The First Days of Man

CHAPTER XVII

THE CONQUERORS

Many hundreds of years had passed, since Ka-Ma and his wife Tula left the valley, and the tribe of the cave people had grown very large. The whole valley was now filled with them, and they had spread out over the hills which surrounded it, and far into the country beyond.

The head man, or chief of the tribe lived in the largest of the rock caves, and had many wives and children. Those who had gone outside the valley formed separate tribes of their own, each with a smaller chief, but all of them were under the rule of the head chief.

The rocks all about the valley sides were honeycombed with caves, and as the tribe grew, and there were not enough caves for all, these bands of adventurers would leave the valley, and make new homes of their own on the hillsides, and in other valleys beyond them.

There were no longer any animals to be killed for food in the valley of the caves, and the people there gave up being hunters, and spent their time making things, such as pottery, stone implements of all sorts, weapons, leather, moccasins, and smoked meats and fish. They were the workers, while the tribes outside were the hunters and fishers. When any man in the outside tribes killed more deer, or caught more fish, than he needed, he would bring them to the people in the valley, and exchange them for spear heads, smoked meats, pottery, tanned leather, or any of the other things he needed. This was the very beginning of barter, or trade. When one tribe had more than they needed of one thing, and another tribe had more than they needed of another, they would exchange with each other, so that both were better off. This trading of things between peoples is what makes up the business of the world to-day. If the people in the United States have more wheat, or beef than they need, and the people in England have more leather goods, or cutlery, or woolen cloth, or the people in France more silks and satins, we send our wheat or beef, or cotton to them, and bring back their leather goods, or cutlery, or silk.

In the beginning, it was very easy for a hunter to bring a bundle of skins, or a string of fish into the valley, and exchange it for what he needed, a stone axe, or a leather coat, or a pottery bowl. Later on, when the tribes of men had spread far over the country, it often happened that the hunter who brought a bundle of skins to one tribe, did not want to buy anything from that tribe, but instead, wanted to go to some other tribe, a long distance off, to get something they had which he particularly wanted. This made a difficulty, and to overcome it, something was needed that could be exchanged with any tribe, and yet could be easily carried about, on long journeys. So the people began to use beads, and later on, when metals had been discovered, ornaments such as bracelets, or rings made of copper, or gold, and these beads and ornaments became the first money used by man. But this came later on; now the traders exchanged one thing for another, just as they do in savage countries to-day.

There were some grasses which grew in the valley, which bore tiny hard seeds or grains on their tops, and for a long time the cave people had made use of these grains for food, when other things were scarce. After a while, they noticed that if they let any of these grains fall in the soft earth, they would grow up again, and have more grains on them. They saw that this was an easy way to get food, so they took the grains and planted them, scratching up the hard ground with the points of their spears. Later on they made a tool something like a hoe, by fastening a sharp piece of stone crosswise at the end of a stick, and used this to loosen the ground for planting the grain.

All the grains, such as wheat, corn, rye, or oats, the roots, such as potatoes, beets, carrots, parsnips, and the like, and the many other vegetables we eat, once grew wild, and were very small and hard. But every sort of plant grows better, and has larger seeds and roots and fruit, if it is cultivated, that is, if the soil in which it grows is loosened up and made soft, so that the rain can easily get to its roots, and the roots can spread out, sucking moisture and chemicals from the ground. For this reason the early men found that the grains, or roots which they planted, kept growing larger and better to eat, year after year, and as the valley and the country around it became filled with people, and food became scarce and harder to get, the people in the valley who did not move away began to plant and grow many of these roots and grains, and they were the first farmers. As Mother Nature had so often told the Sun, it was the search for food, the struggle to keep alive, that taught the first people almost everything they knew.

At first, the people chewed the hard grains, and swallowed them, just as they would eat nuts, but it was a good deal of trouble to do this, so while the men were away hunting, the women would take the grains and pound them up in a hollow stone, with another stone, round and smooth, and sometimes having a handle to it. This made a coarse kind of flour. Adding a little water to it, they mixed a sort of paste, which they moulded into little cakes and placed in the sun to dry. In this way they made the first bread. Later on, instead of drying these cakes in the sun, they found they could do it more quickly by placing them on flat stones, heated very hot in a fire, and these cooked cakes of oats, and wheat and rye soon became one of their chief articles of food.

