THE SEA PEOPLE
AS Ka-Ma's children grew up, he taught them all the things he knew,
how to make weapons and tools of stone, how to dry and season wood,
for spear handles, and bows and arrows, how to make cord of fish guts,
or the twisted stems of marsh grasses, how to spear fish, use the
sling, and shoot with the bow. But he could not teach them how to make
pottery, for he could find no clay, and worst of all, there was no fire
with which to burn it, even if he had found the clay.
The young people, who had never seen fire, and did not know what it
was, were quite content to eat their food raw, for they had never
tasted it any other way, but Ka-Ma thought every day of the Sacred
Fire, and wished that in some way he could get it again.
Sometimes, when he was drilling a hole in a bit of shell, or in a stick
of wood, with a sharp-pointed piece of flint, it seemed to him that
the drill grew very hot, but no fire came.
One day Ka-Ma took the dried shell of a nut which he had found in the
forest, and after cutting off one end, began to drill a hole in each
side of it. Through these holes he meant to run a cord. Not having any
bowls or jars of pottery in which to carry water, he thought he could
make a sort of water bottle out of the large nut. Then, when he went
hunting, or fishing, he could carry the bottle about his shoulders by
means of the cord, and so have fresh water to drink during the long,
hot day. He had never done this in the valley, because there was plenty
of water all about, sweet and fresh, but here all the water was salt,
except in the little pool near his hut, and so he either had to carry
some with him or go thirsty.
He used a thin sharp piece of flint with a wooden handle to bore the
hole, twirling it rapidly between the palms of his hands, and at the
same time pressing down upon it as hard as he could. It was a very hot
day. The soft, moss-like fibres which covered the outside of the nut
were dry as tinder. As the drill cut slowly into the hard shell, Ka-Ma
saw, to his surprise, a tiny wisp of smoke curl up from the hole. Its
smell told him it was the same smoke he had smelt so often in the Fire
Cave at home. Harder and harder he pressed the drill down, faster and
faster he twirled it, and then, suddenly, the smoke burst into a tiny
flame, which licked up the dry fibres about the edge of the hole and
was gone.
Filled with wonder, he tried again and again, and each time the little
flame appeared, and went out. At last, after he had thought for a long
while, he picked a bunch of the dry moss-like fibres from the shell,
and giving it to one of his sons, told him to hold the fibres in the
flame the next time it appeared. He also gathered beside him a heap of
dry leaves and grass.
When the boy put the fibres into the flame, they blazed up at once, and
burnt his hand so that he dropped them with a cry of pain, but Ka-Ma
took the blazing bit and placed it among the dry leaves and grass, and
in a moment he had a fire. Tula, who had been watching him, quickly
brought reeds, and bits of wood, and soon a hot fire was roaring in
front of the hut. The children gathered about, astonished and a little
afraid, but Ka-Ma and his wife were filled with joy. He did not know
why the fire had come, for he did not understand that friction, caused
by rubbing two objects together, makes heat, but he was very grateful,
for he had now found a way to make fire whenever he wanted it. For
this reason, it was not necessary for him or his family to keep the
fire going night and day, and thus the new tribe no longer thought of
the fire as sacred. They did not worship it, the way the valley people
did. Being able to make it whenever they wanted to, it no longer seemed
to them so wonderful, nor were they afraid of losing it. Instead of
worshipping fire, they began to worship the Sun, and the Sea.
That night, Ka-Ma cooked some fish over the hot coals, and he and all
his family had a feast. Later on he showed his children how to preserve
fish by smoking them, the way his people had done in the valley. Then
he began to search through the back country for clay.
At last he found some, and it was not long before the new tribe was
using pottery bowls and jars, just as they were used by the tribe in
the valley.
One of Ka-Ma's sons, named Ran, was a great fisherman. No one could
spear fish so well as he. In the ocean, of course, he could not reach
them, for the water was far too deep, and the surf too strong, but
he waded in the shallow spots along the river banks, and when he saw
a fish lying in the mud, he would bring his spear down as quick as a
flash, and rarely ever missed.
It was not long, however, before the fish became frightened, and when
they saw anything moving about in the water they would swim away. This
made it harder and harder to get them, and Ran sometimes spent a whole
day, without bringing home more than one or two.
One day, while resting on the river bank, he saw a large fish snap up
a little one and devour it. Ran thought that this might be a good way
to bring the fish within reach of his spear, so he managed to catch
several of the little fish by driving them into a shallow pool. Then he
took the cord from his bow, and after tying one of the little fish to
the end of it with a bit of grass, he lowered it into the water. Quick
as a flash a large fish darted up, snapped away the little one, and was
gone before Ran could raise his spear.
