The SealEaters, 20,000 BC
Page 1
THE SEALEATERS, 20,000 BC
BOOK FIVE OF WINDS OF CHANGE, A PREHISTORIC FICTION SERIES ON THE PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS
BONNYE MATTHEWS
Award Winning Writer of Prehistoric Fiction
PO Box 221974 Anchorage, Alaska 99522-1974
books@publicationconsultants.com—www.publicationconsultants.com
ISBN 978-1-59433-600-3
eISBN 978-1-59433-601-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2015959170
Copyright 2015 Bonnye Matthews
—First Edition—
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form, and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Dedication
For Sally B. Sutherland, long-time treasured friend.
Other Books in the Winds of Change Series:
Ki’ti’s Story, 75,000 BC
Manak-na’s Story, 75,000 BC
Zamimolo’s Story, 50,000 BC
Tuksook’s Story, 35,000 BC
Acknowledgements
Without the assistance of several people this book, as is true of the others in this series, would not be. These people are first, my brother, Randy Matthews, and then Sally Sutherland, Patricia Gilmore, Robert Arthur, and Pat Meiwes. All contributed far in excess of what could be expected or hoped for based on family, friendship, or love of reading. I also thank my publisher, Evan Swensen, who had the courage to take on this project.
Contents
Introduction
SealEaters’ Genealogical Chart
Chapter 1—The SealEaters’ Cove
Chapter 2—Murke’s Story
Chapter 3—Emuka’s Story
Chapter 4—Mongwire and Wen’s Story
Chapter 5—Plak’s Story
Chapter 6—Torq’s Story
Chapter 7—Akla’s Story
Chapter 8—Maber’s Story
Chapter 9—Reg and Blad’s Story
Chapter 10—Urch and Wapa’s Story
Chapter 11—The SealEaters’ New Land
Bibliography
Introduction
The Winds of Change Novel Series
The novel series views the period from 75,000 BC to the present as representing two overall times: from 75,000 BC to the last Ice Age Glaciation event is the Time of Peace among people on earth and from about 26,000 BC is the Time of War among people on earth that continues to today. The eruption of Mt. Toba on the island of Sumatra ushered in the Time of Peace by significantly changing the environment and possibly reducing the population of the earth at that time. People had to band tightly together not just for companionship but more to the point—for basic survival in their given environment. The last Ice Age Glaciation event beginning around 26,000 BC ushered in the Time of War by creating great sheets of ice that covered northern lands, shoving refugees from the northern levels into lands further south, creating conflict between refugees who had to go somewhere and those who considered various geographic areas theirs. Wars erupted to defend or seize territory. The massive glaciation was gone by 11,700 BC, but the Time of War continues. Along with earth changes, people changed. The Time of War changed values. In general, cunning became a virtue, not a vice, and guilelessness became detrimental to successful living. The first four books in the series focus on the Time of Peace. The last book in the series focuses on the transition to the Time of War.
Each book in the series is part of the series, but each novel stands alone also as a single read, since they do not ultimately depend on one another.
Laurel Leaf Bifacial Spear Point
The SealEaters, Book Five in the Winds of Change Series
Fact: In 1971 the scallop boat, Cinmar, was sixty miles off the Virginia Cape. The net brought up a mastodon jaw and a large bifacial spear point from a depth of 240 feet of water. Carbon dating put the mastodon bone at 22,760 years ago. Chemical analysis showed the spear point material originated in France. The two items are thought to have lain in place since the site was above water in the Ice Age. From these and data from the archaeological sites at Cactus Hill (Virginia), Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), and possibly Topper (South Carolina), the Solutrean Hypothesis originated.
The Solutrean Hypothesis: According to the Solutrean Hypothesis, Solutrean people living in France/Spain during the last Ice Age Glaciation migrated to North America across the Atlantic Ocean. They brought their unique method of tool making with them, most notably the laurel leaf spear point. That toolmaking technique became adapted into the laurel leaf design known today as the Clovis Point, which spread through North America. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter, authors of the fascinating book, Across Atlantic Ice, are proponents of this hypothesis.
Clovis Bifacial Spear Point
My view: I am satisfied regarding the plausibility that Solutreans came to what is now the United States and explored the land, leaving laurel leaf spear points. I am also persuaded that there were people living there at the time—not large numbers, but enough for interactions to occur. I see these indigenous people as having come by boat from Asia in the past or from aboriginal Australian people along with Pacific Islanders and people from Africa, moving into North America from South and Central America. The SealEaters, 20,000 BC is dated appropriately for Solutrean Hypothesis parameters. Solutreans do, however, pre-date Clovis. It is reasonable to expect that Clovis Points were developed from Solutrean spear point technology. Flaking Solutrean points requires significant skill. If they broke in half during the making, they could be re-purposed as knives or other tools. The base of Clovis points could have been the result of one of the Solutrean points’ breaking at the tip of one end. From that it would be possible for a creative mind to see the use of the tool in a different form, altered to attach more easily to a shaft. To reach that creative mind, the one(s) who might have adapted the points, it may have taken the time between the end of the Solutrean points appearances in the area now called the United States and the rise of the Clovis Point.
