The high sun meal finished and the two men returned to work. Manak-na saw Rokuk and went to him. He asked how the sailing was going, and Rokuk said that things seemed to be doing well. He asked him how he was doing with Ahna. Manak-na came as close to rolling his eyes as he would allow himself. He replied, “Well enough, I suppose. I had no plans nor desire for this,” he said looking at Ahna. “Now I have a girl, wearing an awful garment that has mold in it, and I need to teach her to speak my language, be sure that she and Yomuk don’t get too close, and participate in the adventure of a lifetime.
“Do you want me to put Yomuk in the other hut at night?” Rokuk asked.
“Thank you, but no. When I get back we have to find the People and that will mean days and days of trekking. They have to learn to be together.”
“Do you want a tunic that I think will fit her?”
“You have one on the boat?” Manak-na was astonished.
“I have many things on the boat. Just a moment.” Rokuk went down to the lower level. He reappeared with a gut wrapped garment. It was a two shouldered tunic and it appeared never to have been worn. Rokuk said, “This is for your girl.”
“Thank you. That will get the mold out of my nose and make her appearance not so extraordinary. I appreciate this from the bottom of my belly. Do you want the gut wrapping?”
“No, tell her to use it to wrap the garment to keep it dry when we have a great storm, high seas, or she has to walk through deep water,” Rokuk said as he walked away.
Manak-na went to Ahna and reached for her hand. He took her to the lower level. He tried to remove her skirt and couldn’t figure out how to do it. So he told her to take it off and throw it behind the boat. At first Ahna was not pleased at all. The men might be on the boat unclothed, but she did not want to be naked. Manak-na pulled the leather tunic from the gut wrapper and she understood what was happening, so she took the skirt off and tossed it behind the boat. Manak-na was horrified to see how thin she was. Her ribs had given him a clue. Her bones stuck out sharply. She reminded him of the starving Minguat when they met following the ashfall. Her head looked like People, but her body didn’t. He would try to get her to eat a lot more than she was eating. He put the tunic over her head and slipped it on her. It was a little large, but it would do. It came down just below her knees. It would last her a long time. He told her when she saw Rokuk to thank him. She understood because he was using her language. Because it was a little wide for someone so thin, Manak-na took the practice knot tying rope she had in her hand, circled it around her waist, and tied it. It helped the garment stay put and not move around her body so much.
Ahna was overwhelmed. She’d never had any clothing like this. Where she’d lived was hot. Her people wore little. They did not have anything so soft. The leather of the tunic was extremely soft. She would want to take very good care of it, so it would last a long time. Manak-na told her what Rokuk had said about wrapping it when water was present.
Rokuk told Ralm to unfurl the back sail. Manak-na and he untied a few ropes and Ralm pulled the sail up. The boat caught more wind and sped over the waves.
When Manak-na sat down, Rokuk came over and told Manak-na to get his coconut. Manak-na didn’t know that Rokuk knew he still had it, but he got up to get it. While he was gone, Ahna said to Rokuk, “Thank you for the tunic. It is beautiful and wonderfully soft.”
He smiled at her. “It was for my wife. She died before I could give it to her. Take good care of it. It will last well. Try to avoid getting it wet. If it rains, go to your sleeping place and stay dry. If water comes in take it off and wrap it in the gut wrapper.”
“I will,” she replied.
Manak-na came back out with the coconut, handing it to Rokuk. In the middle of the sea Rokuk put dots on the coconut using a piece of charcoal.
“Look, here, Manak-na,” Rokuk said. “See these dots?”
“Yes.”
“These dots are islands. They are in almost a straight line, not an arc as the islands in the far north. If we take proper aim, we will go either just south or just north of them. Then it’s a straight sail home. Usually the wind takes us right by these islands. If we hit a big storm we could be anywhere. This time of year there are great storms in this part of the sea. We’ll have to hope we miss them. The good thing about them is that they can cut our trip very short because they can blow us homeward with great strength. They can also blow us to the south, but that’s rare.”
“Where’s the first part of our journey?” Manak-na asked fascinated.
