“We are going to seeThat which we shall see!We are going to putYuba in the earth!If she rots there, bad!If she grows there, good!Yuba! grow big!Yuba! make children!Then shall we eatWithout going to seek.Then shall we haveYuba to our hand!Yuba and her children,Sweet to the tooth!Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will come to us begging.They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
“We are going to seeThat which we shall see!We are going to putYuba in the earth!If she rots there, bad!If she grows there, good!Yuba! grow big!Yuba! make children!Then shall we eatWithout going to seek.Then shall we haveYuba to our hand!Yuba and her children,Sweet to the tooth!Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will come to us begging.They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
“We are going to seeThat which we shall see!We are going to putYuba in the earth!If she rots there, bad!If she grows there, good!Yuba! grow big!Yuba! make children!Then shall we eatWithout going to seek.Then shall we haveYuba to our hand!Yuba and her children,Sweet to the tooth!Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will come to us begging.They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
The man with the gourds chose the attitude of contempt before an infant industry. He spoke in a guttural voice. “You are like fish and have no sense! I go into the forest and when I am hungry, I look around me, and I sing, ‘Yuba! Yuba!’ ‘Here I am!’ says Yuba plant. ‘Dig me up!’—But you say, ‘Let us tie Yuba to the houses!’” He shook the gourds. “You are more foolish than the fish. They do not go about to make the river angry. But you go about to make Yuba angry!”
The women leaned upon their hoes and regarded with apprehension the heap of Yuba roots. The sun lay golden all around. “She does not look angry! We think she likes to come near the houses.”
But the man with the gourds remained indignant. “Ha! No, she does not! All kinds of things are coming to be angry with you women!” He shook the rattling string. “What will you give me if I go to the forest and sing and dance for you before Yuba?”
“We are going to dance before her here,” said the farmers. “We are going to make a great Yuba dance!—Why don’t you go hunting? All the men are hunting.”
The sitter under the tree shook from a gourd a number of long and sharp thorns. “Yes, they are hunting! Theyare hunting Big Trouble. But I, too, hunt Big Trouble, and I hunt better than they.” He spoke with growing unction. “Yesterday I went into the forest. I did not go with others—I went by myself. I found Big Trouble’s footprints. I found where he had broken the canes and laid down. I stuck long thorns in his footprints.” He talked with gestures no less than with words. “I put thorns in the earth where he rolled. So to-day Big Trouble is going like this—” He got up and limped painfully about, then sat down and with his long nail drew a mark across the ground before him. “I did so before his footprints. Now, wherever he goes, the pit is before him! Now they will hunt Big Trouble easily. Now he will go straight to the pit they have made and fall in it.” He fell himself, doubled-up, upon the ground to show the manner of it, then retook his first posture and shook the gourds. “They think they are hunting Big Trouble. But Haki and One Other hunted him first! Now I sit still and wait for the men to come home. They will give me so much meat.” He measured with his arms. “I will burn a part of it for One Other.”
The awe he meant to evoke was faintly apparent. The farmers laughed uneasily, with a catch of the breath. “Don’t put thorns in our footprints!” said one; and another, “Rub out the pit you’ve made before us there!” He smeared it over with the palm of his hand, then shook the gourds and looked sidelong and slily at the working women. “Will you give me Yuba if she stays here and grows for you?”
“Oh, we’ll give you plenty!” answered the farmers. They laughed as they said it, but they laughed uneasily. However, they went on singing, using the first hoes.
“Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will creep to us softly,They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
“Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will creep to us softly,They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
“Then none will hunger,Though the fish go away!Then none will hunger,Though the men kill no meat!Then those who laugh,Saying, ‘What do you do,Scratching there in the earth?’They will creep to us softly,They will cry, ‘Give us Yuba!’”
Far off, in the deep woods, the men of the long houses were hunting Big Trouble, hunting him far and wide. Big Trouble had chosen to make such a path to the river as brought him into close quarters with the houses. Moreover, on more occasions than one, he had strayed aside from the path; he had come brushing and trampling and ruining against the place itself, all in the dead of night, waking and terrifying! So now Big Trouble was to be killed. To that end, for many days, they had been digging a pit in the wood, deepening and widening the mouth of a gully near to old haunts of Big Trouble. When it was deep enough and sharply shelving enough, they set at the bottom pointed stakes and then they covered all with a net of vines, artfully made to look like the very floor of the forest; strong enough, too, not to give beneath the weight of any slight forest creature. But let Big Trouble try it—! For days, also, they had been talking and training, exercising their muscles, trying their spears and clubs, asking help of the Great Turtle who was mysteriously their especial friend—the Great Turtle at the mouth of the great river, who came from the water and laid her eggs upon the sand. Now they were all in the deep wood, driving Big Trouble, disturbing him with flung club and spear, getting him to go toward the pit. Big Trouble was so big, andcovered with such a fell of shaggy, red-brown hair that a flung club or spear troubled him little, and on the whole he was good-natured, and since he did not eat flesh, would not hurt them in turn—not unless they mightily angered him. Then, indeed, he would hunt with a vengeance, filling the air with trumpetings, tearing down the forest, shaking the earth, seizing the unlucky with his trunk and trampling them into an awful pulp! To hunt Big Trouble was to hunt in peril and excitement and with a fearful joy—a hunting that needed beforehand rites and ceremonies, and when it was accomplished, rites and ceremonies.
Women as well as men hunted Big Trouble, though not anything like so many women as men. But when a woman wished to hunt, she hunted; hunted for food now as long since, hunted for joy in activity, danger, and excitement. It was a dwindling custom, but they hunted yet. Half a dozen now stalked Big Trouble with the men and threw their spears against him.
By the time the sun was high, Big Trouble had rolled his bulk very near the hidden pit. He was growing angry. The hunters had now to act with extreme wariness. Just before he reached the pit, he turned. He would go no farther. He stood trumpeting and all the hunters got behind thick trees and crouched trembling. Big Trouble glared with his small, red eyes. Shaggy, with red-brown hair, with hugely long, curving tusks, vast and dusky, the mammoth stood swaying from side to side, growing angrier and angrier, searching with those now vicious, deep-sunk, red eyes. The hunters shrank to be smaller and smaller behind the trees. Their hearts grew small within them. Big Trouble did not mean to go on, had stopped definitely short of the snare! He would stay there forhours, watching, and if any one moved he would make his fearful, trampling rush.... Time passed, much time. The sun that had been up in the plains of the sky began to travel down the sky, down and down the sky. Big Trouble kept as he was; only now and then he trumpeted.
A young man and woman left the screen of a wide-girthed tree. They darted into the open. Big Trouble saw them out of the red corner of his eye. He swung his bulk about and, trumpeting, charged. Immediately the two were behind a greater tree than the first. Big Trouble passed, trumpeting, and the wind of him shook the leaves. Baffled, he stopped and stood swaying, angrier than before, angrier every moment. The two left the second tree and fled before him. He followed, darkness and weight arush through the forest. The man and woman gained the third tree. Big Trouble passed, then he turned. The two left their tree and raced before him, racing straight now to the pit. Big Trouble came after them, and he shook the earth and air. The two took life in their hands, made themselves light, bounded upon and across the roof of vine and leaf. It gave a little beneath their feet, but only a little. As near skimming as might be, they won to the farther side, and with a long cry of triumph rushed to shelter. On, after them, thundered and trumpeted Big Trouble. His forefeet came down upon the roof of the pit; he felt it break beneath him, but could not stop himself. Over and down he plunged, down with a frightful noise. The stakes caught him, the steep sides wedged him in. Big Trouble was not going any more to trouble the long houses.
