Days Before history

by H. R. Hall

When a woman wanted to make a hoe, she chose a bough of a tree that had a bend in it. Then she cut and trimmed this to the shape of the letter L, and, last of all, bound a flint, which had been chipped to a broad point, to the shorter limb of the bough with strips of hide; and so she had a useful tool for tilling her plot of ground.

Going to the Fields

In the spring the people sowed their corn. They worked in parties, and as they moved across the field plying their hoes, they used to sing songs to keep in time with one another, one singing the verses and the rest all joining in the chorus. They were fond of singing, whether they were at work or at play; they had songs and choruses for the different occupations, marching songs and harvest songs and songs about hunting the deer; and at the feast-times they sang these songs and the choruses over and over again.

When the time came to gather in the corn, the people often found their crops very short, for pigeons and rooks and other birds came and ate the corn, and the wild deer sometimes broke through the fences and trampled down even more than they ate.

But for all that, the harvest was always a busy time. The women cut off the heads of the corn with their flint knives and carried it home in baskets. They stored it up in the store-houses in the winter village, and when the last of the crops had been gathered in, the people went back to the village for the winter. Then for many days they kept the feast of the harvest. There was plenty to eat and drink, and everybody ate and drank a great deal; and they sang and danced and offered sacrifices, and gave thanks to their gods for the crops that they had gathered in.

The pit-hut, which was Gofa’s store-house for her corn, was near the hut in which she and Garff lived. Like her neighbours she stored up the ears of the corn, and only rubbed out the grain when she wanted a supply for making cakes or porridge.

Besides the harvest of the fields there was the harvest of the woods to be gathered in. Tig used to enjoy more than anything else the days when they gathered the acorns. The women used to go in large parties, with some of the children and some of the young men, all singing and shouting. Then, if a savage old wild boar was routing about among the fern, and munching the fallen acorns, he would listen to the noise of the party coming up, and grunt angrily at being disturbed, and move away into the deep forest; for he feared men, and never attacked them unless they chased him and brought him to bay.

It was splendid for Tig and the other boys—climbing into the oak trees, and getting as far out as they could upon the branches to shake down the ripe acorns. Sometimes they gathered a handful of fine ones and threw them at one another or pelted the women who were gathering underneath; and then Gofa, or some one else’s mother, would look up and say: “Have done now, little badling! or surely we will leave thee in the forest here to-night, and Arthas the She-bear will catch thee and carry thee to her den to make a supper morsel for her little ones!”