by Time Slave
There were ten men in Tree’s group; there were sixteen women; a woman is a female who can or has borne young; there were twenty-one children; a child is a female who is too young to bear young or a male who is not yet able to run with the hunters. There was only one woman in camp who was too old to bear young. Such women were rare. She was Old Woman. There were no old men. There had been one, but when he had gone blind, Spear had killed him.
The men in the camp were Spear, who was first, and then Tree finest of the hunters; Runner, who could single out an antelope and in hours, run it to death, until it fell, gasping, and be would cut its throat; Arrow Maker, whose hands were the most cunning of all; Stone, who never laughed; Wolf, who did not look into one’s eyes, and hid meat; Fox, quick shrewd, who had once come from far away to trade flint for salt, and had stayed; he could speak the hand language of the Horse Hunters and Bear People; Spear bad not killed him; he stole meat from Wolf; Knife, ill-tempered, cruel, the son of Spear; Tooth, a large man, fearsomely ugly, with an atavistically extended canine on the upper right side of his jaw, teller of stories, popular with children; and Hyena, whose brother was said to be a hyena who spoke to him in dreams; the medicine of Hyena was thought to be the most dangerous in the camp.
There were sixteen women in the camp, but few of them are important. We might remark, at this time, Short Leg, docile with men, fierce to the women, dominant among the females; Old Woman, who tended the night fires; Flower, sweet-hipped, blond, sixteen years of age, most avidly sought, most frequently used, of the camp women; and Nurse, a large woman, fat, whose breasts had not been permitted to dry, whom the camp keeps to give suck to the young.
There were too, twenty-one children in the camp, nine boys and twelve girls, ranging from infancy to the age of fourteen. These knew their mothers, but not their fathers. The others were only the Men. Kinship lines were simple because of the small size of the group, and relationship was traced through the female. This was not a matriarchy, if that implies that women had power, for the women, being women, had no power. We may, however, perhaps speak of the group being matrilineal, meaning by this only to denote the fact that kinship ties, such as they were, were, and, under the circumstances, could only be, established through the mother. The men, of course, stood in awe of the growth of a child and its bringing forth. They, too, of course, stood in awe of the growing of the moon, the coming of grass in the spring, the appearance of fruit on hitherto barren branches. Specific paternity, puzzling as it may seem to us, was not of great account with them. But that the group should have young, that it should continue, that there should be new hunters, was for them a matter of great concern. Fertility was of great moment. It was not that the men did not know the connection between conception and birth, for it was familiar to them, but rather that the family, as we often today think of it, insular and monogamous, was not yet an economic or social practicality. There might, under such circumstances, be women who did not bear young; and there might be men who, protecting or defending a given woman or given set of children, would not stand with the group, and the group might thus perish. One might say either that the family, as we know it, did not then exist, or that the group, the whole, was the family. It is somewhat misleading to speak in the latter sense, however, for the emotions of men and women being what they are, one could not, in the group, under the circumstances, have the same sense of love or loyalty that can bind together smaller social structures. There was, in Tree’s group, little love, save that of mothers for their children, a phenomenon of significant evolutionary consequence, pervasive among primates. There were, of course, in the group, shifting couplings, and favorites. The instinct to pair bond, strongest in the female, who needed a protector, was present; she had a biological desire, constantly rebuffed, to attach herself to a given male, thereby assuring her his attention and her feeding; he, the hunter of meat, was less instinctually driven to pair bond, but he, too, when the female was pleasing and served him well, was not unaverse to maintaining, at his will, a longer-term relationship. But the facts were simple. The female needed the male. The hunter did not need the female. The hunter could choose his women. No one in, the camp would starve, but to be fed well, if one we’re not a child and not pregnant, it was well to be a hunter’s woman.
To be a hunter’s woman meant, in effect, to be his favorite. This did not preclude the hunter using the bodies of other women for his pleasure, as the whim or urge came upon him. He could do what he wished, for he was a hunter. If he were a successful hunter, he might add to the number of women he fed. Spear fed five women. Tree, greatest of the hunters, fed what women he wished, when he wished. He had not permitted any of the women in the camp to kneel regularly behind him at the feeding, at his shoulder. Out of the relationship of favorite to hunter, and jealousy, and pride in one’s children, not yet understood, would come in time marriage, intragroup mating restrictions.
In short, the women belonged to the men, but relationships were in actuality much more complex than this. Each woman did not, so to speak, belong to each man in the same way. Women, in whom the pair bonding instinct is stronger than in males, tended to attempt to become the females of given hunters, their favorites; and among the men, too, there were those who felt more attracted to one woman than another, and, accordingly, tended, as one would expect, to feed her more often, or regularly. If she should displease him, he would then throw her no more meat, and then, if she were not pregnant, she would try to please another hunter, to be fed. If she were pregnant, of course, she would be well fed. But, interestingly, after the child was cast, she would again have to compete for food, with the other women, trying to please a hunter. If she was unsuccessful, she would have to creep to the bones when the others were finished, and scavenge what she might, for herself and the child. There was usually little ‘left. It was important to a woman to be pleasing to a hunter, if she would eat.