The two who had toled Big Trouble into the pit marched in triumph back to the houses, at the head of the hunters.The two were big and strong, young, and according to the notions of their people, well-favoured. Back they and all the hunters came, shouting and chanting, through the leafy world with the red sun sinking behind them, and borne along, slung over a pole, the seven-feet-long curved, ivory tusks of Big Trouble. Out to meet them came the too old to hunt and the too young, came the man with the thorns and the gourds, came the women, all who had not hunted. Singing and shouting, the two tides met in the red sunset, beneath the black trees.
“Big Trouble is dead!He will plague us no more!”
“Big Trouble is dead!He will plague us no more!”
“Big Trouble is dead!He will plague us no more!”
The sun was going down—the hunters were tired, tired! They ate what was given them, fell upon the earth and went to sleep. But the next day the long houses made a feast of commemoration—Big Trouble being gone forever.
Gata, who had hunted Big Trouble and raced over the roof of his pit, left the feasting ring about the council tree. The sun hung low, the river flowed, a crooked brightness. Most of the folk of the long houses were hoarse with singing and shouting, and drowsy with food and drunk with dancing and with a brew that they made out of forest fruits. Many were asleep, others noisy with no reason, others grunting and dull-eyed. Gata had danced, but she had not eaten and drunken to disorder and heaviness. Now she rose and left the feast, for she was tired of it. She expected one to follow. She had been watching Amru where he sat under the tree. Neither had he eaten and drunken and danced to stupidity.
Here and there in the fen were higher places, islands asit were, covered with a short grass. She took a path that led to such a spot. On either hand the reeds stood up, and they waved and sighed in the evening wind. The long houses disappeared from sight. Looking back she saw Amru upon the path.
Here, where it lifted from the fen, the earth rested warm. The sun moved red through a zone of mist. The tall reeds made a wall for the grassy island. Gata and Amru sat facing each other on the round earth, round like a shield, above the fen. A last ray from the sun brightened Gata’s hair that was darkly red. With the flat fen about them, and behind the low forest, they looked larger than life. They leaned toward each other, they pressed their hands together, their bodies together. Lifted by the lifting earth, they looked one piece.
The sun touched the rim of earth and coloured the river through the fen. Gata and Amru lay embraced.
Almost as soon as the sun sank, the moon rose. It came up round and golden—only the people of the long houses did not know gold. Still the folk slept, tumbled like acorns beneath the council tree. A few old people did not sleep, but sat nodding, nodding, and women who had young children did not sleep. But all the strong men slept, some lying like fallen trees, and others snoring and grunting. The man with the gourds, who had watched the farmers, did not sleep. He had a mind and a conscience that often kept him awake. Now, as the moon came up, he wandered forth from the littered strip before the houses. “One Other” often commanded his presence by night. Now he walked by the fen and regarded the moon. The night was hot, but the lean man felt a wildness and exaltation that kept him above the heat. He wore skirt andbaldric and headdress of grass and mussel shells and coloured feathers, and he moved at tension through the hot, moist air.
Going so, he overtook another who had left those who gorged upon mammoth meat—Aneka the Wise Woman. He shook his coloured headdress; jealousy stung him. “Ha, Aneka! It is Haki who walks here by night and talks with One Other!—Why do you not stay and watch children so that they do not eat that-which-poisons?”
Aneka, wrinkled and brown, gazed at him and then over the fen to the golden moon. “There is much spite in you, Haki! I am older than you and I walked here first.”
They turned into the path through the fen. Haki waved his arms. “You and all the people cry to the Great Turtle. I cry to One Other!”
“One Other?” asked Aneka. “Where is she?”
Haki looked at her aslant. His voice sank. “Hush!Hehas gone into the ground for the night.Helives in the sun.”
The long houses used feminine pronouns when they spoke of the supernatural. Aneka stared at Haki. “He?” she said. “How bold are you, O Haki!”
But Haki, having plucked a feather from the future, came back to the present and its so solid seeming realities. A thrill of fear and awe of the Great Turtle ran through him, with thought of what vengeance she might take. “I call to the Great Turtle too!” he said hastily. “One Other and the Great Turtle are friends.”
“Can One Other make children?” asked Aneka.
It was the wall that towered before the male’s assertion of equality. Nothing with the masculine pronoun could do that! The people of the long houses knew all aboutmating. They had words in plenty for that. But they had no word like “father.” Haki uttered a guttural sound, half despair, half anger. He walked in silence while the moon climbed the sky. Then revolt again raised its head. “One Other will find out how!”
Aneka knew plants that poisoned and plants that healed. Stooping, she gathered a plant that used one way was poisonous and used another was healthful. Aneka was old and knew much. Throughout life she had had a watchful eye and comparing mind. But it was not her way to tell all that she knew.... She gathered stalk and leaf and moved with Haki in silence.
They were now somewhat deep in the fen. Presently, the path curving like a tusk of Big Trouble, they came to the shield-like, lifted place. The moon bathed it white. Clothed in that silver Gata and Amru lay asleep.
The old Wise Woman and the early Medicine Man stood and gazed. The moon looked very large, the fen very wide. The two interlaced figures seemed large with the rest of the world. Aneka and Haki watched awhile, then turned aside without waking the sleepers. Their path, bending, led them again to the edge of the fen, to the quarter whence they had come. Haki walked perhaps cogitating the pair, perhaps cogitating One Other who had gone into the ground for the night, One Other and his possibly developing powers. But Aneka looked over her shoulder at the full, bright moon.
That moon waned and other moons waxed and waned, and Gata and Amru remained companions and most fond of each other. That was not so usual among the people of the long houses. Only at great intervals arose among them some example of enduring attachment between womanand man. So novel was it that when it markedly happened the group paid attention. It was a social phenomenon of the first importance, and though they gave it no such sounding name, and indeed no name at all, they noted it.
For many days after the slaying of Big Trouble, Gata and Amru hunted in company. The forest received them in the morning; they returned at eve, bearing game or wearing trophies to show that certain four-footed enemies of the long houses were enemies no more. The people praised them. Children were told, “Grow up to be like Gata and Amru!”
Moons brightened, moons darkened. At last it was seen that Gata was making a child. After that, as the custom had grown to be, she hunted no more.... Amru was jealous of the child that Gata was making. He felt a fierceness toward it as though it were a man fighting with him for Gata’s favour. From that he passed to anger with Gata herself. Gata could not like Amru as much as Amru liked Gata. She would be showing superiorities! Savage pride was hurt. Amru and Gata had a loud quarrel, after which they parted as companions.
Gata went to the forest and walked there alone. Amru and other men were making a boat. Boats were a mystery belonging to men. Men had had that notion, had experimented with it, and then had declined to share knowledge and honours. Men went ostentatiously apart when they would make a boat. They kept a thicket screen between them and the long houses, and they stationed watchers. The women heard the thud of the falling tree, and they smelled the smoke when began the hollowing process—but for the rest it was a mystery. When the boat was made, it was held to belong to men.
Amru was strong and skilful and many of the folk had a liking for him, and he tended to become a leader. Now with other young men he was making a boat.... Gata walked alone by the edge of the forest. She could see, between her and the river, the curling smoke where the men worked. She carried a spear, and felt no especial terror of the forest. The forest and its creatures composed an old, familiar pattern in her brain. Within her was aglow another ancient pattern....
She sat down between the outcropping roots of a tree. A play of emotions filled her, kept her in a manner of iridescent dream. Around spread the forest floor of perished leaves, multitudinous, layer after layer of perished leaves. Overhead were the green leaves, quivering and thrilling. The savage woman sat and felt, and as best she could thought.... Imagination waked in her. Somewhere or other, she distinctly saw herself, moving beneath the trees, holding against her shoulder the child that would be born. She knew with certainty that she would be fond of it.... After this, she thought of Amru. She sat quite still, her spear beside her, her dark red hair shadowing her face. She felt at once old and young—as though she had lived long, and as though sky and earth were new....
Near the tree grew flowering bushes, and in the branchy mass of one was set a bird’s nest, filled with callow young. Gata fell to watching the nest and the bird that perched beside it. Hunter’s experience, savage experience, gave at wish an immobility of body, a mimicry of rooted life. Gata seemed as unmoving as the trunk of the tree. The nestlings opened their mouths and stirred their unfeathered bodies. The bird spread its wings and went farther into the flowery thicket. When it returned it had food inits beak. It fed its young. In a moment came, too, the male bird—it also bore food and fed the young. The mother bird perched once more beside the nest. The he-bird perched upon a second branch and sang. “Sweet! So sweet!” was its song, and the she-bird and the young birds seemed, liking it, to listen. Gata listened likewise.
The human group by the forest and the fen, as human groups everywhere upon the ancient earth, struggled with mysteries. Why was thus and thus so? Given a fact, what went before the fact, and what was to come out of it? The mind struggled, the mind pondered then as ever, and then as ever small, chance observations might put fire to long and long accumulated fuel.... “Sweet! Sweet!” sang the he-bird, and the she-bird listened, and the young birds opened and shut their mouths and pushed with their wings. Gata sat and watched. A compound happening, seen in her existence a myriad times with the physical eye, now, quietly and easily, took meanings unthought of before. Why did the he-bird bring food to the young birds? Why did the he-bird, as well as the she-bird, watch the nestlings and drive away harm? Why did the one, as well as the other, teach the young birds to fly?... “Sweet! So sweet!” sang the he-bird, and the she-bird listened, and the young birds opened and shut their mouths and pushed with their wings, and all around were the flowering bushes....
Suns rose from the fen and sank behind the forest, and Amru and his fellows finished making their boat. It was a longer boat, a more skilfully made boat than any the houses had yet seen. There was great triumph when, all pushing and pulling and lifting together, the men got it into the narrow stream by which they had worked, andthen down this into the wide, slow-flowing river. The next thing was to be an Expedition—a seeing what was up the river, farther than any had yet gone!
Twelve young men went upon the Expedition. They hewed and trimmed saplings with which to pole the boat, for the oar was not yet. The long houses, women and men, watched them depart. It was a high occasion, one that called for vociferation, chanting, laughter, shouts to boat and boatmen until all had dwindled to a dark splinter upon the river, until a horn of the earth came between them and the houses. A number of the men followed along the bank for a distance, but after a time the forest grew chokingly thick and they desisted. Haki, shaking his string of gourds, tossing his arms in the air, went and returned with the followers.... Until the point of earth came between, Gata watched Amru, standing in the boat, in his hands the shaft of a young tree. Gata and Amru had not ended their quarrel.
The horn of earth hid the long houses. The boat could no longer hear the shouting and chanting. The fen dropped away and on both sides of the river stood the forest. It was very thick, it stood knee-deep in black, quaking earth. It dropped upon the flood leaves and petals and withered twigs, dropped them into the boat. The boat with the young men poling moved close to shore. The river was wide, but it looked to these Argonauts wider than wide, wide and fearful! That was ever the way with the impassable, with the heretofore unpassed. They hugged the shore. That was daring enough, so strange as yet was the fact of a boat at all!
After some time they came to the mouth of an affluent of the great river. They knew the nearer bank of thisstream; nothing new to be gained by following it in a boat instead of afoot, ashore, among cane and trees! Amru gazed at the farther bank, turning the pole in his hands. He harangued the eleven. The adventurers poled across the affluent, drawing long breaths when it was done. Full of pride, they laughed exultingly. Amru stepped nearer chieftainship.
The twelve kept on, close to the shore, up the wide river. This shore was new. They peered through the rank waterside growth, but they saw nothing that they might not see nearer the long houses. Before the sun set they had gone a considerable distance. They found a bank of sand, and here they beached their boat, and gathering dead wood rubbed sticks together and made a fire. They had dried meat with them and made their supper of this. Night fell. The fire burned on, for protection against the serpent world and the four-footed world. One watched and eleven slept. Morning coming, they roused and had breakfast. In great good spirits they looked at the river and at their boat, the beautiful work of hand and brain! The twelve felt enterprising, gay, and bold. They pushed off the boat, climbed in, took their poles in hand. This day they went a long distance. The river became narrower, the world up here was new. In the afternoon they fastened the boat to a tree, took their spears and hunted meat. Having killed, they made a fire near the boat-tree, cooked and ate. Stars tipped the black trees of the opposing shore, stars mirrored themselves in the stream. One man watched, eleven slept. Dawn came; they sprang up and untied their boat.
Amru looked across the stream. Mist hung upon the opposite bank; then, parting, allowed a vision of a plain-like space of grass backed by hills sharp and soaring against a fleckless sky. Amru stared; then he said, “Let us go across the river,” and turned the sapling in his hand like an oar.
The twelve crossed the river in their hollowed and shaped trunk of a tree. That was a great thing to do and they applauded themselves. Amru felt affection for the boat that had done so well by them. He caressed it with his hand. Suddenly he gave the boat a name. “Tree-with-Legs!” he said. “Ko-te-lo!” and felt pride again in Amru’s prowess.
This shore was higher than that which they had left, higher and less heavily wooded. They found a shelving place up which they lifted and hauled Ko-te-lo. Then, as they rested, sitting around Ko-te-lo, they praised their collective prowess, and one among them said that the Great Turtle had helped them across. But Amru said that before they started he had gone into the forest with Haki and that Haki had sung and danced to One Other who lived in the sun. And then, because Amru felt very bold this morning, he said that One Other was like a man and not like a woman, and that he thought with Haki that it would be One Other who helped with the boat. That was natural, said Amru, since men made and used boats and not women. The Great Turtle was like a woman and helped women. Men wanted some one like men. One Other had a long house in the sun, and spears and clubs and boats—many boats.
The eleven listened, attracted but doubtful, somewhat awed and alarmed. “But he cannot make children—One Other cannot make children!”
Amru felt anger. Having been bold he must becomebolder yet—that seemed a necessity in the case. Having entertained the idea of One Other, he must turn the idea away or make of it an inmate, clothe it, and give it powers. He wished to keep authority with the eleven, and it seemed to him that that could not be done if there was retraction. He must yet further aggrandize One Other. “He makes them with his hands,” he said. “He cuts them out of trees and sings to them and they come alive!”
The eleven pondered that. Possibly it might be done. Amru’s words made them see a hugely tall, strong, much-decorated man, a great hunter and spear-thrower, cutting shapes out of trees that presently came alive and stood and walked. Had they not themselves fashioned Ko-te-lo out of a tree? The eleven did not greatly care for Haki, but for Amru who seemed to agree with Haki they did care. They had for Amru a sentiment of admiration. He was treading firmly the unrolling path to chieftaincy. And all the long house men desired claims with which to set off woman’s claim. Their hearts began to lean away from the Great Turtle, toward the big hunter in the sun—hewho could make persons.
