Days blurred into days and more days. The boat kept heading towards their destination with little concern about storms. They passed island after island until finally there were no more islands visible. The only thing that kept Ahna from total boredom was that now she was learning faster and faster the language of the People. Manak-na had finally told her that when speaking to him or Yomuk she was to use only the language of the People.
Just before Wisdom lit the sky with brilliant rays of gold against a light blue sky, the drum sounded early and as soon as the exchange was finished, Rokuk gave out the tie up order. Ahna tied up in the lean-to and Manak-na checked to be sure she had done well. She had. Then he tied himself to the boat beside the lean-to. Yomuk had tied up in the back of the boat so he could help with the rudder. Everyone had tied up carefully, or so they thought.
Waves increased in size and great storm clouds began arriving from the south. Rokuk ordered lowering the back mast and sail. Manak-na and Ralm furled the sail and tied it down along with the mast. A few hours later, Rokuk ordered the lowering of the front sail and mast. It was done and he checked to be sure that it was done well. The bamboo and wood were creaking in protest from the twisting in the waves. Rokuk was busy checking and rechecking everything. He knew they were in for a great storm. Manak-na seemed to understand from the way Rokuk was acting. There was tension but apparently no real fear among the boatmen. Ahna lowered the rolled entry cover of her lean-to about half way. She wanted to see out but she also wanted to keep water out. She noticed that Rokuk was not tied up to the boat. She could see the rope dangling behind him as he walked.
The boat was hit by stronger wind and the waves were growing as big as any they’d seen on this trip. Rokuk could no longer deliver orders, because he could not be heard. Still he kept checking the boat. He went below to check the stowed bins. He had forgotten to check the covers to be sure they were well tied up. They were.
The storm hit with a fury that frightened Yomuk and Manak-na. Alone in her lean-to with the front flap secured all the way down Ahna was not frightened. She knew nothing about sailing and when the boat was wildly elevated on one side, it did not mean anything to her. In the tiny bin, she was not tossed around. Even the huge, ear-splitting cracking sound did not cause her to fear. When a wave came over the boat, it meant nothing to her. Besides, Manak-na was right outside. She could see his arm holding onto the bamboo of the boat right in front of her lean-to. Once she heard him shout out a word she didn’t know. The word was “Wisdom!” During the whole of the lighted part of the day, the boat bobbed erratically in the wind and wild waves. Instead of sunlight, it appeared to be twilight to dark with frequent snatches of lightening flashing and thunder roaring above the roar of the wind and complaints of the boat. Waves the size of mountains would raise them up and they would slide down the other side as if in a great valley. Once in a while a huge wave top would crash upon them, making it hard to breathe until the wave washed back to the sea.
By the time Wisdom was about to start sucking color from the sea, the winds were dying down. Yomuk was exhausted. Both day and night boatmen worked the rudders together through the storm, trying to keep the front of the boat pointed toward oncoming waves. Yomuk had no time to fear—work took everything he had. Wave height was no longer as tall as big hills. They waited for Rokuk to give the order to untie the forward mast. Wisdom had changed the color of the sea to black, but still no order from Rokuk. Ralm became very uneasy. He told Manak-na to remain where he was. Ralm went through the boat systematically. He looked everywhere for Rokuk. He could not find the man anywhere. He began to sob near the point on the right front of the boat. He knew. Rokuk had been so busy checking the boat that he had either forgotten to tie up, or, worse, he had intentionally not tied up. Whichever the case, and he’d never know, Rokuk was gone. Ralm was now in charge of the boat. It would be his responsibility to get them home. He certainly knew how, but without his lifelong friend, it would be so difficult.
He returned to his spot near the back sail. “Manak-na, Rokuk is gone.”
“What do you mean gone”, Manak-na asked, not able to accept the fact that Rokuk might have been washed overboard.
“He has gone to the sea.” Ralm was weeping. “I must get myself together to take over. I really ache for my friend. It is almost too much to bear.”
