women with them who knew where there was good clay to be found; and
bade them dig out clay. Wherever they could find good clay down in the
valley, they had to dig it out and bring it to the top of the hill. It
was very hot and dry weather, and the people hated the hard work and
were very angry with Arsan. But the chief and Garff worked hard and
cheered up the other men, and they all worked together.
When they got the clay up to the top of the hill, Arsan showed some of
the cleverest men and some of the women how to spread it thickly over
the bundles, laying it and daubing it well over. And some did this
while the rest brought more and more clay; until at last the whole of
the hollow place was thickly spread with clay, puddled and trodden
hard; and the outside edge of the bundles all round was covered, so
that the hollow place was like a big saucer of clay.
And Arsan bade the people bring up some smooth, flat stones from the
bed of the river, and these they laid upon the clay at the bottom of
the hollow, and packed them round with more clay, and laid more stones
of the same sort around the edge, and so made all firm and strong.
There only needed the water to fill up the clay saucer and make a pond
of it.
Then on the day when their task was done, they made a big feast and ate
and drank; and at sunset they began the dancing, and danced the whole
night long, some dancing while the others rested; and they sang the
song for rain, and its chorus, and the corn song and its chorus. And
early in the morning when they had sung the rain song again, they sent
men with torches to look at the new pond. And soon the men came back
running and leaping and crying out: “The waters are returning!” and
next morning they found that the new pond was half full of water, and
after two nights more it was quite full.
So they all praised the wisdom of Arsan; and it was a story among them
for years and years to tell how Arsan had shown them the way to make a
dwelling-place for the spirits of the water.
_Chapter the Eighteenth_
_DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: Dew-Ponds_
“I CALL it stupid to talk about there being water-spirits in a pond,”
said Joe.
“Well, I don’t know that I agree with you,” said Uncle John. “Of course
that isn’t the way we explain things nowadays; but if you had lived in
those times, I daresay you would have thought as other people thought.”
“But it wasn’t spirits that made the water run out, was it?” Joe asked.
“No, I don’t think it was,” said Uncle John. “What I should like to
know is--can any of you think what did make the water run out?”
“Did the sun dry it up?” asked Dick.
“Perhaps there was a spring and it stopped running,” said David.
“I don’t fancy you have guessed right, either of you,” said Uncle John.
“That pond of theirs was a dew-pond filled by dew--filled from the
clouds; and it went dry not because there wasn’t plenty of dew in the
air to keep it filled up, but because the pond leaked, and the water
ran out faster than it could come in.”
“So I suppose when they made the new one with fresh clay, it was
watertight and didn’t leak,” said Dick. “But I don’t understand now how
the dew could fill it up.”
“And I don’t understand why they put the bundles of fern and brushwood
underneath,” said David.
“It isn’t at all hard to understand, really,” said Uncle John. “You
see there is always a great deal of moisture in the air. Sometimes
it is high up, and then we call it clouds; and sometimes it is low
down, and we call it mist or dew. But there is always plenty of it--a
never-ending supply. Of course you know how it comes to be there?”
“The sun draws it up.”
“Yes, the sun draws it up. The sun is always sucking up water from
the earth, from the sea and from rivers and lakes and ponds, and from
puddles in the road and from clothes hung out to dry. And the warmer
the sun is during the day, the more water it sucks up into the air. But
in the night when the air is cool, some of this water comes back again:
it forms into drops and settles on the grass or on cabbage leaves, or
on a book which you may have left out all night on the garden seat. You
know that if you go out early in the morning and walk in the grass,
you get your boots sopping wet. So if you could find a place that was
hollow so that water could gather in it; and if you could keep it cool
like a cabbage-leaf, so that the water would settle in it; and if you
could make it watertight below so that the water wouldn’t leak out, you
would have a dew-pond.”
“Why should it be on the top of a hill?” Dick asked.
“I suppose because the higher up you go, the more chance you have of
getting into the clouds and the moist air; dew falls more abundantly on
the sides of hills.”
“But why did those people put the bundles of fern and stuff under the
clay?” asked Joe. “That didn’t help to make it water-tight did it?”
