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HISTORY
OF HERE
P a r t
169
History,
Before There Was Any History
Part
Three
BY JAMES F.
BARRETT
Thank you, dear reader friends, thank you! I am
getting lots and lots of very positive "feed-backs"
regarding my new pre-history series for "The
History of Here" column. The only sort of negative
one comes from my beloved sister-in-law, Fern, one
of my most serious readers, who doesn't know if she
likes Vog and Ooma and their pre-history Ozarks
Area adventures or not. She's reserving her final
judgment until she sees what unfolds as we look
around the mysterious corners of ancient Ozark
history. Love you, Fern, hang in there for me and
the Gazette, we're doing our very best to
entertain, amuse and tell you and our other dear
reader friends about a bit of history that is
usually too dull to talk about.
At
last, the snowy, cold-time seemed to be ending. The
sun shown brightly on most days and green things
were beginning to peek from beneath the mounds of
dry leaves and layers of brown grasses.
Instinctively, Vog knew it was growing close to the
time for the first hunt of the early hot-time. The
tribe had taken down and carefully stored some of
the cave entrance hides and most of the woven wood
frame. Only enough remained to protect them and
their precious fire in case more snow and cold
temporarily returned, as it so often did. Only one
special clansman kept bits of fire safe and alive
in his gourd carriers during the snowy cold-time,
though several of the tribe did so when they were
on the move. He was entrusted with this priceless
commodity, should something happen to extinguish
the tribe's constant cooking and heat fire in the
stone fire pits. The slender old man constantly
checked upon his trust and periodically refreshed
its food and sleeping bed with bits of very dry
moss and tiny slivers of rotten wood. The
all-important fire lived in his carrying gourds as
a few tiny hot coals, waiting to be blown upon and
allowed to grow into new and vigorous flames.
Absolutely nothing was more precious to the tribe
than the fire in the camp pits or the embryo fires
in the carrying gourds. Only a fortuous strike of
lightning could give them new fire should the
others by mischance die, for flints and steel were
just a bit distant in primitive man's future.
It
was a glorious spring morning when Vog and his
males waded hip deep across the river at the stony
crossing, the gourd and fire carrier safely in the
middle of the column carrying one of his precious
gourds. On the south side of the river, which would
one day be called The White River, the men gathered
great handfuls of dried grasses while the fire
carrier took out his precious trust and carefully
brought it to new life. He knelt at the first pile
of dried grass and blew the coals to flame amid the
tinder. The tiny yellow and red fingers eagerly
reached out to the grass stems and soon blossomed
into crackling whirling life. The other males
pushed forward their bundles to receive the gift.
Soon all the bundles were brightly flaming and many
coils of gray smoke swirled up into the almost
windless spring sky.
According
to the plan devised by Vog several years in the
past, the males spread out and began torching the
weeds, brush and dry grasses of the river bottom.
They were very careful to stay upwind of the fires,
and they also carefully watched the location of
their fellow tribesmen. No one wanted a repeat of
the disaster of the second year when two
inexperienced males were caught amid the roaring
flames and so badly burned that the tribe had to
slit their throats and put them beneath the earth
to feed and replenish the grasses that had killed
them. It was a great lost to the clan, the two
would have grown to become good providers and to
have bred many strong new young.
The
males gathered back upwind, along the riverbank to
watch with satisfaction as the wildfire raced
across the river bottom, leaving behind nothing but
a blackened lumpy blanket of ash. They knew that
the rains and the warmth of the sun would soon call
green things to rise anew and fresh from beneath
the burn. The old, rough brush and grasses had been
sacrificed, just as their two badly burned fellow
clansmen, to feed the new growth. The new grasses
and grains would call out to the bison and command
them to stay and feed for a time along the river,
giving the tribe ample opportunity to hunt and
bring down food for their first warm-time feasts,
as well as stock for their trek to the river of the
hot-sun time.
Vog
had seen nature perform this same task many times
up on the plateau where they spent the hot-time.
Lightning strikes would quite often set the head
high prairie grasses aflame. When the rain stopped,
the flames would charge across the plateau burning
anything and everything in their path. But soon the
sun would call forth new and richly flavorful green
things from the blackened waste. Then the bison,
deer and Vog's tribe would feed well. So Vog, the
ever curious and inventive, knew this was a good
thing to do, and so it had proven over the years.
Within one moon, this river bottom would be
refreshed with an ocean of waving green grasses and
grains. Then the bison, moving to the river of the
hot sun, would come and spend time growing full and
fat, ready for the trek, following the sun's slow
path to the other great river. In that same time,
Vog's males would hunt and refresh the clan with
rich meat. And so they waited for that day to
come.
