the sietch punished ignorance There was simply no room for the uninformed Since all things were measured in terms of how they aided or hindered the survival of die sielch, all decisions made by its members were in terms of "yes" or "no " Sur viva] had no room for "maybe " For example, an outsider was rarely allowed to join a sietch It was not simply a matter of the burden such an addition would place on its limited resources, but rather the practical question of what that individual could possibly add to the sietch mat was not already present In his notes on his father, Paul Muad'Dib, Leto states that the Naib of the sietch that first found Paul and the Lady Jessica the Fremen named Stilgar was chal lenged by his own men for not putting both of them to death immediately These men did not dislike the two off worlders, the) simply saw no advantage to keeping them alive and thereby depriving the sietch of the water from their bodies In this same pas sage Leto points out that Paul did finally have to duel with one of the Fremen who refused to delay a decision despite Stilgar's wishes Finally, there was the tau of the sietch The tau of a sietch can be called its oneness the overwhelming unity that raised the Fremen sense of community to a height rarely found in other societies This oneness went far beyond the belief that the good of the sietch was above all other considerations The tau contained a mystical dimension that Iran scended time and place Since each sietch kept a community reservoir in which all members kept their water and in which water that belonged to the entire sietch was also pooled, the sietch was literally the guardian of the most precious commodity for life on Arrakis More important however is the fact that these reservoirs included the water recovered from the dead bodies of members of the sietch Fremen did not put water so obtained into the reservoirs lightly It was respect for the departed that allowed for such treatment, dishonored men or women would never, after death, be afforded this honor Thus, in a very real sense, the sietch pre served all members living and dead, for the water from the dead would be ingested by ali living Fremen, and at some future time they too would make their contribution Oneness therefore, meant unity with every citizen of the sietch from its furthest past to its most distant future It should be remembered that from its earliest history the Fremen race revered "the ways of the fathers' In addition because of the acute shortage of water on Arrakis the literal 'water of the fathers" was drunk by all members of the sietch Thus, the tau of the sietch was at the very heart of the bal ance the Fremen maintained between their spiritual beliefs and the physical necessities placed upon them by their environment To FREMEN CULTURE 230 FREMEN EDUCATION dnnk the water of the sietch was to partici pate in the tau In addition, the Tau Orgy of Oneness also brought the sietch into a physical intimacy as well as a spiritual one The visions of the tau orgy showed them the ways of their fathers Here was the Piemen's ultimate bond with the past, present, and future, and it could only be obtained through participation of the entire sietch.