Portage and Python

[Guest]

I'm just curious about a few details about the portage system and I haven't been able to find the answers elsewhere. I was wondering, since the portage system is python based and one of the things you do during installation is update the portage ports tree, does that mean that python is automatically installed as part of the base installation of Gentoo. Or is there some other way that the portage system is python based without having to install the python port. Thanks.