Rokuk smiled. “I’ll add the rest of what I know. This is where we built the boat. We went north and then east following these arched islands. Then we turned south and came down this very long land. The people who lived there tell me that the land goes on this east side of the sea about as far down that way as to where we began our southern turn.” Rokuk drew the lines as well as he remembered. “There you have it. Oh, wait. There is a great land south of the land where we build boats on the west side of the sea. It has a long shoreline. We were once blown there during a very bad storm. It was below the belt on the earth because for a long time we could not see the star that never moves.” Rokuk’s coconut was surprisingly accurate. He measured not in distance but rather in average time it took to go from one place to another.
Now Manak-na had a visual reference to their route home. He was fascinated to know the information Rokuk shared. What a wonder this coconut was! What a wonder it was to sail with people who knew where they were and how to get home over such vast distance. He hoped they didn’t hit a great storm.
Ahna had not been part of the discussion, but she had heard it. It was, after all, in her language. She wanted to know more. At home she would never have asked, but somehow, she believed, this might be different.
“Will you show me?” she asked in her language.
Manak-na sat beside her. He held the coconut. He spoke in the language of the People. “This is where we left,” he said. He put his finger on the boatbuilders’ place and traced his finger north. “We traveled up this way past this big land. We passed these islands. We came down by this distant land to the place where you lived. We stopped. We met Tikarumusa and you and your people. We returned to the boat. We sail towards these islands and then home.”
Ahna looked into his eyes and pointed to the dots. “Islands?”
“Good, Ahna. Those are islands.”
She pointed to the larger places, “Land?” she asked.
“Yes. Good, Ahna.”
Ahna touched the bamboo boat and held her arms outstretched to describe the boat. “Boat?” she asked.
“Yes. That is good, Ahna.”
She smiled a great smile. She was learning. It wasn’t so hard. She had made Manak-na happy that she was learning. She could tell from his words and how he acted. She knew that he really didn’t want to have taken her on the boat. He tried to cover up how he felt, but she knew. To work hard to learn his language was her way to try to make him less resistant to accepting her. She knew her people didn’t want her. She hoped that despite Manak-na’s reactions on the boat, he would take her to a people who would accept her. Finally, he was pleased with something she did. It was a good day! Manak-na took the coconut back to its place in the hut and he returned with his comb. He sat next to Ahna. He showed her the comb. “Comb,” he said.
She repeated the word, but she seemed to have little sense of what the comb’s use was.
Manak-na told her to sit in front of him. She complied. He began to comb her hair. There were many tangles in her hair and combing through them was hard on her. Sometimes the pain was terrible. She shed a few tears as he combed through her hair, but she did not cry out or try to fight him. He pulled all of her hair back and braided it. He bit off a piece of thin rope at the end and tied that around the bottom of the braid. He hoped that the braid would keep the tangles controlled. If she would be part of the People, she had to comb her hair, bathe, and pick her teeth. He would not take a dirt
y, uncombed, child with food in her teeth to his People. What would they think of him? He had not often had to comb the hair of children. Domur had always done that. Domur! Thoughts of her sliced pain through his belly. He missed her sorely.
Aside from the boat travel, Ahna was experiencing life she’d never known. Manak-na and Rokuk were kind to her. As one who the bird man had said was destined to leave, she’d become an afterthought to her people. They had dismissed her when they realized from the bird man that she would not remain with them. Her father called her good-for-nothing, as if he felt she had chosen to desert them. She was given the least of food. She was always wary and feared making a mistake. A small mistake could result in a rough strike from any adult and some who were between child and adult. Little love was ever shown her, while it was lavished on her siblings. She wished for more for herself, but she loved her siblings. Often she was charged with watching the little ones. She enjoyed the task. The little ones did not treat her badly. It kept her from total despair. She had come to look forward to the time when the bird man’s prophecy would come true—someone would come for her. In her daydreams, whoever came would take her to a place where she would be part of a happy life. She looked at her hands. They were clean. She put her whole hands on the skirt of the tunic. She ran them over the soft leather. It was such an unbelievable experience. Sometimes she wondered whether she dreamed. Something so soft on her! It seemed impossible.
