the prompt for this story was to write a coming of age story with a first paragraph that grabbed the readers’ attention.
Grg was terrified. He hoped he was hiding it, but still, he was so afraid he could hardly breathe. The Mammoth was huge; taller at the shoulders then any of the men and the body even longer than the height, and it had to weigh at least 2,500 pounds. And it was coming straight for him; head down, big, sharp horns aimed at his chest, snorting and bellowing in anger and pain. In a daze, he raised his spear thrower, aimed and shot with his eyes closed then stood waiting for those horns to hit.
This was the biggest Mammoth the Tall Tree Clan had ever hunted, and they were short three men, who had been injured in a previous hunt. That is why Grg, Prt and Nig, three novice hunters, had been included; usually they were only in hunts for smaller game, like reindeer, foxes or hares. Grg had been on two such hunts, and even those scared him. Suddenly he became aware of two things; first, he was still standing and hadn’t been hit, second, the others who had been stationed at the rear of the mammoth were all yelling and slapping him on the back. He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the Mammoth, horns only about two feet from his toes with his spear in its left eye. He was stunned. He’d killed it? HE’D KILLED IT!!! He was both stunned and overjoyed; he had made his first big kill. How Wonderful!
The noise and excitement died down as the adult males, who had been in front of the animal waiting for it to charge in their direction, away from the annoying spears and rocks thrown from the sides and rear. Instead, a spear Prt had thrown by hand had hit it in the most vulnerable spot, and caused it to leap and turn back to put an end to those puny, insufferable things that had caused it so much pain. The surprised adults had stared in amazement, and when the noise broke out among the lesser hunters, came at the run, thinking the younger hunters were in trouble. During that run, Ulf, the master weapons and tool maker, had caught his foot in the entrance to a burrow and fallen, breaking his leg. They left him there, but when they saw that the mammoth was dead and the hunters all safe, two went back to bring him to the site of the kill.
Rph, the chief of the clan, stood for a moment staring at the excited younger hunters, amazed that one of them had killed the huge beast. He soon realised that Grg was the lucky hunter, and his heart swelled with pride. Walking over to Grg, he put both hands on his shoulders. “Grg,” he said, “I am so very proud of you, not only as your chief, but also as your father! Welcome, you are now a Full Hunter!” He grinned at Grg who looked stunned for a moment, and then grinned back, shoulders straightening in pride.
Rph turned to the others. “Start butchering the kill, we must start back soon. There will be a heavy load for each one to carry.” He looked at Ulf, sadly. “My friend, you are one of the most valued members of the clan, but we can’t carry you and the kill.”
Ulf looked up at him, face set firmly to hide the pain. “I know, Rph, it was my own fault, I should have been watching for burrows. Mft’s skills in weapon making are developing well, I’m sure he will be able to take my place. Be easy, friend. I know my fate.”
Everyone stood staring, muttering sadly. Mft was coming along well, but he was nowhere near skilled enough to make all the weapons and tools the tribe needed. Grg looked from Ulf to Rph, hesitated, and then said “Father, I helped Oogtag when Mrg broke her arm, and Blt was tending granfer. I can fix Ulf’s leg, if some of the others can gather googlegum tree leaves, a lot of them. And a stick long enough to go from his knee to his ankle. It should be about two inches thick and split lengthwise down the middle. Then I can fix him a stick to help him walk back home. He might need someone to help keep him steady.”
Rph looked at Grg for a moment, and asked “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Grg said. “I am very sure. And if the mammoth is skinned carefully, perhaps I can suggest a way to get it all back home, even the bones and tusks. Remember how I used to move things for Mrg when they were too heavy for me?”
Rph laughed. “Yes, I do. I thought you were wasting time until I saw how well it worked. But those were small sticks. You couldn’t move that big animal on them.”
Grg grinned. “No father, but we could do it with those.” He pointed to a stand of ten very straight trees, with boles about ten inches in diameter, and a good five feet long from root to the first branches. “If the meat and as much else as possible is wrapped and tied in the skin, it can be pushed along by Brsh, Lrg, Luf, Drf, Zlt Vrk. With Prt, Nig, Flt, Wift, Volf and me; we can catch the logs as they roll out and run them to the front. That leaves you, Zrsh, Trg and Srv to help Ulf and carry the large bones and the tusks. Wouldn’t that be all right?”
