Notes

When this story was barely halfway, I already knew I had to rewrite the whole thing.

This story is obviously about hunters and gatherers. The stage just before what we’d call “civilization”, which, by the way, lasted far longer than any human civilization has so far. The issue? We don’t know much about this time. The things we do know are rather unspectacular and simple, which makes it hard to turn into a story.

On the other hand, this story is very heavy or “dark”. I had doubts about whether to include it, discussing it with others. In the end, I chose to execute my initial plan. It made a better story, set a better tone for this cycle, and is simply more realistic and honest.

Nature is immensely cruel in so many ways. Humans are able to make it less cruel … but also able to make it even more cruel. If you study history, you soon learn that human civilization is nothing but a long path filled with blood and pointless wars.

As such, this story kicks off this cycle with—to me—the most important question of all: Are humans inherently violent and warring, or is this an avoidable consequence of our history?

Hunters and Gatherers

The name says it all. The earliest humanoids got their food in two ways:

• The males hunted animals (“moving food”) for meat.
• The females (and children) collected berries, nuts, fruit (“static food”).

As soon as they’d gathered all food in their environment … they simply moved to a new area. They barely had possession or buildings.

The general idea is that their lives were short and brutish. Evidence, however, indicates they did quite well. These people were usually healthier than the modern human, thanks to a better diet, more exercise, and more free time. Time which they used to draw, tell stories, make music, and more.

Their lives were mostly unpredictable. Yes, if your tribe happened to walk into a bunch of predators, your probability of survival was low. If natural disasters destroyed your food sources, same thing.

Finding food was the only essential task in their life. So everybody had the same task: find food! And once they had enough? Well, the rest of the day / week / month was leisure time!

Once agriculture was invented—the ability to create more food than needed and store it endlessly—the health and freedom of people actually took a hit. Additionally, as the story shows, this introduced the possibility of power dynamics and turning others into slaves.

Were the first humans violent?

And so we reach the key question. Again, most live under the assumption that the first humans had violent tribes that constantly killed and warred. I certainly got that message from school, as I grew up.

Evidence, however, is scarce.

We can barely find evidence about great wars or recurring fights between different tribes of hunters and gatherers.

Most tribes were (extended) family. This would prevent any violence (unless you were really unlucky with your family) and even allow them to communicate and exchange food or information.

(In fact, some of the first civilizations are documented as peaceful tribes that did not even have weapons or an army. Not surprisingly, they were destroyed when another tribe passed by who did have weapons …)

Most murders or fights were one on one, traced back to a conflict between two specific people—usually males fighting over a female. In other cases, the conflict was about food accessibility or territory, just as animals would fight about that.

Really, the only recurring element is “revenge”. The idea that, if somebody hurts or betrays you, you must take revenge in some mean way—usually murder. The idea that humans just can’t not do that.

Which means that, as soon as one person is hurt or angry, they’ll take revenge, which means the other takes revenge for that, which means the other will take revenge for that … kicking off a cycle that never ends.

A cycle that persists until today. Most wars, even today, are nothing more than “but they did something bad long ago, so we have to take revenge and fight until we win”.

This story, just like our history, has no clear-cut answer. Are humans inherently violent, a fault in our brain? Or is it a consequence of unfortunate events? Or is it a constant among animals, and would any animal turn to wars if they had our intelligence?

Hopefully this story is informative, evocative, and enough to make readers think.

About the setting

This story takes place in “Schola”, which is my name for (roughly) India and the area around it. The Indus river is an important river there, which will be a recurring element in upcoming stories, for it’s widely believed that the first ever civilization evolved here.

Mammoths mostly lived in North America and Asia, so it’s true they would be here at this point in time. It’s also true that people probably spread out across the globe during ice ages, in which they could just walk across the oceans.

It’s also the reason why clothing was invented by us really, really long ago. We had sewing needles before we had construction tools ;)

Finally, it’s true that the climate warmed after those ice ages. That’s how this story can have a relatively cold forest climate that supports mammoths, while the next story—in the same area—has an almost tropical climate!

(Do keep in mind that this happens over looong periods of time. The Saga of Life condenses it to streamline the narrative and get simpler stories, but in reality things we see as “major shifts” now were only “tiny changes every year” for a lot of years.)

Characters

• Kesho (Gosti): almost an adult, misses one arm. Really wants to hunt and be strong, but realizes the handicap makes that difficult, drawing him into the comfortable life style preached by Jagu. Misleading him.
• Jambir (Gosti; smaller, weaker): used by jaguars as a kind of slave. After years of living in that “comfort” he lost the ability to hunt or survive on his own. He must do as he is asked, otherwise he starves. (Many other Gosti have been captured and put under the same command.) Pushes Kesho to help destroy the Jagu, or steal their magic, from the start.
• Farshar (Gosti): father of Kesho and Misha. Clearly the largest and strongest of Asha, leading him to subconsciously claim a sort of leader role. Also more aggressive than others.
• Misha (Gosti): daughter Farshar. Tough, with violent fire inside, certain she should be allowed to hunt (and show her strength) too. It all comes out when Jambir—a Gosti she likes more and more—is killed.
• Jagu: a fat jaguar, king of the Jagu Tribe. Not necessarily hostile or stupid, but also never friendly or wise. Has two children (prince and princess) with serious physical defects due to incest. (Which he realizes and tries to combat by “capturing” the healthy individuals of the other tribe.)

Other named characters are Helera (wife Farshar), Murfa + Synthia, Ardex.

The two tribes are …

• Asha Tribe: roughly 30 creatures, hunters and gatherers. Collection of diverse species. Nobody allowed to be the boss, everyone has total individual freedom, mostly family of each other. Lots of culture, art, unique expression through feathers. Most importantly, they have a unique connection to Ardex: he can hear and answer their prayers, and they are most susceptible to his “violent influence” when around.
• Jagu Tribe: only jaguars. Claimed a large territory with fences and fished/hunted until it was completely empty. (Due to Eeris’ godly gift, they can store all that food and it never spoils.) Mostly live off fishing, as most carnivores back then. Turned smaller species—mostly Gosti—into slaves to do all their work for them. In the end, their remnants and Asha’s remnants merge to get a new tribe, dead set on painting Farshar’s family as villains.