“I understand, Ralm, but you have lives that depend on you now. You need to exchange the boatmen for night and turn over the responsibility to the night boatmen. Then, you need to find a way to sleep.”
Inside the lean-to Ahna heard the conversation. She had not cried in her memory. Tears pent up from years slipped down the side of her face. She had cared for Rokuk. He had been so kind to her. Now, he was gone. It was too quick. Ralm beat the drum and called the untie order. The men were all on the top level at the same time. Ralm told them what had happened and that he was now responsible for getting them home safely. He turned the night responsibility over to Skuku. Manak-na went to the lean-to where Ahna was crouched. She rolled the cover all the way up and tied it. She came outside.
“I guess you heard.”
“Yes, I heard,” she affirmed, though her face covered with tears would have answered the question.
She untied and wound the rope around her arm. She and Manak-na headed to the lower level. They relieved themselves and returned to the upper level where she held the water container while Manak-na washed the ochre off his face. Yomuk was already in his sleeping area. They joined him quietly.
Manak-na asked, “You heard about Rokuk?”
“Yes. Of all the people on the boat, I can’t believe we are missing him”.
“He was traveling all over the boat not tied up,” Ahna said.
“Ahna, are you sure?”
“Yes. Should I have told him?”
“No, Ahna, it’s not your responsibility. He probably untied to go check something and meant to tie up again. I thought maybe his tie line broke.”
“I only know what I saw before I lowered the front of the lean-to all the way down.”
“Then he may or may not have been tied up. He could have tied up after you saw him untied. We’ll probably never know.”
They tried to find a comfortable place to sleep. The storm had sapped energy from each one of them for different reasons. They needed sleep. Ahna drifted off quickly. Manak-na wondered about Rokuk until he finally fell to sleep. The time had been short, but Manak-na had a friend in Rokuk. He grieved.
Yomuk lay there wide eyed. He had experienced a fierce storm at sea and had lived through it. He had been on the upper level when waves broke on the boat. He and Piman and the others worked the rudders occasionally during the storm. He had seen the boat travel up the side of unbelievably monstrous waves. He expected to die. Terror hurt his belly. He wasn’t sure he’d ever want an adventure again. He was terribly homesick. He was glad they’d found Ahna. He really liked her. Now, he was certain he’d be glad to be a hunter to stay with the People. Without question he wanted no more sea adventures—ever. Finally, he, too, succumbed to the need for sleep.
When Wisdom brought light again to the sea, the boatmen discovered the source of the great cracking noise. When the boat had twisted in the big waves, one of the cross-piece logs at the bottom had split in the middle. It was a longitudinal split and it had not broken through, but it was a big split. No wonder that the noise was so loud.
The boat sailed with both sails for days and days. No more storms threatened. It seemed that they were endlessly at sea with no land visible for uncountable days. The boatmen and Manak-na, Yomuk, and Ahna experienced boredom, not even relieved by the occasional flying fish. One day turned into another.
“Land! Land! Land!” one of the night boatmen shouted just before Wisdom brought a crystal clear blue sky to the sea.
Ralm heard it and realized he had to get up. He didn’t know how long he’d slept. He exited the hut and took a look for himself. Sure enough, there was land ahead.
“H
ead for the land,” he said to the night rudder man.
He walked forward to the front of the hut. He watched for hours as they approached the island. They could hunt, he thought, if this were the right island. They could use some fresh meat and fruit.
He saw that they were approaching the big island from the southeast. He knew there were no sheltering coves, but the weather was fine and he had no concerns about approaching and anchoring on the sea side. He called for the sails to be furled and he shifted to rowers as they got close to the island. The beautiful beaches were composed of fine sand and ancient volcanic rocks. It made for a scenic, if somewhat treacherous, place to anchor.
Manak-na and Yomuk were sent to shore to hunt. Ahna remained on the boat watched over by Ralm. He alone knew why the girl had touched the heart of Rokuk. She occasionally looked like the man’s wife. He would take good care of her—for her sake and Rokuk’s.
