Chapter Two Entering Time

Appreciating the love of parents is similar to becoming aware of the significance of your back.  Whilst everything works well, you don't give it much thought.  If something goes wrong, your life is brought up short.  My parents were always there for me, giving me a sense of light, warmth and security. Through my childhood I never gave them a second thought.  Most days, before the skins ceremony, I was with all the other young children of the community.  Well we numbered but five and I knew each one like a sibling. My early education was received from a high vantage point on my big sisters back. Tucked securely under her skin, clinging to her neck I perched like a forest parrot, repeating Tilda's thoughts straight into her ear.  We explored our world together, ducking under low hanging branches, and wading through ice cold streams. When Tilda was young, her main occupations were keeping an eye on our neighbours, that is of course, caribou, wolves and wild fowl.  They migrated into our territory from time to time, in sync with the cycle of the seasons.  She would report back on how these communities appeared to be faring, and aided discussion on how much we might predate on their numbers that year.  Occasionally we saw human neighbours.  Explorers, revealing their location with much noise and smoke.  We kept quiet, and I instinctively knew from Tilda's mood how best to respond.  Sightings were rare in my early years, and we were curious to see these strange people, their language unguarded.  I guess they had no idea that they were not alone, thinking this was virgin territory, a wilderness for their taking.

Once or twice a year, a group of our traders would make their way down the river until they met a muddy track.  Five days down this track was a town, a settlement of wooden thatched houses.  At its centre, a vast cave-like building, where people gathered to undertake most of the business.  Our folk would head there.  No two words could be understood between our communities, and these people were not easy to get along with.  They seemed to look down on our traders, ridiculing the items we proffered for barter. Hours of delicate work was put into the manufacture of red belts.  The shaggy goats wool, having been combed, hair separate from wool, and then woven using hand looms, and finally dyed using the strong acrid juices from the red beetle carapace.

Our people needed metal.  Traditionally we got along just fine with stone.  This including some ingenuous stone objects such as the great communal stewing stone, placed in centre of a fire, which slow cooked tough meat to perfection, whilst also providing the whole community with radiating warmth.  But metal was an excellent bonus.  It reduced the time taken to fell and cut wood: and then in the preparation of meat and hides.  We were even recognising its benefits in the use of rudimentary medicine.  A few unfortunate kinsmen had had crushed legs amputated with the aid of a red hot knife.

Tilda and my explorations were never far.  Until the skin ceremony I guess my life had stayed within a perimeter of one day's journey.  On a few occasions we had slept together under the stars with a number of other young people, exhilarating in the freedom and risk. But this had all been agreed, and what we experienced was just a taste of adventures to come.