Kewarratiwa's Story

Kewarratiwa's Story

  Laura Haglund

  Copyright 2013 Laura H. Haglund

  Author's Note:

  This is a prequel to my prehistoric fantasy A Drum Is Empty. For the sake of introducing a character who would inspire xenophobic ferment in the plot, I hypothesized a late migration from Africa that made no lasting impact on the genetic or cultural development of mankind in Europe. The Wa!ikerrima are kin to the Bushmen, small in stature but tough. They left their homeland in pursuit of a vision that has, at the time of my storytelling, apparently failed. They are close to extinction already, unwelcome wherever they go in the harsh competition for food during this last gasp of the Ice Age. This is the story of one survivor.

  The exclamation point in some names and words represents the click sound found in some languages.

  I found Tiwa to be somewhat of a problem, until I persuaded her to tell me her story. Characters are like that.

  Kewarratiwa's Story

  I am Kewarratiwa. I was born to Bine!twara of the Ulenga-makira Clan of the Wa!ilerrima. The ulenga-makira is an animal that does not live in this land, but in the land of the Sun, where my peple lived in my grandmother's grandmother's time.

  This is how it happened that I came to be lost to my own folk and found a new way to be happy.

  It was a night of late summer. We slept in our tents, with a guard watching. But either he was not attentive or the raiders were more skilled than we thought. Topadowaga was killed before he could rouse us and we were awakened by the screaming of those who were speared through their tents.

  There was no order or meaning to what anyone did. I came out of my family's tent with the deerskin from my bed in one hand and a digging stick in the other. Everyone slept like that, the men with a spear or club in hand, trying to be ready. There was light aplenty, the raiders had put fast-burning fuel into the coals of our cooking fire. I saw men die. One of the raiders grabbed me by an arm. My mother hit him with something and he let go. I hit him in the face with my digging stick.

  "Run! Run!" my mother yelled at me. I ran.

  I did not run far at first. I had to stop to let my eyes wake to the darkness. Away from the firelight, the raiders could not see me if I lay flat in the grass. I could hear the screaming. I know that my mother died that night. Maybe everyone. When I could see well enough by the light of stars, I went farther. I could not fight with any hope of living, and I wanted to live.

  Dawn came and I stopped to rest a short time. Then I walked on in another direction, to the side of the way I had taken in the night. All was quiet, there was no smoke anywhere. I rested again and ate some berries. There was no water in the small streambeds I crossed. That night I slept a little, wrapped in the hide I had grabbed half-asleep, with a big rock at my back.

  When the next day came, I tried to circle back toward our camp. It was the plan if we were separated to find one another by staying as near as possible without being found by the raiders, if they were still about. The sun was hot and I was very thirsty. I found more berries, but they were not enough. My grandmother had told me of ways to find water that her grandmother had learned as a child. In this Land of Walking Stones, her lore is of no use. Only by watching the animals or following the watercourses can one hope to find water in the late summer.

  I was hungry, but I knew that I would die first from lack of water. At the next dry streambed, I read the signs of the water's direction and turned downstream. All day I followed the trail of water that was long gone. One after another the dry streams joined and led on. My head swam and my feet hurt. There were more berries, I remember that.

  My digging stick might have got me some water if I could have dug deep enough, but I was not thinking very well. It was not until the next morning that I came upon some water. I nearly hurt myself getting to it. The small pool was beneath an undercut stone dropoff--there would have been a waterfall in spring. I climbed around and down over broken stone and got to it with difficulty. It was cool in the shadow of the dry falls. The water tasted like life itself. I tried not to drink too much.

  For a while I lay there on a cool slab of stone from which I could reach the water. I fell asleep. A roe deer's bark awoke me. It was dangerous to stay in a place where animals must come to drink. The sun-foolishness was clearing from my head a little. I drank as much water as I could, and headed downstream again.

  I hoped that if any of my clan survived they might come the same way. It was our second plan, since all rivers come together. It was also dangerous, of course, because the tall folk have their camps near rivers.

  So far luck had certainly smiled upon me. No bears or wolves had eaten me, I had not broken a leg running in the dark. Some of my people might still live and we would be together again. I had scratches and bruises, but I found healing herbs along the banks to soothe them.

  There were edible roots too, so I did not go altogether without food. If I had had a waterskin, I might have been very well off. Better, I am sure, if I had been a man and had a spear.

  I know how to catch birds and small animals with nets and snares, but without tools I could not cut a thong for a snare, and with no children for beaters, a net is of little use. I had not yet come to any water great enough to support fish. One can eat snails and crawling things, and I did.

  But I had to keep moving too. It was a long time before I found water again.

  My sleep was so full dreams that I had little rest. Many times I watched my grandmother leave us. I could see a little now how it might have been for her when she was cast out. Only a little, though, because I still had hope of life. She had none.

  Grandmother was not a bad woman, but she did what a woman must not do. The spirits might have punished all of us for what she did, if she had been allowed to stay. I don't know. It seems as though we were punished anyway. I do not want to deal with the spirits. They are strong, and do what they will. It is safer to avoid their attention.

  The craft of healing is already too close to the domain of the spirits, but it is necessary for our people to survive. My grandmother was a noted healer. It gave her more power than other women--perhaps too much. She trained me, as she had trained my mother, and she said that I was like her in my way of knowing. Because of that, I was afraid that I would anger the great ones some day too.

  Having power and status does not mean that one can do as one pleases--or at least it does not please everyone. My mother and Nacharwek and even my brother, Ba!arri, were angry with me for refusing to go with that man of the Lembri!a clan--but he had beaten his other mate so much that she died giving birth, that was what the women of that clan said. I knew that he would beat me too, because of my grandmother. I did not want to be cast out, or even to be a dry bone--a woman with no mate and no children--but I did not want to be beaten either.

  Besides, just to look at him made my heart shrink. I believe that I saw his spirit looking through his eyes. I could not tell anyone that. It mattered little to me that he had high status in the eyes of men. I could not live with such a beast.