They found it easy to keep the grains and roots during the winter by storing them in their caves, usually in great earthen jars. They tried to keep some of the fruits in this way too, berries, and wild grapes, but the fruits would not keep. Instead, they turned sour and fermented, forming wine, which the people drank, when they were tired, and cold, to cheer them up. Among the very earliest peoples of which we have any record, wine was used; we find it spoken of often in the Bible, and the writings on the tablets of clay dug up in the most ancient ruins. Living as they did a rough life in the open air, these early peoples could drink wines without harm. It was not until thousands of years later that men found out how to distil the strong spirits and liquors which are so harmful to people living the indoor lives we lead to-day.

The valley people were by now no longer savages. Even in the arts they had made some progress. Their pottery bowls and jars were ornamented with designs in black, and red and other crude colours. They made ornaments of beads, and painted designs on their leather clothing, or sewed coloured beads on them, in various patterns. The walls of their caves were covered with rude pictures or drawings, they carved drinking cups from the horns of the animals they killed, and their stone axes and other implements were smooth and polished, and sometimes carved with pictures and rude signs like letters. Weaving had begun among them, as well as among the sea tribes, but the cords they wove together, instead of being made of grass, were of twisted hair, or wool, scraped from the skins of animals. They were much more civilized than the people who lived by the sea, for although the sea people had made boats, with sails, and hooks and nets for catching fish, they knew nothing of planting grains, or making bread from them. Each people was going ahead in its own way.

Among the hunters who spread from the valley into the surrounding country was a young chief named Ban. He was very strong and brave, and nobody in his tribe could throw the spear so far, or strike so hard a blow with the axe. Being a mighty hunter, he pushed farther and farther away from the valley, always seeking the places where the most game was to be found. Year after year he and his tribe moved nearer to the sea, but this they did not know, for they had never seen it.

One night, while chasing a huge bear, Ban and his hunters reached the top of some low hills, and here, having killed the bear, they made a camp and slept. In the morning, Ban, who had climbed upon a tall rock, found himself looking over a great wide valley, which sloped down and down, mile after mile, until the far side of it was lost in the morning mists. Soon the sun dried up the mists, and there, far away, was a wide strip of water, shining in the early sunlight like a river of silver. Ban called some of his companions to him, and they gazed at it a long time in silence. They knew it was water, but they did not know it was the ocean, but supposed it to be a great river.

Ban was tired of living in the hills, and wanted to find a new home where fish and game were more plentiful, so he told his companions to go back and bring up the whole tribe.

Soon they came, several hundred of them, the young men with their weapons, the old men, the women and children bringing the pottery bowls, the furs and skins, the food. They left the brush huts they had been living in, and swarmed down the slope of the hillside like so many bees. Whenever the early tribes got tired of living in one place, and decided to find another home, they moved like this, in a great swarm, just as bees do when the hive becomes overcrowded, and some must seek a new place to live in. Later on, when there were many more people on the earth, these great movements or migrations of tribes and races were made by hundreds of thousands, and even millions, wandering through the country for thousands of miles, destroying everything in their path, and finally coming to rest in a new home, and founding a new nation.

Ban and his people moved slowly toward the sea, hunting and camping as they went. At last one day they came to the seashore, and stood on the smooth white sand, gazing at the ocean in wonder. They saw no one about, and there was very little to eat, so they set out along the shore, hoping to find a better place to make a camp.

For two days they wandered along the ocean, shooting wild-fowl, catching some turtles, and killing a few seals they saw on the rocks. When they found they could not drink the ocean water, some of them wanted to go back to the hills, but Ban would not let them.

"Let us keep on," he said. "Somewhere there will be water we can drink." So they went on, slaking their thirst with the blood of the birds and animals they killed, or with rainwater they found in hollows in the rocks.

On the third day, some of Ban's men, who had been going on ahead, came back, and said that they saw smoke rising into the air, far up the beach. They thought it might come from the fires of one of the other valley tribes, on a hunting trip. Ban gave the order to hurry on.

Soon they came to a point of rocks, on which there were many seals. Far out on the point they saw some men, hunting them. Ban's people set up a great shout to these men, who stood looking at them in surprise.