The sun came up over the hills. They looked at the great ball with a freshened interest. But the landscape grew brighter and gayer and they turned toward more familiar explorations. If they climbed a hill they might see afar. Amru proposed that course and lifted from the boat his spear of tough wood with well-sharpened flint head. The others were content to follow him. They saw that Ko-te-lo was well placed above the water, then, armed with spear and club and flint knife, they took their way up the waves of earth. They might meet serpents and four-footed enemies. They did not look forfoes who walked on two feet, and yet these were the ones they met.
Out of a ravine between hills rose a hunting band as well armed as themselves and outweighing them in number. There was some parley, but it led nowhere. The stronger party flung a spear—in a moment began a conflict that grew more and more fierce and red. When it ended four of the twelve lay slain. The eight, whelmed by numbers, lost spear and club and knife, had at last only naked bodies. The eight were captives. They glared, and Amru more redly than any, baring his teeth.
The victor group was one, it seemed, somewhat advanced in the notion of warfare everywhere, upon one’s own kind no less than other kinds. The settlement to which the eight were borne had that aspect. The people were fiercer, wilder than those who dwelled by the great river.
One of the eight died from a spear wound. Another had his brains beaten out one day by an infuriated giant of the tribe. The six in captivity saw three moons appear, wax and wane. Then they escaped—Amru the planner and leader.
A storm came up and blew between them and the tribe among the hills. They got down to the river—they found Ko-te-lo where they had hidden her. The people behind them knew naught of boats or boat-making. The six put off and poled for the other side of the river. A current caught them, carried them down, dashed them against a rock, the storm howling around. Ko-te-lo overturned—one of the six was drowned. The five got their boat righted, entered her again and came at last to their natal side of the flood. They put Ko-te-lo where she could not runaway, then they lay down in cane and mire and slept like the dead. The storm beat the woods and roared and howled for a day and a night. They lay close until it was over and the sun shone out and the earth sent up steam. Then the five and Ko-te-lo turned homeward.
They had adventures, but not great adventures, poling down the stream, poling down the stream as fast, as steadily, as the five could go. Between the north bank and the south bank, between the sunset and the morning red, Amru thought of Gata.—Ko-te-lo and the five came in sight of the long houses.
Haki saw the boat upon the distant reaches. Waving his arms, bending and leaping, shrilly chanting, he cried the news. Women, men, children, the place rushed to the water’s edge. The five approaching broke into chanting. With a wild and deep rise and fall and swing of voice, they told the adventures of Ko-te-lo and the twelve. Before Ko-te-lo touched the bank the long houses knew the gist of it—how the twelve had travelled and for so huge distances—the crossing of the water and the naming of Ko-te-lo—the hunters encountered and how they were not stronger men, but more men—the slaying of the four—of the two—captivity—escape—the behaviour of Ko-te-lo—the drowning of the one—the final escape of the five—the journey home. Amru’s voice was the fullest, the most powerful and the richest. “Amru led them!” he chanted, and the four added their strength. “Amru led us!” “All brave men!” chanted Amru, and the four sounded with him. “All brave men!” chanted Amru, “we who are dead and we who are alive!” He stood in the prow of the boat and shook the young tree-trunk in his hand.... The voice of the long houses out-swelled toward Ko-te-lo and Amru and the four. All had been thought dead. To have five—and the five bravest, Amru and the four—was triumph! Ko-te-lo reached the bank amid a frenzy of voices, of gestures of welcome. The long houses would not let the feet of the explorers touch earth.
Triumph meant ceremonial feasting and dancing.... That evening such a feast was toward as had not been since the death of Big Trouble! It was a feast for the return of Amru and the four and likewise it was a birth feast.
The middle house was the greatest, the most substantial, the finest of the structures. Before it stood the carved-upon, the ochre-painted stone, sign and symbol of the Great Turtle. The houses could not remember how long it had been there, it had been there so very long. It had stood there before these houses were built, when they had only very little, rude houses of fresh boughs.
The middle house was high and wide and deep, a brown cavernous interior with a central hearth of stones. Here a fire burned, smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. The entrance to the house gaped wide as a true cavern mouth. Now, seen from within, another fire burned upon the baked earth terrace before the middle house and the other houses. Around this fine in an ellipse went the leaping, the dancing figures of the feasting, the commemorating people of the long houses. From within, from where Gata lay by the fire upon the hearth, it seemed that they went in an endless line, no end, no beginning. Only when the people in the middle house itself came between hearth and entrance-way did she lose the line, the endless line that yet brought Amru, time and time again, before thedoor. She lay upon wolf-skins, and beside her the day-old babe. Aneka sat by the fire, and women and men and children passed in and out. In the corners of the shadowy house were kept spears and shields and adornments fitted for such occasions. Men came to take these, changing from one dress to another. Without, within, beat the firelight. The house, the night without, were filled with forms, now dark, now bright. The forms had drums and rattles.Bom—Bommm! Bom—Bomm!went the drums.
The ellipse about the fire without broke. It became a serpentine line and entered the middle house. If Amru was a favourite, Gata was no less a favourite. Amru’s triumph for Amru magic—Gata’s triumph for Gata magic! In a world of mother-right, births were births. The dancers danced in the night without; they came with measured pace into the middle house and circled the hearth, the fire, the woman and her babe. Amru danced at the head of the young men.
Gata raised herself upon the wolf-skins. Her eyes dwelled upon Amru, followed Amru as he moved. She, also, had forgotten their quarrel. He seemed her delectable comrade, tall and ruddy, Amru the Great Hunter, Amru the Boat-Maker! The feast was his. The feast was hers. She looked at the babe upon the wolf-skin. The feast was the child’s. The feast was Amru’s, Gata’s, and the child’s. Her eyes shone bright, her cheek was ruddy as Amru’s own. The dancers went around her—they went around her and the hearth and the fire and the child. She looked at Amru, tall and ruddy, dancing there. He was dancing before her; his body swayed like flame, his body rose like flame and touched the roof-pole. She heard a singing of birds, she smelled the flowering bush.Boom!beat the drums.Boom! Boom!The fire swung, the fire climbed.
Gata rose upon her knees. She began to chant. Her voice was rich and full—strength seemed to have come in flood—it seemed that, to-morrow, she might hunt Big Trouble—save that Big Trouble was dead and done with! The drums stopped beating, the ring stood still. Persons yet without the house now came inside. There grew a throng. The fire-shine pushed from the hearth outward. Gata chanted.
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle who dwellsBoth inside and out of her house!”
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle who dwellsBoth inside and out of her house!”
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle who dwellsBoth inside and out of her house!”
“She is possessed!” cried the folk. “She is going to tell Truth!”
“Wise is Haki and wise is Aneka, but WisdomDrops in the wood for who picks it up!Where I found Wisdom I lifted it, and bore it by day and by night.Carrying it safe in the darkness, watching and saying naught.Now will it live in the light that stirred in the dark,—Now will I tell you Truth about woman and man and a child.”
“Wise is Haki and wise is Aneka, but WisdomDrops in the wood for who picks it up!Where I found Wisdom I lifted it, and bore it by day and by night.Carrying it safe in the darkness, watching and saying naught.Now will it live in the light that stirred in the dark,—Now will I tell you Truth about woman and man and a child.”