“That would be perfect, son.” Rph turned to the others. “OK, you heard him everyone, get to work, we have a lot to do before we can go home.”
Grg quickly set Ulf’s leg, wrapped it in the googlegum leaves which stuck together when pressed, and contained something that promoted healing. He took the strips of wood and wrapped them in place on each side of the leg for support. Then he found a small tree, with a bole of about three inches diameter and branches that stuck out opposite each other. Trimming it down so that only two branches were left, he wrapped the leaves around the Y shape at the top and made a handy crutch for Ulf to use.
(Editor’s note: an insertion by Mary Duncan – I had been watching and listening to it all from hiding as I often did for the hunts, so I quickly gathered some of the googlegum leaves and joined the hunters who welcomed me with reverence. I offered to help Grg but he was managing well, so when the liver was extracted, I made a fire and cooked it, as was the tradition. The hunters always ate the liver of a kill on site, and with great ceremony, honouring the beast who gave it. Everything went as Grg had suggested, and the hunters returned in triumph with an abundance of meat, a huge hide, many bones and the ivory tusks for the making of handles for weapons and tools, and the full tribal celebration ensued.)
One of the younger boys was on the watch, and shouted the news when he saw them coming. This brought everyone out to see the triumphant return of the hunting party, and they were awed when they saw the size of the bundle, and the way they were moving it along. One of the older men, not agile enough for a big hunt had taken some of the younger boys out on a small game hunt and had brought back two hares and a fox. The women and older girls had been gathering fruit, berries, nuts and roots, to add to the food store. When they saw the men returning with a mammoth, the women quickly went back to the cook fires. By the time most of the mammoth meat was stored in a hidden, cold cave, the feast was ready. Everyone fell to with gusto, and after the worst of the hunger was appeased, Prt, the joker and apprentice storyteller, gave a lively, humorous account of the killing of the mammoth accompanied by much laughter and great enjoyment of the tribe. The feast ended with fresh red berries, and fermented grape juice.
After the women had cleared things away, Bft got out his bone flute and started playing. Soon Stph, Grg’s sister, started singing. Then some other flutes joined, and Dlg started hitting a Cave Bear skull with the palms of his hands, adding a driving beat. The whole tribe sang, crooning in harmony, thanking the Gods, their resident Goddess, and the Mammoth for the feast, and the good Ideas Grg had had to get everyone home safely.
Afterword: The above story is based on a large store of flat rocks stored in a cave near a 1966 Archeological dig in a small village of Pit Houses, in what is now Mezhirich in central Ukraine, overlooking the floodplains of the rivers Ros and Rosava. Buried deep among the rocks was a plastic wrapped parcel containing three modern notebooks, giving a fifteen year history of the lives and doings of the clan who lived there at the end of the Upper Paleolithic age. The archaeologists had been stunned; they couldn’t understand how prehistoric rocks could have modern writing engraved on them, until they found the notebooks. Carbon dating had placed the rocks at around 26,000 BC. When Paul Anderson opened the first notebook, he gasped, and exclaimed “It’s written by Mary Duncan, our archaeologist who disappeared last year! She wrote it! it was buried among the rocks.” Professor Henry Gibbson hurried over to look at the notebook. “It is amazing that paper has lasted so well for so long. Mary did a good job of preserving it. I am so happy to find out what happened to her. It will be interesting to read her account” he said.
With the help of the notebook, the team was able to sort the rocks chronologically and get the entire story of the lives of the Tall Tree Clan. A young boy of the tribe found Mary and, though afraid, brought her home to the tribe. Here is a quote from the notebook. “Somehow, I was temporally displaced and I am now in the actual village we were unearthing. At first I panicked, and ran around pounding on all the rocks that looked like the one I bumped into when I stumbled in the tunnel. A little boy about four years old, managed to get me to follow him, and took me to his home. The people calmed me down, bowing and making offerings to me; they seem to think I am a goddess, and have given me an honoured place in the tribe. I know that I will spend the rest of my life here, so I will keep records and preserved them as well and as long as I can, to help those in the future who are on that dig. I hope this lasts for them to find” The story above, recorded ten years after her arrival, is the tale of how Grg went on a hunt, and went through a coming of age event.
