The Sicily Chronicles

9230 B.C.E.-7

“Big fires are set by gods,” Anutu said. “When we push onto the sea, we set a big fire. The gods will leave us alone then, until we get to Ganta.”

Over the next few days, the people who decided to leave Fansu busied themselves for the trip. The men hunted less, killing only enough deer and wild pigs to feed them while still in the village. They couldn’t bring large animals on the rafts, but they continued to hunt for small animals, mice, shrews, hedgehogs, and birds that could be carried aboard the floating platforms without sinking.

The women tended their garden and helped their men fish the shores. They bundled the harvest grain and tubers in large skins given by the sheep they raised and hung the fish by strings in the sun to dry. Within a few days, they had acquired more food than they usually harvested, a cache needed to sustain the people over the trip they envisioned and for the first few days on Ganta, since they didn’t know what they would find there.

Some of the men were assigned to felling trees and cutting branches to the specified lengths. The piles grew large as the days passed, and the people who had decided to stay on Fansu talked often of their decision. Doubts grew, but so did the arguments. The anger never challenged the peace of the village, but the indecision spread stress and confusion.

By the time the wood piles had grown enough to account for the rafts necessary for the voyage, the “leavers” were ready. At night, the conversations at each cluster roamed over the actions to take, and the people who would go. At times, “stayers” joined the “leavers” discussion to test their ideas and ponder their decisions. Some “leavers” grew more worried and evidenced second thoughts.

Tano had talked to Folu many times about this; he clearly wanted them to go with the “leavers.” She resisted forcefully at first, but each time the earth shook with the tremors of more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, she rushed to his side, clutching their baby to her breast. Over the few days that they watched the “leavers” gather the wood and food, Folu slowly changed her mind. So, they joined them.

On the evening before they planned to go, the people abandoned their singular clusters and met together at the biggest firepit in the village. There were many families there, too many for Anutu to count with his fingers, but he knew all of them and recognized friends among those who decided to leave and those who decided to stay.

As he had promised to Baia, they built a huge fire in the midst of their clusters, one that could be seen by the gods, a fire intended to protect them that night and to strike fear into those who would harm them on their journey.

And around the circle of this fire the people of the village stood, sat, and talked. The children played, thinking this was a special occasion when they were all together. The men talked in hushed voices, making plans as much as they were replying to the “stayers” questions about leaving. The women held similar conversations, but also shared stories that by repetition they hoped would imprint the history of their people on those who would no longer live among them.

A very old woman entered the circle that included Baia, Nanda, and Neeri. This woman, Seeta, had outlived two men and produced seven children, losing three to the ravages of life in primitive times. Seeta approached the three women and knelt before them.

“This for you,” she said to Baia, and she handed her a string of shells that had been pierced and hung together as a necklace. Turning to Nanda, she offered her another band, one that had antler tips dangling from it.

“And this for you,” she said to Neeri, finally allowing a small tear to drop from her eye. Neeri was older than Baia and Nanda, and closer to Seeta’s age. For Neeri, the old woman offered a special gift. It was a stick that was thin at one end and thickened to a bulb at the other. The thin end was wrapped with many windings of thin leather strips, as in a grip. The bulb opposite it was festooned with eagles’ feathers which danced in the light breeze of the evening.

Seeta was thought to have special powers, a special strength often attributed to anyone who lived so long among the people. And this stick was one she used to tap someone who was sick, a totem that was intended to transfer Seeta’s energy to the person in need. At her advanced age, she couldn’t travel but she knew that anyone who dared to cross Fansu and challenge the sea would need special power.

And she knew that Neeri possessed it. Now, all she needed was the totem.

Seeta knelt before Neeri and presented the wand. Neeri initially held back, not anxious to assume that role, but with Baia and Nanda looking on, she took the totem from Seeta and pressed it to her breast. Seeta gave her a serious look at first, shedding more tears, but then smiled at the knowledge that her friends would be safe.

* * *

The next morning, the village awoke early. The women had already brought the hot embers of the night fires back to flame, and they were preparing food for the journey. The men who tended the sheep carried armloads of tree trunks and branches toward the corral that held the animals. Anutu and Lotya made sure they planned to take no more than half the sheep, leaving the others for their friends who would stay on Fansu.