“Wise is Haki and wise is Aneka, but WisdomDrops in the wood for who picks it up!Where I found Wisdom I lifted it, and bore it by day and by night.Carrying it safe in the darkness, watching and saying naught.Now will it live in the light that stirred in the dark,—Now will I tell you Truth about woman and man and a child.”
Bending, she took the child from the wolf-skin, held it high in her hands. The light leaped and caressed it. The great ring of women and men seemed to come into relation with it; they slanted toward it, it seemed to draw their bodies, to act as a magnet. Gata chanted on.
“Shout and dance, folk of the Turtle! Cry, ‘Gata is Mother!’True and happy that is—but of this child two are mothers!”
“Shout and dance, folk of the Turtle! Cry, ‘Gata is Mother!’True and happy that is—but of this child two are mothers!”
“Shout and dance, folk of the Turtle! Cry, ‘Gata is Mother!’True and happy that is—but of this child two are mothers!”
Aneka rose beside her. “She has been givenlash-lashto drink! She is singing foolishness! Beat the drums and dance!—Woman, woman, you had better go throw yourself into the river—”
But Gata’s voice sprang still. And the people of the long houses stood like a listening wood. A murmur had arisen, but it passed like a sigh. All hung intent.
“Now, rub the forehead and answer, you who sit by the council tree,You who say, nodding your heads, ‘Boats are men’s work,Children are women’s work!’Now, answer, for I will question you, folk of the Turtle!From the body of woman comes forth boy and girl—In my hands lies him who will be a man—How should a woman make both woman and man?Woman only?No wise one among you gives answer,No woman and no man,Haki nor Aneka!Is it not a strange thing, folk of the Turtle?Now, tell me again and give answer again,Have you seen how often a child is like to a man,One child to one man?Has a man naught to do with a child that is like him—A child that is like him—”
“Now, rub the forehead and answer, you who sit by the council tree,You who say, nodding your heads, ‘Boats are men’s work,Children are women’s work!’Now, answer, for I will question you, folk of the Turtle!From the body of woman comes forth boy and girl—In my hands lies him who will be a man—How should a woman make both woman and man?Woman only?No wise one among you gives answer,No woman and no man,Haki nor Aneka!Is it not a strange thing, folk of the Turtle?Now, tell me again and give answer again,Have you seen how often a child is like to a man,One child to one man?Has a man naught to do with a child that is like him—A child that is like him—”
“Now, rub the forehead and answer, you who sit by the council tree,You who say, nodding your heads, ‘Boats are men’s work,Children are women’s work!’Now, answer, for I will question you, folk of the Turtle!From the body of woman comes forth boy and girl—In my hands lies him who will be a man—How should a woman make both woman and man?Woman only?No wise one among you gives answer,No woman and no man,Haki nor Aneka!Is it not a strange thing, folk of the Turtle?Now, tell me again and give answer again,Have you seen how often a child is like to a man,One child to one man?Has a man naught to do with a child that is like him—A child that is like him—”
The people cried out, “Wisdom is on her!” The links of the ring shifted. Amru stood before her. He spoke. “Yes, we have seen. Why is that, Gata? And why are men fond of children?”
Gata, holding the child aloft, rose to her feet. The flame-light wrapped her. It made of her hair a sunrise cloud, it made her flesh like flowers.
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle that watches the riverFlow into the sea!Now will I tell you a Truth—a truth that will bind us together.—Mother is Gata—and mother is Amru!Mother alike are Gata and Amru!Amru and Gata came together.To Gata’s strength Amru gave his strength.To Amru’s strength Gata gave her strength.Then the moons rose like dancers out of the fen—Many round moons—I counted them—many a dancer!Then came forth him who will dance strongly, who will build boats,Who will grow like Amru, whom I will name Amru,For he is Amru!...What woman have you seen make a child in a world of no men?I am mother, and Amru—Amru and Gata make children!”
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle that watches the riverFlow into the sea!Now will I tell you a Truth—a truth that will bind us together.—Mother is Gata—and mother is Amru!Mother alike are Gata and Amru!Amru and Gata came together.To Gata’s strength Amru gave his strength.To Amru’s strength Gata gave her strength.Then the moons rose like dancers out of the fen—Many round moons—I counted them—many a dancer!Then came forth him who will dance strongly, who will build boats,Who will grow like Amru, whom I will name Amru,For he is Amru!...What woman have you seen make a child in a world of no men?I am mother, and Amru—Amru and Gata make children!”
“Folk of the Great Turtle—the Turtle that watches the riverFlow into the sea!Now will I tell you a Truth—a truth that will bind us together.—Mother is Gata—and mother is Amru!Mother alike are Gata and Amru!Amru and Gata came together.To Gata’s strength Amru gave his strength.To Amru’s strength Gata gave her strength.Then the moons rose like dancers out of the fen—Many round moons—I counted them—many a dancer!Then came forth him who will dance strongly, who will build boats,Who will grow like Amru, whom I will name Amru,For he is Amru!...What woman have you seen make a child in a world of no men?I am mother, and Amru—Amru and Gata make children!”
Like a flame she sank from her height, she lay among the wolf-skins, the babe against her knee.
The people of the long houses broke into loud, excited speech. Generations had walked as unconscious observers; now things observed took on order and meaning, came alive. Haki began to chant, and on the wall of the middle house there leaped and danced his tall shadow. Amru sat on the earth floor beside Gata—he put out a finger and touched the babe’s hand.... But Aneka said, “Woman, woman, you had better go throw yourself into the river—”
Thesky hung grey, with wisps of cloud. It vaulted a valley, and was propped by hills, long as billows of the open main. In part the hills stood wooded, in part they wore a robe of grass and stunted bush. The valley had a grassy floor, like a miniature plain. It spread jade-green beneath that sky. Far off soared, darkly purple, one mountain peak.
The huts, round in shape and fairly spacious, were built of upright stakes with an interweaving of wattled reeds. Close at hand huddled sheds and enclosures for flock and herd, and all stood together by the strand of a silver stream. Flock and herd, watched by herdsmen, wandered through the valley or drank at the stream. Near the huts boys were fishing, standing mid-leg in the running water. Seated among pebble and boulder a row of old men watched and with thin voices mocked or encouraged.
Evening drew on and the herdsmen brought the sheep and cattle to the folds. A woman came out of the largest hut, a strong woman with dark-red hair. Hand over eyes, her gaze swept the northern and western horizon. Bare hill met grey sky. She spoke to the herdsmen. They hearkened to her and answered, leaning on their staves. Said one, “We heard nothing and saw nothing at the other end where we were.” Another spoke in a surly voice, “If I were a war-man again and out of this valley, I would not come back!” A third said, “You might see, O Marzumat,from the top of the hill—” The woman nodded and turned away. She called to a boy and a girl at play near the folds, and they ran to her and walked with her.
Near the huts rose a hill, bare to the top, hard in this light as a mountain of jade. The woman and her children climbed it. At the top a wind blew, a swirling, melancholy wind. She looked again from this height, to the north and west. Nothing broke the earth-line, nothing came. The children, too, stared from point to point. The wind blew their hair into their eyes, whipped their bare limbs. They jumped up and down for warmth. “The dark is coming,” said the woman. “Not Saran and the others!”
Said the boy: “Let us go have supper! Bhuto is going to sing to us of how Bin-Bin killed the giantess!”
They went down the hillside. The boy and girl capered and danced upon the path. “Saran will bring me a bow and arrows and a dance-necklace!” cried the first; and “Saran will bring me a dance-necklace and an earring!” answered the second. They turned upon the red-haired woman. “What else will he bring, Mother?”
