Tuksook's Story, 35,000 BC Read online

  Midgenemo and the elders: Ottu, Kew, Taman, and Mongo stood in the central part of the green open area. Ottu was seventy. His thinning white hair blew in the breeze. He walked with difficulty but his deep blue eyes were as sharp as ever. Kew and Taman were brothers, Kew at sixty-seven and Taman at fifty-five. Kew’s hair was white while his brother’s was just turning to white from black. Mongo, joined with Lupo, Midgenemo’s sister, when he was seventeen. He was from the Big Lake area of their old land, northwest of where the People lived. He’d been with the People forty-six years.

  The elders were marking the placement for upright bamboo poles to enable them to mark the solstices and equinoxes, when Gumui walked by them with a heavy, leaf-woven box from the boat. He overheard the men mentioning shelter and walked over to them, standing until he was recognized and encouraged to speak.

  Gumui lowered his head and slowly raised it, looking into the eyes of the elders as he spoke. “Remember the story about the bent tree house in the time of Ki’ti? I thought of it as I climbed the path and noticed the tree canopy. Would that provide us with good, permanent shelter here?” he asked humbly.

  Elders glanced at each other. They visually communicated much without words by using tiny facial muscles: the idea had merit. The Wise One smiled at Gumui. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Find some young men to explore with you. The best area is along the rim of the back forest here,” he pointed. “Take your idea and see what you can make of it. You’ll need a flat floor surface and trees that will bend. The structure should be more than twice what we need. People will expand in this land, and we’ll need to store some things.”

  Gumui walked off, deeply honored that the elders had given him such an assignment. He enjoyed the slightly damp grass sliding past his ankles as he walked through it. It was like a caress. He tried to remember feeling damp grass in the old land and couldn’t. The drought started before he was born. Quickly he carried the box to the area where women were preparing to cook the evening meal. Then, he sought out Tern and Orad. They began to search the rim of the back forest. The elder men turned their thoughts to placement of other common areas in the open space. No one issued orders as to task assignment. The People worked together knowing what had to be done. They were a unit in function.

  Some of the women began to prepare the evening meal from the supplies on hand. Earlier in the day men had caught two large sturgeons from lines tied to the back of the boat. They’d never seen such fish. Some older girls had gone to the river to find greens, and others had taken digging tools to hunt for tubers, onions—whatever the land might provide for their evening meal. The girls had been warned not to touch or gather anything that was strange to them. Tuksook went with the girls hunting greens at the water’s edge. She was a little young for that group, but she was not very patient with small children. When possible, the People were flexible in task choice, unless some need failed to be met. The older girls fully accepted her. Tuksook normally enjoyed their company.

  Ghopi looked up from the hearth construction and asked the women, “Have you seen Sutorlo? How about Lurch and Gilo?”

  No reply meant that no one had seen any of them recently. Each would look from time to time to see whether the boys were visible. As yet, there was no need for alarm.

  The boys had climbed the hill where the waterfall sent water cascading into a catch pool.

  They knelt together solemnly with their fingers in the stream, and Gilo said, “Wisdom, please approve and help with our effort to divert this water. We need it to separate meat storage and bathing into two places.”

  They dug a trench near the rushing stream. On either side of the trench, they carefully lined the bottom and sides with rocks and moss mixed with mud and twigs, fitted as tightly as possible. The water would fall to hit a flat rock and go into another small stream in its flow to the river. They could use this place for drinking water and bathing. Once the conduit was completed, the boys would open the stream for the diversion. The flat rock below would provide a place to put water holders as they collected it or stand as they bathed. It had already been established that the catch basin at the bottom of the falls would preserve meat from their kills. A drinking water and bathing place needed to be separate from the meat preservation water.

  Tuksook wandered away from the older girls, because she was still enraged. She returned to the cooking area with a basket of fern fists, ferns that were in the early stage of development and tightly curled. She had never seen curled fern fists because of the drought, but several stories described them clearly. She sat, cleaned off the brown skin, and took them to the water to wash. They would be a delightful treat for the evening meal. Having done the duty expected of her, she climbed the hill to the east behind the meadow. Near the crest of the hill, she found a rock that jutted from the side of the hill. She climbed it and lay with her belly on the rock. She had to do it in stages, because it was hot from the sun.

  As she lowered herself she whispered, “Wisdom, please ease my belly with the warmth of this rock.”

  She hoped the rock’s warmth would calm her belly, but she knew that the bellyache would leave only when she turned loose of the anger. She didn’t know how to do that unless her father’s judgment changed.

  Tuksook could hear someone coming. She didn’t turn her head. She just lay there.

  “Why are you here, Tuksook?” Gumui asked.

  “I warm my belly. Why are you here?”

  “Tuksook, you are still a child. You are not permitted to wander off. You could be prey to a bear or whatever lives here.”

  “I don’t care,” she replied carelessly.

  Gumui grabbed her and turned her over. “What made you say that?”

  “I don’t know,” she lied.

  “You lied. You do know,” he accused.

  She held her words. She’d already said too much.