Tree bent down and picked up his pouch, his spear and rawhide rope.
Arrow Maker looked up.
“I am going hunting,” said Tree.
He took his way between the huts, which they built far from the shelters.
These huts, most of them, consisted of poles and branches. First a round pit was scraped, a foot deep, some eight feet in diameter. In the center of this circle a rooftree was planted, a peeled pole, with projecting, peeled branches. Other poles then, planted in the rim of dirt-about the edge of the circle, the dirt from the pit, leaned against the center tree. They were, further, tied in place with root and vine. This framework of poles completed, branches were then interlaced among them. Then, beginning at the bottom, that each layer overlap the lower layer, a thatch of broad-leaved branches was woven into the lateral branches, those placed in and about the pole framework. Rain, thus, falling from one thatch of leaves, dripped to the next, and did not enter the hut. The rim of dirt provided not only an easy foundation for the poles, even and soft, but kept rain from entering the house pit. In the front of the pit, in front of the tree, was the cooking hole. There were six such huts, round huts, and two others, built quite similarly, except that they were rectangular in shape and had two rooftrees; and a roof beam between them, consisting of a long pole. The poles of the side walls leaned against this elevated, central pole, running the length of the hut. The back poles, closing the rear of the hut, leaned against the back rooftree. Both sorts of huts, the round huts and the rectangular huts, were open in the front. In the rectangular huts the cooking hole was in the center. The rectangular huts had a width of some eight feet, and a length of some twelve feet. The group had made only round huts, but Fox, who had come from far away, had introduced the rectangular hut. Spear had had Hyena dream on the matter before permitting Fox’s women, those he fed, to build according to his directions. Hyena’s dream had been favorable. The Horse Hunters built such huts, and there was luck for horse hunting in them. Spear wanted his hunters to be able to hunt not only antelope, and moose, and elk, but, if the need should arise, horse, too. No one in the
group knew the horse prayers, but this did not mean they might not, if the need arose, be able to hunt horse. The horses might be fooled by the rectangular huts. Too, Hyena could make horse prayers, and if they were good prayers, maybe the horses would let themselves be killed. If one who was not a Horse Hunter killed a horse, of course, there could be danger. If the horse was angry, the men might die from the meat. But if the huts were rectangular and the prayers were flattering, perhaps trouble could be avoided. The horses might be gracious, and the group could feed. There was no reason why horses should let themselves be killed only by the Horse Hunters. Spear’s hunters were good hunters, and it was not dishonorable for horses to let themselves be killed by them.
“Where are you going?” asked Spear.
“I am going hunting,” said Tree.
He continued on.
To one side he saw Knife, who was the son of Spear. His descent was figured through Crooked Wrist, a woman who had died many years ago from the bites of a cave lion, who had hunted men in the vicinity of the shelters. But there was no doubt that he was the true son of Spear. The resemblance was clear, the same narrowness of eyes, the same heaviness of jaw, and so it was known that Knife was Spear’s son.
Tree did not know if any of the small children in the camp were his. He had had, since beginning to run with the hunters, seventeen years ago, all the women in the camp, except Short Leg, Old Woman and Nurse. And he had not wanted them.
The woman who had borne Knife had originally been called Fern. She had once displeased Spear. He had broken her wrist. It had not healed cleanly. She had come to be called Crooked Wrist. Nine months after her wrist had been broken the boy, to be called Knife when old enough to run with the hunters had been pulled bloody from her body.
The cave lion had killed four members of the group before it had been caught in a pit and killed with stones.
Spear had been fond of Fern. The cave lion, dying under the stones, had died slowly. Spear had not seen fit to hurry its death. Sometimes even now, many years later, Spear angrily called the name of Fern in his sleep. This did not please Short Leg, lying awake beside him, who was now first among the women whom he fed.
No one now in the group, except Stone and Spear, knew what the pit had been like or how it had been baited. Old Man would have known, but, when he had gone blind, Spear had killed him. Old Woman was old, but she had been purchased from the Bear People after the lion had been killed, for two sacks of flints. In those days she had been called Pebble; the man who had bought her had been called Drawer, because he made marks in the sand with sticks. Later he had been called Old Man.
Spear, who knew Knife as his son, coming to understand this as the boy had grown, was proud of him, in a way many of the Men not knowing their own sons, found it hard to understand. But Tree thought he understood. Tree thought it would be good to know one’s son. One could then teach him to be a great hunter. And one could be his friend. But though Spear was proud of Knife, he was not his friend. Spear feared Knife, for he thought Knife would supplant him, and become first in the group. Knife had already killed one man, fighting over meat in the winter, and was much feared in the group. Many of the Men, Fox, and Wolf and Stone, chief among them, did not understand why Spear, fearing Knife, did not kill him. But Tree thought he understood. One could not kill one whom one knew was one’s own son. It would be worse than the killing of one’s self. It would not be a good thing. Many of the men did not understand this. But Tree understood it, and he thought Arrow Maker, too, might understand it. If Tree had a son, he would not kill him. He would teach him to be a great hunter. And be would be his friend, and, sometimes, when the fires were small, he would talk with him.
