Chapter 14

“Why should I? The truth is much more interesting than a jest, Shaman Relinko. Training women as warriors was a revelation to them, but they followed my instructions. They finally realised they had capabilities they never suspected. I brought to this area new ideas about how to fight; beginning with one simple fact: How you kill or disable an enemy is less important than actually achieving this kill or injury. You don’t need to be up close and depend on physical strength, when your armament can do it for you. The spear is fine at close quarters, if you know how best to use it, but it is just as effective when thrown; again provided you know how to throw it properly. More; the bow and arrow is a fine weapon, but hitting your target is vastly more important than reaching your target. I trained my warriors to concentrate on hitting their targets. I prefer to have warriors taking a shorter distance and hitting their enemy warrior, instead of using longer range and missing the target most of the time.

I appeal to your common sense, Relinko. What would you want a warrior to achieve: long distance archery, or accurate archery? I taught my warriors to go for accurate, and so female warriors were as good as male warriors in a battle where accuracy gave us the edge. Firing from inside a forest gives you an advantage in battle. Fighting on an open plain gives the other side too much of an advantage, unless your warriors have protection such as a shield.

I may yet devise a shield for their protection, but that means working out a balance between size and bulk, weight for carrying, and penetration resistance. I am open to suggestions in that art, especially in how the shields are carried to the battle which may be some distance away from home.

Another battle technique I taught them was night fighting. If you can see your enemy, but he cannot see you, then you win. Attacking an enemy base where they are lit up by their own cook fires, means that you start with that advantage. It is even better if they can’t see the direction the arrows are coming from; they don’t know which direction to fight back!”

Shaman Relinko acknowledged, “This is a new style of fighting, but surely it is unfair fighting?”

John responded, “If a big man hits a little man with a large weapon, surely that is unfair, yet no-one sees it as that in a battle. Imagine a big man saying to himself, ‘My opponent is small, so it is unfair of me to kill him.’ No, he says to himself, ‘This is an easy kill,’ and destroys his opponent. It is the same with my fighting techniques. Killing your opponent is the task in hand, so the means doesn’t confer any moral judgment for or against you. All that matters is that you win the fight. Is that not so?”

Relinko acknowledged, “It would appear that your logic is sound: winning is the whole point of battle; you don’t fight to lose.”

“So, Relinko, female warriors or male? Showers of arrows versus targeted archery? In short, all that matters is winning, so I have trained my warriors to win.”

“So you are not truly a Shaman; you are a warrior leader!”

“You might as well argue that I cured the sick in your tribes, therefore I was not truly a warrior! Think about it. Cut to the bone of the matter. You are thinking in the old way; that a person can only be one thing, know one trade.

Why should that be so? Only old tradition says that it should be this way. Tradition is wrong on that. This a new world we are in now, my friends; a world where facts, the truth, reality, is more valuable than past views of the world as a static society where there is only one way to think.

I am a trained warrior; I am a healer; I am a Shaman; I am a hunter; I am a Chief. Does any part of that prevent the other parts from happening? Your body is not just a hand for grasping. It is feet for walking; it is a head for thinking; it is breath for giving your muscles stamina; it is a penis for allowing procreation.

All these together make a body that is more than the individual parts. Tradition says nothing useful about how you use your body. The same is true about other aspects of life and death in our society.”

Relinko was stumped. “I don’t get you. What are you saying about tradition? That tradition is wrong? That is sacrilege!”

“No, my friend. Tradition is fine where it tells truth and makes sense, but if it does not make sense, it is wrong. If tradition says you should save yourself and abandon your wounded during a battle, leaving them to be killed by the enemy; do you abandon your wounded? No, you take them home with you, heal them, and make them strong warriors again, ready to fight for the tribe. Always ask yourself, ‘Does this tradition make sense? Does it help the tribe, or hinder it?’ Tradition should always be what you have learned from the past; and that can even be the recent past; and NOT what someone declares should happen, without evidence to back up that claim.

