The Sicily Chronicles

9230 B.C.E.-5

“You push now,” she told Folu. The young mother had been told about the life that trailed the baby, and knew there would be one more, easier delivery to take care of. But she seemed startled when she saw that there was a thing that connected the baby to it. A brief fear furrowed her brow, but then Baia spoke.

“It is the life that brought baby. But not a real life.”

Encouraged to push by Nanda, Folu worked the afterbirth out of the delivery canal, and the sack sagged on the ground between her legs. Nanda had come prepared and she reached into the folds of her wrap to produce two twisted threads. Attaching one to the cord close the baby’s belly and the other a hand’s width down the cord, she reached her open hand back to Tano.

The man’s eyes went wide, confused at why Nanda was gesturing to him. Baia was facing his direction and took in the scene with a light chuckle.

“Cut,” she said, cupping her hand upward and flipping it toward her, telling him to bring a knife. “Cut,” she repeated.

Nanda’s hand was still held open in his direction, so Tano turned quickly, grasped the sharp cutting stone he had used on the saplings two days earlier, and gave it to Nanda.

The midwife quickly sliced through the cord between the two knots and lifted the afterbirth to remove it from the hut. In the meantime, Baia was sprinkling water on the baby and gentling removing the birth fluids from the skin. Then she stood and followed Nanda out of the shelter.

* * *

Tano sat next to the fire with the women of the village. They were preparing the meals for the day; he was using his scraper to sharpen the tips of arrows that he got from Farutu and one lone spear he himself had crafted from a birch branch.

The fire was low at this point in the day, packed tight with heated rocks and kept small, just enough to bake the day’s bread and soften the fibers of the vegetables that would be too tough to chew. Nanda arrived with an armload of harvest from the village’s common plot. She brought a dark green, leafy plant, a twisted and dusty bundle of small tubers the size of a child’s fist, pale-leafy lettuce that seemed to be a bit sunburned, and long stalks of field grass with bulbs on the end of each branch that sported tiny white-yellow kernels and wisps of feathery hair. She lowered the bundle onto the ground next to the fire and prepared to distribute the largesse among the women seated there.

Tano knew little about food; preparation was not left solely to the women in the village but the men contributed in only certain ways. They built the fires, brought in felled game, and helped prepare some of the harvested food. But the women knew how to use their heightened olfactory sense and their experience at the fire pit to deliver the food that would nourish the tribe.

Nanda and Baia made daily trips to the water’s edge, stepping lithely through the soft mud and reeds to pick up the small sea creatures that populated the sea grass. There were small shells that they would throw into the fire to cook and pry open. There were larger, black-shelled elongated bivalves with a creature of soft orange flesh inside, and a broad, white-shelled animal with pink and white flesh.

When they had enough for the day’s meals, they would walk, slowly, back to the village, their eyes on the green sprouts that hugged the trunks of trees and grew in lonely clumps along the path. The aromatic leaves of these plants – early forms of thyme, sage, and rosemary – would be used to flavor the meat and root vegetables to be eaten that day. Some of these were so fragrant that Nanda tied bunches together and hung them from the roof of her hut.

The leaves and scented herbs could be picked in bunches, but they did not harvest more of the sea creatures than they needed in the day. Fish, once caught, could be dried, but there was no way to keep the dead shelled animals, and the people could return anytime and there would be more to get.

These treasures they brought to the campfire where Tano was sitting, working the end of the shaft of an arrow that he had bartered from Farutu. While the women prepared the foodstuffs for cooking, Tano rubbed his sharpened stone over and over across the tip of the arrow, sometimes shaving splinters away, and sometimes simply using the stone to smooth and compress the fibrous wood grains of the bamboo-like shaft. Every so often, he inspected the results, holding the tip up close to his face, then putting this end of the arrow into the embers of the fire to harden the point.

Tano finished sharpening and hardening the tip of the arrows he got from Farutu that day and returned to his shelter to check on Folu. She was lying on her mat, with the newborn suckling her. Folu looked up at Tano and smiled, more relaxed now than in the morning. She lightly tossed her head to the side to draw Tano’s attention to something. Hanging from the long, wooden ribs of the ceiling was a string of fish. In the excitement of the morning, he had forgotten his catch but one of the women had come along and cleaned and strung the fish up to dry.

“Neeri,” was all Folu said, and Tano smiled in appreciation.

While he was in the hut, the earth shook and Folu cried out in fear. Tano quickly ran outside and stood stock still at the sound of a roaring wind rumbling through the village. Other people were out of their shelters, and Folu called out to Tano.

