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against his father's shoulder. "Ahhh!" he yelled, more loudly than Do-na-ti had ever heard him speak.
"Pretty!"
Do-na-ti looked down at his wife, and she lost the grim expression she had worn. "Is this the thing the
spirits brought us here to see?" she asked, and now he could hear her, for they were far enough from the
noise for a shout to carry.
"Yes," he cried. "We have seen a mountain born, and it is, I think, the brother and totem of our son. It is
a thing that no one, not even the most ancient of grandfathers, has ever seen before, and we will make a
chant of it for the Ritual, if we live to return to the village."
The child laughed aloud and clapped his hands, watching the red tide flow around the foot of the distant
mountain. His eyes were bright, and his face was flushed with pleasure.
Do-na-ti took him from his mother and set him again into his sling. Then Do-na-ti caught up his spear and
gestured toward the east and north. "We will go home, now," he said.
They walked for some time, and he knew that E-lo-ni, too, paused from time to time to gaze back at the
awesome thing that rose, still growing taller, on the edge of the sky. Beyond it, the Burning Mountain
dribbled its own burning stuff down its side, and the lurid light made Do-na-ti feel half-afraid.
"What have we learned here?" he asked his wife.
She shook her head, frowning, trying to think what great and important thing they might bring back from
this experience.
It was no use, Do-na-ti realized at last. Some lessons taught by the spirits were obvious, like those he
had read in the eyes of the lion and the tusker. Others, like this one, might take a long lifetime to
understand, and even then, he thought, he might never learn all the things it might teach him.
He sighed and trudged forward, his wife close by his side, his son warm on his back, and the mountain
that was the new totem of his clan and his kind growing ever taller behind him.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Of those we now call Clovis and Folsom hunters, no trace remains except the beautifully worked spear
points that give them their names. Only postholes in the plain, discolored by the presence of wood where
there should only be soil or rock, tell us that they sometimes built earthen lodges supported by posts set
into the ground.
It is impossible to work backward from existing American Indian cultures to what might have been so
long ago. Cultures evolve relentlessly, and on this continent most of the native cultures were remorselessly
exterminated by the invading whites. The re-creations that are now happening in different tribes are
probably only pale shadows of what actually existed for the ancestors of those now surviving.
Although no possible hint remains of the social/ familial/religious structures or beliefs of those who lived
on this continent from nine to six thousand years before our present millennium began, there are patterns
of behavior that the novelist can use as guidelines for their lives and habits. The American Indians, shortly
after Columbus but before the arrival of settlers from Europe, were observed by early missionaries and
explorers, both Spanish and French, who described them with much accuracy.
Other primitive societies have been discovered in remote parts of the world and described
knowledgeably in relatively recent years. All of these observations can provide valid patterns of primitive
behavior.
For my own village of the People, I have used elements from many sources. The clan is the family,
basically, although young men who marry go into the clans of their wives, and their children are
considered to be totally members of that other group. Siblings include those born to siblings within the
clan structure, so what we might call cousins are called brothers or sisters.
Ritual is something seemingly built into the human psyche, and chants and dances go back as far as any
record of mankind exists. Therefore, my People use both in their important rituals, and the chants deal
with things they see and know, as well as those they intuit from observation of nature and from dreams.
Primitive societies are metaphysical to a degree almost unknown in our present Western culture.
Therefore visions and dreams are taken most seriously and often are used to guide the individual, his or
her family, or even the entire village in crucial or perilous circumstances. In particular, listening to the
wind, the earth, the rain, and the growing things is important to primitive people.
Farmers who tune their senses to such matters, as I myself did in my youth, can foretell with some
accuracy upcoming changes in weather, if nothing else, by making such observations. For those without
any other source of weather information, living in country prone to tornados, blizzards, and occasional
floods, this is a vital skill, to be nourished and treasured. But such intuitive connections may well have
provided other insights into the world of nature that are now lost to our civilized society. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]