The concept of learning more than one trade is sensible. Your cook should be able to drop his cooking tools and pick up his weapons if the enemy attacks your camp, as should your supplies carrier. If everyone who goes to a battle is able to fight, you are stronger and more likely to win.

Everyone should have more than one ability at all times and thus make the tribe stronger. Never be afraid to teach your tribesmen to be able to fight in an emergency. Such fear of learning suggests a lack of confidence in the leadership.

My warriors are warriors when they have to be. At other times they are healers or food gatherers, or food preparers, or clothing providers, or makers of trade items such as soap. In this tribe, our women are wives and mothers as well as warriors. You may have noticed that the guard who met you at the forest’s edge was a woman warrior. This is her job today. Tomorrow she may be putting together clothes or moccasins, or helping prepare ingredients for the making of soap, or the making of soup for the meal if that is what is needed.

All these tasks help the tribe, and when you have many adults able to take on a variety of tasks, this flexibility is extremely useful. If your single food preparer is unavailable because she is birthing a baby, do you stop eating? In this tribe, we have many adults who can cook food, so if one is unwell or having a baby, or going off to fight, it simply means that another cook takes over. The same applies to almost any trade.”

Relinko suggested slyly, “Even a Chief?”

John nodded, to Relinko’s surprise.

“Even a Chief. A tribe without a Chief is a tribe that is without direction. A good Chief will have trained another person to take over in an emergency, for example if the Chief takes ill. Chief Numa birthed a baby a few weeks ago, so she must have been out of action for at least some time. I am sure she had prepared for that situation.”

Chief Numa interposed, “I did that. I had a replacement in post for a few days, if anyone had need of advice or a decision in my absence.”

Balligra asked, “Can you tell us about your healing magic, so that we can use it ourselves? It was an impressive effect for any shaman, but yours was astonishing.”

“As a Shaman yourself, Balligra, you know that the secrets behind some talents cannot be revealed to others, not even to other Shamans. What I will do, though, is pass to you this magic touch, so that you can apply it to those in need of healing. Allow me to lay my hands on your heads, and you will receive my healing magic. That I promise.”

All the men immediately knelt in front of John, in a gesture that he remembered from his childhood church days. It also was them showing respect for his leadership. He used the same method a priest used back then; he placed both hands side by side on each head, one after the other, saying to each, “Receive my healing power with my blessing.”

Shelba exclaimed, “That is it? This blessing is all that is needed?”

John uttered a short laugh. “If you would prefer to have it complicated, I could chant some indecipherable incantation over you, but the words would make no difference, as is often the case with a Shamanic talent. It is my touch that matters, but it takes some time for your body to assimilate the power that I have endowed you with. Soon, however, you will be able to pass on this healing touch to others, and thereby heal them. Remember that it is a gift that you are passing on, not a one-time spell. My gift spreads, whether you like it or not. However, this a magic that you can depend on; it is not fickle in its activity.”

Relinko was staggered.

“Thank you, Shaman John Hunter – or should we call you High Chief?”

John replied, “I am happy with either. Remember that I am not seeking power. Power is a two-edged knife, for it brings responsibility as well as control. Please notify the tribes that I am willing to offer helpful advice on improving the lives of tribes, but I am keen on promoting the lives of women and girls, just as much as men and boys. Both genders are vital to the future of our tribes, and we should recognise that fact by offering women the same life choices that men have always taken for granted. Tell them that a woman can be a Chief, as happens in two of my tribes, tribes that accept me as a guiding hand without wielding power in that helping hand.”

Balligro declared, “You are a strange man, High Chief; not just your skin colour or your height, but the way you think. It is weird in many ways, but in other ways it is astonishingly simple and straightforward. Do you believe in the Earth Mother, or is your mind at variance with her belief as well?”

John thought for a moment before giving a reply.

“Do you believe in that rock wall you see before you?”

