CHAPTER VIIIMA-RA FINDS A NEW KIND OF FOOD, AND A COAT OF FURMa-Ra, the grandson of Ra, was out looking for food. It was the chief thing the cave men did. When they had plenty, they would lie in the sun and sleep, but when food was scarce, as it was now, they spent the whole day, from morning to night, looking for something to eat.Ma-Ra went down along the banks of the stream, hoping to find a fish. It was not so much of a torrent, now, as it had been during the storm, but it was still swift and strong, dashing down over the rocks in the narrow way it had cut for itself, and boiling up here and there in clouds of foam. The wide lake at the lower end of the valley was gone, and there were no longer any quiet marshy pools along the edge of the stream, in which fish might live.The stream poured out of the valley through anarrow gorge, tumbling over the rocks in a foaming waterfall. This was the only entrance to the valley, except over the rough, forest-covered hills that surrounded it on all sides, and none of the cave men, in their hunts for food, had ever gone outside the valley. They knew nothing of the country beyond, and were afraid to enter it, not knowing what sort of enemies they might meet.Ma-Ra reached the waterfall and stood there for a long time, his heavy spear in his hand. All he could see through the gorge was a wide marshy plain, covered with tall rank grass, with here and there a clump of fern-like bushes and trees. He wondered if there were any food to be found in the plain, for he had had nothing to eat since the afternoon before, and he was very hungry. He knew it would be useless to go back to the caves, for he would find no food on the way, and when he got back, there would be nothing there either, except a few of the dry roots of plants on which the cave people were trying to keep themselves alive. Ma-Ra felt a spirit of adventure stirring within him; why, he said to himself, should he not go outside the valley and see what he could find?He might as well be killed by some wild beast, as starve to death. So he decided to go.Picking his way carefully over the slippery rocks beside the waterfall, he finally got to the bottom of it, and found himself on the edge of the wide, marshy plain. There were many hummocks of grass, with muddy pools between, but although he searched very carefully, in none of them could he find any fish.As he walked along through the tall grass, higher than his waist, he saw many large birds fly over his head, lighting here and there to feed on the tender shoots of the grass, but while he knew these birds might be good to eat, there was no way in which he could catch one of them.Suddenly Ma-Ra paused, the hair on his neck and head standing up straight. Some animal was coming toward him through the grass; he saw the grass tops waving, and heard low grunts, as the creature forced its way along through the mud. What it was Ma-Ra could not tell, but he stood quite still, a little to one side of the path the animal was taking, and waited, spear in hand.In a few moments he saw a heavy pointedsnout come poking through the grass, with little sharp tusks sticking upward, and small bright eyes, which turned quickly from side to side, watching for any danger. Suddenly the animal saw Ma-Ra and stopped. It had never seen a man before, and did not know what to make of him.Ma-Ra was very quick. Without waiting a moment, he drove his flint-pointed spear into the animal's side, just behind its fore-leg.The wild pig tried his best to use his sharp tusks, but it was too late. Ma-Ra's thrust had been a fatal one, and in a few moments the boar fell over on his side, dead.Ma-Ra drew out his spear. Some bits of the animal's flesh, warm and covered with blood, clung to his spear point. Half starving, he put them in his mouth, chewed them, swallowed them. They tasted good to him, even better, he thought, than raw fish. With the blade of his spear he cut some strips of flesh from the animal's side and made a hearty meal. Then, because the body of the boar was too large and heavy for him to carry, he twisted some marsh grasses together,tied them to the animal's front legs, and began to drag it along through the marsh toward the entrance to the valley.When he at last came to the waterfall, he was tired, and he saw at once that he would not be able to carry the body of the boar over the steep, slippery rocks that led into the valley. So he sat down to think what he should do, and meanwhile, ate some more of the boar meat. Soon he heard a cry from the rocks above, and saw two of his brothers standing in the valley entrance, looking down at him in surprise.He called to them to join him, which they did, chattering loudly over his bravery in going outside the valley. They too were very hungry, so Ma-Ra showed them the boar he had killed, and gave them some of the meat to eat. They liked it, as he had, and soon their stomachs too were full. Then the three of them carried the body of the boar up over the steep rocks beside the waterfall, and took it home to the caves, very proud of what they had done.That night Ma-Ra's family had a big feast, and Ra patted