seen anything like them. They had seen the eagles’ nests and they dragged sticks and then larger sticks and made piles of them, and crept into them when dark came. Then they grew bigger and stronger and they began leaning fallen branches together to make shelters. This was an easy climate; they did not have to fear cold. But let us not forget the beasts in the forests that stood at a distance on either side of the great river. How they escaped the beasts has to remain a bit of a marvel. Did some god or goddess aid the little things? But in their records is never the mention of divine intervention. Yes, they were the children of the Eagle, but that is as far as divinity went, for them.
We must remember the first little males were badly mutilated, in ways I for one would rather not dwell on. Their ‘squirts’ had been so mishandled, pulled and played with, and their sacs had sometimes been cut off for the game of extracting the stones, and above all, they had never known tenderness or maternal care. Their mothers had fed them, on the orders of the Old Shes, but reluctantly, and never enough. We may like to soften this painful story by imagining a Cleft who did feel some affection for her misbegotten babe, but she would have had to hide what she felt, and any caresses or care must have been sketchy. And they were tough, and hardy and skilful at avoiding attention. Skinny little boys, but strong and fearless, improbably surviving, but at least they were away from their tormentors, the Clefts.
Then something remarkable happened. The eagles brought them some boy babies, left out on the Killing Rock. Hungry yelling babies, but not mutilated; and how were the little boys to feed them?
Not only dangerous wild animals lived in the forests, friendly ones did too. The little boys saw deer, with fawns and probably had their first lessons in parental love, watching does with their fawns. They crept close, to watch. A doe stood its ground, unafraid: there was no reason yet for any animal to fear our kind. And besides, this was a child, and needy. The boy stood fondling the doe’s soft fur, while the fawn butted or licked his legs. Then the fawn began to suckle. And the boy, kneeling, did the same. The doe stood, and turned her head and licked the child. And so that was how began the intimacy between the children and the deer.
There was a song, ‘We are the children of the deer’, but it was never as compelling as the songs about the eagles.
When the new babies howled and screamed and the little boys knew they had to be fed, what could have been more natural than for the babes to be taken to the does, who had soon to learn to lie down, the babes beside them. And what did the does gain from this? We may speculate. It is my belief that animals are more intelligent than we ever give them credit for. After all, it was a she wolf who suckled our forefathers, Romulus and Remus. Her statue and the two babes are much loved by us. Probably the beginning of this bond was the terrible need of the babes, who were dying for lack of what the deer – and the she wolf – had in plenty. Need calls forth its response.
And why did the eagles take to saving the babes and bringing them over the mountain to the lads, instead of devouring them? For one thing, the boys caught fish for the eagles, and laid them on the grass, and the great birds, having delivered their burden of screaming babies, would stand over the fish, enormous fish, and feed there, and often they came between deliveries of babes, for their meals. Or they would take a fish or part of one – there were very large fish in the river – up into the mountain for their nestlings.
And the second wave of Monsters, or Squirts, were not mother-deprived, but were licked and nuzzled and fed by the kindly deer, who sometimes played with the fawns as if they were fawns themselves.
The feeding babies and deer would have to lie down together. There were no vessels or containers then. Soon, though, shells from the river became utensils, and gourds. There was not nearly as much weed in the river as there was in the sea, but these boys grew into strong lads, and the seashore was not far for hardy boys. This shore was a distance from the Clefts’ shore, but continuous with it. The boys did not know for a long time that if they had journeyed in one direction along their beaches – they had beaches, the Clefts only had smooth warm rocks – they would encounter the Clefts, their persecutors.
They brought varieties of weed from the sea, and shellfish, and some sea fish, and the new babes were fed very well, as soon as they outgrew milk. And the friendly deer were offered weed, which they liked, and flesh of the fish and shellfish, but this they did not like.
But it must have been hard for the boys, keeping the babes fed, even with the aid of the deer. The eagles were always bringing more of the Monsters and these were not mutilated now. The eagles were perched on high rocks from where they could see the Clefts and their rocks, and as soon as there was a new little boy, they swooped and saved it and brought it over the mountain.
Some Squirts, we believe, were still hidden in the caves, but you cannot easily keep prisoner energetic boys, unless they are tied. Some Squirts were tied, but they made such a noise, yelling and screaming, that when they escaped, running away, guided by the great birds, the old Clefts were relieved. No more little boys were kept as ‘pets’, and the Clefts reverted to their earlier practice: any babe not snatched away by the eagles as they came out of the womb were put out on the Killing Rock and instantly carried off by the eagles.
Soon there was a community of young males, we do not know how many. The chroniclers did not go in for exactitude. And time was passing, the very first arrivals were now strong young men, and troubled with all kinds of questions about their equipment of tubes and bumps and lumps. Yes, they knew now the tube was for passing urine.
The males could not expect to live till old age, not when they were in and out of that dangerous rushing river, and the wild animals were so close in the trees. One died, of an illness, or of an accident, and the chroniclers did not specify; what they recorded was that this death raised a question … they saw that they could expect to die, and then what would they do to replace themselves? The Clefts had the power of birth, but they did not.
As for the Squirts – and I like that term better than the Monsters: at least it is accurate – they began to be anxious about the supply of babes brought by the eagles. Suppose the eagles decided not to bring the boy babies over the mountain? Once the question had arisen it would not go away. Over there on their shore – and some of the boys remembered it well – the Clefts gave birth. Without the Clefts there would be no new arrivals in the eagles’ claws, there would be no Squirts.
And how long did the period of questioning and doubt go on? We have no idea. The songs of the early men were histories, of a kind. They sang of their times with the Clefts, and the cruelties were well recorded. There were songs that told of escape from pain and fear to this valley where the eagles were their friends, the deer gave them milk, and there were fish in the river and in the sea. They had shelter, better than the early heaps of sticks. They were brave and strong and healthy, and their numbers were growing … but they did not have the knack of giving life.
They were wild and restless, those first males, our so distant ancestors, and their nature took them long distances into the forests, and they began to know at least one part of their island, which was large, though they had no idea of that. They found great airy forests, deep and swift rivers and their tributaries, the little streams, pleasant hills, peaceful shores – this was what those earlier explorers found. They learned the ways of the wild animals and how to avoid them, and then, soon, how to kill them for food. They never killed the deer, their friends, whom they associated with gentleness and kindness, and with nourishment. They knew themselves to be better off, better fed, with much more space to move in, than the Clefts who never left their shore.
They were always tormented by the demands of their maleness, but did not know what it was they yearned for. All the tricks and devices for allaying sexual hunger were theirs, including the use of a certain animal – not a deer, they could not have brought themselves to use their milk donors, their mothers, in fact. But they did not use the words for mother, father. How could they? They did not know they