Vog
and Ooma had taken some of the last of the dried
food and two gourds of fresh river water with them
as they trod up the long winding prime game trail
that led to the plateau above the river. They
intended to spend the day beneath Vog's great old
oak tree, lounging, grooming, mating and watching
for the return of the herds of bison. Sometimes, in
past years, Vog had even been fortunate enough to
spear a young and tender deer while they quietly
lay in the new grasses and waited. It was always a
good thing when the leader and his favored mate
could return to camp with fresh deer meat.
A
shiver passed through Ooma's muscular young body as
she pictured the distant day when Vog was too old
to race after a deer and bring it to the ground
with his spear. When that time came Vog would be
called upon to face a challenger, perhaps several
challengers, for the leadership of the clan. If he
lost, he would be put beneath the earth to feed the
next warm-time's new grasses and grains. For the
tribe absolutely must always have the strongest,
wisest and best male to lead it, if the tribe was
to survive, succeed to secure food, shelter and
grow in strength. But, she smiled to herself as she
pictured the thought, that was many snowy
cold-times away. For now she must concentrate upon
helping her chosen mate in every possible way, to
stay healthy, to remain the tribe's leader, to
father many young, and to be contented. The
pictures were enjoyable.
Ooma
leaned languidly against Vog's great oak at the
edge of the plateau that would one day far in the
future be called The Radical Campground, and a
century later, Kimberling City. She sat in the old
oak's wide shade, her legs dangling over the first
step in the cliff that dropped nearly straight down
past the clan's cave to the shore of the river far
below. If she were brave enough to lean over she
would be able to see the riverside camp and the
tribe industriously working to prepare for the
arrival of the bison and the hunts that would
follow. But she would not do that without holding
firmly to Vog for security. Though it never seemed
to bother him, as he would often squat at the very
edge of the main drop and peer down at his clan to
see that all was well and at peace.
Their
last mating had been most satisfying and Ooma
imagined that she could already feel the beginnings
of the young she would carry to the river of the
hot-sun, and eventually deliver this next snowy
cold-time in the clan's cave just below where she
so happily sat and daydreamed her peaceful
pictures. She idly pulled at the surrounding
grasses and weed buds while she gazed across the
river valley to the far more gently sloping
embankments and hills on the far side.
Then
something caught her eye and snapped her attention
from her picturing. Amid the old brush and weeds on
the far away heights something had stirred. She sat
up straight and watched closely, and she was
rewarded, for she saw great horned and hairy heads
break through the growth and come stalking placidly
out into the open of a glade. The lead bull and the
young bulls were closely followed by countless cow
bison and young.
Ooma
clung to the oak's bark for support and rose to her
feet. Taking her eyes away from the wonderful sight
across the valley, she turned and leaped to where
Vog lay peacefully snoring in the new grasses, a
childlike smile on his broad, brown face. "Vog!"
she snapped, "Vog!" Then she began wiggling his
nose with her fingers. Vog's eyes popped open and
his fist instinctively tightened around the shaft
of the spear he always kept at hand, waking or
sleeping. Until he focused on Ooma's excited,
smiling face, his was twisted into a fighting,
defensive snarl.
She
waved her open hands upward several times
impatiently and then pointed across the river
valley. Vog's eyebrows pushed together in
puzzlement, and then it dawned on his perceptive
mind what she was trying to tell him. What they had
come to this high place to watch and hope for had
come to them. The bison were on their return to the
hot-sun river, far beyond this place. Vog leaped to
his feet and strode quickly to the great oak where
he leaned; carefully watching the bison heard
assemble across the river, ready to begin their
winding way down the well-worn game trail to the
river below.
He
watched as the great lead bull stopped to lift his
shaggy head to sense for danger. The younger bulls
all stood impatiently, sniffing, snorting and
looking about, up and down the river, helping to
look for predators or challenges. The press of cows
and young grew behind the lead bull. Sensing no
threats, the leader started the column down the
trail, eyeing with anticipation the clear running
cold waters and the fresh green grasses and
ripening grain on the bottoms where Vog and his
males had burned the old growth in preparation for
this very day.
Vog
nodded his head in satisfaction, took Ooma's hand,
helped her scoop up the water gourds and hurried
down the game trail, heading for the clan camp by
the river. The hunt would begin at first light when
the sun next returned from its sleep. See you
reader friends in two weeks. I don't know about
you, but I can hardly wait to see how the hunt
goes, down on the White River bottomland!
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Stone
Creek Crossing