“No,” said Uncle John, “but it helped to make it cool. If you want
water to form out of vapour, you must give it something cold to form
on. Breathe on a cold window-pane, and see how the tiny drops of water
settle on the cool pane from the water-vapour in your breath. If you
were to take a cold basin and set it out of doors at night when the
dew is falling, you would soon find the drops of water trickling down
its sides.
“This is just what those people did, only theirs was a larger plan.
“They made their pond, as we read, and finished it one day before
evening. Then what happened? All day long the heat of the sun had been
warming the ground round about, but it could not warm the thick moist
clay so much as it warmed the turf of the hill-side.
“Then, after the sun went down, everything became cooler. But the clay
pond was still the coolest thing there; and the packing of reeds and
brushwood kept the heat of the earth from passing into it from below.
“So the dew began to settle in drops upon the cold clay and upon the
smooth stones, and it trickled down the sides. As we said, there is
always plenty of moisture in the cool night air; and all you need to do
is to provide the proper place for it to collect in. So it was with
the dew-pond in our book.
“One by one the drops formed and ran together, as soon as they had
found something to run into; and millions and millions more joined in,
coming as vapour and settling down as water until the pond was full.
“And so long as the clay bottom of the pond kept whole and sound, the
dew-pond would hold water, making up at night what it lost by day. But
if once the clay were broken or worn through, the water would run away
into the ground, and the pond would never fill up again; partly because
it would not hold water, and also because once the brushwood became
soaked, it would fail to act in keeping the clay cool.”
“Was that why the first pond failed?” asked Dick.
“I expect it was. I expect the clay bed had in some way become worn
through, so that the pond would not hold water. And the people guessed
quite rightly that the only way to mend matters was to make a new pond,
though, as Joe says, they gave an odd sort of reason for it.”
“Do people make ponds in that way now?” Joe asked.
“Yes, I believe so; though not many people know much about it, since
there are so many other ways of getting water possible nowadays. But I
have heard that in some parts of the country there are old men who know
how to make dew-ponds.”
“Do any of the dew-ponds that those people made exist now?” Dick asked.
“I believe so, certainly. They are to be found on the hills, here and
there in different parts of the country. But some learned men say
they were made in later times than those of Tig’s people. But I will
tell you what we will do. To-morrow we will have a long walk upon the
hills and visit a pond which I believe is an ancient dew-pond; and we
will have a picnic there, and then see what we all think about this
question.”
“When those people had a feast,” said David, “what did they drink? Only
water?”
“I don’t know,” said Uncle John. “But I should think they drank some
kind of beer or spirit--not very strong, perhaps, because drink has to
be well brewed and kept long if it is to be made strong. They may have
made beer out of corn or even out of heather-tips, or perhaps they used
honey and made mead: we do not know. The only thing we can say is that
there are hardly any people in the world who do not make a drink of
some kind from grain or from some part of a plant; and therefore these
old people of ours most likely did the same.
“If Dick will reach me Stevenson’s Poems from the second shelf there, I
will read you one called _Heather Ale_, which will make a good ending
to all this dry talk about dew-ponds.”
_Chapter the Nineteenth_
_THE STORY OF TIG: How Gofa made Pottery_
IT has been said before that Gofa did all the work of her own
household, not only cooking the food, but also making the clothes, and
preparing the skins out of which the clothes were made. Also she made
the baskets for storing and carrying the food in, and the pottery, too;
and when her stock of household pots had become low, she used to set to
work to make a fresh lot. And this was how she did it. She went down
into the valley to a place by the river where there was good clay. She
took with her a large basket and a rough-and-ready trowel made out of
the shoulder-blade of a deer. She dug out the clay, enough to fill the
basket, and carried it home on her shoulders.
When Gofa was ready to make pottery, she first prepared the clay
by mixing it with coarse sand, which also she had brought from the
river-side. She moistened the clay with water when she added the sand,
and kneaded it thoroughly with her hands, just as if she were making
dough. She was always careful to mix the sand and the clay in the
right proportions; for clay without sand, or with too little, was apt
to crack when it came to be baked, and with too much it was not stiff
enough to mould well into shape. She always saved the bits of any pots
that were broken, and having pounded them up until they were quite
small, she mixed them up with the new stuff. By long practice Gofa knew
just how to prepare the clay for use.
Having got the clay ready, Gofa took a lump of it in her hands and
laid it on a stone slab which served her as a working bench. Then,
with her fingers and a smooth stone, and a stick shaped into a kind
of blade, she worked up the clay into a little bowl, building up the
sides against the stick, and smoothing the inside with her pebble. But
for the larger jars and pipkins she had another way. She took a round
basket shaped like a basin and set it before her. Then she took a piece
of clay and rolled it with the flat of her hand on the bench until
she had made it like a very long, thin, clay sausage. Then she picked
this up and began to coil it round from the bottom of the basket,
inside, pinching and pressing it with her fingers and the pebble until
it was flat and smooth. Then she rolled out another piece and coiled
this round as before, gradually building up the sides of the pot and
pinching the coils together as she went on. At length, by adding coil
to coil, she raised the sides and neck of the pipkin, which she then
smoothed and finished off outside with the wooden tool.
[Illustration: Making Pottery]
All this time Gofa kept turning the pot she was making round and round
upon the stone.
“Why do you keep on turning it round and round, mother?” Tig asked.
“So that I can see what I am doing,” said his mother. “The pot would be
very ugly if one side bulged out more than the other, wouldn’t it? I
turn it round and round so that I can keep it even and right.”
“Who taught you how to make pots, mother?” Tig asked.
“My mother taught me. She was a famous potter. People used to come to
watch her when she was at work, but they could not make pots like hers;
she had a rare hand in turning. I cannot turn them as she could.”
“I think you turn yours beautifully, mother,” said Tig.
All the pots alike, before they were baked, had to be decorated. This
Gofa did with a bone awl, engraving a pattern of lines and cross-lines
and dots upon the soft clay. She had also a little stamp of bone with
which the dots could be put on in threes.
When Gofa had finished a batch of pots, she and Tig carried them into
the hut to dry, and generally on the next day she found that even the
larger ones had dried enough in the air to enable her to lift them out
of their basket foundations. Then she took each one in turn and scraped
and rubbed it outside with a wooden tool, very carefully and lightly.
After this she took them to where she had a fire burning out-of-doors
upon the ground. She raked away the fire to one side, and set the pots
where the fire had been, standing them all upside down, and ranging
them together in as small a space as possible. Then she piled up sticks
and pieces of dried fir tree wood about the pots, and laid little
faggots all round, and raked up the hot ashes and set fire to the pile.
And she and Tig carried fresh fuel as the fire burned, and kept it
going until they could see the pots all red hot. And then they let it
sink gradually and die down of itself; and there were the pots baked
hard and sound, and fit for use as soon as they were cold.
Once Gofa had set to work making pottery, she used to make a good
batch at a time; she did not stop making and baking as soon as she
had finished just what she wanted at the time. For she liked to have
a store of pottery at hand; and if she did not want to use them all
herself, she could always exchange one or two for something useful that
she might happen to want.
When Gofa or any of the other women wanted to make a large pankin for
holding water or milk or meal, she used to make a tall basket, like a
bucket, of osiers and reeds, and daub it inside with clay. The clay was
laid on thickly and then smoothed and trimmed with the stone and the
wooden blade; and the wide neck and the rim were moulded by hand. She
did not attempt to lift the pankin out of the basket mould, but set the
whole thing in the fire as it was; and the fire burned off the basket
work, and left the marks of the reeds showing all round on the outside
like a pattern. And very likely it was the look of this pattern on
the pottery which first gave the women the notion of graving a design
upon the smaller vessels which they made entirely by hand. The women
generally took pains to make neat patterns by using different simple
tools of wood and bone, and sometimes they tied a piece of twisted cord
round a vessel, and impressed its mark upon the clay. Sometimes they
did not use a tool at all, nor even a twisted cord, but made little
dents round the neck of a jar with the thumb nail, and made the pattern
in that way.
_Chapter the Twentieth_
_How Tig went Hunting the Deer_
WHEN TIG was a boy and used to play at hunting, the chief of his
friends was Berog. Berog and he were of the same age and equal in
strength; and, though Tig was the better marksman with the bow and
arrow, Berog had the greater skill with the sling. By this time they
were both tall and strong lads. Each of them had been out hunting
several times with the men, and sometimes they had made little
expeditions by themselves. But once in the autumn, after the corn had
been gathered in, they planned to have a real hunt of their own. They
saved some food to take with them, but not much, because men always
hunt best when they are hungry. Tig had a new, full-sized bow, that
he had made himself, and his quiver full of flint-headed arrows, and
his stone axe slung at his side. Berog had his sling and a bag full of
smooth, round stones, and in his hand he carried a club. And so they
set out together.
They did not want to be seen, so they followed a track into the forest
that was not much used by the men of the village. The sun had not yet
risen; the air was keen, and white mists hung about the hills. Their
plan was to make first for the swamps in the valley, so as to get a
shot at some of the birds that lived among the reed beds. They had
explored the way before, and had marked trees or laid guide stones
where the track was doubtful; and so they lost no time in getting down
the valley.
As they crossed the hill-side, they saw two hares cantering away across
the open ground, and Berog slung a stone or two at them, but without
success. When they came to the thickets at the bottom, they walked
warily, for they saw the track of a wild boar, and they had no wish to
meddle with him. Birds of many kinds were seen. Away over the water
ducks were flying high in a trail; kites and buzzards soared higher
still; and far away in the distance, like a silvery flag against the
sky, some wild swans were coming over. Grebes and coots were swimming
about in a backwater of the river seen through the reeds, and a great
grey heron rose from the swamp ahead of the boys, and flapped away,
uttering a loud squawk.
[Illustration: The Wild Ducks]
The boys crouched among the reeds. Tig fitted an arrow to his bow, and
Berog put a stone into the web of his sling. So they waited for a long
time without moving. All at once the sound of rushing wings was heard,
and then a splash and rush of water, as a skein of wild ducks flew down
near by. The boys waited eagerly, and in a moment three ducks appeared,
swimming out from behind a clump of reeds. Tig shot and missed, and his
arrow struck up a spurt of water. Berog slung a stone at the birds as
they rose, and hit one, which fell quacking and scattering feathers
upon the water. At once Berog tucked up his sark, and waded out to
capture the duck; but it was only wounded, and was too quick for him,
and made its escape among the thick reed beds.
After this the boys waited for some time without a chance of another
shot; so they left the river-side, and made their way through the
thickets into the woods, and out on to the open hill-side. Now Tig took
the lead; for with his bow and arrow he hoped to get larger game than
water-fowl. The boys moved along at a quick pace, keeping within the
cover of the rocks and bushes, in order to hide their movements. Two or
three times they entered the woods again, to cross the deep glens that
divided the hills; and they forded the streams that rushed in torrents
down the depths. At last they climbed up a steep craggy place; and,
when they reached the top, they lay down flat and spied the ground
in front. Before them stretched a broad hill-top, and here they hoped
to see some game. Presently Tig moved on, creeping on all fours, and
peeped from behind a rock. Away in the distance was a troop of wild
horses, some of them feeding and some cantering and wheeling about in
play; and as Tig watched them they took fright at something near them,
and galloped off out of sight.
Then Berog crept up, and they both moved on across the ridge, carefully
screening their movements and taking cover behind the rocks and bushes
of heather. When they came to the edge, they lay down again to spy.
Then Tig’s eye picked out, far down below them, an object like a
withered branch of a tree sticking up out of the heather. He called
softly to Berog, who looked also, and they both agreed that three or
four deer were lying down there in the hollow of the hill-side. Then
Tig plucked some blades of grass as he lay, and threw them lightly
into the air to see how the wind blew, so that he might keep it in his
face in working round towards where the deer lay. If once he were to
move where the wind might blow the scent of him towards the animals,
they would be sure to take alarm and move away.
Then Tig turned and went down behind the ridge, moving at a quick trot,
and worked his way round to a point, as nearly as he could guess it,
close to the hollow where the deer were lying. Berog stayed behind on
the hill-top to watch the deer and see if they should move.
When Tig reached the bottom, he crept on all fours for some distance
through the heather, and then lay down to spy. He raised his head
gently. There was the stag lying with its back towards him about a
hundred yards away. Tig studied the ground and noted every boulder and
every tuft of rushes between him and the stag, and then, lying flat
on the ground, he began to crawl towards the nearest stone. High up
on the far hill-top Berog was watching the stag; but he could not see
Tig. So Tig crept on and on, holding his breath when he moved, until
he reached the point where he could see the stag quite plainly. It
was lying in an open green space, wide awake, and it kept turning its
head from side to side as if it were on the watch for its enemies; but
it did not see Tig. When Tig saw its antlers moving, he knew that it
was looking around, and he lay still. But every now and then the stag
turned back its head to scratch its back with its antlers and brush
away the flies that kept teasing it, and then Tig crept up a little
nearer and got an arrow ready in his bow.
All at once the wary stag took alarm. It heard or smelled that an enemy
was near, and got up on its feet. Then, as the stag stood for a second
sniffing the air, Tig leaped up and took aim and shot at it with all
his might. The stag gave a leap forward and bounded away down the
slope; but the arrow had pierced it deep behind the shoulder, and Tig
knew that if only he could follow, he was sure of his game. He waved a
signal to Berog, and set off at full speed in the blood-stained tracks
of the stag.
The other deer of the herd gathered and fled over the hill, and Tig
saw the wounded one try to take refuge with them; but they turned on
it savagely and butted it away. Then Tig and Berog kept up the chase,
and at last, in a thicket at the edge of the forest, they came upon the
poor stag lying dead. They dragged the body into the open, and then,
while Tig stayed by to guard it, Berog went off to the village for
help.
_Chapter the Twenty-first_
_Tig becomes a Man_
BEFORE nightfall Berog came back with some of the men carrying torches
and poles. They tied the stag’s hind legs and its fore legs together,
and thrust a pole through, and so carried it home, and Tig and Berog
marched behind. And when they reached the village, all the people
turned out to cheer them. And on the next day Gofa and some of the
women skinned the deer and cut up the meat. Every part of the deer’s
body they kept for some use or other--the meat for food, the hide for
making into leather, the bones to be broken for marrow and some to be
carved into tools, the brains for greasing and curing the hide, the
sinews to be dried and shredded into thread; and the antlers Gofa gave
to Tig, because he had won them. And though before that day Tig would
have had to wait on the women while they were cutting up the stag, and
run errands for them, yet now he did not. He lay outside the hut all
day, and ate his meals when they were brought to him, and behaved just
like any of the men of the village.
For, after this first big hunt on his own account, Tig reckoned himself
a boy no longer. And soon after this, he became a man, according to the
custom of his tribe. That is to say, the Medicine Men, who were the
rulers of the people in all matters of custom and religion, took him in
hand to make a man of him. By their orders he fasted several days, and
kept apart from the people, that he might learn the will of the gods.
Then the Medicine Men took him and some other boys of his age, and led
them into a grove where they said the gods dwelt; and they taught the
boys the names of the gods and how to call upon them. And they tried
each boy’s courage, and bade him remember always to be brave and endure
pain without flinching; and they said that to be a coward is worse than
death, and that it is better to die than to give in or run away.
After this Garff gave Tig a man’s weapons--a battle-axe and a dagger of
flint, and a shield such as men used in warfare; and Tig went also to
an old man of the village who was clever at tattooing, and he tattooed
Tig on his shoulders and chest and arms; and after that Tig felt that
he was really a man.
[Illustration]
_Chapter the Twenty-second_
_DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: Dick’s Pottery and how he made it_
WHILE they were reading about Gofa making the pots, Dick thought he
would like to try his hand at this sort of work; so, after the reading,
when they went out, he got a trug and a trowel from the tool-shed and
said that he should go and look for some clay.
“David and I are going fishing,” said Joe; “and when we have caught
some fish, we are going to make a fire up at the hut and cook them. If
you were a hunter, you would come too; making pottery is women’s work.”
“All right,” said Dick; “but if ever you were to be wrecked on a
desert island, you might have to do women’s work, as you call it.”