Days Before history

by H. R. Hall

TIG’S father, Garff, was one of the chief men of the village. He was very strong and a clever hunter, and the people used to look to him to take the lead in the big hunting expeditions. He was a rich man, too; but that does not mean that he had much money, because he had no money at all. Nobody had money in those times: they had cattle instead, and if a man had to pay a great deal to another man, he gave a cow or a bullock; but if he had to pay only a little, he gave a joint of meat, perhaps, or a skin or part of a skin, or a basket of nuts, or a jar of corn, or a piece of honeycomb.

Garff had a herd of about twenty small shaggy cows like Welsh cattle. They used to be driven out to feed on the pasture grounds on the hills in the daytime with other people’s cows, and some of the old men and boys with the dogs used to look after them. But at sunset the cowherds drove the cattle inside the stockade of the village for the night, to keep them safe from wild beasts; and then the women used to come out to milk the cows.

Garff used to spend most of his time hunting in the forest. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes two or three of his neighbours went with him. They were not often away from home for more than a day or two. But now and then it happened that they had to follow the game far afield, and then they were absent for a longer time. They hunted the deer mostly; but sometimes they killed the great wild cattle and wild horses and boars. They shot birds, too, of all kinds, and caught fish in the lakes and streams. They used to bring home anything they could catch that would serve for food. Sometimes it happened that all the hunters were unlucky for many days, and meat became scarce. Then the killing of a bison or a wild horse was a great event. Everybody in the village came for a share of the meat, and either carried it home or made a fire and cooked it on the spot. The meat was eaten up to the very last morsel, and the people used even to smash the bones with pieces of stone to get the marrow.

The Stags

When Tig was a boy, the flesh of wild game was the favourite food of most people, and it was generally the commonest and the most plentiful. But it is easy for us to understand that, as the people multiplied and spread about over the country, all kinds of wild game became scarcer. The more the animals were hunted, the more difficult it became to get them. So it was well that there were other things for food. In the autumn the people used to gather all the wild fruits they could get, and store them up for use in the winter—nuts and acorns and wild apples. There were other things, too, that could not be stored, such as pignuts and blackberries and other sorts of berries.

But the best food of all was corn, of which two kinds, wheat and barley, were grown. Corn was nicer and more wholesome than acorns, and much more useful, because, with care and good management, the stock could be increased; but of the wild fruits and nuts men could gather only what natural supply there might be.

Of their corn, the people made porridge and flat cakes of bread, first pouring the grain upon a flat stone and rubbing and grinding it with a long bar-shaped piece of stone, to make it mealy. Also they pounded their corn and acorns and nuts in mortars of wood or stone. This was the women’s work: and it might be said that the women were the millers and bakers, and even the butchers to the households in those days; for whenever the men brought home a deer or any other game, the women always came out to skin it and cut it up and to dress the meat for cooking.

The people used not always to have regular times for meals, as we have nowadays. They generally had a morning and an evening meal, but otherwise, while there was food, they ate when they were hungry, and only at the feast times did they eat together in company. Gofa generally used to make a bowl of porridge for breakfast, and for supper she cooked whatever game Garff had brought home with him; for Garff, as we have said, was a clever hunter, and could generally provide better food than roots and acorns for his family.