They used the cordage and braided rope from fiber plants and bundled the wood together. One bundle was tied to each side of a sheep so that an animal could carry two bundles at a time. The men knew they still had more wood to carry, but they had already hatched a plan for that.

Tano hunted deer and had brought down several in the days leading up to their departure. He shared some of the meat with his family cluster but gave the rest to the “stayers” who could dry it and eat it long after their friends had gone. But Tano kept the hides for a special use.

In the evenings after hunting deer, Tano chipped more of the hammer stones he had used for chopping wood. Flakes flew from the core as he shaped the edge of the bulbous rock he cradled in his left hand. One such flake tumbled across the ground and landed at Folu’s feet. The flake itself was thinner than the hammerstone that Tano was shaping, but its edge was also sharper. Folu turned it over in her hand and considered how this sharp-edged tool might be used later.

Tano used his sharpened hammerstone to scrape the deer hides clean and he converted them to broadcloth that he spread on the ground. Onto these hides he heaped the remaining wood so that he could drag the cloth as they walked, pulling along their stockpile of timber.

The time had come to leave. The people who had decided to go to Ganta gathered in the middle of their village, surrounded by those who stay. The earth was still that day, and some “leavers” became doubtful, but Anutu, Baia, and even Tano spoke to remind the assembly of their reasons for leaving, and to remind them of the dangers of staying amongst the gods while they were fighting. “Stayers” listened to the words of these three people, and they wondered too about their decision to remain on Fansu. Several men were seen looking at their women, asking for confirmation that their decision to remain in the village was right.

leaversStayersAfter some brief embraces and unspoken farewells, the “leavers” assembled their children, food, and what meager clothing they had and turned toward the small herd of sheep they would use as pack animals. As the departing group emerged from the circle of the village, they looked back at those who remained. It was the only society they had ever known, the only environment they had ever inhabited. Some of the hunters and a handful of the women had ventured to the other side of the island where another tribe lived but leaving Fansu altogether was a dangerous undertaking.

leavers“It is good,” Anutu said, as if to convince not only his friend but himself.

Lotya merely nodded.

The sheep bayed a bit when they started out and the two boys tending the animals had to check and shift the bundles of sticks bound to them, to keep them balanced.

The people walked up a slight incline to a minor ridge that separated their island into two parts. They left behind the sea that swallowed the sun at night and crossed over to the side where the sun struggled back out of the water in the morning.

After cresting the ridge, they could see that other coast. It would have been a two-hour trek if walking alone, but the animals moved more slowly than the people, so reaching the other shore took longer, and they did not arrive until the sun sank below the rocky ridge that the people had walked over.

They came to a halt near the water but safely up from the soft waves that lapped on the beach. They would be sleeping in the open air that night before challenging the seas in the morning, but they also needed to eat.

The four sheep the people used to get that far were now unburdened of their loads of wood. One would give milk the following morning, and so was spared while the others were slaughtered. Sheep wouldn’t fit on a raft, but the people could use their wool and hides, and cook their meat, taking some of it on their rafts.

As the sky darkened, another fire could be seen farther away on the same shore. Anutu and Baia and some of the others had met with these people before, usually in the middle of their island, on the rare excursions away from their own village. The people stared at the little fire that lit the edge of a stand of trees and considered whether to engage those nearby.

“We leave them,” said Lotya. “No need to go there.”

“What if they come here?” asked Tano.

In fact, as the men considered their options, several people emerged from the darkness and approached them. They were carrying heavy sticks but did not appear to be menacing. These new arrivals spoke some words to the villagers, but Anutu, Baia, and Tano couldn’t understand them. Baia and Nanda joined their men while Folu hid in the shadow of the people.

Attempts at conversation were futile. The people of the village and those they were meeting had few common words, and direct communication was difficult. One of the intruders pointed his stick at the large bundles of cut wood; another one approached Neeri, the only woman not attended by a man.

Folu, who had stayed hidden, stepped into the circle. She was quick to analyze what was happening and what needed to be done to resolve it.

“They want wood,” she said. Then, nodding in Neeri’s direction, “and they want her.”

Without waiting for consent or words from the other people, Folu handed her baby to Neeri and walked over to the sheep that had been preserved for her milk. Taking the sheep by a rope, Folu walked it over to the intruders, lifting the leash up to the man who stood in front. Then, she took a leather band that she wore around her neck, from which dangled a special carved wooden object, and handed it to the man.