“Sheep and cattle and men to keep them, spears and shields and pieces of copper, grain and skins, and ornaments to wear.”
The boy danced and capered. “I am going to grow big! I am going to be war-head like Saran my father! I am going to fight other-people! I am going to bring home every kind of thing!”
They came to the level of huts, folds, and whispering stream. Earth and air that had been grey and green were now grey and purple. Fires burned in the larger huts, and the smoke, puffing out of the hole in the thatch, drifted and eddied. A smell of seething flesh wrapped the place.In pots of baked clay women were cooking the meat of sheep and goats.
Young, and in prime, and old, there were many women. Within wall and without wall showed the signs of their industries. They were weavers and made from the hair of the flocks a texture that to an extent took the place of the immemorial garments of beast-skins or of woven grass. They were potters, and they skilfully constructed baskets, great and small. Tanners, their tannery told where it was situated, a little down the stream. Living now upon creatures which they had corralled and mastered, the group, women and men, were mastered by the mastered and become wanderers and pasture-seekers. When this valley showed eaten up and small for the herds, another would be sought. Therefore there was little planting about the reed huts. But what farming and gardening was practised belonged, of old times, to women, and theirs were the stone mills for the bruising and grinding of grain. The indoor gear was counted theirs, and the rule of the house. Women and men, the group reckoned descent and took name from the side of the mother.
The woman who had climbed the hill was a chief woman. There were old women, wrinkled and wise, as there were old men, who sat by the fire or in the sun and were listened to and in much obeyed. But this woman, through native energy and also because she was paired with the strongest man, had achieved authority before she was old. The valley called her Marzumat.
Marzumat had few idle bones in her body. When now she went indoors, into the largest of the huts, she came to the hearth, she helped with the pots of meat. One great pot, steaming like a fire-mountain, must be lifted from theplace of mightiest heat. With a rude handle, unwieldy and heated, it presented a weight for strong arms. Marzumat lifted it, swung it clear from the flame, and set it upon the unreddened hearth. With two or three of her fellows she took meal, mixed it with milk and water, made cakes, and, kneeling, baked them upon slabs of stone sunk in coals. Those around her talked; the place was filled with voices. Marzumat could speak on occasion, but to-night she was silent, her mind following Saran and the war-men.
The formless dark came down. Women lighted the torches of resinous wood, and women brought and filled from the huger pots bowls of fire-dried clay and trough-like trenchers of wood, and a woman, standing in the doorway, blew the summoning ram’s horn. All—women, old men and children and the herdsmen—ate together, in this greatest hut where the mess had been cooked, or just without, seated on the ground, in the light of the torches. Noticeably, there lacked young men and men in their prime. Among the herdsmen sat young men and middle-aged men. But certain of these were simple of look or in some way weak or maimed, and others had copper rings about their necks. That meant that the ring-wearers did not belong by nature to the group, but had been seized from some other group. No longer were they hunters or war-men. They were tamed to keeping the flocks and herds of the captors, companions to the weaker and duller of the captors’ own group. The intractable were killed, as were the too weak or dull. Class and caste were in the world.
The fire and the torches threw a smoky and uneven light. The sky hung black and low, a roof of cloud. The stream murmured over pebbles. It was the lambing season, and from the folds rose a continuous low noise, fromthe ewes and their young. In the circle of fire and torchlight shadows were thrown against the walls. The shadows rose and fell; now they were dwarfs and now they were giants and now they were something in between. The shadows were chiefly those of women. Women forms passed from darkness into light, from light into darkness, from darkness again into light. Marzumat was seated now and the fire-shine struck her brow and breast and knee. Behind her, on the wall, spread and towered her shadow.
Supper eaten, occurred a lingering, for the night was cold and the fire was warm. The smaller children went away, to creep under sheep-skins and fall asleep; the babes were hushed already, except a sick one that wailed in a hut a stone-cast away. A fire burned in the hut, and a woman passed to and fro before it, the babe in her arms. Certain herdsmen went to the folds and pens, others sat still about the fire in the open air. The older children, the old men, the many women remained in the zone of warmth and light. Talk was chiefly of the war-band that had gone forth against other-people dwelling by the purple mountain. Valley people and mountain people each had eyes for an intermediate rolling and verdant, desirable pasturage. Mountain war-men had struck a valley herd that had put hoof into this region, taking the beasts and killing the herdsmen. Now there was to be retaliation, and all the strong men had gone forth to retaliate and something beyond. Not in the memory of the valley people had there been such a Punitive Expedition!
Marzumat’s children, the girl and the boy, hung around a man with pale-blue eyes and a hawk nose and beard and hair as white as the fleece of a lamb. “Bhuto, Bhuto! Sing us about how we used to do!”
Bhuto sang out of the history of the group. In part he knew and in part he made up. He fixed his eyes upon the night beyond the fire, he marked time with a large foot and a veinous hand. He had a sonorous voice, a capacious memory, and a seeing eye. To-night the strain, the wishing-to-know felt throughout the cluster, was apprehended by him more clearly than by most. So his voice deepened, his words rang, the acts he narrated seemed neither far off nor obscure. Presently the whole cluster was listening. Bhuto chanted of long-since raids and war-bands.
The boy and girl sat beside his knees. Bhuto came to a traditional pause. Part one of the ballad was done.
The girl spoke. “Bhuto, why are there no war-women? Why do not women go with war-bands and fight other-people?”
“Once they did,” answered Bhuto. “That was long ago.”
“Why did they stop?”
“It was seen that peoples died—not here a man and here a woman—but peoples.”
“How did they die?”
“They were not born. So it was seen that women must not be killed and killed. So the women and men held a great council, and after that there were war-men, but not war-women.”
“But Bin-Bin killed the giantess—”
“Yes. Every people had a giantess who would not stay at home. The one Bin-Bin killed was a war-head. She was tall as a tree and she could run like a deer and see at night like an owl, and when she shouted the wood shook! But Bin-Bin killed her. Now women all stay with the houses and the flocks and herds. If other-people come here andmake fight, they will fight. But they do not make war-bands. Men do that. Men have bows and arrows and shields and spears.”
The girl fell silent, sitting with her chin upon her knees. Bhuto began to chant the second half of the ballad.
A great distance away, as these people counted distance, behind the curtain of hills, at the foot of the mountain peak, the cloud-roofed day and evening had gone after another fashion. It had gone with struggle, fury, jubilation, terror, death, and subjection.
The war-band from the valley numbered a hundred men. The group upon which they fell in the hour before dawn fought back, men and women. But it was taken by surprise and bewildered, and many could not reach their weapons, and many were pierced with spears almost before they rose from sleep. The hundred wrought havoc, slew and bound. When the east showed purple, resistance lay dead, or glared, with tied hands, from a space into which, naked, it had been driven like a beast. The old men, the old women, the young children, were put to death. Many strong men and women lay slain. Resistance, raging, biting at its bonds, came to be the resistance of not more than the hundred could handle as captives. They set the huts afire, but not before there was gathered from them spoil and booty. This group had possessed flocks and herds. Flocks and herds were taken for riches for the group in the valley. The valley men had never before had so complete a victory. This was different from mere raids against herds or herdsmen, or chance contests upon plain or hill, away from the houses, away from the heaped goods!
The attackers sat down and ate and drank and restedfrom labour in the light of the burning huts, under the shadow of the purple mountain. They rejoiced when they looked at the heap of spoil, and at the sheep and the cattle and the human dead and the captives.