his grandson on the back and saida word or two which meant, in their simple language, that he had done well. The next day several parties of the cave men went out to hunt for the new sort of food. They found many different kinds of animals, in the marsh, and on the hillsides around the valley, and they ate them, and soon got to like the flesh of animals better even than they had liked the raw fish.That winter the tribe did not go hungry, and the new food they had found, as well as the danger of hunting for it, made them bolder and fiercer than ever. There were scarcely any animals that they were afraid of now, except the great mammoth elephants, which we call mastodons, and the huge hairy rhinoceros, which sometimes attacked them in the marsh, and the terrible sabre-toothed tigers.Food was not the only thing the cave people got from the bodies of the animals they killed. For one thing, they found a way to use the skins.At first, finding them tough and not fit to eat, they threw them away, but Mother Nature did not like this. She wanted her children to learn to use the furry skins of the animals they killed.So, one day, when Ma-Ra and some of his friends were stripping the skin from an animal they had speared, in the marsh land, she called Cold and Rain to her and told them to make Ma-Ra and his companions just as uncomfortable as they could.Cold and Rain laughed when they heard this, for they loved to make the funny little creatures dance, so they poured down such a bitter cold rain that Ma-Ra and the others were chilled to the bone.Ma-Ra, his teeth chattering from the cold, looked at the skin he had just stripped from a small bear. The skin was still warm, and without thinking he wrapped it about his head and shoulders to keep off the cold rain. His friends did not understand what he was about, at first, but soon they saw that Ma-Ra was warm, while they were not, and they tried to take the skin away from him, but he would not give it up.When the rain was over, and the party had returned to the valley, Ma-Ra took the skin of the bear with him and hung it up on the wall of the cave.The next day, when he went to get it, he was very much disappointed to find that it had dried hard and stiff as a board, and seemed no longer of any use to him.Now Ma-Ra had begun to think quite a good deal, and he remembered that when the skin was soft, the day before, it had been moist, so he took it down to the bank of the stream and washed it over and over in the water, scrubbing it with sand, and pounding it between two round stones, until it had become quite soft again. Then he put it in the sun to dry.Again it dried stiff and hard, and Ma-Ra was about to throw it away. Then he remembered how the grease and fat of the animals he killed softened the rough hard skin of his hands, so he got a lump of grease and rubbed the bear skin over and over with it, working the grease into all the pores. This time, the skin stayed soft, and Ma-Ra, although he did not know it, was the first Man to make leather.He threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak. After that, the cave people did not call him Ma-Ra any longer, but Han, which in their language meant the skin of an animal.THE BEAR SKINMa-Ra threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak.Other very useful things, too, the cave people found in the bodies of the animals they killed. Some of the bones, after they had cracked them open and eaten the marrow, they used for knives, or for spear points, and the women made coarse needles from them, with which they later on sewed together pieces of skins for belts, to hold the men's clubs and knives when hunting. Sinews, drawn from the animals' muscles, gave them strong cords or thread, and after a time they made sandals, or moccasins, out of the tough hides, to protect their feet when running over the sharp stones. The teeth they often strung on bits of sinew and hung around their necks, to show what great hunters they were.As the centuries went by, they once more found, in the marshes below the valley, fish which had made their way up from the Ocean, and from the bones of these they made smaller and sharper needles, for sewing the leather they had begun to use. Strips of this leather, called thongs, or thetwisted entrails of animals, called gut, took the place of the cords made of marsh grasses, for binding on the heads of spears, or axes, and as the cave men took to wearing skins and furs, they began to lose the hair on their bodies, and they looked less and less like animals, and more and more like human beings.Besides getting their food by hunting, the cave people soon learned many ways of trapping animals and other game. In the case of the larger beasts they sometimes made traps by digging deep holes or pits in the ground and then fixing upright in the bottom of these pits many strong, sharp stakes, with keen points. Over the pits they would lay a thin covering of branches and leaves. These traps were placed in the paths the animals usually took when going to the streams and ponds to get water. When the heavy beast walked on the thin covering of the pit, it would give