“Of course. It is just there. I can see it.”

“Do you believe in other tribes; ones that you cannot see?”

“Naturally. I already know of their existence, so that follows.”

“Despite the fact that you cannot see them?”

“Seeing them or not does not matter, as I know of their existence.”

“Then it is not a matter of seeing, but of knowing inside yourself?”

“That is so. What is your point?”

“You cannot see the Earth Mother either. What matters is whether you know within yourself that she exists. It is very personal, that knowing.

In addition, you can infer things by observation of actions. If you push a thin tree or a branch, it bends; if you draw your heel across sand or mud, it leaves a furrow; if you clap your hands together, that causes a sound. These are examples of a principle I know as Cause and Effect: your actions cause something to happen, and you can observe HOW it comes about. There are other actions that happen without you doing anything to cause them: the movement of clouds and weather; water running downhill; the plants and trees that grow up from the soil; the babies that grow inside their mothers; all are examples where they happen without active human intervention, often without human knowledge of how they happen. These actions must have a cause, and we can name that cause the Earth Mother. Some societies might call it the prime mover or a host of names of active spirits, as if they were not one, and that is fine for them, but it is more sensible to say it is one cause, and we name that cause the Earth Mother.

Believing, knowing, or concluding that prime mover’s existence can give you power to do things with Her assistance. You can influence Her power over water, and divert that power to make a pool where it is easier to catch fish, or you can make new channels to divert the water to where your tribe can drink more easily.

Once you know what the Earth Mother does, and that She allows you to benefit from Her actions, you can do wonderful things. A man who knows that he will go to be with the Earth Mother when he dies; he will have no fears about that death. In fighting, he will fight with no fears for the future, and is more likely to win because of that.

It is that knowing of the Earth Mother’s existence that helps you in so many ways. I am happy to accede to that special knowledge that my people have. To do otherwise would be foolish.

Does that answer your question?”

“You mean, as it is for the good of your people, you are able to accept that the Earth Mother exists.”

“Or to put it another way, I am happy to act on that conclusion, just as I am happy to act as if tomorrow the sun will rise again. It makes good sense to act in that way.”

“A very pragmatic view of life, High Chief.”

“Can you suggest anything more appropriate, Balligro?”

“For you? No. You seem to have adopted the best strategy for yourself and your people, High Chief. It has a logic to it that I can respect.”

Relinko commented, “Can I summarise your demands, High Chief? You refuse to accept the chieftainship of any of our tribes, but are willing to accept an honorary position as High Chief, offering advice and guidance where and when asked for. You DO have a demand, in that you want men and women to be treated equally, in being able to take on any trade within the tribe, if they have the capability to do it.”

“Exactly. No-one should be rejected if they show the ability to do the job. Every other change in society follows on from that; matters such as women having the choice of whether and who to marry, just as men do.”

“Eh? Choices in marriage? But parents make that decision, even though they take the daughter’s wishes into consideration.”

“Now, perhaps. I want that idea to be reversed: the daughter makes the choice, taking the parent’s advice before deciding. That gives the woman power over herself, as she is now an adult woman. Is it not right that a woman should decide her own future, just as a man does?”

“That is a major change in tradition, High Chief.”

“That is so, but in this example, tradition has failed the woman. It is time that the woman had the same power as a man, over who she marries.”

“What about concubines?”

John replied, “What is the difference between a wife and a concubine?”

“Umm ... the concubine has less status than a wife, mostly, less decision-making power within the family.”

“I see no sensible reason for that. If she acts like a wife in every other way, she should be granted the status of a wife if she wishes to be a wife. To my way of thinking, being a concubine must be the sole choice of the woman; otherwise she should be granted the status of a wife. I have two concubines; both elected to take that position; not me. I had no part in that decision, merely accepted their choice in the matter. All my other women are wives, and at any time, should these two women wish to become wives, they will be granted that wish.”

Relinko sought clarification.

“High Chief, if a tribe wants to have you as their High Chief, must they first institute these rules that you have stated?”

John answered, “I will say this: At a minimum, they should have agreed that this is their objective. They do not have to have implemented all of these ideas beforehand. It is not a simple matter to change a traditional practice overnight, and I recognise that difficulty. The women must be made aware that such is their future entitlement, and that it is coming soon. That is my minimum requirement, which you will agree is reasonable. What I seek is fair treatment of men and women, both of whom are vital to a tribe.”

“Yes, High Chief. That does appear to be reasonable, to our minds. The tribes may feel differently.”

“That is their choice. You too have a choice. Please do not offer them your healing if they refuse to grant women their opportunities and opt for old traditions. Choosing old gender traditions, instead of a new practice, should also mean choosing old healing traditions. Then they can reflect on their decision and its effects on them. I expect they will see what new healing does for other tribes, and change their minds about keeping to old traditions.”

“That is sneaky, High Chief,” declared Shelbo.

John shrugged. “It is not up to me; I merely say what I feel is right, fair, and sensible. Let them decide if they want fairness and good health, or unfairness and bad health. It is up to them, is it not? We are not forcing anything on them: they make their own decision.

Of course, when the tribe see that other tribes with the new practice get better health, families may start moving to the tribes with the new practices. The families may decide with their feet.”

Shelbo admitted, “It is always thus. As a shaman, I can only advise and give good counsel, based on knowledge from various sources, and people may act on it or not. Some may call what we do magic, but magic is in the head, not on the ground.”

“Wise words, my friend. Go with my blessing, and may the Earth Mother be with you.”

The Shaman trio got up and left without another word.

Numa called him over, and asked him, “Why didn’t you offer them some hospitality before they left?”

“It is a matter of professional pride. They are Shamans; they are expected to be able to organise their own food and drink without seeking it from others. It is a matter of professional pride that they don’t ask for sustenance. Some will claim they do without food! They pretend they can survive by their own magic talent, but it is actually good foraging techniques. They will gather food and make a secret campsite to have their meal. I know it seems daft, but we all have our little foibles, secrets that are restricted to fellow practitioners. It is like I said about my healing technique. It is my personal secret that they don’t expect me to reveal. These guys do know a huge amount about edible plants, fruit, nuts, spices, and hallucinogenic drugs, but they keep their knowledge to themselves and only pass it on to their apprentices.”

Raka sidled up to him, and whispered, “Can I speak to you when you are free, John?”

“Sure, Raka. What about?”

“Boxes in the storeroom.”

“Oh.” He looked around, and no-one seemed to be needing his attention at the moment. “Tell me now.”

“Well, there are many boxes piled up inside, and I don’t know what they are, for I don’t know the words on the boxes. Even the pictures don’t make sense to me for many of them. I got Sheila to come and tell me what they said was in the boxes, and that has helped with words for many of them, but I forgot to ask her what ‘chain saw’ meant. ‘Saw’, I know is a tool for cutting through wood, but ‘chain’ means nothing to me. Can you tell me, so I don’t have to go back and admit my ignorance again?”

“Why didn’t you speak to Vickie or Jean about it?”

“I did, but they said that to explain ‘chain’ is quite complicated.”

“I suppose it is, come to think of it. In simple terms, a chain is a series of links that connect in a flexible way, like a row of beads on a necklace, but most chains don’t have a string between the ‘beads’; just a linkage. Just imagine two beads where one bead goes through a hole in the other bead, and are linked that way.”

“I can’t imagine how you could get that to happen, except by magic.”

“It is just an analogy – an example to get an idea over. We are not talking about actual beads, but metal bead-type links that can move one way; say, up and down. Got the notion?”

“Yes, I can imagine that.”

“From that, imagine these links going round in a circle, like a necklace string. Now, each of these links is shaped with points sticking out, like the cutting points on a saw, so it is like a saw with a succession of cutting points that never end: they go round and round and round.”

“But a saw has a handle for you to push and pull it for cutting. A circle doesn’t do that!”

“Correct, but a chainsaw has a motor, a turning machine, and the chain runs over a frame, going past the motor to be grabbed and pushed along. As it is a never-ending loop, the chain goes out from the motor, round the holding frame, then back to the motor.

As the motor turns very fast, the chain also goes round that loop very fast, so the sharp points do the cutting very quickly. It is very good for cutting down thick trees.”

John suddenly stopped speaking as a thought hit him like a lump of wood. “Trees! I forgot all about them!”

“What? What are you talking about, John? There are trees all around us. How could you forget them?”

“Sorry, Raka. When I was last speaking with the group from my world, men similar to me, Vickie, Sheila and Jean, they asked about trees. The group – the ones that have those large ships – live on the northern part of this continent, and they asked if we could supply large tree logs for shipbuilding. I promised to see what I could do, then forgot about it. Your query brought it back to my mind. Come to think of it, I wonder if we could use the chainsaw to cut down suitable trees. Did Sheila say what the motor runs on: petrol or electric battery?”

“She said nothing about that. You’ll have to ask her yourself, or take yourself into the store and find out.”

“Where is Sheila now? Do you know?”

“No. I’ll ask Chief Numa, as she is trying to keep track of everyone while she recovers from having her baby.”

She rushed to ask Numa, and returned to John shortly after.

“Sheila has gone into the forest to collect some plants she sought. A warrior has gone with her for protection.”

“Fine. I’ll wait until she returns. What are the tallest, straightest trees that you have heard of in this general area? I am specially keen on any that grow near a river.”

“Why near a river?”

“You can float a tree trunk down the river to the sea, and the sea merchants want to collect the wood where the river meets the sea. That makes it easy for them, as they just need to tie the trunks – large logs - together and tow them behind the ship to where they are needed.”

“You want a tree that has good wood all through the trunk?”

“Yes. It has to be that way for building ships.”

“There is a tree that is very tall and straight, but I don’t know if there is a name for it. It does not grow in groups, just the occasional tree at a distance from another one of the same kind.”

“That sounds quite like mahogany. I must ask Sheila if her books tell her that. Mahogany is great for that sort of application.”

“I have not heard the name, so I’ll leave it to Sheila. She has nice pictures of trees and other plants in her books.”

“Rather than wait for her to come back, I’ll go to the store and find the chainsaw and see if it is battery-powered. If it is, we need either a good supply of batteries, or a solar charger to recharge them, or both. I very much doubt it is petrol-driven, for we have no petrol supplies here.”

John’s visit to the store was uneventful, except that he had failed to ask Raka where the chainsaw box was located, so he had to rake around for a while until he found it; in fact two of them. That exploration enabled him to find solar chargers and a pile of additional rechargeable batteries to fit the chainsaw. These batteries were made to fit a whole range of power equipment, some of which was in the storeroom.

He set aside the solar chargers and a couple of batteries, and continued until he found the box containing the chainsaw. He was right in his assumption. It was a battery-powered Greenworks Commercial 82 volt 18-inch saw, but he was wrong about how heavy it would be; it seemed remarkably light, but then add on the weight of a bulky lithium-ion battery, and it was not an easy-to-transport item.

John simply heaved the box to a spot near the door, to be easy to find when he returned for it. A box of about ten spare batteries was parked next to the chainsaw, and next to that were two more solar chargers for the batteries. Someone on the nasties team had been very tech-savvy and aware of the lack of mains power where they were stashing the equipment, he decided. He picked up both chargers and two batteries, and brought them back out to the cave front, where he read the instructions and set up one solar charger for the first battery. This would do for a test of the time taken for a full charge. He thought he should have at least three batteries fully charged before starting to use the chainsaw or any other device.

Next, he needed to find mahogany trees near a river that would end up at the coast. The map inside the cave showed a river, but that might not be wide enough or deep enough to transport a huge tree down river. Even then, a sharp bend or a set of rapids might be a problem getting the trunk past.

He needed to speak to someone with wide knowledge of the geography of this general area, as well as getting helpers to locate and mark mahogany trees by rivers. That was not going to be easy, he thought. Then there was the difficulty of carrying the heavy chainsaw to wherever the mahogany trees were found. Carrying it any distance would be damn nuisance. Using a bicycle to transport it would be almost impossible, due to the instability of a bicycle frame; it would be a top-heavy load, easy to topple over.

Damn, he thought. The narrow track prevents anything wider, such as a four-wheeler, getting through ... unless ... perhaps a three-wheeler, such as a narrow tricycle with the back wheels closer together than normal? It would not be fully stable, but possible stable enough to get through the tracks without too much trouble. It would leave only the stretch between the track and the nearest mahogany tree, for the chainsaw and charged batteries to be lugged.

What was the endurance of a chainsaw battery? Would he need to carry a couple of spares? He would have to read the instruction booklet that should be inside the box, but guessed it would probably only give a run time. That does not tell you how much of a large tree you could cut through on one battery charge, but if he took a charger as well, then as soon as the first battery gave out, he should put in on charge before starting on the second battery. But would the first battery be charged swiftly enough?

He summoned Raka. When she appeared, he asked about bicycles.

“Raka, are you able to build a bicycle like Brando made? Or a variant I would like to have?”

She paused to think, then said reluctantly, “This is better done by Brando, John. He knows all the design details about balance and so forth, ; more than I do, and how all the connections are made and put together.”

“I thought that might be the case, but perhaps you could work on this idea together: it is a tricycle. That is a cycle that has three wheels, one at the front for steering, and two at the back for load-carrying and stability. Anything that rests on three points is much more stable than anything that only uses two points. A chair has four legs and is stable; a stool has three legs and is also stable, but a seat with only two legs will always fall over.

It is the same with wheels when at rest. The two-wheeled bicycle will fall over except when it is moving forward and you can balance on it by yourself. With three wheels, it will not fall over, even when stopped. That makes it very simple to use, but normally the back wheels are wide apart, giving good stability. The narrow tracks prevent us having wheels that far apart, so we need to build it with the back wheels much closer together, thus reducing the stability factor. The other advantage of the rear wheels is that you can make a platform that will take cargo. I want a tricycle that is just wide enough at the rear to go along most tracks without falling over to one side or the other, or banging into branches and roots on the ground, if it can be done.”

Raka was wide-eyed.

“That is a new idea, but I think Brando will love it! Think of how many of these you could make good trades with? Every tribe will want at least one of them; probably more. These tricycles will not be easy to make, but that means other tribes will have difficulty making their own. It will be simpler for them to trade for one, and that means we will do well in our trading.”

“That’s fine with me, but I would like the first one. I want to test it by using it to transport the chainsaw and batteries to the nearest mahogany tree that is beside a river.”

She frowned. “That is extremely particular, John. Why these specifics?”

“I promised the sea merchants some massive logs for building their ships. They want these floated down a river to the sea, where they would collect the trunk-logs with their ships.”

“Ah. That explains what the others were talking about: tall straight trees by a river. You intend to cut them down with the saw?”

“Yes. That is why I need a machine to carry the chainsaw. It is too heavy to carry on my back all the way to the trees. If you and Brando can come up with a basket that sits above the back set of wheels, the boxes can sit there. I can wheel the tricycle down the paths, and only need to carry them the last bit from the track to each tree. I am told these trees are widely spaced.”

“Right. I am with you in your thinking. Let me go with a guard to the Farfarers and see what Brando can come up with. With a guard for protection I can move faster. This baby of yours slows me and makes me less able to defend myself.”

John agreed to leave that with her to attend to and arrange her protection for the journey.