The leader of the hundred was a strong man, tall and ruddy, with the seeming of one who would march in front. In other lives, before war between human beings had well developed, he would have been a leader of the chase, a mighty hunter of the four-footed, a chief in expeditions, explorations. Now he was war-head.
He and all the other men from the valley rested through a smoky, a fire-filled night. When the day came they prepared their leave-taking. Yet another distance away dwelled another group, that, seeing a glow in the night, might sendtheirwar-men in strength. War was an endless chain, though these minds were not advanced enough to find that out.
Back among the huts in the valley the night passed, the day following passed, another night passed. The cloud-roof sank to the horizon, the sky above sprang high and clear. Dawn arose with purple figures in the east that looked like girdles and necklaces of tinted shells and pebbles. Dawn in the north and west showed a cool pallor, a blank wall behind the long hills.
The women came singly or in clusters from the huts, the herdsmen from where they had slept apart in a structure built against the sheep-fold, the older children with the women. All looked to the north and west, as they had done many times since the hundred went out. Now they were rewarded—now they saw the war-men coming back!
They saw them upon the top of a bare hill, drawn against the pale wall, and following them captives, and sheep andgoats and cattle and asses, and these last heaped and burdened with the lighter spoil. The people of the huts shouted, leaped in the air, clapped their hands together.
“Marzumat! They are coming!”
“Bina! They are coming!”
“Ito! They are coming!”
The war-men had with them horns, a rude drum and cymbals. Faint clangour and blaring fell from the hill-top to the huts by the stream. The frieze showed black against the pale wall, then the east brightened and gave it colour. The line bent, came down over the shoulder of the hill. The horns blew, the cymbals clanged, the drum beat louder and louder. In the huts were yet a drum, cymbals fashioned of copper, ox-horns. The women snatched these—all who could run and hasten poured from the huts by the stream, hurried with cries and music of welcome over the valley floor. They went with a dancing step, and Marzumat at the head lifted the cymbals and clanged them together. The two bands met by the stream, where the mist was slowly lifting.
The war-head’s name was Saran. He and Marzumat met first. “Hail, Saran! Hail, Saran!” she cried with laughter and jubilee. “Hail, Marzumat!” he answered, and shook his copper-pointed spear and struck it against his shield of plaited osier bound with leopard-skin.
All met with acclaim, shouting out triumph and welcome. The older children took part. The native-born herdsmen joined in. Those herdsmen who were born on the farther side of a mountain or a river made slighter welcome. But of these some had been taken young and hardly remembered their own people, and some had been broken in, or, indifferent, took luck as they found it. Besides, thegroup against which the war-men had gone was not their group, and that being so, was outside their range of sympathies. So the herdsmen, too, shouted.
Of the war-men who had gone forth, seven or eight made no returning. For these the valley, when it had caught breath, burst into ceremonial mourning. Out of the mass sound emerged a sharper crying, a wailing of those most fond of the slain men, mourning that persisted when the other ceased. The other ceased because, death to the contrary, here was so much victory and spoil! Jubilation remounted. In the background rose the lowing and bleating of the captured herds. There was a great, swarming noise, and movement to and fro.
The first welcome gone by, there came into fuller notice the fruits of the raid, the greatest in the memory of the group. Those who had stayed by the huts saw the new flocks and herds, and that possessions would be increased. There would be need of a larger valley, of a plain! Hearts swelled with self-acclaim. The confused bleating and lowing was sweet as flutes and pipes in their ears.
There was pushed forward one part of the human spoil. The war-men exhibited the other-men whom they had taken. New herds would have new herdsmen. Trees that must be hacked down, drudging work that must be done, would not take war-men’s valuable time! Moreover, there was now experienced, and would be further experienced, a dark pleasure in authority, in power exercised over another. So long had human beings had power over beasts that exhilaration was passing from that situation. Authority there had lost its first lusciousness. Once it had had that taste. But with the taking of beings formed like themselves zest had come back to the palate.
The valley group was accustomed to such captives. It was among accepted things that bands of men, roving afar, meeting other bands of men, should capture, when they did not kill, and keep the captured for use. That was old story, old song. The women, the old men, and the striplings made loud admiration over these riches also, and the evidenced prowess of valley men. The swarm worked again and there came into the foreground the before-time obscured, other row of captives.
Silence fell among the valley people, astonishment upon those who had stayed, upon those who had gone, embarrassment. Marzumat was the first to speak. “Women—”
Saran answered with a wave of his arm. “Women we took and brought to you women. We take men to work for us and save us trouble. Now you shall have women to work for you and do as you tell them. Why not?” He spread his arms. “We took them for you, O women,—a gift!”
The throng worked. Insensibly, the women of the group drew together, leaving each woman the side of some man. They became compact, unitary, the woman with the dark-red hair in front. Presently the women of the valley were massed here, the men there. Between stood or lay, fallen upon the ground, the captive women. They were twelve in number.
Marzumat spoke. “Never, O Saran,—never, men of the valley, never, O women, was there heard of such a thing! You have committed evil! Mao-Tan will say to In-Tan, ‘Let us smite them!’”
Her voice rose loudly, her arms were spread to the skies. Behind her the serried women echoed assent. The war-men moved a little, to and fro. “Talk for us, O Saran!”
Marzumat’s voice went on. “Men may take other men. If women, fighting side by side with war-men are killed, they are killed. Mao-Tan says, ‘It cannot be helped.’ But men may not take women and bind them and say to them, ‘Come!’ or ‘Go!’ Mao-Tan!—Mao-Tan!”
Saran faced Marzumat. He threw out his hands. “We took trouble, O Marzumat! We set up a stone and burned food upon it, and poured drink for Mao-Tan. We danced and sang before her. Then we did the same for In-Tan. In-Tan will keep Mao-Tan from being angry. Otherwise she might be angry for a while! But we saw In-Tan sitting like an eagle upon a tree and heard him talking like the wind. He said, O Marzumat, that valley people were his people, and that Mao-Tan was not angry!”
The war-men made a deep, corroborating sound. They had seen the eagle and heard the whistling and searching noise, and Saran’s imagination leading, they had divined the words. A black-bearded man, next to Saran in moral weight, gave articulate testimony. “O women of the valley! In-Tan said that Mao-Tan and he held in hatred other-people, and cared not what befell them, whether they were women or whether they were men!”
Saran continued. “We take men to work for us; why should you not have women to work for you and do as you tell them? They are not our men. They are not our women. Other-group-men, other-group-women! Old Bhuto says that, long-time-ago, it was a new thing to make other-men work for us and be our herdsmen. At first, Bhuto says, we had men who did not like that. But soon they felt like the rest of us.—We thought, O Marzumat, that we would please you! O women of the valley! they can carry water for you and grind the corn. It ispleasant to rest while another works! Many things are right when they are other-people. They will call you ‘mistress’ and do as you tell them—”
The body of the valley women seemed slightly to sway. Two or three voices were lifted. “Let us take them! Let us keep them! There grows so much work to do!” The women and the war-men seemed to slant toward each other.
The black-bearded man spoke again in a loud and cheerful voice. “They are riches, O women! It is pleasant to be saved weariness. It is sweeter than honey and like the wearing of ornaments to sit and see other-people do what we bid! Now men have the most ornaments and rest longer under the trees!”
A woman burst into laughter. “Mao-Tan knows that that is so!”
