Ki'ti's Story, 75,000 BC

by Bonnye Matthews

  Likichi did not find sleep easy to come. Her daughter slept across the cave and that would take some getting used to. But her largest concern was that Manak was off on an adventure, which pleased him tremendously, but she thought it could be dangerous. There was just a nagging in the back part of her belly. She would have to trust that Wisdom called them to do what they were doing and that Wisdom would keep them safe.

  Manak was awake before Fim. He made water and got a piece of dried meat. It was really good, he thought. He stood scanning the landscape as far as he could see but the ash seemed to go on forever. Fim opened his eyes and stretched. They were only on the second day of the trek. He hoped they’d find good news soon. He took some meat and remarked, “This is good. It is from the ashfall, is it not?”

  “Yes,” Manak said. “This is better than some of the other dried meat we’ve had. I like it a lot.”

  Manak began to harness up the dogs. “How about helping?”

  “Manak, I do not know these dogs. I feel awkward around them.” In no way did he want Manak to know he feared the animals.

  Little did he know that Manak saw straight through the subterfuge. “Oh, sorry, Fim. I forgot. I’ll tend to them.” And he did.

  The men trekked for days until finally, on the fifth day, they reached the top of a very tall hill. “What is that?” Manak asked.

  Fim stared and stared. “I wish we were just a little closer. It looks like normal land.” He looked at Manak with his eyes very large.

  “See that hill over there, the tall one?” Manak asked. “Do you think we could make it over there without too much time spent? I think we could see better from there.”

  Fim said, “If you’d like to go, I’ll go. We have no elders to stop us. I think it might give us the answer we seek.”

  The two headed off still dragging the stick, which they traded off from time to time. By nightfall, they had made it to the top of that hill, but Wisdom sucked color from the land and it was too dark to see. So the men bedded down and would wait to see what Wisdom’s return of color to the land would reveal.

  In the morning, the two arose at the same time. Their excitement was obvious from the quickness with which they reached their feet. Each wanted to see what they could see from this vantage point. In the far distance to the northwest, they could see great mountains. What was the most exciting was that to the north they could see where the ashfall ended on the hills. There was green! Color! It was good. Manak squatted down. He took a digging stick and moved the ash where he stood to the ground. As they had walked, the ashfall was much lower. Only two fingers of ash remained on the ground where they stood. The news was good and bad. The bad news was that the land north of them was hilly. The hills seemed to go on forever. But there were no huge mountains mixed with them. They could traverse this land, but they definitely needed to wait for the season of new leaves, Manak thought.

  They packed up their things and began the trip back to the cave.

  “If they had said we could be gone for ten days we could have discovered so much more,” Fim said flatly.

  “It may be that they will let us return to start caches for the exit from here. There is a lot we can do when we face cold season confinement.”

  “What is cold season confinement?”

  “That is spending the entire season of cold days in one place.”

  “Why would your People not leave here right now? Get out of this hideous place to where game runs free?”

  “Part of it is in our stories. We have a volcano story. The People know from the stories that after a large volcano explodes, there is a time of great cold. Baambas was much bigger than the volcanoes in our stories, so the cold could be worse. We will have our cold season confinement to build up a great store of food to keep us and the dogs during the cold and get us to our new place in the season of new leaves with reserves until we hunt well there. We don’t know what our new place will hold in store for us. So we prepare for the worst. You’ve noticed how dark the sky has been? That will cause the cold. If we left now, think of all the meat we’d miss. Right now, we have time on our side. The ash-covered meat is not spoiling, but it’s drying instead. Also, your people need to fatten up. We can have a lot of food built up so that when we do leave, we don’t suffer. We have time to find the game at the next place without being frantic to find it. It is our Wisdom.”

  “I keep hearing a lot about wisdom. To us wisdom is being really smart.”

  “To us it means the One Who Made Us.”

  “Wisdom is the One Who Made You? Why don’t you just say so?”

  “Because Wisdom has a name that is special, just for only certain times, we don’t use it lightly. The One Who Made Us is a very special name. We say Wisdom to avoid using the very special name, so we won’t use the name wrong by forgetting. We also avoid using the name because it might make us prideful that Wisdom did, in fact, make us. He made us with hands, not words. He made everything else with words. He called the animals into being, but with his hands he made us. To Wisdom, we are very special.”

  “Wisdom made magic use of his words? Is that what you’re saying.” Fim used the word magic from the Minguat language because he didn’t know the word in the language of the People.

  “I don’t understand the word ‘magic.’ Wisdom usually creates by speaking things into existence. For People, his hands made us instead of his words. Wisdom is not like us. Wisdom is the creator of all that is. We are the created. That is all.”

  After those words, they walked in silence for hours. They dragged the stick behind them on the way back to leave a double trail.

  “There’s the first day back marker,” Fim said.

  “We must be walking back faster than we walked when we came,” Manak observed.

  “Do you want to continue?” Fim asked.

