The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

He used a thin sharp piece of flint with a wooden handle to bore the hole, twirling it rapidly between the palms of his hands, and at the same time pressing down upon it as hard as he could. It was a very hot day. The soft, moss-like fibres which covered the outside of the nut were dry as tinder. As the drill cut slowly into the hard shell, Ka-Ma saw, to his surprise, a tiny wisp of smoke curl up from the hole. Its smell told him it was the same smoke he had smelt so often in the Fire Cave at home. Harder and harder he pressed the drill down, faster and faster he twirled it, and then, suddenly, the smoke burst into a tiny flame, which licked up the dry fibres about the edge of the hole and was gone.

Filled with wonder, he tried again and again, and each time the little flame appeared, and went out. At last, after he had thought for a long while, he picked a bunch of the dry moss-like fibres from the shell, and giving it to one of his sons, told him to hold the fibres in the flame the next time it appeared. He also gathered beside him a heap of dry leaves and grass.

When the boy put the fibres into the flame, they blazed up at once, and burnt his hand so that he dropped them with a cry of pain, but Ka-Ma took the blazing bit and placed it among the dry leaves and grass, and in a moment he had a fire. Tula, who had been watching him, quickly brought reeds, and bits of wood, and soon a hot fire was roaring in front of the hut. The children gathered about, astonished and a little afraid, but Ka-Ma and his wife were filled with joy. He did not know why the fire had come, for he did not understand that friction, caused by rubbing two objects together, makes heat, but he was very grateful, for he had now found a way to make fire whenever he wanted it. For this reason, it was not necessary for him or his family to keep the fire going night and day, and thus the new tribe no longer thought of the fire as sacred. They did not worship it, the way the valley people did. Being able to make it whenever they wanted to, it no longer seemed to them so wonderful, nor were they afraid of losing it. Instead of worshipping fire, they began to worship the Sun, and the Sea.

That night, Ka-Ma cooked some fish over the hot coals, and he and all his family had a feast. Later on he showed his children how to preserve fish by smoking them, the way his people had done in the valley. Then he began to search through the back country for clay.

At last he found some, and it was not long before the new tribe was using pottery bowls and jars, just as they were used by the tribe in the valley.

One of Ka-Ma's sons, named Ran, was a great fisherman. No one could spear fish so well as he. In the ocean, of course, he could not reach them, for the water was far too deep, and the surf too strong, but he waded in the shallow spots along the river banks, and when he saw a fish lying in the mud, he would bring his spear down as quick as a flash, and rarely ever missed.

It was not long, however, before the fish became frightened, and when they saw anything moving about in the water they would swim away. This made it harder and harder to get them, and Ran sometimes spent a whole day, without bringing home more than one or two.

One day, while resting on the river bank, he saw a large fish snap up a little one and devour it. Ran thought that this might be a good way to bring the fish within reach of his spear, so he managed to catch several of the little fish by driving them into a shallow pool. Then he took the cord from his bow, and after tying one of the little fish to the end of it with a bit of grass, he lowered it into the water. Quick as a flash a large fish darted up, snapped away the little one, and was gone before Ran could raise his spear.

When Ran saw that the strings of grass would not hold the little fish tight enough to his bow-cord, he tried to think of some better way to fasten them. One of his arrows had a head made of a sharp-pointed piece of bone about as long as his finger. Taking this piece of bone from the arrow, he sharpened the other end of it also, by rubbing it on a rough stone. Then he tied the bow-cord tightly about the middle of the piece of bone, and stuck the two sharp ends both ways into the body of one of the little fish. The large fish, he knew, would be unable to bite through the piece of bone, and while trying to tear the small fish loose, Ran believed he would have time to spear him. Once more he lowered the bow-cord into the water.

Soon a big fish darted up, but instead of trying to tear the smaller one loose, he swallowed it whole, and started away. Ran had no time to use his spear, but neither was the big fish able to get away, for as soon as he jerked against the strong bow-cord, the piece of bone turned crosswise and its sharp points stuck firmly in his throat. Ran, not expecting this, was almost pulled off his feet, but he could not let go of the bow-cord because the loop at the end of it was about his wrist. In a moment he had recovered his balance and hauled the big fish ashore.