But Marzumat spoke again. “Men take other-men. But women have not taken other-women. Now, to-day, shall men lay hands upon women and cry, ‘Our prize and our riches’?”
“If we took them, O Marzumat, O women, did we not take them for you? It is your bidding that they will do! They are your prize and your riches! Take them now, and is it not as if you had taken them yonder”—he gestured with his spear toward the purple mountain—“taken them yonder yourselves, and brought them to the valley?”
“What you say is true, O Saran!”
The women behind her echoed, “It is true.” If, then, it was true, and if Mao-Tan was not jealous for women?... Ornaments were desirable, and ease from work was desirable—riches were desirable—and power—power more than anything was desirable!... The soul of Marzumat inclined toward service from those other-women.
“They are a gift!” said Saran. “If Mao-Tan is not angry, why should Marzumat be so?”
Why indeed? Marzumat lifted her hands. “I do not know.—Where are the children of these women?”
“Not all had children.—These people are other-group people. In-Tan does not care for them—Mao-Tan does not care for them! The women are yours. We only took them for you.”
The day was bright and sunny, the valley a cheerful green. The men were back from danger with victory. The valley had new wealth; every one wanted to be rejoicing, to be counting the goods.... The twelve other-group women, young women and women in their prime, stood or crouched, sullen and vengeful in their bonds. Only one spoke. “May our gods slay your gods! May our gods kill and devour your children! Vile, vile,—you are vile and your gods are vile!”
Anger broke against her, anger of women and of men. She had cried out loudly. Moving as she did out of the cluster of her fellows, she had come to face Marzumat and the children of Marzumat. Her arms being bound she could not gesture with hand or finger. But she jerked her head, and her eyes burned toward those she fronted. “Mo-Tal hear me!” she cried. “Slay their gods and them! Mo-Tal! Mo-Tal! Slay their children!”
Marzumat grew all red. Her brows drew together, a vein in her forehead swelled, her nostrils widened, her teeth were uncovered, and her dark-red hair appeared to bristle. She stood for a moment tense and still, then, moving forward, she struck the mountain woman a blow that brought her to the earth. “Mao-Tan turn your talk upon yourself!”
The valley women behind her laughed with anger, and also now with willingness to triumph. “Their gods are not strong like our gods! They can do naught!—Let us keep them and make them work!”
“Agreed!” said Marzumat, the red yet in her face and the vein showing in her forehead.
The lambing season, the spring season, the season of fresh green and of birds that sang from every flowering bush passed into a summer hot and dry. The stream shrank to a silver thread, the flocks found but parched herbage. Sometimes clouds came up, but they never overspread the blue vault. They rolled away, and the earth again lay bare beneath the sun. The sun bleached the huts, turned brown the growth upon the hillsides, and the standing trees. The herdsmen went afar with the bands of the four-footed. The bondwomen carried water over the wide, pebbled stretch from which the stream had gone, or kneeling before hollowed stones, beat and ground the corn into meal. The weather made a fever in the blood. It was weather in which effect followed like a hound at the heels of cause.
A woman stood in the doorway of one of the huts. She looked at the grinding women, but looked somewhat absently. It was not a novelty now—other-group women grinding the valley corn! Presently, however, she remarked an absence. “Where is Gilhumat?”
A woman looked up from the grinding, shaking elf-locks from her eyes. “Endar, the black-bearded, shot an arrow at a great bird. The bird fell over the hill-top. Endar bade Gilhumat stop her grinding and go find the bird.”
The woman in the doorway turned her head over her shoulder. “Marzumat, come hither!”
Marzumat came out of the dusk. “Endar,” said the first woman, “shot a bird and it fell over the hill-top. Endar bade Gilhumat stop her grinding and go find the bird!”
“Where is Endar?”
“Lying under the tree yonder.—There is Gilhumat now!”
They watched Gilhumat coming down the hillside. She bore upon her shoulders a large bird, its plumage showing copper hues in the sun. Marzumat looked at her with her brows knitted, her lips parted. Gilhumat approached the level ground, came upon it, and to the tree under which Endar had stretched his length. She lowered the bird from her shoulder and it lay motionless beside the war-man. Gilhumat returned to her grinding.
The woman with the dark-red hair breathed quickly. Leaving the doorway she moved through the beating sun to the tree where lay Endar. “Endar!”
Endar sat up. “What is it, O Marzumat?”
“When did it begin with valley people that a man, killing meat, can send a woman to bring in that bird or beast? I ask you when, Blackbeard?”
Blackbeard scratched his head. “I was asleep, O Marzumat!—It was not a freewoman, but a bondwoman.”
“Bondwomen are ours, not yours!—O Mao-Tan! a woman to be bidden by a man to do his work and save him trouble! The sky will fall! If it falls or not, O Endar, do that again and valley women will deal with you!”
Saran appeared beside them. “She is angry,” explained Endar, “because I bade one of those mountain women doa small thing! War-men may bring the meat, but they must not put hand in the pot!”
The outer corners of his eyes moved up, his white teeth flashed, he laughed and stretched his arms. The huge muscles showed.
Marzumat’s eyes narrowed. “My heart will not be heavy,” she said, “when Mao-Tan gives Endar to the beasts to eat!”
Endar’s laughter stopped. He put up his arm and with the fingers of the other hand made a sign in the air. “Do not wish evil upon me! In-Tan hear me say it! I will bring the next bird myself!”
The tree under which he lay edged a grove that stretched toward the stream. Marzumat went away into this and Saran moved with her.
“What harm,” said the latter, “if Gilhumat brought the bird that Endar shot? Endar is next to me in the valley.”
His tone was sullen. Marzumat stood still. They were in the heart of the grove, out of earshot unless they raised their voices loudly. The people of the valley had hardly as yet developed restraint in quarrel. But something in this man and woman kept them from shouting each at the other, made them prefer the space of trees to the trodden earth by the huts.
“Ah—ah!” said Marzumat. “You have not set Gilhumat, that is bondwoman to women, to do your work.—But you have followed Maihoma when she was sent at twilight to draw water!”
Saran’s eyes, too, narrowed. “Is a great war-man not to speak to spoil that he brings?”
“‘Spoil’! O Mao—Tan! I wish that you had never brought that ‘spoil’!”
“We brought it. You took it.”
“You speak the truth!—Mao-Tan, Mao-Tan! I wish that the spoil was back in the mountain!”
“Will you, O Marzumat, send it back?”
Marzumat stood with parted lips. Moments went by, leaves dropped in the grove, a bird flew overhead. Through an opening between the trees showed the huts and in the burning sun the bondwomen grinding at the mills.... The woman who, the first day, had called upon her own god to smite the valley people and their children was seen grinding.... “They are useful,” said Marzumat. “But men are not to bid them work. And men are not, O Saran, to follow them in the twilight when they go to draw water!”
Saran’s tanned face paled which was Saran’s way of showing anger. “How will you help that, red-haired one? You have strong arms. But will you bind our arms—mine and Endar’s? Will the valley women bind the war-men’s arms—set them to keeping sheep, away from the huts and the spoil?”
Red flowed over Marzumat’s face and throat and breast. “It is in my mind that we might bind many of you!”
“Not so many that the rest could not loose!” Saran stretched out his arm, regarded the play of muscle. “And we have the spears, the shields, the bows and arrows! Men are stronger to fight than women. As for Mao-Tan—Mao-Tan is very strong, but so is In-Tan. In-Tan has grown as strong as Mao-Tan.”