  “That is good,” Manak said and the two continued walking until Wisdom sucked out almost all color from the land and it became too dark to see well.

  The next day of the trip was much like the first. It definitely was quicker. They continued on and arrived back at the home cave by the last part of the fourth day. Everyone gathered around them to find out what they had learned. They told of the five days walk and how they finally reached the land of the hills. Midway through the hills, they saw the ashfall no longer stole the color from the land. Fim suggested they leave at once. The men gathered and discussed the information for a very long time. Fim was startled to hear that Abiedelai-na was not interested in leaving for the land immediately. Cue-na, Gurkma-na, and Arkan-na of the Others all argued for leaving. Their Chief was listening to the People who spoke slowly and kept referring to Wisdom. Finally, they all agreed to spend the cold season confinement together. They knew what they had at the home cave, and they had no idea what would be in store for them if they moved. The stories of additional ashfall after a big ashfall bothered some of the People. The idea of great cold was considered carefully. They would all remain together during the season of the cold days. All did the palm strike. It was good.

  In the cave, time passed imperceptibly, until the nights began to become very cold. Their clothing was not designed for cold temperatures. It would be necessary to make clothing that would withstand the cold. Even days became much colder.

  One day, the People were finding the weather colder than they could remember. In the evening, Manak shouted to the people in the cave just as they were beginning to prepare for sleep. “Ash is falling again!”

  The men roused from their sleeping mats and went swiftly to the cave entrance. They looked out on something falling from the sky, but it was not ash. Outside, they could see their breath. Fascinated, a few went into the precipitation and came back to the cave watching the white precipitate turn liquid. Vanya tasted it and said it was water. Others tried and agreed. All were moved with curiosity. What was this solid white rain that fell from the sky and turned to water? Inside, they didn’t see their breaths. They returned to their sleeping mats, wondering what to
morrow would bring. What they found was about an inch of white rain atop the ash. The children were taken with the white rain, but it was so cold that they did not really enjoy being outside of the cave for long. The men and women going back and forth to Cave Sumbrel found the white rain could be slippery. It was not welcome.

  Overall, the cave inhabitants got along amazingly well. When it was time for storytelling, they had to shorten the time during the day when the People listened, because the Others did not have the same attention spans that the People had. They became cross when sitting in one place too long. But that was not a problem. Surprisingly, the ashfall meat was exceptionally good, so there was no difficulty for everyone to get enough to eat during the cold season confinement. There were some small quarrelings over space and occasionally an outbreak of irritation would develop, but there was plenty of work to do designing and creating warm clothing, so contention was minimized. All adults contributed ideas as the occasion had demanded the best thought possible. One thing was certain, they needed head covering. The People had not seen a head covering until they saw Chief Abiedelai the first day, the day when he took his shirt off. The variety of head coverings created was diverse and some had merit and others did not. Trial and error was beginning to show what was practical and what was not. They also discovered that there was sometimes a need to cover hands as well as arms and shoulders and heads. When the men gathered wood and were out for any length of time, their fingers would begin to tingle from the cold. That was seen as not good, so they would return to a cave to warm up. Having to keep warming up was needlessly time consuming, so they asked for hand coverings.

  Totamu had found that the head lice issue was definitely better with the shaved heads. It was better on the short haired females, but not altogether gone. Combing and washing hair seemed to help a lot. She wondered about shaving the heads of the women but feared insurrection. Men had their heads and faces shaved regularly when hair began to appear. They had no head lice at all. Totamu was attaining mastery at shaving.

  Sometimes, particularly just before the evening meals, small groups of the Others would chuckle among themselves in a way that slightly unnerved the People, but they dismissed it as Minguat custom. After all, Abiedelai-na could be seen doing it.

  All began to anticipate the season of new leaves and the departure for the green hills.

  Meanwhile, the Others had taken a trip to the east and found that fewer days were required to reach a land free of ash. They could do it in four days. During the season of cold days, the People began a routine of carrying meat and caching it along the route to the hills. Cue-na, Gurkma-na, and Alak and their offspring began trips to the east to prepare caches for their leaving. Arkan-na and Ey had decided to remain with the People with Abiedelai-na’s permission. Abiedelai-na would revert to Chief Abiedelai, and when they split, he and his wife would go with the Others. Arkan-na’s decision to remain with the People angered Vanya because he wanted to join with Liho, but Liho was adopted by Arkan and Ey and they would not give up being her parents. Neither would Alak and Munjun relinquish parenting Vanya. So Vanya’s dream of the blond haired girl would be gone in the Winds of Change.

  The People had begun to learn the language of the Others, but they knew they had much more time since Arkan-na and Ey had opted to remain with them.