Ban and some of his fighters called to the strangers, and the men on the rocks called back, but neither could understand what the others said, for in all the many years the children of Ka-Ma and Tula had lived by the sea, they had made a new language for themselves, different from the language of the people of the valley. When the hill people heard these strange words, and saw the grass-cloth clothing the sea people wore, they knew them to be strangers, and not of the valley tribe. This at once made them enemies, and they began to throw stones at them with their slings, and to shoot at them with arrows, and hurl their spears.

The little band of sea folk fought back as best they could, but the hill people were too many for them, and soon they were all killed. Then the hill men took their weapons, and ornaments, and clothing, and divided them up, and went on, shouting, toward the smoke they had seen.

They found other bands of the sea people along the shore, and some fought and were killed, while others ran swiftly back toward their homes to give warning to the tribe.

When Ban and his men reached the village of huts, a little army of the sea tribe stood ready to give battle, but they were not many, for most of the young men were away in their boats, fishing.

A terrible fight now began. The sea folk tried bravely to defend their homes, and killed many of Ban's men, but there were not enough of them, and before long they were overcome. Then the hill tribe swarmed down on the village, killed the old men and children, and took the women prisoners to make them slaves. The village they set on fire and burned.

Some few of the women escaped, and ran down to the shore of the river, near where it emptied into the sea. Here a path led to some rocks, where the fishermen got aboard their boats.

A great log canoe, seeing the smoke from the burning village, came quickly down the river, with ten men on each side paddling as hard as they could. They knew that their people were in danger, and came to save them. As they reached the little landing, the women who were huddled there cried out to them, telling them that a great army of strange men had killed all their companions, burned the village, and taken the women prisoners. At first those in the boat wanted to come ashore and fight, but in a moment Ban and his followers came crowding down toward the landing, shouting, and throwing stones and shooting arrows. So the men in the canoe quickly dragged the women aboard, and paddled away from the shore, out into the middle of the river, where the hill men could not get at them. Here many of their companions, who had been fishing in other canoes, joined them, shouting with rage at the enemy on shore, and shooting at them with bows and slings.

The battle raged in this way for hours, but although more of the sea people came up in their boats, they were not nearly as many as the hill men were, because most of the tribe had been lost in the first battle, defending their homes. So they dared not go ashore, for they knew if they did they would be killed.

All night they stayed in their boats, calling out in rage against their enemies, who shouted back, daring them to come ashore and fight. In the morning a storm came up, and scattered the boats. Some of them were driven ashore, and the men in them captured or killed by the hill people. Some were driven out to sea, and being small and light, were sunk. But the great log canoe in which the women had taken refuge had a grass-cloth sail, and the storm drove it far out over the ocean.

There was a young chief in this boat named Tul-Ab, who was strong, and skilful and brave. He divided the water they carried among the men and women, and gave them fish, which they had caught, to eat, and sat in the stern of the boat all night and guided it with a paddle, to keep it from being upset by the waves. He had heard, when a child, of the land of the flying birds across the Great Water, and he hoped that the storm might carry them there, and so save their lives.

By the next afternoon the weather had cleared, and Tul-Ab saw in the distance a high, rocky coast, against which the waves were beating fiercely. He roused the men in the boat, and told them to take their paddles and keep the canoe from being driven ashore until he could find a safe place to land.

After a time they came to a place where a river ran through the cliffs into the sea, and here they found a little harbour, and were able to make a landing on a quiet beach. Tul-Ab's companions went ashore and threw themselves on the sand, tired out after the terrible night. But Tul-Ab went in search of water, and found some in hollows in the rocks and filled their jars. Then they caught some fish, and made a fire to warm themselves, and spent the night in some holes in the side of the cliff.

All these things the Sun had been watching, and he was sorry to see the sea folk destroyed. When Mother Nature came to look at the earth, he spoke to her.

"What is the use of making such a nice tribe by the sea, and then letting the people from the hills kill them?" he asked sourly.

"They are not all killed," Mother Nature replied, laughing at him. "I wanted some of them to go to that big island they have just found, and so I let Ban and his people come and drive them there."

"Why did you want them to go to the island?" asked the Sun. "Weren't they getting along very nicely where they were?"

"Yes. They learned many things. But here, on this new island, they will learn much more. It is a very large island, as you can see, and there are metals on it, and many other new things for them to find out about. If I don't spread my new men around a little, they will always stay in one place, and the earth will never be populated."

