Ember of a New World (3 page)

If Calpano ever failed to return it might be...
, he thought,
and F
a
ja would be better off in my arms
. As suddenly as he thought it, he
waved the notion aside. Such thoughts poisoned the mind and would never come true anyway. Calpano had a short, recently cut, streak of blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and an ever-smug look about him. Co
n
sidering the demeanor of Rosif and Calpano, Pak generally kept to the rear of the party and avoided as much socialization with either of his companions as po
ssible.

Pak had been coerced into going along with this present group by his father, a stern and uncompromising man. His father, Ran, had been wounded in a raid when he was younger and had never achieved any of the accolades his father, Torn, had. He now spent much of his time seeking power from the people of his tribe as a tribal elder, though he was far
too
young. Regardless of age or ability, Ran would become an elder one way or another. A son who joined a dangerous scouting trip and returned a success would make him look better in the eyes of the Elders, speeding this process along. Ran would seem as wise as any hunter, merely wounded. If Pak failed, then his father would appear to be the break in a long line of hunters ending with Torn, Pak's grandfather. Having just recently become a man, Pak still had a duty to follow his father's wishes and accept the journey. Many tribes forced new adults to undertake tasks or feats, but not Pak's tribe. He wondered what it would have been like
to be forced to pe
r
form
a feat
...

Oh yeah... this is what it would be like
, he thought, as he recalled that he was effectively undergoing a
task per his father's wishes.

Pak relaxed with a few deep breaths, gave his bright blue eyes long exasperated blink, and tried to consider the benefits of his cu
r
rent situation. If he felled a large animal, such as an Auroch, a large wild cow of sorts, or obtained rare wares from a distant trader, he would be at an advantage in calling a woman to his side at a ritual. Such benefits were the real prize a man sought when hunting rare or dangerous game. The dangerous and lengthy hunt was actually just the first step towards a man's true quarry:
a mate
.

It was customary for a man to call out to a woman to dance with him during a ritual and if she accepted it was understood that they would become a mated pair. Often
,
these events were well chore
o
graphed by carefully plotting parents long in advance, but Pak could choose as he wished and be reasonably sure his choice would choose him as well if he could return in triumph, though any woman he called would have the final say. He had several women in mind
,
too. There was a young blonde he liked, and that one girl with the pointy
nose. With thoughts of potential females in mind
,
Pak pulled his long dark hair back in a
ponytail
, slung his bow over his shoulder, and did his best to laugh off the events.

If I found a wife because of this trip, that would make this worth it
, he mused.

*  *  *

The Great Lunar Festival was normally a major event, but this
full harvest’s
would be more important to Ember's family because Ember's cousin Heather was to be joined with a man from a neighbo
r
ing tribe. Heather was named for a flower which bloomed a purple color and gave the grassy meadows some needed color in the late thawing season. The lucky man, Vance, would probably come to call Ember's longhouse home and ally himself with her tribe. Both Heather and Vance would stand before the tribe and agree to live as one. This was an exciting and wonderful event which happened on
ce or twice a harvest at best.

It was a common custom for a young man to leave a tribe and join another tribe or wed and bring a wife from another tribe to his own. The practice had originated so far in the past that its rationale was not even considered, though there were practical reasons, inclu
d
ing the sharing of skills learned from other tribes and the reasons unknown to Ember, such as keeping a fresh gene pool. Often tribes would hold group festivals or rituals where people could meet, aiding this ex
change.

Ember momentarily considered the eventual day when she might be chosen by a man from another tribe. Would he join her tribe or would she be forced to leave her home and venture elsewhere? The thought scared her, yet her fear brought forward a sense of exhilar
a
tion as well. Ember had always been excited by the prospect of adventure, and soon she might just get it. This was not only the Great Lunar Festival or even a joining, it was also the day chosen as E
m
ber’s coming of age; on this day
she would become a woman.

Ember continued her alterations between fear and exhilaration as she left the village and strode down the small, but well worn, dirt path which the tribe used to access the river banks. Behind her a sort of token palisade of wooden poles kept the boundaries of the village in order, without truly gaining much security. Tribes farther away from the river, who relied on farming more heavily, or even mining, r
e
quired better walls and traps to discourage raiders. This was not as serious to Ember's people who fished and gathered from the river much of their foodstuffs. The collected foodstuffs could easily be r
e
plenished and did a raiding party little good. Not only did the river provide a passive form of protection, but the river was the mainstay of the tribe providing water, food, and building materials. Houses were patched with drift wood, mud, and clay. The bellies of those workers were filled with shellfish, fish, an
d animals lured to the waters.

The river was the center of most of the tribes’ activities. In the morning and evening the younger men and women would fish, pr
i
marily for catfish and salmon, using simple spears. Many would use nets to catch varieties of small fish which swam in schools close to shore. The older women would clean clothing and gather reeds for weaving at the shores. At the end of the day, the men could often be found cleaning and dressing the animals which th
ey had hunted earl
i
er that day.