  Chapter 4

  Wisdom returned color to the land. Departure was imminent and the People were very excited. Poles were used to make stretchers for transporting meat, skins, and other necessities. In a manner of bravado, the Others had refused to carry as much meat per person as the People. They were very confident that soon they would have all the fresh meat and seafood they could use, and they were tired of the dried meat they’d eaten while they endured the cold season confinement in the cave. So they carried two stretchers of meat and that was all. After all, they had caches along the way just as the People had and could see the sea from the last cache.

  On the other hand, the People would carry the remains of the meat, which was huge, and the skins which also were significant in size. It would take the hunters more than one trek to their new homeland, but they did not want to be without or to waste what they’d gathered. They had a story about the ant. Ants were prepared and put lots of food aside underground so that they did not go hungry. Ants did not waste what they gathered. Wisdom taught the People to learn from the ants and other living things. It was another way to hone their observation skills and learn from Wisdom. The animals were there for food, certainly, but also to teach.

  Wamumur felt sad for the Others who were leaving. Abiedelai-na had tried so hard to understand Wisdom, but each time they tried to discuss Wisdom, Abiedelai-na either got sleepy or kept disagreeing or became irritated. Perhaps Wisdom did not choose to reach out to Abiedelai-na. Whatever the case, Wamumur was saying farewell to Chief Abiedelai. The People watched as the Others left. Aryna would look behind her waving to the girls, but none of the Others looked back. They were going to the sea.

  Arkan-na and Ey stood and watched their own people leave. Guy-na and his wife, Alu, stood beside Arkan-na and Ey. Lai and his wife, Inst, joined them to watch. “They never looked back,” she said, emotion tinging her voice.

  “That is true, Inst,” Arkan-na replied, “but you can see why they did not. They have great pride. They live for pride. We have found a better way, but one they cannot understand. Wisdom will lead us. It is good.” Having been one of the Others, he could understand.

  Ghanya grieved the loss of his friend. He would not know that two days after arriving at the sea, Vanya would be caught in a rip tide and be carried out to sea to drown. His body would never be found. He had not heeded the season-of-cold-days story that urged People to be careful in new surroundings. To let new surroundings teach slowly. Of course, he probably barely understood the language of the People, let alone the story.

  The People packed moderately and began the trek. Ahriku was back among the dogs led by Ki’ti and Minagle. He had his packs securely fastened to his back. The People followed the path set by those who prepared the way months earlier. Within five days, they could see the end of the ashfall.

  “I can smell green grass!” Lamul shouted exuberantly. And so the People could. The scent of chlorophyll wafted to them on the breeze. A lifegiving scent. The People threw up their hands and walked in little circular motions in joy at the scent. They inhaled it, almost hyperventilating with pleasure. It was hard to sleep that night, the excitement was so great. They spent the night there and would go to the new land the following morning.

  When they awakened, the People were bursting with excitement. The land free of ashfall beckoned. They were ready. The day was spent first going downhill and then climbing uphill. The way was steep so they had to walk carefully. When they reached the grassland, the People rested. They sat on the grass that was free of ash and some stretched out to gaze at the sky and others lay on the ground as if preparing to sleep on their bellies. Little children had not seen or remembered grassland and they were searching out this amazing green vegetation, first one piece and then another. They felt it, smelled it, and tasted it. It was good.

  The People ate and then resumed their trekking. The People had removed their booted garments once they cleared the ash and were able to make much better time. They shook the garments and folded them across their backpacks. They had no need for those clothes during the trekking but the Others, who had gone with them and were still quite thin, kept their capes about them during the trek for they felt a chill that the trekking failed to dispel. They all wanted to get the ashfall well behind them so that if another eruption occurred, they would be protected by the mountains that had spared this location. They trekked for the remainder of the day and stopped by a small pond for the night. Hunters scouted the area around the pond for vipers that might be lurking, but they found none. When Wisdom returned color to the land, they continued trekking, always heading north for five more days. Then they found a place where there were numbers of cave
s beside a stream. They followed the stream for several more days and finally found a place that they chose as their new home.

  The caves were just off the stream. They were large and there were many of them. There was a hill paralleling the caves on the other side of the stream which formed the other side of a tiny valley. The space of the valley was about 12,000 forearms in length and about 1,600 forearms wide.

  The People put the things they had carried in the largest cave and some of the hunters left to scout out the possibilities for hunting while others went off in different directions to be sure that the cave was in a safe location. It took a while for them to find some flat land that looked ideal for grazing. They saw no animals but that did not cause them alarm, because there were fresh feces from grazers as a few of the hunters could attest by lifting their feet. It appeared that there were no other groups in the area. It was high sun and it was warm for the weather they’d been having.

  There were rhododendrons near the caves and children had to be warned not to chew or eat them. There were some willow and some berry bushes, blackberry, from the looks of it, and blueberry. There seemed to be one cashew nut tree and plants that might be rhubarb. The women were suspicious that some of the plants had been purposely placed where they grew. Placed there by People. They wondered why anyone would do such a thing. After consideration, they agreed it was a wise thing to do. It made gathering easy.