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| The labourer’s would no longer
be paid out equally in strips of salted meat. No, the elders came
up with a fantastic and complicated plan of payment for labour. Every
labourer was given payment for their days work with acorns. Five acorns
equalled one strip of salted meat. But what about the labourers that
had worked since the beginning of the bounty? These folk had worked
for the Great Garden many years now, their lean children played with
the fat children, often winning famously in games of tag, their lean
girls had come of age and even married some of the fat men of marrying
age. It wouldn’t be fair to only pay them five acorns. The elders were wise though, they had worked this out. The tasks of the labourers were organized into a strata of importance. Obviously any that went with the Great Hunter to assist in the hunt or the carrying of the meat were given the highest rank of distinction, 50 acorns. Then those that coordinated the watering, planting and planning of the Great Garden were next in rank at 45 acorns. Then there were those that assisted with the training and teaching of gardening to the newcomers, as gardening was a new concept to many of the new arrivals having never so much as picked fruit from a tree and these people were paid out 35 acorns. Then there was a whole strata to the garden, the corn row labourers were paid out a higher wage then the onion row labourers and the potatoes bug pickers were paid more than the mold spotters, until at the very bottom were those that picked rocks, or turned the compost, or fetched the water, who were paid out five acorns a day. The oldest labourers were ecstacically happy with the new arrangement because, quietly and only amongst themselves, they bickered that they felt cheated the newcomers were receiving the same amount of salted meat upon arrival even though they knew nothing of the intricacies of the Great Garden. The Newcomers were also happy enough just because they were elated simply to get something to eat on a daily basis, it actually took them several days to teach them not to eat the acorns but rather to trade them in for meat. The most dissatisfied group of course, were those stuck in the middle, those whose children were still too young to play tag or to marry, those who knew much about the Great Garden but not enough to one of the planners, those given such titles as Cheif Onion Row Planner or Ear Inpector or Turnip Row Thinner and were paid out 15 to 25 acorns a day. They spent most evenings gathered together, they were also the largest group of Labourers in number, grumbling about their sorry lot in life, how they should return to their homeland and start their own big stupid Great Garden with corn twice as tall as the corn here, how the fat prosperous elders and children would be lost without them, and on and on they muttered late into the night. Some of them actually did pack it in and head home without so much as good-bye. Still others decided to make the best of it and sidled up alongside the Garden Planners and the Hunter’s assistants trying to appear useful and eager, hoping that they would some day be chosen for these high paying tasks. The most ambitious group, being paid a reasonable amount of acorns, who could afford to take a few days off a week, kept the old hunting stories firmly in their memories and snuck away early in the dawn to practice old hunt routines. They often returned soundlessly late at night with grouse paked tight under their cloaks, or strips of meat cut from a beast whose carcass they left hidden in a feild. The years rolled along and soon the Great Hunter was too old to make long complicated hunting journeys. This caused no need for worry amongst the obese elders as they simply proped the old fellow up against a large log, settling him into a soft bundle of skins and pillows where his very presence attracted the forests beasts and fowl to the edge of the tribe’s fold. The old hunter threw rocks feebly at the animals. They would move quite close so that he could take perfect deadly aim. In the light of the setting sun the people would gather the old man up and all the dead meat at his feet and saunter off singing to the warmth of the Grand Lodge. This scenario went on for a number of years. Meanwhile word had spread far through the adjoining lands of the payment process with acorns at the Great Garden. Knowing that after a long and ardous journey, newcomers would only receive five acorns a day, discouraged most from leaving whatever hardships had befallen them within their own boundries. Also, many of those who left disgruntled started their own sucessful garden and also spoke vehemously against the prosperous tribe and the Great Garden’s labour force that many now believed it to be an evil place, headed by contorted individuals whose only purpose was to eat to the point of retching, beat and belittle their labourers and conduct twisted conversations with the star spirits above. Only the most desperate and starving made the trek to the Great Garden. The old hunter developed a terrible sickness, coughing and hacking so violently that the animals would not come near him. The tribes people, even though he was terribly sick, still brought him out to the log and left him there all day, not knowing what else to do. The ambitious Middle Labourers, having no real love for the fat elders of the Great Hunter, used this opportunity to hunt the animals, because although the beasts wouldn’t come close to the Great Hunter, they hovered nearby at the edge of the forest watching him carefully. The Middle Labourers were soon feasting nightly on game and as the weeks went by the elder’s storehold became lean of salted meat. The elders and the young men of the tribe spent long evenings discussing their plight. Harvest time was nearing but they had almost run out of salted meat to pay the labourers. There was a pile of acorns outside the Great Lodge, left by that days labourers, and the elders prayed for a Great Idea. They prayed and cried, and sang and fought all night but come morning there was still no solution. Much to their anguish, being distracted all night by their distress over the sickness of the Great Hunter and the pile of acorns at their door, no one noticed that the old man died quietly through the night. The mourning of the Great Hunter went on for many weeks. The tribe was so upset they took no heed of the Labourers, nor was any salted meat paid out as the was none to give. The Labourers, not having any reason to continue working put down their tools and began bickering amongst themselves. With winter nearing many took what they could carry from the garden and sought their way back to their homelands. The Middle Labourers, who by this point had set