"It is a pity they have to fight, and kill each other," the Sun said.

"Yes," said Mother Nature. "It is a pity, but men are going to keep on fighting and killing each other for thousands and thousands of years. The battle you saw between the sea people, and the tribe from the hills, was the beginning of war. These two peoples hated each other, because their language, and their clothes, and their ways of living, were different. And as one tribe hates another, for these reasons, so will nations, which are only great tribes after all, hate each other, and fight and kill, for a very long time indeed, even after they have become what they call civilized, and fight with terrible engines of war, which fly in the air, and swim under the water, and blow thousands of persons to pieces in a single moment. That is the law of force, that the strong must overcome the weak, and only when man has become really civilized, and learned the law of love, will fighting stop. They have to fight now, for in that way they become strong, and brave, and get courage to conquer the winds and the sea, and the cold and heat, and spread to all the parts of the earth. Not until long after this is done will men learn that they all belong to one great tribe, and that it is not necessary to fight each other any longer, but to help each other. It is the same on all my other worlds – the people fight each other for a long time, like bad children, until one day they find that they are not children any longer, but grown up men and women, and then they do not fight any more."

"I should think that God would make them that way in the first place," grumbled the Sun.

"He could, you foolish creature," said Mother Nature, with a frown, "but if He made His people and His worlds perfect to begin with, there would be no need to create them at all. God is like a weaver, weaving a wonderful pattern. He finds joy in His work. If it were all finished as soon as it was begun, even God Himself would have no purpose. All things must grow slowly and beautifully, from the seed to the plant, from the plant to the tree, from the tree to the perfect fruit. You, Sun, are growing too. Some day, your heat will be gone, and you will grow old and die. You will be cold, and dark, without any light to shine with. Then it may be that the Great Mind that made you, will cause you to live again. Meanwhile, do each day what you have to do, and stop grumbling about things you do not understand."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ISLAND MEN

There were twenty-two men and eight women in Tul-Ab's little party. The great log canoe had been crowded.

The place where they landed was a little harbour at the mouth of a small river, with high cliffs on either side of it, and a narrow beach at their feet. They managed to catch some fish in the bay without much trouble, and to find dry brushwood for fire, but there was no water to drink, except the little they had found in the hollows in the rocks, left there from the rainstorm of the night before. The shallow caves in which they slept were only holes in the rock.

When morning came, Tul-Ab and some of his men began to climb up the cliffs, in search of water, and a place to make a camp. They did not like the small caves along the shore; they wanted to be higher up, where they would be safe from attack, and where they could build brush huts of the kind they had always lived in.

They found a smooth grassy place at the top of the cliffs, from which they could look far out over the sea. There were no trees on the cliff top, but only some low bushes. A stream, however, came from the rocks higher up and crossing the little plateau, tumbled over the edge of the cliffs into the sea. All over the surface of the plateau were many flat rocks, some small, some very large and heavy. An easy path down the side of the cliff led to the beach below, where they had spent the night.

Tul-Ab and his men were troubled, because they found nothing about them the way it had been in their other home. There were no trees on the cliff tops with which to build huts; they saw some, on the hills further back, but they were small and stunted. Nowhere did they see any of the marsh grasses and reeds they had used so much in making their houses. Yet they liked the place they had found for a camp, because it was high and safe from attack, in case Ban and his hill men should come after them from the other shore. Tul-Ab looked about and saw nothing but rocks, and the thought came to him, why not build houses for themselves out of these rocks.

He picked out a great flat boulder near the stream, and he and his men dragged up other boulders, and arranged them in the form of a square. On these they placed more stones, choosing the flat ones, until they had built four walls, as high as their heads. In one of the walls they left a hole for a door, placing over its top a long, flat stone, to keep the wall above from falling down. The front wall they built higher than the back, so that the roof of the house would slant, to make the rain run off.

The roof bothered Tul-Ab a great deal. If he had had reeds and marsh grass, he would have known what to do, but he could find none. With his men he went farther up the hillside and cut down many of the short stunted trees, and these they laid side by side across the walls of the house to make a roof. There were spaces between these logs, through which rain would come, so they cut sods of earth from the grassy surface of the plateau, and covered the roof with a thick layer of them, with flat stones on top to hold the sods in place. When the house was done, Tul-Ab took it for his home, for he was the chief, and he also took one of the women for his wife.