Manak-na and Yomuk climbed the slope that was nearest to them. They carried two spears and their knives. The two moved as quickly as possible. Sitting on the boat had made them lose some of the strength they had before the trip.
Yomuk pointed out a couple of deer, the barking deer of short stature. Manak-na suggested they wait to see if they could find anything larger. Those animals were only as tall as his forearm was long. As they progressed up the hill, Manak-na looked down over a protruding rock and saw a larger animal herd where many of them were ruminating. Their horns were cone shaped and not branched. They grew straight upon the heads, curving only slightly backwards. They were about as tall as the waist of a man from the ground. Their coat was a dark shade of tan with yellow spots in the area of the head. The animals had very short tails. Neither Manak-na nor Yomuk had ever seen these animals, so they did not know what to expect of behavior. Both selected a resting animal. They would try to surprise it. At Manak-na’s signal, the two went after their selected animal. Manak-na got his but Yomuk’s began to run away before he could spear it. He was frustrated and threw his spear at the animal. He wounded the deer’s front leg. He raced to the animal and managed the kill while the animal was struggling.
The two men took the deer and bled them. They gutted them and left the guts lying where they were. They tied the front and back legs together on each animal. They threaded their spears through the legs of the animals and carried them down the hill and towards the boat. The two saw men gathering fruit and water below. The fruit would taste good! They went to the water’s edge and began their butchering. The meat would hang in the huts for a few days and then they would enjoy great feasts.
From habit the men skinned the animals, keeping the skin whole. They left it on the ground, not having any women who worked skins on the boat. When they took the first quarters of meat to the boat, Yomuk asked Ahna whether she knew how to work skins.
She looked down uncomfortable at the thought of disappointing him. “I have no idea,” she replied.
Manak-na remembered when he taught her the words, “I have no idea,” and realized she equated it with “I don’t know.” They’d deal with that later when he’d had time to figure out how to explain it.
When all the fruit, meat, and water they could carry had been loaded aboard, they rowed out and around the northernmost part of the island and on toward their destination in the north. The boatmen all knew the shoreline where they traveled. This was part of their land. There was an almost festive air on the boat. The person who felt the festive air acutely was Ahna.
When the evening meal was served, men carried meat sticks, lychee fruit, and the apple-like lembu fruit serving all the boatmen and Ahna. The sweetness of the lychee fruit with its lovely red skin was the favorite of all on the boat. Ahna was surprised when she was told she could have one of each. She had never been given such food! She had had no food bowl, so Manak-na had fashioned one for her from a half coconut. It was one of her treasured possessions. She leaned over the food bowl to avoid dripping the fruit on her tunic.
Slowly, Wisdom removed the color from the sea and land, while the drum beat told the boatmen that it was time to change places. Before going into the hut, Ahna stood looking to the southwest. The sunset was deep hued and lovely. It reminded her of her long ago home, but she did not long for it. She was now adventuring, and she delighted in it. Somewhere before long would be a place where she would fit. She had no understanding at all how—only the certainty that it would be.
The People had left the carved out cave. When they left, they couldn’t fail to notice the call of Raven who seemed to chide them for leaving. Raven did not fly away. Instead he followed with his mate. Ki’ti wondered whether he was interrupted in raising his young. She felt sad about any disruption she may have caused the birds, but the People needed to find a place to stay for the winter, and the place they last occupied was not adequate. She considered also that Raven did not need to follow.
They had been trekking for moons. All were tired, when a hill across a small valley displayed a sign, evergreen trees, graceful pines, visible against the background of the hill. The People rested while Sum-na, Tongip-na, and Ekuktu-na went to see what the pines marked, if anything. The trail up to them was somewhat difficult to find. There was a cliff under them.