Lost in a daydream, Ahna unintentionally let out a shout when a flying fish landed beside her foot. She had never seen such a fish and it startled her. She looked at the lovely colors it displayed, but she moved away from it instinctively. Instantly many others joined it. She was considering that fish don’t fly; birds fly. It was confusing her. Manak-na was on the lower level. Yomuk went to her and saw the flying fish. He smiled. He picked up the fish and tossed them back to the sea. Then he went to the water container and began to run water over his hands. Ahna saw what he was doing and was there quickly to pour the water over both his hands.
“Thank you,” he said in the language of the People.
“You are welcome, Yomuk,” she replied. “What was that?”
“Flying fish,” he said in his language.
Ahna looked at him with lack of understanding showing on her face.
Yomuk put out to the side both his arms and twisted slowly to one side and then another. He flapped his arms, “Flying,” he said. Ahna understood. She repeated the word.
Then Yomuk put both hands together, finger tips to finger tips. He made his hands move from left to right in a snake-like manner. He said, “Fish.” Ahna got it. She repeated fish and then added the words together, “Flying fish!” Then she laughed. For some reason the idea of flying fish struck her as hilarious, and she enjoyed the laugh. Yomuk joined her, but for the life of him, he had no idea why he was laughing. He returned to his work hammering holes in anchors, wondering about the beautiful girl that would be People.
The endless array of days blurred. Time at sea did not seem so clear cut to Manak-na as it did on land. He asked Rokuk, “Have we passed the time of one moon to the same moon? I forgot to check the phase of the moon when we left.”
“Yes, Manak-na, we are not quite a third of the way to our destination. This has been a good trip but not very fast. I usually feel that we are much closer to home than we are when we reach the islands in the middle of the voyage. We should be getting some speed soon.”
“What do you mean?” Manak-na asked.
“See those clouds down there? They are the edge of a big storm. I don’t think we will be hit with the full fury of the storm, but I expect the edges of it to speed us northwest toward the middle islands I showed you.”
“Then we could get some tie up weather?”
“Yes, definitely. You’ve never seen the full fury of a storm. I hope you never do.”
“I do also, and I assure you that Yomuk doesn’t want to see one.” Both men laughed.
The rest of the day they experienced mildly increasing wind speed. By the time of the evening meal, Yomuk was becoming alarmed, but he had a motive to try to hide his feelings. That motive was to appear manly in Ahna’s eyes. He wasn’t sure how much to eat, but he ate his normal amount of food, because he didn’t want to appear afraid. Manak-na was noticing Yomuk and was recognizing the conflicts that he could see on his nephew’s face.
Wisdom began to suck color from the sea. Stars that they used to guide them would be obscured this night by the fast approaching clouds. The drum sounded. Manak-na, Yomuk, and Ahna went to the lower level to relieve themselves, and then they went to the upper level. Manak-na washed the ochre off his face. When they entered the hut, Rokuk told them, “Tie up. You may not need it now, but you will later.”
They reached the back of the hut and each tied up. Manak-na checked Ahna’s tie up.
“Ahna, this is not done well. It’s too loose around the bamboo. For tonight I will tie up for you, but this is something you have to master. A single tie up can determine whether you live or die at sea.”
Ahna was chagrined that she had not done well, but she was overcome that Manak-na cared enough about her to do the tie up for her. She watched carefully. She put her basic sleeping skin on the floor of the boat and covered up with the soft, warm covering Rokuk had given her. The short dense hair was so soft!
“Manak-na,” she asked, “Is this soft cover one that Rokuk had for his wife?” She had used the Mol language because the words were ones she didn’t know.
Manak-na looked in her direction in the dark. “What made you think that?”
“When I thanked him for the tunic, he told me it was to have been for his wife, but she didn’t live to wear it.”
“Ahna, I don’t know, but I think it best not to ask him.”
“I won’t. It was very kind of him to share with me.”