  “You will come back with me, now!” he said firmly. “You will not wander off again. You would do well to remember the stories of Ki’ti.” He frowned, threatening.

  “You would not beat me.” Her belly gripped. She tried to ignore it.

  “You’re wrong. Do not disobey me, Tuksook. I know you’re almost a woman, but right now you are a child. A willful child. The People need you.”

  “I don’t want to be needed! I don’t want to be a woman!” Her belly gripped, and she couldn’t fail to show the pain she experienced.

  Gumui looked at her. Something was troubling her, but he dared not assume what the cause was.

  “What’s wrong with your belly?” he asked.

  “Leave me alone,” she said and a tear fell from her left eye.

  “No,” he replied. “Shall I pick you up or are you able to walk back to the meadow?”

  She failed to reply.

  Gumui began to pick her up.

  “No, I’ll walk.” She was in agony. Why was she not able to have the solitude she craved? She felt the need for solitude as she did the need for food or breathing. It was only in solitude that she could find Wisdom. She walked directly behind Gumui.

  Gumui turned and reached for her hand. She withdrew her hands behind her back.

  “Why are you fighting me?” he asked as he circled her in his arms and took her wrist forcefully.

  “Why are you hurting me?” she asked. Later her wrist would bruise. He did not release her.

  “You’re being unreasonable. I cannot see you when you are behind me. As a man of the People I tell you, Tuksook, we will go down there. Then you will find a comb and remove the tangles from your hair, before you do anything else. You will not leave the meadow unless another adult of the People tells you to do so. Is that understood? If you do, I vow by Wisdom I will punish you.”

  Tuksook realized she’d gone too far. Her fury fed her mind web anger food, and she’d been eating lots of it. Her belly rebelled at the anger food, and that made her eat it even more. It made it difficult for her mind web to reason properly, so she failed to see the unhealthy
cycle she’d set up in her own body. As an outward show of the tangles within her mind web, she had left tangles in her hair. She did it to keep from being appealing to boys or men. Removing the tangles out of her hair would hurt. Removing the tangles from her mind web would be harder. The People were careful to keep themselves well groomed. Tangles were a sign that something was wrong. Now, she had put herself in a place where Gumui would have to carry through on his vow to Wisdom. Above all, Tuksook respected Wisdom. She would have to remain in the meadow. She had been her own enemy. She was humbled. But, she was still a lesser person to a man as a child and now, almost a woman, she would continue to be treated as a child. It was all so very confusing. She did as she was told while she longed for freedom to slip into a natural, quiet setting for solitude to be with Wisdom.

  Loraz, Hamaklob, Stencellomak, Pago, and Wave had spent the afternoon making temporary lean-to shelters at the forest edge. Building clouds caused them to be concerned about rain. The scent of rain was in the air. They began to feel pressure to finish the shelters quickly when Unmo, Anvel, Vole, Momeh, and Hawk arrived to help.

  Lupo called the People to the evening meal by hitting rocks together three times and three more times and three more times, just as the shelters were complete. The People gathered at a log where food choices were placed in a line. The eating bowls were in a woven box nearby. Tuksook with combed hair lingered last in line, wondering whether eating was a good thing to do. She took a small piece of sturgeon and a few greens. She went to sit at the far edge in the circle around the cooking hearth. To her dismay, Gumui sat beside her.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

  She glared at him.

  “You must answer, Tuksook. Failing to talk about what troubles you is a serious problem. It leaves others to wonder and often their guesses are wrong. It cuts off those who care about you.” His voice was gentle but his eyes were not. He did not like the look in her eyes and met it with strong force from his own eyes.

  “I’m fine,” she lied again.

  “Tuksook, don’t you know I can tell you’re lying?” he asked caught between anger and amusement. “I asked a simple question, and you’ve turned it into something offensive. I shouldn’t need to remind you, Wisdom hates lies.”

  “I still hurt in my gut,” she admitted.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “Come with me and we’ll walk down to the trash heap to discard the fish bones,” he said.

  She did not argue. She feared he might make public what occurred earlier. She did not want to face that until she was ready, and she had been too angered to reason it well in her mind web.

  “Is it your father’s judgment regarding Rimut and Pito?” he asked boldly. Tuksook was alarmed. Did her thoughts show so clearly? How had he known?

  “Tuksook, I asked you a question.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t contrive a lie. Tell me clearly and straight.”

  “There are some things that are personal.”

  “When it makes your belly hurt and you eat like a bird, it’s not personal anymore. Shall I let your father know that something is troubling you?”

  “No, please, Gumui. Please, no.”

  “So, it is that judgment?”

  She nodded.

  “That was just a passing failure to reason through his mind web. No man who loves his wife would force her.”

  She held her words.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She held her words.

  He grasped her shoulders. “Look into my eyes. Tell me what’s bothering you about it.”

  “I need to reason more in my mind web, before I can talk about it.”

  “Very well, Tuksook. I’ll wait until high sun tomorrow for your explanation. Then, we talk. The People do not permit children to keep harmful thoughts in their mind webs. It could cause them to sicken. That, Tuksook, comes from Wisdom. You know it.”