Sum-na located the trail and they climbed up. There was a natural cave there. Sum-na listened carefully. He thought he could hear water, but he was unsure and, without a torch, he wasn’t going deep into the cave. The other two men arrived and only Tongip-na could hear what Sum-na was hearing. They made a small torch and went to explore. There were remains of something that had been eaten by an animal, but the cave had no odor of animal presence as it would if one habitually lived there. They saw some tools lying about and hearths, used a very long time ago. The ceiling like the others was very high. A smoke hole was open at the top. There were numbers of rooms, and down at the very bottom was water. Tongip-na tasted the water. It was good. They all enjoyed slaking their thirst.
Tongip-na went outside. He looked to see if he could find a meat preparation cave. Usually where there was one cave, there were others. Sum-na and Ekuktu-na came to help look. Finally, Ekuktu-na stumbled on one that had been hidden by some evergreen rhododendron bushes. The bushes actually blocked the entrance. Sum-na returned to the first cave and retrieved the torch they had left in a hearth. They entered the second cave and found it ideally suited to serve for meat preparation. It, too, had running water.
Sum-na offered to return to the People to call them to the caves. The other two men fully explored the second cave. Ekuktu-na noticed that there were pines above the place where they had explored the caves. He decided to have a look. He climbed up the unused path and reached the place where once again, he was surprised by what looked like a structure made of rocks from which to examine the night sky from high placed windows. It also had a clear view back to where they had been. He became more and more convinced that these places served several functions. Two of them must have been to examine the night sky and to communicate somehow with others at a distance. He wondered what other purposes they may have had. He returned to the cave where they’d probably live through the winter. From there he could see the People trekking towards the cave. Soon they’d be sweeping the caves and packing in their supplies. Until then he chose to rest against an old tree the trunk which first grew horizontally from the hillside and then straight up.
Soon enough the People arrived and it was quiet no longer. Women were sweeping both caves, enabled to see in the dark by the torches the men had set up to light the interior. The youth were busy searching windfall logs for hearth fires and the girls had set up a perimeter for the dogs. Other young men had been digging out a human privy away from the cave. When setting up a cave, there was always a flurry of activity. A few women had already started a hearth fire for cooking and had a spit set up over it for roasts they had been carrying. There were aurochs roasts. They had been cut into pieces which would cook faster on several spits than the whole roast on a single spit. A single spit would likel
y have broken with a full roast on it. Some girls were searching for greens, while hunters were assessing the safety of the area from predatory or poisonous wildlife. Overhead the sound of Raven added to the din.
Tiriku went down to the flat land below. Raven saw him and flew down while his mate sat in a tree nearby watching. Tiriku nuzzled the bird, and Raven used his head and beak to touch Tiriku on his neck and chest. Raven lay on the ground on his back and Tiriku took his forepaw and arched it above the bird’s belly, but did not touch the bird. He nudged its wing with his nose. Raven got up and hopped about as if dancing. Tiriku danced back and forth with exaggeratedly lowered forepaws. Then he’d stand still and twist his head from side to side. Raven would cock his head. What or whether they communicated anything People could understand was not clear, but they did display happiness in a long friendship. There was no doubt of that. Tiriku returned to the cave and Raven left.
Ki’ti had already agreed that this cave would be good for the winter. They had seen deer in the little valley and some had been seen on the hillsides. Meat was available. They were almost at the season of colorful leaves, so there was time to prepare for winter. It seemed good. Ki’ti was tired. She looked over and noticed that Domur had gathered several small children and was teaching them to sing children’s songs. There was Rish, Yosh, Lag, Solu, Phelen, Olmot, and Kuma. Domur had their attention. The fatigue drained from Ki’ti at the sight. How she had worried about Domur. Something had changed her seemingly overnight. It was wonderful. Out of the corner of her eyes, Ki’ti could see her own hair. She would need to get Likichi to trim if for her. It had grown a lot since she had her cut it. She loved having it cut short.
Manak-na's Story, 75,000 BC Page 21