The Novel: The SealEaters, 20,000 BC describes people at the junction of France and Spain in 20,000 BC being squeezed between mountains, ice, and people at war. Their major source of food has become seals that are beaching on their shore. The SealEaters, having realized their food source is diminishing, send explorers across the ocean to North America where they sought a place for their people to migrate. They eat seals along the way. Interacting with indigenous people they find there, SealEaters teach their spear point technique to those who want to learn. The explorers find a place for their people to migrate, and they lead them across the Atlantic Ocean where they are absorbed by people living there.
Genetics? Without a single body of the Solutreans or Clovis Point makers ever having been found, there is no way to study this conundrum in depth.
Bonnye Matthews, December, 2015
For the Reader who wants more information:
Novels in the Winds of Change Series will have DVDs as Introductions. At this time there are two DVDs produced:
Introduction to Ki’ti’s Story, 75,000 BC, Then and Now in Southeast Asia and Cook Inlet, Alaska: Setting of Tuksook’s Story, 35,000 BC..
SealEaters’ Genealogical Chart
Chapter 1
The SealEaters’ Cove
“I wish they’d leave,” Lefa whispered anxiously, her fingers pressed tightly against the rock that sloped upwards like a wall in front of where she squatted in a tight hunker of an
xiety.
“No need to whisper, Little Rabbit,” Litmaq tried to be reassuring. He brushed across her back as he put his arm protectively around her. He didn’t try to meet her eyes, which were and had been securely fixed on the shoreline and their home at the Cove, visible from the hill where they hid. He wondered again for an uncountable number of times whether it was wise for them ever to return home. It was a thought he’d not yet discussed with Lefa.
Lefa and Litmaq were nestled low behind some leafy bushes through which they could see. They were just on the downside of the third tallest hill from home. Litmaq had checked to be sure they could not be seen from below. He had planned everything about this escape very carefully. On this day the sun shone brightly. Lefa disappeared during the night of the heavy rain of a few days ago. Her footprints had been instantly obliterated as she ran to the appointed secret meeting place that night. It was part of the plan. From there Litmaq led her to the place he’d prepared and provisioned. He’d chosen a thick forest with a rock shelter and made a well dried and covered woodpile for a very small hearth. It would raise minimal smoke and heat waves.
Standing at the water’s edge down below them at the Cove near the boats and leaning on his walking stick, Whug, oldest of the six brothers who were elders, Chief of the SealEaters, surveyed their ever-decreasing land. At sixty-five, Whug was in good health, still very strong. His hair was all but gone at the crown and what was left was thin and lacked luster, but he was capable of doing anything a man twenty years younger could do, and most of the time better. He glanced up at the third tallest hill in the distance to the east. When Litmaq left to hunt, Whug thought nothing of it. When Lefa went missing after the torrential rains, he suspected the two were together somewhere. He couldn’t think that Lefa somehow died in the storm. He’d observed Lefa and Litmaq since they were little children. Only he and Gemu had shared the strength of love he saw in Litmaq and Lefa. The two young ones tried to hide their attraction carefully and were fairly successful, but he could see it. They were not husband and wife, but they were one. They could speak with their eyes.
When Reg, the third brother who also was an elder, recently became seemingly obsessed with Lefa’s absence, Whug became alert. He finally satisfied himself that Reg’s interest in the missing girl had something to do with the recent battle between Reg and Mongwire. Mongwire was Lefa’s father, Whug’s youngest brother and elder. Whug thought it made no sense for Reg to be so concerned about Lefa’s absence. Reg had a vicious habit of leaving disagreements unsettled and seething with brooding anger. He’d grow the anger until he wreaked vengeance on his former opponent. Often, however, Reg tried to inflict pain indirectly on others by hurting someone loved by the target of his vengeance, possibly Lefa in this case, rather than by inflicting pain directly on the target, who would be Mongwire. Whug became more and more convinced that Reg planned to do something to Lefa to hurt Mongwire. He assumed Lefa knew about it and had shared that with Litmaq. That would make sense of all that was happening. Everyone knew Reg was leaving on the voyage. Litmaq only needed to hide Lefa until Reg left, and that would be soon.
Whug suspected Litmaq and Lefa had fled before Reg could do whatever he had in mind. Only Whug suspected their location. He would not disclose his thoughts to anyone, not even to his second wife. He would have shared it with Gemu, his first wife, but she no longer breathed air. At sixty-five, Whug didn’t share thought intimacy with his twenty-five-year-old second wife though he treated her well. Whug smiled when he figured out where the two most likely hid. If he were right, they’d be safe there, but he couldn’t imagine how they’d have found the place.
The SealEaters looked for Lefa as soon as they noticed her absence. They searched the two highest hills considering that she’d gone to the heights. Having searched the two highest hills, they’d agreed that she hadn’t sought the heights but rather had followed the valley, where hunters were presently searching. There was no consensus as to why she was missing. Some thought she’d walked into the water to drown herself, but that seemed unnatural for anything Lefa might do. Lefa was quiet and kept to herself, but she was a happy person. She was not a person the SealEaters noticed, until she was missing. She simply seemed to have disappeared.