“Here, here!” she said urgently, and waved for him to come back inside.

He put his hand up to reassure her but stayed in the middle of the cluster as more people arrived. There was fevered talk among some, as children clutched at their mothers’ sides, as the elders gathered together.

The ground tremors continued, accompanied by an eerie wind, and suddenly a brilliant red glow rose in the southern sky. The source was too distant to spot, but the fiery light continued to grow until it lit up much of the sky in that direction.

“Manta,” one man said, pointing toward the unseen island in watery sea beyond their own island.

The eruption continued to shake the ground for a long time that day, even until the sun fell into the water and the southern sky was ablaze with orange and bright yellow fulminations. Initial fears subsided with the earth tremors, but concern was still present on the faces gathered around the fire pit.

“Gods awake,” said Anutu, and Lotya nodded.

By this time, Folu had come out of the shelter with her baby and huddled close to Tano. Neeri, Baia, and Nanda were there too, with their children and another few adults. They ate their meal in silence, but after finishing, conversation resumed.

“We go,” was Anutu’s advice.

“Gods fight here,” said Lotya pointing to the ground at his feet. “They fight on Fansu. We go to big island, where sun rises,” he added, pointing to the east, to the land they called Ganta.

“Safer there?” asked Neeri. “Why safer there?”

Anutu shrugged.

“Not safe here,” he replied, shaking his head and looking down at his feet.

Farutu had joined the group to offer his elderly advice.

“Ganta never shake,” he said. He had no way to know this, but the people trusted those who had lived so long.

“We go,” repeated Anutu.

Tano was silent. He feared for himself, Folu, and the baby. He didn’t want them to perish in the great fight between the gods. But he had raised the subject with Folu and she was terrified of the sea. “I won’t go,” she had said then, clutching her baby to her breast. Tano tried to persuade her, reminding her that the elders knew better, better than Anutu. Even Farutu said they should go.

But Folu shuddered at the talk, and looked at Tano, shaking her head. Around the fire that night, she repeated her position.

“No, we not go,” she said, rocking her baby and looking at her man with fear and uncertainty.

Tano sighed, and others watched as this young couple debated their future.

Not much more was said that night, and people in the other clusters in the village had begun to talk of it. Anutu and Lotya were leading the talk, but only professed their opinion and didn’t try to convince the others.

* * *

In the village, survival depended on cooperative work. There weren’t very many people – even procreation had its unique traditions since most of the villagers had some blood relation with the others – any actions that split the group were dangerous. Past experience dictated that they stay together, an internal defense system that protected them from the unfamiliar ways of other tribes, ensured cooperative food gathering and preparation, and perhaps most of all proved to all members that they were part of a community that would respect and protect them.

But a consensus was developing among this cluster and some members of other clusters. Anutu, Baia, Lotya, and Nanda had decided that abandoning Fansu and moving to Ganta was better, and Neeri who had lost her man intended to follow. They all knew, though, that in the end the tribe had to move as one for safety. There would be more talk, and more disagreement among the villagers, and out of the debate each side hoped their view would win the day.

* * *

Anutu and Lotya stood talking to people from another cluster in the village. Among the fifty people in the tribe, about half wanted to move to Ganta and the others wanted to remain.

Tribal life was lived near the edge of existence. The risks that were inherent in hunting wild animals was still a present concern, though it was reduced somewhat by the growth of agriculture, so fewer men were lost in violent endings. Childbirth was still the greatest threat to the women, but the social support structure – not to mention the generations of midwifery – was slowing easing the deadly consequences there.

Still, a critical mass was required to maintain the variety of primitive technologies that sustained the society, not to mention at least a limited heterogeneity in the gene pool. This matter of biology was beyond the understanding of the people on Fansu, but the improved prospects of survival of large groups over small groups was a lesson not lost on the ancients.

Lotya cast a glance at the campfire in his cluster, smiling at Nanda and their children, then returned his attention to the small clique gathered around him.

“Fansu trembles,” he said. “The gods are fighting. The fight is now bigger.”

Anutu stood silently by, staring at the ground and slowly nodding his head.

Farutu, the oldest among them, listened carefully, studying the faces of those in a circle that included both men and women. The only children to hear the conversation would be the littlest toddlers, those standing in the shadow of their mothers.

“Folu,” began Tano haltingly. “She won’t go. She says the baby is too small, this is our land, and she is not strong enough.” He paused, then added, “I think she fears the sea more than she fears the gods.”

“The gods are not fighting us,” Farutu offered. “We do not have to fear them.”