way, and he would fall on the sharp stakes, and either be killed, or wounded so that the hunters could make short work of him with their spears.Smaller animals and birds they trapped bysnares of different sorts. One kind they made by bending down a stout sapling until it almost touched the ground, and hooking the end of it under a notched stake driven in the earth. On the end of the sapling was a noose of cord, or gut. This noose they spread in a circle around the notched stake. On the stake they tied a bit of food, for bait. When the animal tried to pull the food off the stake, the bent sapling would slip out of the notch and fly upward, and the animal or bird would be caught in the noose.In many such ways the cave men got food for themselves and their families.The Sun was very much surprised to see how quickly the cave men had begun to learn."They are smarter than any of the other animals on Earth," he said."Yes," said Mother Nature. "They are smarter, because they have begun to use their brains, to think, just as I told you they would. But they have really only just started. If you watch them carefully, you will see many surprising things, in the next two or three thousand years.""They seem very cold," said the Sun, "even with their caves, and their fur coats. I have a hard time to keep them warm, in the Winter.""I will attend to that," Mother Nature told him. "I am about to send them a very wonderful thing.""What is it?" the Sun asked."Fire," Mother Nature replied. "Soon they will be making Heat work for them."
CHAPTER VIIIMA-RA FINDS A NEW KIND OF FOOD, AND A COAT OF FURMa-Ra, the grandson of Ra, was out looking for food. It was the chief thing the cave men did. When they had plenty, they would lie in the sun and sleep, but when food was scarce, as it was now, they spent the whole day, from morning to night, looking for something to eat.Ma-Ra went down along the banks of the stream, hoping to find a fish. It was not so much of a torrent, now, as it had been during the storm, but it was still swift and strong, dashing down over the rocks in the narrow way it had cut for itself, and boiling up here and there in clouds of foam. The wide lake at the lower end of the valley was gone, and there were no longer any quiet marshy pools along the edge of the stream, in which fish might live.The stream poured out of the valley through anarrow gorge, tumbling over the rocks in a foaming waterfall. This was the only entrance to the valley, except over the rough, forest-covered hills that surrounded it on all sides, and none of the cave men, in their hunts for food, had ever gone outside the valley. They knew nothing of the country beyond, and were afraid to enter it, not knowing what sort of enemies they might meet.Ma-Ra reached the waterfall and stood there for a long time, his heavy spear in his hand. All he could see through the gorge was a wide marshy plain, covered with tall rank grass, with here and there a clump of fern-like bushes and trees. He wondered if there were any food to be found in the plain, for he had had nothing to eat since the afternoon before, and he was very hungry. He knew it would be useless to go back to the caves, for he would find no food on the way, and when he got back, there would be nothing there either, except a few of the dry roots of plants on which the cave people were trying to keep themselves alive. Ma-Ra felt a spirit of adventure stirring within him; why, he said to himself, should he not go outside the valley and see what he could find?He might as well be killed by some wild beast, as starve to death. So he decided to go.Picking his way carefully over the slippery rocks beside the waterfall, he finally got to the bottom of it, and found himself on the edge of the wide, marshy plain. There were many hummocks of grass, with muddy pools between, but although he searched very carefully, in none of them could he find any fish.As he walked along through the tall grass, higher than his waist, he saw many large birds fly over his head, lighting here and there to feed on the tender shoots of the grass, but while he knew these birds might be good to eat, there was no way in which he could catch one of them.Suddenly Ma-Ra paused, the hair on his neck and head standing up straight. Some animal was coming toward him through the grass; he saw the grass tops waving, and heard low grunts, as the creature forced its way along through the mud. What it was Ma-Ra could not tell, but he stood quite still, a little to one side of the path the animal was taking, and waited, spear in hand.In a few moments he saw a heavy pointedsnout come poking through the grass, with little sharp tusks sticking upward, and small bright eyes, which turned quickly from side to side, watching for any danger. Suddenly the animal saw Ma-Ra and stopped. It had never seen a man before, and did not know what to make of him.Ma-Ra was very quick. Without waiting a moment, he drove his flint-pointed spear into the animal's side, just behind its fore-leg.The wild pig tried his best to use his sharp tusks, but it was too late. Ma-Ra's thrust had been a fatal one, and in a few