Tuesday 24 February 2009

Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

My tribe, I have arisen early while the moon is still in the sky and the birds have only just begun to sing. I have many things in my head that I must tell you about.

I told you about the dwelling of the lost in my last communication. I have come to understand that I must visit this place each day and use a communication device there. I must also, by tradition, take food from one of the tribes who live there and eat with the man whose stomach is like that of a woman with child.

I have learned to eat the food which is the colour of sand. Indeed I must tell you that I enjoy this food and have eaten it in large amounts. Two moons ago I took no meat because I knew the sand food would taste good and satisfy my needs.

My tribe, I also told you my fears that the guardians of this food would grow angry when I took it. Three moons ago, the man's small piece of animal hide did not appease the guardians and they grew angry with me; but they did not grow angry with the man. When I readied my self to fight, they became quiet and the man was able to appease them with the hide.

I must tell you that I was pleased that day to return to the woman. The other men and woman at the dwelling of the lost have begun to look at me in a different way and laugh less often. I must also tell you that I can communicate with the woman better now. For many moons she was commanding me to visit a shaman. This was making me fearful and angry, for as you know, we must view the shaman of another tribe with great suspicion. But now she no longer talks of this.

Now the woman does not command me to do anything; and not all the things that displeased her displease her still. Two moons ago I began eating the great eggs from the cold food store in the dwelling. I was expecting the woman to grow angry but instead she bade me watch as she prepared them. My tribe, our women would exchange all their bracelets and necklaces for the great tool the woman used to prepare the eggs. This tool creates fire in a single moment without flints or twigs or wood. The woman quickly created a cauldron of smoking water and heated the eggs as our women would heat roots.

The woman has also taught me to use animal hide to appease the guardians of food and tools. This made me very happy, because I was afraid I must soon fight the guardians of the food at the dwelling of the lost. I have seen the great weapons with which they cut the food and was afraid that the weapons they permit others to use would give me little protection.

My tribe I told you that I must journey to the dwelling of the lost each day; but before the last moon, the woman told me that by tradition I must not journey there until another two moons had passed. And on that same day, I was visited by a man who I knew to be a friend. This man also resembled a woman who is with child; but he resembled a woman who is only recently with child. Yet he also had the arms of a hunter.

I understood that I should journey with my friend in the belly of his beast to another dwelling. My tribe, at this moment I felt a great moment of sadness; for the feeling of leaving a woman behind and setting out on these strange plains with a fellow hunter reminded of my home with you. My tribe, I must return to you, but I do not know how. With each moon my memory of you grows weaker and I grow more like the people in these many strange tribes.

The woman is stirring. It has become customary for me to bring a drink to her in the morning, so I must end my communication soon. But first I must tell you about the dwelling I visited with my friend the hunter.

My friend’s beast is mightier and more savage than the woman’s and it was necessary for him to wrestle with its neck most violently to control its great speed. As I have come to expect we left the beast amongst a sleeping herd and entered a dwelling. In this place there was the sound of a great drum being beaten, although I could not see a drum anywhere. My tribe I now know why there are so few hunters to be found in the other places I have seen; for in this dwelling were as many hunters as there are people in the whole of our tribe.

I could at first not understand what I was seeing. There were many trees and rocks in this place which some of the hunters were lifting; some made hunting cries and other angry noises or ran upon strange rocks which must have been slippery like the rocks under a waterfall, because the men did not move forward as they ran. I must tell you that some of the hunters in this place we unlike any I have seen before; for their arms were as big as the legs of a man. I spoke to my friend that these hunters would surely not be able to run fast enough to catch prey. This made him laugh. I also asked whether instead they would use their great strength to kill sleeping animals with their bare hands. My friend agreed with this and laughed once again.

My tribe I told you about the man at the dwelling of the lost who resembled a woman who is with child. Now at this place I saw a woman who looked mightier than strongest hunter in our tribe and made hunting cries as she lifted great rocks above her head. As I have said to you before, this is indeed a strange place of many wonders. My friend saw that I was looking at the woman hunter and understood my thoughts. He said that what I was seeing was not normal.

I must end my communication, as the woman is demanding her drink.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

1 comments:

Ruth said...

I wonder how our poor time-traveling caveman is going to feel when he realizes that the hunters do not hunt--they just run around in circles so they can eat more sand-colored food.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin