weapons, the Cave People had always been able to meet their human foes
on terms nearly approaching equality. The Hairy People and the Tree
Dwellers, and even the man-eaters, had all to come to close quarters in
their life and death contests. Then there was much to the advantage of
the Cave People, who were of heavier build and who possessed greater
strength and speed of limb than any of their man enemies. None of these
was able to shoot a dart across the river into the breast of an enemy.
But the Arrow People were more fearful than the great saber-tooth
himself. One could dig pits, covered with branches of leaves in the hope
that they might stumble into these and hence be dispatched to the long
sleep; it was quite as likely as not that the Arrow People would not
approach near enough to fall into them.
When the Arrow People came whooping over the hills sending down their
rain of arrows into the flesh of the Cave People, Strong Arm had
gathered his small band about the big fire where they had crouched low.
But even the protecting blaze could not prevail against the invaders.
Their darts flew through the smoke and the flame and pinned more than
one of the Cave People to the earth.
And when Strong Arm was wounded so that blood dripped red from a hole in
his breast the Cave People flung themselves into the brush and made
their way on their bellies as silent as snakes, far out beyond the old
hollow. With much caution they gathered together about some grey stone
boulders that banked the wild berry thicket.
Then it was that some one silently gathered twigs and leaves and dead
branches for the making of a fire. And a youth struck a spark from his
flint stones and by the light of the flames the Cave People saw and were
astonished that it was One Ear who had come back to his own people.
No one of the older members of the tribe had forgotten One Ear nor how
he had lost one of his ears when he was only a small boy not many moons
from his mother’s breast. It was this way:
One Ear had wandered from the caves and beyond the space where it was
safe for the children of the tribe to go alone. No one marked his
ramblings and he chattered and scampered about, plucking the red
blossoms of the eegari and chasing birds from their nests in happy
content. But he had not gone far when he heard the grunt of the wild and
hairy hog which was thrusting her short tusk into the soil for tender
roots. A litter of small black pigs followed close to their mother’s
side and set up a mighty squealing when they beheld in One Ear a
possible enemy.
Immediately the old sow turned upon One Ear and bit at his feet and
snapped at his legs and tripped him. Then she flew upon him with the
wild fury of the forest mother who believes her young to be endangered.
One Ear raised his own voice in yells of terror and threw up his arms
and rolled into the bushes and sent his small brown feet kicking with
mighty show into the face of the foe.
And the uproar increased while the blood poured from the side of the
boy’s head whence the wild sow had torn his small ear in her attack.
Soon the mother of One Ear and other members of the tribe of Cave People
appeared with their long bone weapons in their hands and killed the hog
and carried back as many of the young pigs as had not scampered away in
the conflict. And there was much feasting in the Hollow that day and a
great noise from the wails of One Ear, whose wounds were many times
licked and plastered and caressed by his distracted mother.
And so the boy came to be called One Ear. It was impossible to forget
one so distinctly different from other members of the tribe of Cave
People and so, when One Ear was later captured by the Arrow Folk during
a raid made on the people of the Hollow, One Ear was long mourned and
thought of by the tribe.
Now he was come back to his own people. And in the light made by the
flames of the fire, the Cave People saw that he bore many of the strange
darts that the enemy had used with so much skill and accuracy. The Cave
People were almost afraid of him, but One Ear at once showed himself
friendly and busied himself in helping to build coverings of sticks and
brush and leaves to form huts for the tribe.
The night was very dark and the Cave People were worn and weary and very
much afraid. They knew very little about the life and the woods and the
things that surrounded them. When a man stumbled over a loose stone and
slipped and fell, the Cave People believed that some of the tribe’s
numerous enemies had wrought the evil.
Little they understood of the causes of the natural events that occurred
around and to them. And so they peopled the woods, the Hollow, the night
and all things with spirits or evil ghosts that sought to do them harm.
There were terrors everywhere, both the enemies which they could see and
the enemies which they could not see. The enemies who dwelt in in the
dead tree trunks that lay upon the ground over which they stumbled, the
spirits who were hidden in the stones that scratched their feet, the
evil magicworkers who entered their stomachs and made them sick and
haunted the feet of the unwary to cause them to faint before the blows
of the Arrow People and who sent men and women upon the Long Sleep from
which their spirits arose to prowl about over the lands.
Primitive men knew nothing about natural laws. They had no ideas about
what caused the rain; therefore, they thought someone made it rain. They
knew nothing about the melting of snows upon the mountain tops that
flowed downward, swelling the Father of Rivers far beyond “his” banks
and thus causing the floods; therefore, some evil enemy wrought the
disaster.
They knew truly that men and women did not altogether die. All men
possessed two selves—the self with whom you might fight and dance, whom
you might touch and see and smell in the light of broad day. Then there
was also a spirit self, who came to you in dreams and who worked evil or
good unto you.
When a child was lost in the wood and devoured by the wild enemies of
the tribe, the people knew that it was an evil spirit that had lured his
footsteps into the danger.
It is true, too, that they believed in good spirits; the spirits who
sent rain when the earth was parched; the kindly magic-makers who
delivered an attacking enemy into your hand to his own disaster, who
stood beside you unseen during great dangers and thrust forth
obstructions in the paths of those who would take you unawares.
But considered in a broad way, from the viewpoint of primitive man, the
world was peopled chiefly with enemies who were down upon you at the
slightest opening, who might anywhere and in the strangest form
imaginable pounce upon you to your own destruction or disaster.
It cheered the Cave People greatly when they saw that One Ear had
returned to the tribe bringing some of the magical arrows, so
effectively employed by the Dart Throwers. They believed that the bone
javelin of Strong Arm possessed some of the strength and skill of this
mighty cave man; they knew that the dried head of the green snake which
had been killed by Big Foot and a great boulder were filled with his
valor and his wisdom, for they had seen Run Fast elude the wild boar
with this snake head in her hands. If any one thing was sure in all the
muddle of strange things and stranger events in this world, it was that
weapons or adornments or tools, acquired the characteristics of their
owners, and that these characteristics might be transferred to him who
was fortunate enough to secure them. The darts or the arrows of the Dart
Throwers brought skill to the holders and so the Cave People were
cheered when they beheld the darts in the hands of One Ear.
All through the night, as they huddled and shivered in the shadows, the
Cave People kept the big fire burning and listened for the Arrow People.
It was when the moon rode high in the heavens that the soft wind brought
the scent of the enemy approaching with quiet and with caution. With
quivering nostrils Strong Arm, who, in spite of the pain he suffered
from his wounds, was the first to smell the coming Arrow Throwers,
gathered the tribe behind the protection of the giant rocks.
And when they advanced within the circle of light thrown out by the
flames of the fire, One Ear drew his great bow to his shoulder and sent
arrow after arrow into the gleaming breasts of those who made the
attack, until the Arrow people were confounded and afraid and fled away
in the night whence they had come.
And for days there was peace and the Cave People encamped themselves
near a fresh water hole and built more mud caves and huts of the
branches of trees. But evil spirits hovered over Strong Arm and entered
into him and gave him fever and sickness and pain from the wound in his
breast, until at last he died in the night and his Spirit passed out of
his body. So thought the Cave Dwellers.
And they mourned for Strong Arm, both in their hearts and with loud
voices, for they knew that his spirit would hover about to see what they
said of his words and his deeds and they desired very strongly to please
and propitiate the Spirit of Strong Arm, for he had always been a
powerful and wise man, able to help those he loved and bring evil to
those whom he had hated. And they wanted to win the support and
friendship of the Spirit of Strong Arm in order that it might work good
in their behalf.
So even Big Foot, who had always feared and envied Strong Arm, spoke
loudly in his behalf, saying “Brave, Brave, Strong, Strong,” and he
screamed as though he had lost his best friend. This was all done to
show the Spirit of Strong Arm in what high esteem Big Foot held him.