And so Spear waited for the time when Knife would kill him, and become first in the group.
“Where are you going?” asked Knife. He was lying in the grass behind one of the huts, on one elbow, pulling at a piece of dried meat with his teeth.
“I am going hunting,” said Tree.
At Knife’s feet lay Flower. She was licking slowly at his ankle. He pulled off a piece of dried meat in his teeth and, with his hand, held it down to her. She took it in her teeth, and began to chew it, moving slowly, with her lips and hands, up his leg.
At the edge of the camp there were two sets of poles. The first set of poles was a meat rack, consisting of two upright poles and, lashed across them, several small poles, over which were hung strips of meat, drying in the sun. The other set of poles was a game rack, or skinning rack. It consisted of two crossed poles at each end, bound together at the top, and a lateral pole, set in the joinings of the end poles. From it, upside down, hind feet stretched and bound to the pole, hung a small deer. Its throat had been cut that morning and the blood, dripping, had been caught in a leather piece, fitted into a concave depression in the ground. The hunters, as was their wont, had drunk the fresh blood. That it was a source of iron to them they did not know; they did know that it gave them strength and stamina. Blood was prized. Many of the women did not know its taste. None of the children knew. A boy was not permitted blood until he had killed his first large game animal. Then it was his right to drink first. The deer had been killed by Stone, who had driven it into a thicket and then broken its neck.
Ugly Girl whimpered and cowered away from Tree as he strode past.
He looked down on her. She crouched, bent over, her thick-legged, squat, round-shouldered body shaking. She looked up at him, her hair like black strings, her eyes stupid and frightened, like those of an animal.
Tree despised those of the Ugly People, though he had never killed any of them.
Spear, with Knife and Stone, had surprised Ugly Girl’s group and had killed them all, with the exception of Ugly Girl.
In camp Spear had tied a short rawhide strap on her ankles, shackling her in leather. She could move about the camp, but clumsily. and slowly. She could not run. When she had been brought to camp the children and women had much beaten her with switches. Then, when they had tired of this, they had put her to work, carrying water in the
hide buckets from the stream, gathering stones for the cooking holes, gathering wood for the fires. She was still much beaten, for the Men did not care for the Ugly People. Her heavy, clumsy fingers could not easily untie the rawhide. When Spear had caught her doing so, he had switched her until she had howled and covered her head with her hands. She then knew she was not permitted to touch the rawhide shackles. She knew she might, in time, untie them, but now she was afraid even to touch them. In her simplicity and stupidity, she remained shackled. She looked away from Tree, down at the dirt, whimpering. Had she been able to reach the leather with her teeth she might have bitten through it, tearing it in her teeth, but she could not reach it.
Tree did not kick at her nor cry out at her, to frighten her. He ignored her. He did not know why Spear, and Knife and Stone, had not killed her as well as the others. She was not a woman. She was a female of the Ugly People. Tree would not have wanted her, any more than a doe or a mare. She could not even speak, though, he knew, the Ugly People did make noises which, among themselves, somehow, they found intelligible. It did not occur to Tree that they, like the Men, and like the Horse Hunters and the Bear People, might have a language. He knew, of course, that he, and the others, even Fox, could not understand her noises. Nor, as Fox established, did she know the hand sign of the Horse Hunters and the Bear People. Thus Tree inferred that Ugly Girl could not speak. Or, more exactly, he inferred that she was unable to speak until she had been brought to the camp of the Men. Here the children had taught her certain noises, which she could, in her guttural, half inarticulate way, imitate. Tree thought that Ugly Girl should be grateful to the Men, for they had taught her to speak, if only a few words. But Ugly Girl did not seem grateful, only miserable and frightened. The children of the Men, Tree noted, learned the words more swiftly than Ugly Girl. She was stupid, not of the Men. One could see that she was dull, that she understood nothing, that she was only an animal. Sometimes at
night she cried.
Tree turned and looked back at Knife and Flower. Knife had now taken her by the hair and drawn her between his legs, where she, laughing and kissing, sought to please him.
Elsewhere he could see Feather, a thin woman, grooming Stone, taking lice from his hair, eating them.
She would lick sometimes his neck with her tongue, and whimper.
The women groomed the men. Men did not groom women. Women groomed one another, and the women, too, groomed the children. Children were permitted to groom one another, until the boys became old enough to run with the hunters.
Now Feather lay on her back before Stone, whimpering, and lifting her body to him.
Stone regarded her for a time, and then he crawled to her, and, as she cried out with pleasure, locked her helplessly in his arms.
It was the Capture Position, bolding the female down, confining her movements, making her helpless.
Feather cried out her pleasure to the camp.
Flower, angrily, broke away from Knife, and lay before him, lifting her body to him.
He went to her, and took her in his arms.
Soon, she, too, cried out with pleasure.
The women of the Men had two hungers, each as open, direct and piteous as the other. For the one hunger it was common to open the mouth and point a finger to it, and then extend the hands, palms up; for the other hunger it was not uncommon to do as had Feather and Flower, to lie before the hunter and, sometimes piteously, lift her body to him.