Scorpio Drums

Chapter four-1

Chapter fourTo the majority of people of Paz, the Clansmen of Segesthes appear as archetypal savage barbarians. My Clansmen, I hasten to add, I hope needlessly, are not barbarians. Some of the clans farther off are a trifle hairy, I suppose. But if you wish to describe someone as savage and destructive and barbaric, you can call him or her a Clansman.

The clans of the Great Plains are nomads, of course. Nomads, in their eternal marches across the grazing lands, do not in general assist the onward march of progress and civilization. Nomads are essentially living a static way of life. And, too, something of that harsh living is caught in the very word Clansman. A girl or a woman of the clanners will call herself a Clansman unselfconsciously, for she is of the clans.

All this in explanation