moments the boar fell over on his side, dead.Ma-Ra drew out his spear. Some bits of the animal's flesh, warm and covered with blood, clung to his spear point. Half starving, he put them in his mouth, chewed them, swallowed them. They tasted good to him, even better, he thought, than raw fish. With the blade of his spear he cut some strips of flesh from the animal's side and made a hearty meal. Then, because the body of the boar was too large and heavy for him to carry, he twisted some marsh grasses together,tied them to the animal's front legs, and began to drag it along through the marsh toward the entrance to the valley.When he at last came to the waterfall, he was tired, and he saw at once that he would not be able to carry the body of the boar over the steep, slippery rocks that led into the valley. So he sat down to think what he should do, and meanwhile, ate some more of the boar meat. Soon he heard a cry from the rocks above, and saw two of his brothers standing in the valley entrance, looking down at him in surprise.He called to them to join him, which they did, chattering loudly over his bravery in going outside the valley. They too were very hungry, so Ma-Ra showed them the boar he had killed, and gave them some of the meat to eat. They liked it, as he had, and soon their stomachs too were full. Then the three of them carried the body of the boar up over the steep rocks beside the waterfall, and took it home to the caves, very proud of what they had done.That night Ma-Ra's family had a big feast, and Ra patted his grandson on the back and saida word or two which meant, in their simple language, that he had done well. The next day several parties of the cave men went out to hunt for the new sort of food. They found many different kinds of animals, in the marsh, and on the hillsides around the valley, and they ate them, and soon got to like the flesh of animals better even than they had liked the raw fish.That winter the tribe did not go hungry, and the new food they had found, as well as the danger of hunting for it, made them bolder and fiercer than ever. There were scarcely any animals that they were afraid of now, except the great mammoth elephants, which we call mastodons, and the huge hairy rhinoceros, which sometimes attacked them in the marsh, and the terrible sabre-toothed tigers.Food was not the only thing the cave people got from the bodies of the animals they killed. For one thing, they found a way to use the skins.At first, finding them tough and not fit to eat, they threw them away, but Mother Nature did not like this. She wanted her children to learn to use the furry skins of the animals they killed.So, one day, when Ma-Ra and some of his friends were stripping the skin from an animal they had speared, in the marsh land, she called Cold and Rain to her and told them to make Ma-Ra and his companions just as uncomfortable as they could.Cold and Rain laughed when they heard this, for they loved to make the funny little creatures dance, so they poured down such a bitter cold rain that Ma-Ra and the others were chilled to the bone.Ma-Ra, his teeth chattering from the cold, looked at the skin he had just stripped from a small bear. The skin was still warm, and without thinking he wrapped it about his head and shoulders to keep off the cold rain. His friends did not understand what he was about, at first, but soon they saw that Ma-Ra was warm, while they were not, and they tried to take the skin away from him, but he would not give it up.When the rain was over, and the party had returned to the valley, Ma-Ra took the skin of the bear with him and hung it up on the wall of the cave.The next day, when he went to get it, he was very much disappointed to find that it had dried hard and stiff as a board, and seemed no longer of any use to him.Now Ma-Ra had begun to think quite a good deal, and he remembered that when the skin was soft, the day before, it had been moist, so he took it down to the bank of the stream and washed it over and over in the water, scrubbing it with sand, and pounding it between two round stones, until it had become quite soft again. Then he put it in the sun to dry.Again it dried stiff and hard, and Ma-Ra was about to throw it away. Then he remembered how the grease and fat of the animals he killed softened the rough hard skin of his hands, so he got a lump of grease and rubbed the bear skin over and over with it, working the grease into all the pores. This time, the skin stayed soft, and Ma-Ra, although he did not know it, was the first Man to make leather.He threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak. After that, the cave people did not call him Ma-Ra any longer, but Han, which in their language meant the skin of an animal.THE BEAR SKINMa-Ra threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak.Other very useful things, too, the cave people found in the bodies of the animals they killed. Some of the bones, after they had cracked them open and eaten the marrow, they used for knives, or for spear points, and the women made coarse needles from them, with which they later on sewed together pieces of skins for