THARKS

Thark:   located about 15 karads (550 miles) southwest from the territories of Helium is the capitol city of this green Martian tribe;  “a city from whose long-forgotten people this horde of green men have stolen even their name. The hordes of Thark number some thirty thousand souls, and are divided into twenty-five communities. Each community has its own jed and lesser chieftains . . . Five communities make their headquarters at the city of Thark, and the balance are scattered among other deserted cities of ancient Mars.”  (PM XVI). 
 

            Green Martian hordes are distinguished by their insignia and metal ornaments.  Upon the   harness of a Thark warrior is “a small mirror, about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which hung midway between his shoulders and his waist against his broad back.” (GM III)
 

 “At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his strange kind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying. It is not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression of the pleasure they derive from the things that move Earth men to loathing or to tears.  Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits of uncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women and little children beneath the torture of that hellish green Martian fete—the Great Games.”  (GM III)

 

Unique amongst green Martian tribes or hordes, the Tharks are particularly adept at handling their steeds or thoats;

“these great brutes, by the uncertainty of their tempers, often were the means of turning victory into defeat, since, at a crucial moment, they might elect to unseat and rend their riders . . . And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method of training I had adopted with my beasts, and later he had me repeat it before Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. That moment marked the beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and before I left the community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction of observing a regiment of as tractable and docile mounts as one might care to see. The effect on the precision and celerity of the military movements was so remarkable that Lorquas Ptomel presented me with a massive anklet of gold from his own leg, as a sign of his appreciation of my service to the horde.”  (PM XIII)


Artwork by Thomas Yeates