  And, so it did, she acknowledged. She didn’t want to be a child. She didn’t want to be a woman. She didn’t want to be People. She wanted to run, run to a place where she could be free. What made her happy was learning new things—being with Wisdom, but she couldn’t accomplish that by killing herself. Wisdom gave each person something like a spiritual length of narrow animal skin. The lengths varied according to Wisdom’s purpose. It was their personal life or time line. They lived as long as the length of their life line. Because it was spiritual and not physical, no one really knew the length of their time line. But Wisdom did. To kill one’s self was to steal Wisdom’s power over the life line. Stealing from Wisdom was unthinkable. The stories taught the People to be grateful for what length was given them. She knew Gumui would learn what she hid. She wondered whether she could keep him quiet about it. Why, she wondered, was he always there? Why did he care?

  Rain began to fall. The People scurried to the lean-tos that had been set up for each major family group. There were ten shelters. Tuksook saw where her father had taken his place and moved to the diagonal spot across from him at the far back. There was a small opening in the side where she could breathe in the fragrance of rain. She covered up with a warm fur. She was cold. She was grateful there would be no council that night.

  In her mind web Tuksook prayed, “Wisdom, help to change my father’s judgment.”

  In the middle of the night, Ghopi came to the lean-to calling for Item, Tuksook’s mother. Item arose and went to the front of the lean-to.

  “What is it, Ghopi?’ she asked, wondering why it couldn’t wait until morning.

  “Pito is losing very much blood. Rimut has been raping her all day long. She is in a bad way.”

  “Let me follow you,” Item said as she picked up a box from the side of the lean-to.

  Ghopi led her to the lean-to. They stepped inside to the smell of blood and sounds of sobbing. They discovered that Pito had died. Ghopi and Item were both outraged. They covered her to wait until the next morning for further action. Both glared at Rimut but in the dark the effort was wasted.

  Item returned to her lean-to. Midgenemo was sleeping. She kicked him.

  “What in the name of Wisdom is the matter with you, Wife?” he asked half awake.

  “More important, what’s the matter with you!” she returned. “You judged that women had no right to refuse a husband. Pito is dead because you defied the stories and Wisdom.”

  “Dead? You must be mistaken.”

  “She’s dead and you’re responsible. While he should have been working, Rimut raped her repeatedly today because of your ruling. You’re partly responsible for her death.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Item!” he replied harshly. “I ruled properly! If she’s dead, it’s her own fault. She should have been responsive to her husband.” He was awake and quite agitated.

  “Old Fool!” Item spat out the words quietly but in great anger. “You are unfit to lead with those thoughts. Our People have never been separated by power over one another. We have lives designed to support one another as two join into one. If a husband rapes his wife, he rapes half of himself. It makes him as a man who had the illness that leaves him with half a working body and the other half seemingly dead. There are times a woman should refuse her husband. You just saw one. It wasn’t for lack of loving him, though I don’t know what she saw in him. She had a painful sick belly. And he abused her for what reason? I can think of none but to show he’s more powerful, as if that could be a reason. You gave him permission to do it. Any man is more powerful than a woman; we’re built that way. To take advantage of that to cower a woman is contrary to Wisdom. A man’s more powerful for the hunt and to protect the People. He is to cherish his wife and she is to support him and the People. For a man to take any more power than that is a feeble, cowardly, unloving attempt to try to steal power away from Wisdom to use for his own perverse desire. You’re the Wise One. You should know that! I am disgusted!” She was yelling. Everyone could hear. />
  Midgenemo was fully angered. He reached out and slapped her face hard.

  “You’ll live to regret that,” she muttered. She moved near Tuksook. In the far back she slept the rest of the night.

  Tuksook had missed nothing. She ached for Pito. Tuksook thought the woman had some kind of sickness and Rimut had literally killed her for her refusal—with the permission of the Wise One. Some Wise One her father turned out to be. Her father, a man she once adored, had proved to be cruel and ignorant of Wisdom. She lay awake all night. She decided her feeling toward her father was hatred. He slapped her mother. She was certain she’d never forgive him.

  The next morning little groups of women gathered briefly out of hearing of men. Then, they went about their work as if nothing had happened. Taman, Hamaklob, and Hawk went about digging a grave at the far south end of the meadow. Amuin and Ghopi prepared Pito for burial. Rimut was talking with older girls, looking for another wife. The sun moved higher and higher, though in this part of the world, it did not rise overhead but instead high sun was when the sun reached the south. It seemed to circle just above the horizon except for a brief time at night.

  “There you are,” Gumui said.

  Tuksook jumped. She turned slowly. It was high sun.

  “Now, tell me what troubled you yesterday.”

  “Yesterday you vowed to Wisdom. Do you take your vows seriously?”

  “Of course,” he said surprised, “what makes you ask?”

  “I will share with you only if you vow to repeat nothing that I tell you, no matter how much you may want to repeat it. Do I have your vow?”

  “Suppose you need help to sort out your mind web?”

  “Then, you may help me.” She looked at him with big blue eyes shaded by thick straw colored lashes. Despite the color, he thought he’d never seen her more beautiful.