After this meeting we returned to our campsite and by the light of a weak-batteried flashlight, I wrote this story.
I intended, but forgot to post it along with my picture essay of the San.
I intended, but forgot to post it along with my picture essay of the San.
Here it is, belatedly:
F I R E !
The cave was in a rock
wall about three times his own height above ground.
He discovered it when
he climbed the tree which hid the entrance, to collect some eggs he
had spied in a King Fisher's nest.
The cave was roomy,
providing an entrance area and, just around a corner, a large space
just right for him and his family. He climbed down, using the sturdy
branches of the fig tree, and went to bring his mate and their three
off-spring.
“This is a good
place” she indicated, more by her smile than by her words.
He was proud of her
praise and returned her smile with his own.
The cave was
inaccessible to marauding predators and promised to remain their own
space, not to be co-occupied by kiss 'n kin.
At first sight he had
called her 'lada', meaning “song” or “melody” and she was
happy, now to have a name of her own.
While he was the
stronger, she was the quicker and more dexterous and so they shared
in the labor of bringing their few belongings and some dried food
supplies up the tree and into their new abode.
Both had seen “fire”
before, when lightening had struck a lone tree and the grassland was
engulfed in burning, and they enjoyed eating what sometimes was left
as the charred remains of a ground hog, too slow to escape.
If only he could make
fire himself when-ever and where-ever he needed or wanted it.
Then, one day he saw a
large rock falling from the wall and a spark flew when it struck
another rock on the ground.
It took no time before
he was able to make a spark by hitting rock on rock.
It was “lada” who
gathered some dried lichens and some very dry moss and indicated to
him that he should try and make a spark while having the stone
surrounded by this lichen and moss.
With determination he
attempted it again and again.
Then, all of a sudden,
it worked and a slight whiff of smoke curled upward and was followed
by a small flame. Tiny twigs and small branches, followed by larger
branches and then large pieces of drift wood, they had found by the
river, enabled them to control the flame according to their want and
need.
When the rainy Season
started and the nights turned chilly, he sometimes allowed the fire
to stay on, as he and his family enjoyed the warmth.
When one night low
pressure air hung over the valley and the smoke created by his
wonderful discovery, could not leave their rock wall abode, neither
he, nor lada, nor their three children ever woke up again
*************************
***************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment