The Acorn-Planter, Jack London [free ebook reader .txt] 📗

/> (He nods a signal to the Old Man.)

{Old Man}
In the famine in the old time,
When the old man was a young man,
When the heavens ceased from raining,
When the grasslands parched and withered,
When the fishes left the river,
And the wild meat died of sickness,
In the tribes that knew not acorns,
All their women went dry-breasted,
All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,
All their old men sighed and perished,
And the young men died beside them,
Till they died by tribe and totem,
And o'er all was death upon them.
Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,
Did not perish by the famine.
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them
How to store in willow baskets
'Gainst the time and need of famine!

{Shaman}
(Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has
nodded approbation, turning to Red
Cloud.)

Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of
life which is the song of the acorn.

{Red Cloud}
(Making ready to begin)
And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.

{Shaman}
(Hushing the people to listen, solemnly)
He sings with his father's lips, and with the
lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time
and men.


SONG OF THE FIRST MAN

{Red Cloud}
I am Red Cloud,
The first man of the Nishinam.
My father was the Coyote.
My mother was the Moon.
The Coyote danced with the stars,
And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night
The Coyote is very wise,
The Moon is very old,
Mine is his wisdom,
Mine is her age.
I am the first man.
I am the life-maker and the father of life.
I am the fire-bringer.
The Nishinam were the first men,
And they were without fire,
And knew the bite of the frost of bitter nights.
The panther stole the fire from the East,
The fox stole the fire from the panther,
The ground squirrel stole the fire from the fox,
And I, Red Cloud, stole the fire from the ground squirrel.
I, Red Cloud, stole the fire for the Nishinam,
And hid it in the heart of the wood.
To this day is the fire there in the heart of the wood.
I am the Acorn-Planter.
I brought down the acorns from heaven.
I planted the short acorns in the valley.
I planted the long acorns in the valley.
I planted the black-oak acorns that sprout, that sprout!
I planted the sho-kum and all the roots of the ground. I planted the oat and the barley, the beaver-tail grass-nut,
The tar-weed and crow-foot, rock lettuce and ground lettuce,
And I taught the virtue of clover in the season of blossom,
The yellow-flowered clover, ball-rolled in its yellow dust.
I taught the cooking in baskets by hot stones from the fire,
Took the bite from the buckeye and soap-root
By ground-roasting and washing in the sweetness of water,
And of the manzanita the berry I made into flour,
Taught the way of its cooking with hot stones in sand pools,
And the way of its eating with the knobbed tail of the deer.
Taught I likewise the gathering and storing,
The parching and pounding
Of the seeds from the grasses and grass-roots;
And taught I the planting of seeds in the Nishinam home-camps,
In the Nishinam hills and their valleys,
In the due times and seasons,
To sprout in the spring rains and grow ripe in the sun.

{Shaman}
Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

{The People}
Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

{Shaman}
Who gavest us the law of family!

{The People}
Who gavest us the law of family!

{Shaman}
The law of tribe!

{The People}
The law of tribe!

{Shaman}
The law of totem!

{The People}
The law of totem!

{Shaman}
And madest us strong in the world among men!

{The People}
And madest us strong in the world among men!

{Red Cloud}
Life is good, O Shaman, and I have sung but
half its song. Acorns are good. So is woman
good. Strength is good. Beauty is good. So is
kindness good. Yet are all these things without
power except for woman. And by these things
woman makes strong men, and strong men make
for life, ever for more life.

{War Chief}
(With gesture of interruption that causes
remonstrance from the Shaman but which
Red Cloud acknowledges.)

I care not for beauty. I desire strength in
battle and wind in the chase that I may kill my
enemy and run down my meat.

{Red Cloud}
Well spoken, O War Chief. By voices in
council we learn our minds, and that, too, is
strength. Also, is it kindness. For kindness
and strength and beauty are one. The eagle in
the high blue of the sky is beautiful. The salmon
leaping the white water in the sunlight is beautiful.
The young man fastest of foot in the race
is beautiful. And because they fly well, and leap
well, and run well, are they beautiful. Beauty
must beget beauty. The ring-tail cat begets
the ring-tail cat, the dove the dove. Never
does the dove beget the ring-tail cat. Hearts
must be kind. The little turtle is not kind.
That is why it is the little turtle. It lays its
eggs in the sun-warm sand and forgets its young
forever. And the little turtle is forever the
Kttle turtle. But we are not little turtles,
because we are kind. We do not leave our young
to the sun in the sand. Our women keep our
young warm under their hearts, and, after, they
keep them warm with deer-skin and campfire.
Because we are kind we are men and not little
turtles, and that is why we eat the little turtle
that is not strong because it is not kind.

{War Chief}
(Gesturing to be heard.)
The Modoc come against us in their strength.
Often the Modoc come against us. We cannot
be kind to the Modoc.

{Red Cloud}
That will come after. Kindness grows. First
must we be kind to our own. After, long after,
all men will be kind to all men, and all men will
be very strong. The strength of the Nishinam
is not the strength of its strongest fighter. It is
the strength of all the Nishinam added together
that makes the Nishinam strong. We