“I agree. Now, let’s get some sleep.”
The day boatmen got sleep while the wind rose. It wasn’t terribly blustery, but the back sail did have to be lowered and tied up. They were making good progress with the current and wind in one sail. Yomuk slept restlessly. He kept waiting for the wind to blow frighteningly wild. Yomuk slept through the worst of the storm.
Wisdom restored color to the sea. When the drum sounded and the men and Ahna untied and went outside, they could see that they still had some wind but it wasn’t terrible. Ahna felt the need to hold onto something so as not to lose her footing. She had never seen the sea so choppy.
She looked at Manak-na who happened at the time to be looking at her. “I am afraid the sea spray is getting on the tunic. Rokuk told me to keep it dry. I must relieve myself. Then should I return to the hut inside?”
“Stay beside me and I’ll find you a place to be. For safety you might tie up. And you need to do a good job of it.”
“I will, Manak-na.”
They got to the upper level and Rokuk met them. “I have put together a lean-to at the seat by the back sail. Ahna can tie up there for the day.”
“Thank you,” Ahna said quickly, followed immediately afterwards by Manak-na’s expression of gratitude.
Rokuk showed them the little lean-to he’d made. It was a bin from the lower level turned upside down and lashed to the boat where the bamboo strips made a seat for Ralm, Manak-na, and Ahna behind the back sail. It was designed to be waterproof by the women who made the bins for the boats. They did expert weaving of grasses for the boats. Manak-na noticed that the lean-to was well tied to the boat—maybe even over-tied. It had a rolled grass mat that tied to the front of the lean-to. It was a cover for the bin, and Ahna could lower it, if she chose to. It would keep out most of the sea spray. The bottom had been a side of the bin, so the lean-to was essentially floored with waterproofed matting. Ahna would not be hit by water splashing up from below. Rokuk handed her a hairless skin that was soft and told her to wrap herself up in the skin while she was in the little hut. When she left the lean-to she was to fold the skin, put it in the gut wra
pper, and tie it to the lean-to, so it would be protected from water. Ahna went into the lean-to where the wrapper had been tied to the side wall. There was good room for her, but Manak-na would not have fit into the place. She tied up carefully to the bamboo log just outside the lean-to.
Yomuk was fascinated that Rokuk was taking such effort for Ahna. He had watched the man set up the lean-to. He had really tied the structure to the boat, seemingly lost in thought.
Ralm knew Rokuk’s story. Ralm had been at sea. He knew Rokuk’s wife was going to have a baby when he left on one of the trips. He had found a tunic and wonderful sleeping skins, one made of chinchilla, from animals far, far south of Aikot, the place they stopped on the side of the water where the sun rose. They had been given to him as a gift. He had put them in empty gut skins to carry to his wife. He was devastated when he returned home to find that his wife had died giving birth to their daughter. His daughter had lived, and for years he resented her and was glad that his work involved sailing, so he didn’t have to be around her. His mother took care of the girl. She grew up not really knowing her father. Somehow Ahna softened him and he thought he might look for his daughter when he reached his destination. He had seen what rejection did to a child who had no part in the reason she was rejected. He felt guilty. Ralm hoped he would follow through with his daughter when they returned home. The girl was introverted in much the same way Ahna was.
“Land! Land! Land!” Skuku called as loud as possible. His voice was deep and resonant. It carried well even in some wind.
Manak-na and Yomuk looked as far as they could along the horizon. Finally, Manak-na saw the top of a mountain and then another to the north of them. He wondered whether Rokuk would have them stop. Ralm told him, “We’ll stop for water. There is nothing to hunt here except lizards and birds.”
Ralm was right. As they neared, Rokuk told the boatmen that they would stop for water and then they’d continue to sail. Their stop was very brief and Manak-na and Yomuk stayed aboard the boat while they were there. The men knew exactly where to go to get water. They made several trips back and forth with water and to fill all the containers on the boat. Then they counted all the men aboard and resumed their travel, delighted to be at the middle islands.
Manak-na's Story, 75,000 BC Page 20