When Ran saw that the strings of grass would not hold the little fish
tight enough to his bow-cord, he tried to think of some better way to
fasten them. One of his arrows had a head made of a sharp-pointed piece
of bone about as long as his finger. Taking this piece of bone from
the arrow, he sharpened the other end of it also, by rubbing it on a
rough stone. Then he tied the bow-cord tightly about the middle of the
piece of bone, and stuck the two sharp ends both ways into the body
of one of the little fish. The large fish, he knew, would be unable
to bite through the piece of bone, and while trying to tear the small
fish loose, Ran believed he would have time to spear him. Once more he
lowered the bow-cord into the water.
Soon a big fish darted up, but instead of trying to tear the smaller
one loose, he swallowed it whole, and started away. Ran had no time to
use his spear, but neither was the big fish able to get away, for as
soon as he jerked against the strong bow-cord, the piece of bone turned
crosswise and its sharp points stuck firmly in his throat. Ran, not
expecting this, was almost pulled off his feet, but he could not let go
of the bow-cord because the loop at the end of it was about his wrist.
In a moment he had recovered his balance and hauled the big fish ashore.
Although he did not know it at the time, Ran had made a great
discovery. His hook and line were very poor and clumsy, but he had
caught a fish with bait, and this was something no man had ever
done before. He tried again and again, and while he was not always
successful, and often pulled the little fish right out of the big one's
throat because the piece of bone did not turn and stick fast, he still
had caught seven or eight by the time the day was over.
Ran's clumsy tackle was only a beginning. Later on, the sea people made
fish-hooks in many ways. One was to tie a sharp thorn, at an angle, to
the end of a bit of stick, fastening it firmly with wrappings of sinew,
or gut. Another was to make the same sort of a hook out of bone. Still
another was to carve a hook from stone, with a barb on it, like the
barbs they made on their stone arrow heads, so that the hook would not
pull loose. Long cords of gut, or twisted grass served them as lines.
Soon the sea people were fishing from rafts, in the river, or from the
rocks along the sea coast, and as they caught more, and bigger fish,
they found it easier to get food in this way, than by hunting in the
back country for wild animals. Thus they had fewer and fewer skins and
furs to keep them warm, and this fact caused them to discover a way of
plaiting and weaving cloth out of the tough marsh grasses, to use as a
covering for their bodies in winter time.
Isn't it curious to think that learning how to make fish-hooks should
also have taught them weaving? and yet it did, as you can see. All
during the cold weather in the valley Ka-Ma and his wife had been used
to wearing cloaks of fur, had been in the habit of sleeping in warm,
cosy caves, in which, in the coldest weather, a fire was kept burning.
The hair on their bodies, like that of all the cave people, had grown
thin, and no longer served to keep them warm. Their children by the
sea were born the same way, with very little hair; they could not stand
the bitter cold of winter without some covering for their bodies. At
first, when the sea tribe was small, it was an easy matter to go into
the back country, far up the river, and kill bears and other wild
animals for their furs. As the years passed, and the tribe grew larger
and larger, this was no longer easy, for the young men of the tribe,
while brave swimmers and fishermen, had forgotten, or never learned,
how to attack and kill the wild beasts which lived inland. So the sea
people had to look about them, to find some other material out of which
they could make clothes.
From the time they built their first brush huts, they had learned how
to plait together the long reeds, in making roofs. Later, the art of
fishing taught them how to twist the finer grasses, long and tough,
into thin strong cords. By tying a row of these cords between two
poles, and then weaving other cords in and out across them, the sea
people found they could make a thick, tough, durable sort of cloth,
like grass matting. It was not warm, like fur, but it would keep off
the cold rains, and was much better than no covering at all.
Leather, too, they learned how to make from the skins of some of the
animals they found in the sea; great creatures, like walrus, or seals,
that they fought and killed on the rocks along the coast. Living as
they did more in the open air than the valley people, sleeping in huts
instead of caves, wearing few furs, they grew tougher and stronger than
the people in the valley, and were very brave and hardy and daring.
With their cords of grass, they learned before long to make nets,
with which they caught fish in the river, wading in the water and
pulling the nets between them. They lived on fish and wild fowl; they
knew little of the fruits, nuts or roots which the valley tribes ate.
Sometimes hunting parties went up the river, and brought back fresh
fruits, but not often. It was toward the sea that they turned for new
adventures.