Chapter 4-5, pages 63-71
At the end of Chapter 4 Esau relates what he has heard of the Yagas, a race of predatory, winged black men—basically the NBA as pterodactyls, and they are ruled by a Queen, who sends them out to abduct white women!
By today’s standards, by which black men may not be depicted as villains, but only as the most pure-hearted heroes, this may seem unconscionable.
Consider though, what it was like for Howard’s day, when the depiction of a black man with agency, with will, with a mind, with fierce intelligence, was taboo. The general depiction of blacks in fiction was as extras, forces of nature, slaves to the will of white men. There were some positive depictions, such as Tarzan’s loyal Waziri warriors. But these too denied black characters decision-making roles. But Howard used blacks as convincing villains, often with superior minds, such as the sorcerers in the Conan tales.
Next, in Chapter 5, Esau, in the midst of enjoying his selfish he-man existence, discovers that Altha, the daughter of the chief, who showed such interest in him and whom he came to ignore as he brawled and drank with the rest of the ape-men, is miserable. Esau had thought she was content. But to her, the life of a woman on this barbarian planet is as terrible as his life on earth had been. Esau is now faced with the fact that he has no balance in his life, that he is immersed unto the point of mindlessness with the intoxicating opportunity to be a raw, ravenous man.
It is so interesting that in this hyper-masculine romp we are treated to the words of a convincingly alienated woman, of a most dainty type:
“To eat, drink and sleep is not all…the beasts do that.”
"Life is too hard for me. I do not fit, somehow, as the others do. I bruise myself on its rough edges. I look for something that is not and never was.”
“Is their nothing outside and beyond our material aspirations?”
Then, as if Edgar Rice Burroughs stopped by on his way to Tarzana and tapped Robert on the shoulder and said—It’s time, son—the evil Yagas sweep down and take Altha while Esau battles them. Ever impulsive to the point of insanity, Esau decides on a novel approach and forces one of the winged men to fly him in pursuit of his fellows. Talk about politically incorrect!
“After them I steered my reluctant steed…inspired by my poniard my bearer made good time, considering the burden he was carrying.”
Cairn even disparages his enemies for having “narrow” skulls!
Where is the Southern Poverty Law Center?
Oprah would not be a Robert E. Howard fan.
Anyone who has a hearty dislike for our duplicitous world and searches for their own true inner self, should read Almuric.
Is there any point where REH/Esau directly compares the Yagas to Negroes? As I recall, they sound very much like the coal-black "winged man" in "The Garden of Fear", who was definitely not Negroid. They also much resemble the sadistic "Black Ones" Conan encounters, who are said to not be Negroid (in fact, not even remotely human).
The probable inspiration for all of them are the coal-black "First Born" of ERB's "Barsoom" novels (REH read them), themselves a sadistic, slaving, air-borne race. Burroughs specifically said that the First Born had a Caucasian cast of feature, not Negroid.