tolerant of arid cold, and has not been exploited or colonised. The third and fourth planets, Yeowe and Werel, are well within the Hainish Norm of atmosphere, gravity, climate, etc. Werel was colonised by Hain late in the Expansion, within the last million years. It appears that there was no native fauna to displace, as all animal life- forms found on Werel, as well as some flora, are of Hainish derivation-Yeowe had no animal life until Werel colonised it 365 years BP.
Werel
Natural History
The fourth planet out from its sun, Werel has seven small moons. Its current climate is cool tem-
perate, severely cold at the poles. Its flora is largely indigenous, its fauna entirely of Hainish origin, modified deliberately to obtain cobiosis with the native plants, and further modified through genetic drift and adaptation. Human adaptations include a cyanotic skin coloration (from black to pale, with a bluish cast) and eyes without visible whites, both
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evidently adjustments to elements in the solar radiation spectrum.
Voe Deo: Recent History: 4000-3500 years BP, aggressive, progressive black-skinned people from south of the equator on the single great continent (the region that is now the nation of Voe Deo) invaded and dominated the lighter-skinned peoples of the north.
These conquerors instituted a master-slave society based on skin color.
Voe Deo is the largest, most numerous, wealthiest nation on the planet; all other nations in both hemispheres are dependencies, client states, or eco-
nomically dependent on Voe Deo. Voe Dean economics have been based on capitalism and slavery for at least 3000 years. Voe Dean hegemony permits the general description of Werel as if it were all one society- As the society is in rapid change, however, this account will be put in the past tense.
Social Classes under Slavery
Class: master (owner or gareot) and slave
(asset). Your class was your mother's class, without
exception.
Skin color ranges from blue-black through bluish or greyish beige to an almost depigmented white. (Only albinism affects hair and eyes, which are dark). Ideally and in the abstract, class was skin color: owners black, assets white- Actually, many owners were black, most were dark; some assets were black, most beige, some white.
OWNERS were called men, women, children.
The unqualified word owner meant either the
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FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS
class as a whole or an individual/family owning two or more slaves.
The owner of one slave or no slaves was a staff-less owner or gareot.
The veot was a member of an hereditary warrior caste of owners; the ranks were rega, zadyo, oga. Veot men almost invariably joined the Army; most veot families were landed proprietors; most were owners, some gareots.
Owner women formed a subclass or inferior caste. An owner woman was legally the property of a man (father, uncle, brother, husband, son, or guardian). Most observers hold that the gender division of Werelian society was as profound and essential as the master/slave division, but less visible, as it cut across it, owner women being considered socially superior to assets of both sexes. Since women were property, they could not own property, including human property. They could, however, manage
property.
ASSETS were called bondsmen, bondswomen, pups or young. Pejorative terms: slaves, dusties, chalks, whites.
Luls were work-slaves, owned by a person or a family. All slaves on Werel were luls, except makils and asset-soldiers.
Makils were sold to and owned by the Entertainment Corporation.
Asset-soldiers were sold to and owned by the Army.
'Cutfrees' or eunuchs were male slaves castrated (more or less voluntarily, depending on age, etc.) to gain status and privilege. Werelian histories describe a number of cutfrees who rose to great power in var-
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Notes on Werel and Yeowe
ious governments; many held posts of influence throughout the bureaucracy. The Bosses of the bondswomen's side of the compound were invariably cutfrees.
Manumission was extremely rare up until the last century, restricted to a few famous historical/ legendary cases of slaves whose supernal loyalty and virtue induced their masters to give them freedom. About the time the War of Liberation began on Yeowe, the practice of manumission became more frequent on Werel, led by the owner group The Community, which advocated the abolition of slavery. A manumitted asset ranked legally, though seldom socially, as a gareot.
In Voe Deo at the time of the Liberation the proportion of assets to owners was 7:1. (About half these owners were gareots, owners of one or no assets.) In poorer countries the proportion dropped lower or reversed; in the Equatorial States the proportion of assets to owners was 1:5. In Werel as a whole, the proportion was estimated to be about three assets to one owner.
The House and the Compound
Historically and in the country, on the estates, farms, and plantations, the assets lived in a fenced or walled compound with a single gate. The compound was divided in halves by a ditch running parallel to the gate wall. Thegateside was the men's quarters, the inside was the women's. Children lived on the inside, until boys reaching working age (8 to 10) were sent over to the longhouse. Women lived in huts, mothers and daughters, sisters or friends usually sharing a hut, two to four women with their children. The
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men and boys lived in gateside barracks called long-houses. Kitchen gardens were maintained by the old people and small children who did not go out to work; the old people generally cooked for the working people. The grandmothers ruled the compound.
Cutfrees (eunuchs) lived in separate houses built against the outside wall, with a surveillance station on the wall; they served as Compound Bosses, intermediaries between the grandmothers and the Work Bosses (members of the owner family, or hired gareots, in charge of the working assets). Work Bosses lived in houses outside the compound.
The owning family and their owner-class dependents occupied the House. The term House included any number of outbuildings, the Work Bosses' quarters, and animal barns, but specifically meant the family's large house. In conventional Houses the men's side (azade) and the women's side (beza) were strictly divided. The degree of restriction on the women reflected the wealth, power, and social pretension of the family. Gareot women might have considerable freedom of movement and occupation, but women of wealthy or distinguished family were kept indoors or in the walled gardens, never going out without numerous male escorts.
A number of female assets lived on the women's side as domestics and for use of the male owners. Some Houses kept male domestics, usually boys or old men; some kept cutfrees as servants.
In factories, mills, mines, etc., the compound system was maintained with some modifications.
Where there was division of labor, alt-male compounds were controlled entirely by hired gareots; in all- female compounds the grandmothers were
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Notes on Werel and Yeowe
allowed to keep order as in country compounds. Men rented to the all-male compounds had a life expectancy of about 28 years. During the shortage of assets caused by the slave trade to Yeowe in the early years of the Colony, some owners formed cooperative breeding compounds, where bondswomen were kept and bred annually,
