, assured of certain winners in these races. Unfortunately for her this information, as I suspect is often the case in such matters, proved unreliable. Her wagers had, at any rate, proved uniformly disastrous. She had become a ruined woman. She had had to flee from Venna under the cover of darkness, that she not be delivered to the mercies of her creditors. Such creditors often come for a woman with a collar and chain. She resided now in Vonda, in a tiny, dingy holding, where she, as a citizeness of that city, would have, at least against foreign creditors, the protection of its Home Stone. The Lady Melpomene of Vonda, impoverished, ruined, had little now to pride herself on save the name of her family and the splendor of her lineage. The Lady Florence, though she must have been aware of these things, never, it was said, at home or abroad, mentioned the name of the Lady Melpomene. She had, perhaps, forgotten about her.
Fighting Slave

---