The Cave People chopped up the body of Strong Arm and roasted his arms
and his legs and his head on the coals so that every member of the tribe
might acquire some of the noble virtues of the mighty chief by eating a
portion of his body. To Laughing Boy was apportioned the hands of his
father, and he ate them, stripping the flesh from the bones so that his
own hands might become skillful and quick in killing the enemy. The
remainder of the body of Strong Arm was laid in a cavity in the earth,
along with his sharp bone javelin, and his stone knife and his flint;
and food also, which they knew he would need in the Spirit Land where he
had gone. These things they covered with earth and leaves and weighed
them down with heavy stones so that neither wild boar, nor any other
wild animal might devour the remains of Strong Arm.
And in the night the Spirit of Strong Arm came back to his people in
their dreams, telling them many things. Once he appeared in a dream to
Quack Quack, with his bone javelin in his hands, and the cry of danger
upon his lips and a long arrow thrust in his hair. And Quack Quack and
the Cave People knew that this was a warning to them that the Arrow
Throwers were again stealing upon them to drive them from their new
land, so they gathered up their bone weapons, and the bow and arrows
which One Ear had brought, and their knives and their adornments, and
wandered toward the North in the hope of escaping.
But the Hairy Folk fell upon them, and the Man-eaters and the Tree
People nagged them and stole their food and wrecked disaster at every
step, so that there was no peace, only constant fighting and death and
terror in all the days.
So the Cave People traveled wearily and furtively, ever farther North,
where the fruit grows only in one season and the cold descends over the
earth for a long period of the year, and where men are only able to
survive by learning new things and new methods of keeping food against
the barren days.
Then, more than in all the previous history of their lives, the Cave
People began to progress, began to plan, to build, to preserve and store
food and finally to bury one tuber in order that it might become the
father of many potatoes; to salt their meats so that they would not
spoil and finally they discovered that skins used formerly only as a
means of adornment, or decoration—skins which had formerly been merely
visible proof of a man’s skill and valor in the hunt, were a warm and
comfortable protection against the cold days which had come upon them in
the strange new land.
Many died and many fell in the long wars that the Cave People fought
during their long journey to the North country, but One Ear grew strong
and wise and tall in his young manhood. And, because of the things he
had learned from the Arrow Throwers, he became a leader of the tribe,
which he taught also to hurl the death-tipped darts, both to bring down
the beasts of the forests and for the protection of the tribe in battle
with its human enemies.
And so the cool climate and the changing seasons drove the Cave People
to learn, to discover, to invent. And for the first time they began to
consider the earth and to subdue a little of it for their own food and
clothing and for their own shelter and security.
[Illustration]
XI
THE FIRST PRIEST
Although Strong Arm, who was the wisest and strongest and swiftest man
among the Cave People had been dead, and in part eaten and in part
buried beneath a great pile of earth and stones, the Cave People felt
sure that he had not remained dead.
More than one of the members of the tribe had seen him fighting and
hunting, eating and dancing, during the dreams that come in the night,
and so they believed that a part of Strong Arm, the spirit or ghost part
of Strong Arm, still lived. Again and again he had appeared to them in
the spirit, or in dreams, to advise them about the things the tribe
intended to do.
The Cave People were unable to understand these things and there was
nobody to tell them that dreams were not of the world of reality. And so
they believed that Strong Arm still lived, and that other dead men and
women and children of the tribe still lived in the Spirit World. It was
true that the spirits of these dead did not appear in the broad light of
day, but the Cave People believed that they haunted their old grounds,
invisible to the eyes of their tribesman.
They believed that the spirits of the dead may return to befriend the
members of the tribe, or to hinder their enemies, provided, always, that
the members of the tribe enlisted their aid and their affections.
Now Big Foot, since there was no longer the wise voice of Strong Arm,
nor the mighty strength of the old chief to enforce the good of his
people, set himself to become the leader of the Cave People. He slashed
his hairy thighs with his flint knife to prove how brave he was,
allowing the gashes to become sores in order to prolong the evidence of
his courage. He strutted about and waved his poison-tipped arrows when
the young men refused to listen to his words. Also he rubbed the noses
of all the women of the tribe and sought to caress them, attempting to
drive the men of the tribe from the new nests, or caves or huts, which
they had built in the far North country so many moon journeys from the
old hollow where little Laughing Boy was born.