Below Lefa and Litmaq, down by the Cove on the coast, the boats were readied. Each had been well supplied with the maximum amount that could be added for safe travel on the sea. Changes of clothing had been carefully stored in bladders that had been sewn or tied watertight. Falling overboard was the biggest safety threat. The mariners had to have at least one dry change of clothing. One could freeze to death quickly unclothed or in wet clothes. Water, known as critical to survival, had not been stored in excess. Ice was readily available. They had some seal oil and small, clean rocks stored in bladders for heating and cooking. SealEaters could always melt ice as they traveled, and they could replenish the seal oil though it took a lot longer. Taking empty bags for melting ice was a better plan than carrying full bags of water. They brought rectangular stone slabs for flame protection against the wind. The voyagers brought some dried meat and grains the women had gathered. Their main food source would be the seals they found along the way. Seals would also be their resource for any needs they had. All provisions had to be secured carefully. The SealEaters were beginning to gather down by the boats.
Up on the hill Lefa watched Reg’s boat. It was by far the largest. The tree the men had recently burned and carved out was one of the largest the SealEaters ever made into a boat. The flexible side arm that kept the boat steady in the water was almost as big as the other boats. The side arm was joined by two small tree crosspieces attached through cutouts in the boat and side arm and pegged, so they could provide flexibility but not disconnect. Until Reg insisted on that tree for his boat, no one had been willing to endanger the structures at their Cove by cutting the tree, removing the limbs and roots, and rolling it down the hill. As it was, the tree trunk damaged three structures severely enough that they had to be rebuilt. Men of the SealEaters were happy to help him build it, because they wanted to see how well a wooden boat worked when made of a tree that size. The SealEaters made boats of driftwood frames and seal skins.
Reg ultimately became master of the largest boat. It carried a large load, but it was not as agile in the water as the smaller craft. The boat required more rowers than normal. Lefa wanted to see it leave and know it was gone for a long time—never to return would be far better. It was an amazing boat, but to her it showed all that was wrong with Reg: he wanted for himself the biggest and best of everything no matter the loss that might bring to others. Wishing Reg never to return went against the gods, she knew, but she still had those thoughts and would not deny it to herself.
Down by the water SealEaters were near chaos. People were running about making sure that all necessities were packed on the boats. Reg walked right past Whug, accidentally hitting his walking stick with his backpack. He carried spears, three bladders filled with necessities, cordage, bundles wrapped in seal gut for waterproofing. Whug suspected he’d go back for more. Reg didn’t offer an apology for hitting Whug’s walking stick. Whug was convinced that Reg wrapped in his self-focus had no idea he’d run into his brother. Had it been intentional Reg would have been looking at the walking stick. Instead Reg’s gaze was on his boat.
“She’s been gone for four days!” Reg bellowed. “What’s the matter with you people that one disappears who cannot be found? Are your tracking skills that poor?”
“Why are you concerned about my daughter?” Mongwire asked, tired of hearing Reg’s tirade, while he grieved the loss of his favorite daughter, whom he believed to be dead. “Why haven’t you tried your tracking skills, if you’re so convinced everyone else’s skills are somehow inferior?”
“You sniveling youngster,” Reg snarled, standing there with numbers of items dangling from cords around his neck, “She’s probably still alive. I look for her now, because she asked to go with me on this trip, and I promised to take
her.”
“You lie,” Mongwire spat out the words, outraged. He didn’t want his daughter’s memory besmirched.
“In the name of Mother Earth, peace between you!” At, their spirit intermediary, called out sharply, concerned for a peaceful launch so as not to anger the gods. At was the fifth brother, also an elder.
“Stay out of it, Go-Between!” Reg hissed, the dangling items dancing in his agitation. “Our youngest elder, Mongwire, has forgotten his place!” he offered as explanation only slightly calmer. Any explanation was rare for Reg. He was becoming quite red in the face, visible despite his early summer’s tan. A large vein in the center of his forehead grew large and throbbed.
Women and some of the younger men stood staring, having no idea what would follow the outbursts. Children stood closer to parents. Dogs shrank back, tails between their legs.
“Enough,” At said stronger, advancing on Reg. “You could bring the gods’ disfavor on this voyage by your strife.”
“Very well,” Reg said, controlling the volume of his sound, but not the anger passing by his teeth while holding At with his cold eyes. “Vaima, come over here! You’ll be privileged to take Lefa’s place. Elma, bring her provisions.”
Some of the SealEaters finally realized Reg intended to take a female along probably for his needs, not that he had been interested in accommodating Lefa’s request. Horror slithered through the group of people at the Cove. Vaima was selected because of At’s rebuke. Reg would aim to hurt At by taking Vaima. Vaima was distraught. As strong as she was, Vaima collapsed to the ground in tears. She was only thirteen and not a woman yet. She had no illusions what Reg would do. At knew exactly what Reg would do. Ice knifed down his spine, as he realized too late the burden his daughter would bear for his stand against Reg this time.