The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young ReadersKummer, Frederic Arnold
General
The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers
Kummer, Frederic Arnold
Cave dwellers -- Juvenile literature; Prehistoric peoples -- Juvenile literature
Here Ka-Ma and his wife Tula lived for many years, and their children
grew up, and built other huts in the little grove, and thus was formed
the first tribe of men to live by the sea. Because the way they lived
was different from the way in which their forefathers had lived in
the valley, they too became different. They ate more fish, and less
meat, and because they killed but few animals, they did not use skins
for clothing, but as we shall see later, began to weave a coarse
grass-cloth out of the rushes they found in the marsh. They became
great swimmers, built rough canoes out of wicker, covered with skins,
and because it was not easy to spear fish in the deep waters of the
river, the way it had been in the great marsh, they one day invented
the fishhook. All these things, however, we shall tell about in another
chapter.
CHAPTER XV
THE SEA PEOPLE
AS Ka-Ma's children grew up, he taught them all the things he knew,
how to make weapons and tools of stone, how to dry and season wood,
for spear handles, and bows and arrows, how to make cord of fish guts,
or the twisted stems of marsh grasses, how to spear fish, use the
sling, and shoot with the bow. But he could not teach them how to make
pottery, for he could find no clay, and worst of all, there was no fire
with which to burn it, even if he had found the clay.
The young people, who had never seen fire, and did not know what it
was, were quite content to eat their food raw, for they had never
tasted it any other way, but Ka-Ma thought every day of the Sacred
Fire, and wished that in some way he could get it again.
Sometimes, when he was drilling a hole in a bit of shell, or in a stick
of wood, with a sharp-pointed piece of flint, it seemed to him that
the drill grew very hot, but no fire came.
One day Ka-Ma took the dried shell of a nut which he had found in the
forest, and after cutting off one end, began to drill a hole in each
side of it. Through these holes he meant to run a cord. Not having any
bowls or jars of pottery in which to carry water, he thought he could
make a sort of water bottle out of the large nut. Then, when he went
hunting, or fishing, he could carry the bottle about his shoulders by
means of the cord, and so have fresh water to drink during the long,
hot day. He had never done this in the valley, because there was plenty
of water all about, sweet and fresh, but here all the water was salt,
except in the little pool near his hut, and so he either had to carry
some with him or go thirsty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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