Big Foot boasted with a loud voice and bullied the children and spoke
soft words to the women, while he glared at the young men and urged them
into the forest to hunt for food. Always he kept his poisoned darts at
his side and he managed to secure for himself the tenderest portion of
the young goats which the people had discovered leaping and running wild
amid the sharp slopes and crags of the mountains.
So the tribe grew weary of his sorry ruling and there was much fighting
and discord, which laid them open to the attacks of their many enemies.
Without doubt Big Foot was possessed of much cunning, for while other
men of the tribe were as strong of limb and as fleet of foot, Big Foot
was more powerful than they. Longer was his arm because he had learned
first how to make and to wield his great bow and arrows almost as well
as young One Ear, who had escaped from the Arrow Throwers and returned
to his own people, the Cave Dwellers, bringing knowledge of the weapons
of these strange enemies.
The Cave Dwellers had paused in their journeyings and battlings
northward, on the banks of the lake that shone like white fire When the
sun beat down upon its rolling surface. The way was new to them and
unknown dangers threatened everywhere and they had utmost need to walk
warily, lest a new tribe descend upon them with some new weapon of
destruction and turn them back into the dangers they had outstripped.
Instead of holding the people together with wise words and instead of
preparing to search out the lands to prepare for the strange evils that
lie in wait for primitive man whenever he travels beyond the ways of his
experience, Big Foot caused nothing but conflict. It was only his
superior skill in the use of the flint-tipped arrows, which the Cave
People were acquiring very rapidly, that prevented him from being slain
by the members of the tribe.
Then it was that One Ear dreamed a dream. He thought that his spirit had
journeyed far into the spirit world where it encountered the spirit of
Strong Arm. And Strong Arm had spoken with One Ear, sending words of
wisdom to the people of the tribe. He had called Big Foot the enemy of
the Cave People. And when he wakened in the morning, One Ear remembered
his dream. So he gathered all the people together and told them these
things. And no man or woman among them knew that he spoke only of a
dream. They believed that the spirit of Strong Arm still lived and that
the things in One Ear’s dream had actually occurred.
So the Cave People chattered together and gesticulated and stole the
fresh meat Big Foot had hidden in his cave and menaced him from cover by
shaking their clubs and growling like angry dogs. Big Foot fled to his
branch hut, where he glared at the members of the tribe and waved his
long arrows.
The Cave People had long respected the words of Strong Arm and when they
heard what he had spoken to One Ear in a dream, they hated Big Foot more
fiercely than ever.
At last Big Foot returned to the people of the tribe, many of whom were
sitting about a wood fire, and he spoke to them, trying to gain their
good will and attempting to show them that none was so swift, so strong
or so brave as he. But the people screamed “Strong Arm! Strong Arm!” to
remind Big Foot that the old chief had spoken against him.
And Big Foot grew frantic with the rage that came upon him. He seized
the club of Strong Arm which had been given to Laughing Boy in order
that he might derive from it some of the virtue of bravery which his
father, Strong Arm, had possessed. Big Foot spat upon it and crushed it
beneath a great stone; then he hurled the shattered fragments far out
into the green waters of the lake.
All the Cave People shivered with fear, for they thought this was a very
foolish thing. They believed that the spirits of the dead grow angry
when their weapons are broken or destroyed and they felt sure that the
spirit of Strong Arm would punish Big Foot for the desecration he had
worked on the club of the old chief.
But Big Foot was too angry to be afraid. White foam appeared upon his
lips. When he thought of the spirit of Strong Arm he longed for a
tangible foe, with flesh upon his bones that he might crush, with red
juice in his skin that he might spill, with ears and a nose that he
might bite and twist and tear. He desired an enemy into whose soft belly
he might hurl one of his sharp arrows.
But there were only the Cave People beside him and the menace in their
eyes and their lips, pulled back, snarling from their teeth, made him
afraid. So he lifted up his voice in a frenzy of hate and scorn while he
called the name of “Strong Arm! Strong Arm! Maker of lies;” he called
him, and “Fool! Coward! Weak One! Baby!” and “Snake-that-crawls!” while
he made violent gestures of hatred and disgust.