belts, to hold the men's clubs and knives when hunting. Sinews, drawn from the animals' muscles, gave them strong cords or thread, and after a time they made sandals, or moccasins, out of the tough hides, to protect their feet when running over the sharp stones. The teeth they often strung on bits of sinew and hung around their necks, to show what great hunters they were.As the centuries went by, they once more found, in the marshes below the valley, fish which had made their way up from the Ocean, and from the bones of these they made smaller and sharper needles, for sewing the leather they had begun to use. Strips of this leather, called thongs, or thetwisted entrails of animals, called gut, took the place of the cords made of marsh grasses, for binding on the heads of spears, or axes, and as the cave men took to wearing skins and furs, they began to lose the hair on their bodies, and they looked less and less like animals, and more and more like human beings.Besides getting their food by hunting, the cave people soon learned many ways of trapping animals and other game. In the case of the larger beasts they sometimes made traps by digging deep holes or pits in the ground and then fixing upright in the bottom of these pits many strong, sharp stakes, with keen points. Over the pits they would lay a thin covering of branches and leaves. These traps were placed in the paths the animals usually took when going to the streams and ponds to get water. When the heavy beast walked on the thin covering of the pit, it would give way, and he would fall on the sharp stakes, and either be killed, or wounded so that the hunters could make short work of him with their spears.Smaller animals and birds they trapped bysnares of different sorts. One kind they made by bending down a stout sapling until it almost touched the ground, and hooking the end of it under a notched stake driven in the earth. On the end of the sapling was a noose of cord, or gut. This noose they spread in a circle around the notched stake. On the stake they tied a bit of food, for bait. When the animal tried to pull the food off the stake, the bent sapling would slip out of the notch and fly upward, and the animal or bird would be caught in the noose.In many such ways the cave men got food for themselves and their families.The Sun was very much surprised to see how quickly the cave men had begun to learn."They are smarter than any of the other animals on Earth," he said."Yes," said Mother Nature. "They are smarter, because they have begun to use their brains, to think, just as I told you they would. But they have really only just started. If you watch them carefully, you will see many surprising things, in the next two or three thousand years.""They seem very cold," said the Sun, "even with their caves, and their fur coats. I have a hard time to keep them warm, in the Winter.""I will attend to that," Mother Nature told him. "I am about to send them a very wonderful thing.""What is it?" the Sun asked."Fire," Mother Nature replied. "Soon they will be making Heat work for them."
MA-RA FINDS A NEW KIND OF FOOD, AND A COAT OF FUR
Ma-Ra, the grandson of Ra, was out looking for food. It was the chief thing the cave men did. When they had plenty, they would lie in the sun and sleep, but when food was scarce, as it was now, they spent the whole day, from morning to night, looking for something to eat.
Ma-Ra went down along the banks of the stream, hoping to find a fish. It was not so much of a torrent, now, as it had been during the storm, but it was still swift and strong, dashing down over the rocks in the narrow way it had cut for itself, and boiling up here and there in clouds of foam. The wide lake at the lower end of the valley was gone, and there were no longer any quiet marshy pools along the edge of the stream, in which fish might live.
The stream poured out of the valley through anarrow gorge, tumbling over the rocks in a foaming waterfall. This was the only entrance to the valley, except over the rough, forest-covered hills that surrounded it on all sides, and none of the cave men, in their hunts for food, had ever gone outside the valley. They knew nothing of the country beyond, and were afraid to enter it, not knowing what sort of enemies they might meet.
Ma-Ra reached the waterfall and stood there for a long time, his heavy spear in his hand. All he could see through the gorge was a wide marshy plain, covered with tall rank grass, with here and there a clump of fern-like bushes and trees. He wondered if there were any food to be found in the plain, for he had had nothing to eat since the afternoon before, and he was very hungry. He knew it would be useless to go back to the caves, for he would find no food on the way, and when he got back, there would be nothing there either, except a few of the dry roots of plants on which the cave people were trying to keep themselves alive. Ma-Ra felt a spirit of adventure stirring within him; why, he said to himself, should he not go outside the valley and see what he could find?He might as well be killed by some wild beast, as starve to death. So he decided to go.