up their own camp a short distance from the Great Garden, invited many of the more industrious and embittered Labourers to their fold. Those that entered the new camp were thouroughly impressed by what these people had accomplished, for here was a garden greater than the Great Garden that the Labourers constructed, complete with water wells and troughs, composts of different potencys, better and stonger tools, a myraid of grains, vegetables and fruit and the biggest storehold of smoked meat anyone had seen. The Labourers swore early into their endeavour to only salt a small portion of their meat and to smoke the rest, so sick were they of salted meat. The fat elders, getting leaner by the week, soon ran out of tears and prayers and slowly awoke to their new surroundings. The storeroom was empty, the Great Garden was a ruin, and the Great Lodge’s roof had begun to leak now that the autumn rains had begun and there were no Labourers to fix it. It was with a great yawning fear that they realized winter was coming and they had no means to survive. The youngest able-bodied men, while well trained in the paths of the stars and the prayers of the elders, had no idea how to fashion a spear, let alone what type of animal to stalk with it. They hadn’t the faintest idea where to even look for grouse in the forest, where the fish hid in the water, where the antlered creatured denned overnight. They knew nothing. Nor did anyone know how to fix the garden, let alone what even grew there. The old women were the first to grow cross with the young ones as they had faint recollections of how the garden was originally planted, not to mention their bones were aching as the Lodge was now so damp. They led them by their ears to the rows and instructed them what each plant was and what were weeds and set them to work. The young ones hands were so soft though their fingers bled from the endless picking. Not to mention they quietly resented the old women for being so feirce with them. How were they to know any of this? Had they not been told from the beginning that theirs was a special place amongst the animals, that their easy lives were gifts granted by the stars so that they could spend all their time studying their mysterious paths and the secrets spread between them. And here the old women were furious with them for not knowing the difference between an onion and a turnip. Likewise, the old men were distraught with the young men as the old ones had vauge recollections of the types of stone needed for spears, how to follow the path of an animal, and where to best find fish in the deep eddys along the Great Rivers bank. The young men were hopeless in these pursuits, often pausing to study the spirals of seeds in a flower, or having long, obnoxiously loud, conversations about the relation of the sky to the river, or the mysterious path of the stars the night before, that frightened away any game within earshot . With fear in their hearts and disgust on their tounges the elders gathered to discuss the hopelessness of their situation. How could they ever teach the young ones to survive? It was the hardest and longest winter anyone could remember. The young ones harvested what they could from the Great Garden but not knowing how to store it properly for the winter caused most of it to rot within the first month. The young men hunted daily with the barest glimmer of knowledge and sometimes returned with small birds and bony fish, but mostly returned empty handed. Everyone became too thin and tired that no one spent any time at all watching the stars as they were too exhausted from hunger come nightfall. By spring many of the old people had died and the women were too thin to produce children. The young people gathered together and it was decided that the strongest men and women would travel to a better place, if there was one, and upon finding it would send word to those remaining behind. They had barely set out on their travel when they came upon the grandest village they had ever laid eyes on. There were hundreds of people busily preparing a huge swath of deep dark soil for a garden, many more were building summer dwellings, gathereing wood and water, fashioning tools and curing meat. With great hesitiation they approached the edge of this tribe until they were seen by a group of children playing nearby. One of the children screamed as never had they seen people look so ghastly and thin and sickly and in no time many of the Villagers lay down what they were doing to approach the Newcomers. “Where have you come from”? they asked. One of the young men pointed in the direction of the Great Lodge. One of the oldest men gasped, “From the Great Garden”? The thin ones nodded furiously, “You’ve heard of it then? It used to be a wonderful place. We came upon great hardship and can no longer live there. We are travelling to find a better place”. “A better place!”, the man looked incredulous, “you have come from the greatest of all places”. The young ones lowered their eyes and hugged their thin arms around themselves. “Everything you see here”, the old man cried, “only came to be because of where you are from”. Now the young ones looked at him incredulously. “But we had nothing to do with its making and now we are starving”. The old man shook his head wisely. “This is true”. And turning to look at the sky he said, “and now what to do?” There was an awful pause as everyone wondered what to make of the small group of starving people. “We will labour for food”, one of the young ones offered. The old man spat on the ground, “Labour for food! Never. If you stay here you will work as everyone works and you will take what you need to get by. This is how we live. No one starves and no one gets fat. The stars are counted and tracked but don’t speak endlessly of their course. We all take enough time to ourselves to draw in the sand but we don’t loll ceaslessly on the bank of the Great River. Your people were so caught up in their bounty that they forgot how to take care of themselves. They lost their knowledge. This is why you are starving”. The small group nodded somberly. “Well, come along then”. The old man led the way through a feild toward the garden and the young ones followed, their bodies cutting tracks in the grass just like the paths of the stars. |
| At
the foot of the Camel's Back Range in the BC interior, you might catch
a glimpse of Nikki capturing relics & vistas in paintings, in words or through the camera lens. Her anthropological heart strings pull her along mountain passes, as she sleuths out histories on people/places to weave their stories. As well as working on "Sage Brush Country", a painted series in oil, she is the curator at a local museum. www.pembertonmuseum.org |
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