The Cave People watched him fearfully. To them it did not seem the part
of wisdom to mock and defy the spirit of Strong Arm, which still lived,
though his body had perished. Something was bound to happen. Strong Arm
had never permitted any man to speak thus of him when he was living in
the flesh and they did not believe his spirit would endure insult from
Big Foot. Indeed, yes, something was sure to happen.
But it was not good for the whole tribe to be punished or blamed for the
foolishness of Big Foot. This they knew and they made haste to put wide
distances between themselves and him, pursuing their own work or their
own ends with much ostentation as far as possible removed from his
presence. If the spirit of Strong Arm was hiding in the valley and had
chanced to overhear the evil words of Big Foot, no flat-headed savage
among the tribe wanted Strong Arm to fancy he had anything to do with
these things. They washed their hands of the whole affair and departed
from the immediate presence of Big Foot.
The more Big Foot raved, the oftener One Ear called upon the spirit of
Strong Arm, crying:
“Brave one! Wise one! Swift of foot” and “Give us of thy counsel!” And
the Cave People began talking in loud voices of the good deeds of their
old chief, of his courage and strength, of his wisdom and his
“Eye-that-never-slept.”
While Big Foot defied the spirit of Strong Arm, One Ear and the Cave
People sought to propitiate him with loud words of admiration and some
flattery.
“Stronger than the hairy mastodon” they called him and “Father of all
the lions.” He could outleap the mountain goat and outclimb the longest
armed ou-rang-oo-tang. His voice was like the thunder and his breath
like the winds that bend the trees on the river banks.
They felt more certain than ever that something was going to happen.
They expected the spirit of Strong Arm to make it happen. But they did
not desire to share in untoward events if a little information given to
the spirit of Strong Arm could prevent this thing.
But the day passed, and the sun slid down the wings of the sky into the
red fire of the lake, and still Big Foot strutted about with loud and
boasting words. Still the Cave People waited and hoped, and were afraid.
And that night the spirit of Strong Arm again appeared to One Ear in a
dream and his voice was fierce with anger against Big Foot and, in the
dream, he counselled One Ear to tell the Cave People to push Big Foot
from the tallest crag along the mountain gorge so that his body would be
crushed upon the sharp stones below.
In the morning One Ear told these things to the people of the tribe and
they drank the words of Strong Arm eagerly, begging Big Foot to join in
a hunt for the wild goat amid the slopes of the mountain. But Big Foot
was afraid and hid in his hut, making queer mouthings and snatching food
from the children and waving his sharp arrows.
So the Cave People gathered about One Ear urging him to meet the spirit
of Strong Arm once more and to ask for more wisdom on how to dispatch
the evil man who brought dangers and conflict to the tribe.
Again in the morning One Ear called the people together, saying that the
spirit of Strong Arm counselled the people to build fires about the hut
of Big Foot in the night so that he might be destroyed.
And so, when darkness wrapped the valley in her soft folds, the Cave
People stole from their shelters, each bearing branches and glowing
coals from the camp fire, which they hurled in the door of Big Foot,
with stones and spears so that he might not escape and injure the tribe.
The night was black and Big Foot was unable to hit the people with his
sharp arrows. Coals were thrown upon the dry thatch of his hut and soon
the flames encircled him with their burning tongues.
And when it was discovered that his body was burned to ashes and that
the spirit of Big Foot had escaped, the Cave People rejoiced in their
hearts. But their lips were dumb. For the first time they spoke well of
Big Foot, whom they hated in their hearts. For was not the fate of Big
Foot proof of the foolishness of speaking ill of the dead! Was not the
victory of the Cave People who had spoken well of Strong Arm proof of
their wisdom in these things?
The Cave People believed the spirit of Big Foot would be actively
inimical to the tribe, just as they believed that the spirit of Strong
Arm had proved itself to be the friendly father of the people.
And One Ear continued to dream dreams, which he related to the Cave
People, giving them words of wisdom and courage from the spirit of
Strong Arm and evil words from the spirit of Big Foot. Thus they grew to
believe wondrous things of Strong Arm. His virtues grew with the passing
of the suns, just as his strength increased and his wisdom was extolled
until he became almost a god to the people of the tribe.