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

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

There was a young chief in this boat named Tul-Ab, who was strong, and skilful and brave. He divided the water they carried among the men and women, and gave them fish, which they had caught, to eat, and sat in the stern of the boat all night and guided it with a paddle, to keep it from being upset by the waves. He had heard, when a child, of the land of the flying birds across the Great Water, and he hoped that the storm might carry them there, and so save their lives.

By the next afternoon the weather had cleared, and Tul-Ab saw in the distance a high, rocky coast, against which the waves were beating fiercely. He roused the men in the boat, and told them to take their paddles and keep the canoe from being driven ashore until he could find a safe place to land.

After a time they came to a place where a river ran through the cliffs into the sea, and here they found a little harbour, and were able to make a landing on a quiet beach. Tul-Ab's companions went ashore and threw themselves on the sand, tired out after the terrible night. But Tul-Ab went in search of water, and found some in hollows in the rocks and filled their jars. Then they caught some fish, and made a fire to warm themselves, and spent the night in some holes in the side of the cliff.

All these things the Sun had been watching, and he was sorry to see the sea folk destroyed. When Mother Nature came to look at the earth, he spoke to her.

"What is the use of making such a nice tribe by the sea, and then letting the people from the hills kill them?" he asked sourly.

"They are not all killed," Mother Nature replied, laughing at him. "I wanted some of them to go to that big island they have just found, and so I let Ban and his people come and drive them there."

"Why did you want them to go to the island?" asked the Sun. "Weren't they getting along very nicely where they were?"

"Yes. They learned many things. But here, on this new island, they will learn much more. It is a very large island, as you can see, and there are metals on it, and many other new things for them to find out about. If I don't spread my new men around a little, they will always stay in one place, and the earth will never be populated."

"It is a pity they have to fight, and kill each other," the Sun said.

"Yes," said Mother Nature. "It is a pity, but men are going to keep on fighting and killing each other for thousands and thousands of years. The battle you saw between the sea people, and the tribe from the hills, was the beginning of war. These two peoples hated each other, because their language, and their clothes, and their ways of living, were different. And as one tribe hates another, for these reasons, so will nations, which are only great tribes after all, hate each other, and fight and kill, for a very long time indeed, even after they have become what they call civilized, and fight with terrible engines of war, which fly in the air, and swim under the water, and blow thousands of persons to pieces in a single moment. That is the law of force, that the strong must overcome the weak, and only when man has become really civilized, and learned the law of love, will fighting stop. They have to fight now, for in that way they become strong, and brave, and get courage to conquer the winds and the sea, and the cold and heat, and spread to all the parts of the earth. Not until long after this is done will men learn that they all belong to one great tribe, and that it is not necessary to fight each other any longer, but to help each other. It is the same on all my other worlds—the people fight each other for a long time, like bad children, until one day they find that they are not children any longer, but grown up men and women, and then they do not fight any more."