Aside from working by the water, e
veryone in the tribe bathed each morning, and sometimes at night, on any day warm enough to do so. Every ten-day from the start
of
the
cold season until the start of the warm season, a large fire would be set by the water and those who needed extra cleaning would take a quick dip in the cold waters, or hand wash themselves. The fire would provide the instant warmth needed to allow such cleaning during the cold season. When the cold season proper fully came, the water would become too cold for an
y
one, fire or no. Washing was then performed by hand, one body part at a time. Ember's land was a cold place, but People of the Great Ri
v
er were hearty and tough.

Besides the fishing and gathering, the tribe grew some simple crops in several small demarcated squares of land. However, nearly half of their food still came from hunting, fishing, and foraging. One of Ember's favorite dishes, boiled lentils with salt, came from those fields and every few days her turn came to spend a full day working them. In this way the work was distributed amongst the people jus
t as the crops.

With thoughts of boiled and heavily salted lentils on her mind, Ember skipped happily down the path feeling the cool earth on her bare feet. Most people wore shoes made of hide wrappings or woven reeds, but a person walking barefoot was not all that uncommon when it was warm. During most of th
e seasons it was much too cold.

Along the way to the river, Ember ventured off of the path and behind a copse of trees where she found the small bushes of red co
l
ored “sour berries”, as they were called, which she had been picking for quite some time. She squatted with her reed basket and began s
e
lecting the best berries, those free of insect damage. The berries were warmed by the sun and ripe for the picking. Ember quickly placed nearly as many berries in the little reed basket as she placed in her mouth, and trotted off down the path towards the river. Her stomach grumbled from the tartness but she didn't care.

Ember always made the worst work of harvesting. She generally stuffed herself with the majority of what she had picked. As a result, her duties often included fishing, which she was good at, and finding flint pieces at the rivers shore. It was doubtful she would stuff a fish in her mouth raw, though she had done so a few times with small shellfish she found. Ember paused for a moment to savor the mem
o
ries of tasty raw mussels. She often found them in the mud by the banks, and ate them raw. The taste was sweet but chewy. Her mother seemed more amused by her daughter's inability to forage, with any net returns, than angered by her antics. With a smile, Ember burped loudly and continued to skip lightheartedly down the path towards the river where she knew her mother would be working.

Ember heard the river before she saw it: a rushing sound of water mixed with the muffled sounds of children playing and women laug
h
ing. As she rounded the bend, the river came into view in all of its glory: a great expanse of water nearly twice as wide as the village with pebbly shores and gently moving waters. At the shore, women were cleaning caught fish and herding the children out of the more dangerous deeper waters and into the small shoals where they might look for the finely colored stones which cou
ld be crafted into trade wares.

Mostly the women wore woven reed skirts and an occasional w
o
ven plant fiber shirt or fish skin leather clothing, while the children ran about the same way they came into the world. Some of the youn
g
er women, hoping to
catch the eyes of any man from
neighboring village
s
who might wander by the river
,
or even tempt a local man, wore fine necklaces of multicolored beads or even a colorful bird feather in their hair. Their faces were painted with more striking pa
t
terns, zigzagging lines or dots, than the married women. Ember thought the finery beautiful, if not totally cumbersome in the water.

In the deeper water
,
several of the older boys could be seen with small spears catching fish. Like the women, the older boys wore w
o
ven reed wraps around their waists, though some opted for thin animal skins wrapped in the same manner. The boys were hoping to catch the eye of women with their fishing skills, each trying to
outdo
the next.

Like the boys,
Ember also tended to spend the rare warm days in the deeper water fishing for larger fish. Most of the time it was too cold and she would have to rely on a fishing spear, with a tether to retrieve it from the bank.
Luckily, the water was warmer than normal from the warm temperatures of late.

After a moment's scan of the river, Ember’s eyes settled upon her mother, East. East sat upon the ground cleaning a fish not ten lengths of a man from the path where Ember stood. East looked up and smiled at her daughter. Ember walked over and knelt beside her mother, who was using a thin and very small flint blade to clean a large catfish. The blade was probably a small shard from a flint kna
p
per, someone skilled
at the craft of creating tools from flint or chert. Such shards were kept and tooled using firm pressure to shape them into tiny but useful knives, of a sort. Today, the flint was being used to dress a Catfish. Catfish were a favorite catch because they were easier to prepare than many fish. This was because they bore no real scales and required only gutting, a messy job.

Gutting was required for any animal before it could be cooked and eaten. The entrails would first be removed a
nd
discarded. Eating entrails or allowing any of their “poisons” into the body would make you very ill. This was common wisdom passed down from mother to daughter. However, many of the organs were kept and eaten for their nutritional value. Great care was required when removing and sep
a
rating these organs from entrails and other discarded pieces. This was a task at which East was quite proficient.

“It’s always nice when you awaken merely to see how the rest of us do our work
,
” she said sarcastically. Ember shrugged and let the comment roll off of her. She had been guilty of sleeping late many times in her life and she wasn’t about
to let her mother get to her.

“You will have to be more considerate of others when you b
e
come a woman, Ember. Or do you plan to remain a girl for your entire life? You could even start by sitting down beside your tired mother and helping her with these fish. They don't gut themselves, you know
,”
she said gesturing to several fish of different sorts beside her.
Ember held back a smile as she thought of a self-gutting fish, causing East to frown. Often, the older women gutted and cleaned the fish while the younger folk caught them. With that opening, Ember took out the small reed basket
and set it beside her mother.