Picking his way carefully over the slippery rocks beside the waterfall, he finally got to the bottom of it, and found himself on the edge of the wide, marshy plain. There were many hummocks of grass, with muddy pools between, but although he searched very carefully, in none of them could he find any fish.
As he walked along through the tall grass, higher than his waist, he saw many large birds fly over his head, lighting here and there to feed on the tender shoots of the grass, but while he knew these birds might be good to eat, there was no way in which he could catch one of them.
Suddenly Ma-Ra paused, the hair on his neck and head standing up straight. Some animal was coming toward him through the grass; he saw the grass tops waving, and heard low grunts, as the creature forced its way along through the mud. What it was Ma-Ra could not tell, but he stood quite still, a little to one side of the path the animal was taking, and waited, spear in hand.
In a few moments he saw a heavy pointedsnout come poking through the grass, with little sharp tusks sticking upward, and small bright eyes, which turned quickly from side to side, watching for any danger. Suddenly the animal saw Ma-Ra and stopped. It had never seen a man before, and did not know what to make of him.
Ma-Ra was very quick. Without waiting a moment, he drove his flint-pointed spear into the animal's side, just behind its fore-leg.
The wild pig tried his best to use his sharp tusks, but it was too late. Ma-Ra's thrust had been a fatal one, and in a few moments the boar fell over on his side, dead.
Ma-Ra drew out his spear. Some bits of the animal's flesh, warm and covered with blood, clung to his spear point. Half starving, he put them in his mouth, chewed them, swallowed them. They tasted good to him, even better, he thought, than raw fish. With the blade of his spear he cut some strips of flesh from the animal's side and made a hearty meal. Then, because the body of the boar was too large and heavy for him to carry, he twisted some marsh grasses together,tied them to the animal's front legs, and began to drag it along through the marsh toward the entrance to the valley.
When he at last came to the waterfall, he was tired, and he saw at once that he would not be able to carry the body of the boar over the steep, slippery rocks that led into the valley. So he sat down to think what he should do, and meanwhile, ate some more of the boar meat. Soon he heard a cry from the rocks above, and saw two of his brothers standing in the valley entrance, looking down at him in surprise.
He called to them to join him, which they did, chattering loudly over his bravery in going outside the valley. They too were very hungry, so Ma-Ra showed them the boar he had killed, and gave them some of the meat to eat. They liked it, as he had, and soon their stomachs too were full. Then the three of them carried the body of the boar up over the steep rocks beside the waterfall, and took it home to the caves, very proud of what they had done.
That night Ma-Ra's family had a big feast, and Ra patted his grandson on the back and saida word or two which meant, in their simple language, that he had done well. The next day several parties of the cave men went out to hunt for the new sort of food. They found many different kinds of animals, in the marsh, and on the hillsides around the valley, and they ate them, and soon got to like the flesh of animals better even than they had liked the raw fish.
That winter the tribe did not go hungry, and the new food they had found, as well as the danger of hunting for it, made them bolder and fiercer than ever. There were scarcely any animals that they were afraid of now, except the great mammoth elephants, which we call mastodons, and the huge hairy rhinoceros, which sometimes attacked them in the marsh, and the terrible sabre-toothed tigers.
Food was not the only thing the cave people got from the bodies of the animals they killed. For one thing, they found a way to use the skins.
At first, finding them tough and not fit to eat, they threw them away, but Mother Nature did not like this. She wanted her children to learn to use the furry skins of the animals they killed.So, one day, when Ma-Ra and some of his friends were stripping the skin from an animal they had speared, in the marsh land, she called Cold and Rain to her and told them to make Ma-Ra and his companions just as uncomfortable as they could.
Cold and Rain laughed when they heard this, for they loved to make the funny little creatures dance, so they poured down such a bitter cold rain that Ma-Ra and the others were chilled to the bone.
Ma-Ra, his teeth chattering from the cold, looked at the skin he had just stripped from a small bear. The skin was still warm, and without thinking he wrapped it about his head and shoulders to keep off the cold rain. His friends did not understand what he was about, at first, but soon they saw that Ma-Ra was warm, while they were not, and they tried to take the skin away from him, but he would not give it up.
When the rain was over, and the party had returned to the valley, Ma-Ra took the skin of the bear with him and hung it up on the wall of the cave.
The next day, when he went to get it, he was very much disappointed to find that it had dried hard and stiff as a board, and seemed no longer of any use to him.
Now Ma-Ra had begun to think quite a good deal, and he remembered that when the skin was soft, the day before, it had been moist, so he took it down to the bank of the stream and washed it over and over in the water, scrubbing it with sand, and pounding it between two round stones, until it had become quite soft again. Then he put it in the sun to dry.
Again it dried stiff and hard, and Ma-Ra was about to throw it away. Then he remembered how the grease and fat of the animals he killed softened the rough hard skin of his hands, so he got a lump of grease and rubbed the bear skin over and over with it, working the grease into all the pores. This time, the skin stayed soft, and Ma-Ra, although he did not know it, was the first Man to make leather.
He threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak. After that, the cave people did not call him Ma-Ra any longer, but Han, which in their language meant the skin of an animal.
THE BEAR SKINMa-Ra threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak.
THE BEAR SKINMa-Ra threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak.
THE BEAR SKIN
Ma-Ra threw the heavy piece of fur about his shoulders, and fastened it with a sharp thorn, and walked about very proud of his new fur cloak.
Other very useful things, too, the cave people found in the bodies of the animals they killed. Some of the bones, after they had cracked them open and eaten the marrow, they used for knives, or for spear points, and the women made coarse needles from them, with which they later on sewed together pieces of skins for belts, to hold the men's clubs and knives when hunting. Sinews, drawn from the animals' muscles, gave them strong cords or thread, and after a time they made sandals, or moccasins, out of the tough hides, to protect their feet when running over the sharp stones. The teeth they often strung on bits of sinew and hung around their necks, to show what great hunters they were.
As the centuries went by, they once more found, in the marshes below the valley, fish which had made their way up from the Ocean, and from the bones of these they made smaller and sharper needles, for sewing the leather they had begun to use. Strips of this leather, called thongs, or thetwisted entrails of animals, called gut, took the place of the cords made of marsh grasses, for binding on the heads of spears, or axes, and as the cave men took to wearing skins and furs, they began to lose the hair on their bodies, and they looked less and less like animals, and more and more like human beings.
Besides getting their food by hunting, the cave people soon learned many ways of trapping animals and other game. In the case of the larger beasts they sometimes made traps by digging deep holes or pits in the ground and then fixing upright in the bottom of these pits many strong, sharp stakes, with keen points. Over the pits they would lay a thin covering of branches and leaves. These traps were placed in the paths the animals usually took when going to the streams and ponds to get water. When the heavy beast walked on the thin covering of the pit, it would give way, and he would fall on the sharp stakes, and either be killed, or wounded so that the hunters could make short work of him with their spears.
Smaller animals and birds they trapped bysnares of different sorts. One kind they made by bending down a stout sapling until it almost touched the ground, and hooking the end of it under a notched stake driven in the earth. On the end of the sapling was a noose of cord, or gut. This noose they spread in a circle around the notched stake. On the stake they tied a bit of food, for bait. When the animal tried to pull the food off the stake, the bent sapling would slip out of the notch and fly upward, and the animal or bird would be caught in the noose.
In many such ways the cave men got food for themselves and their families.
The Sun was very much surprised to see how quickly the cave men had begun to learn.
"They are smarter than any of the other animals on Earth," he said.
"Yes," said Mother Nature. "They are smarter, because they have begun to use their brains, to think, just as I told you they would. But they have really only just started. If you watch them carefully, you will see many surprising things, in the next two or three thousand years."
"They seem very cold," said the Sun, "even with their caves, and their fur coats. I have a hard time to keep them warm, in the Winter."
"I will attend to that," Mother Nature told him. "I am about to send them a very wonderful thing."
"What is it?" the Sun asked.
"Fire," Mother Nature replied. "Soon they will be making Heat work for them."