Chapter 7

“I appreciate the help you are giving me, High Chief, but why? I am still very young, and a woman.”

John admonished her, “You are a young woman, and that makes you ready to become a trained warrior. This is an initial step in that direction. All the women in the tribe we are going to would be able to fight off almost any man, and many animals as well. Perhaps not a full pack of stripies, but certainly one or two of these animals face to face. The same with men.”

“High Chief, I don’t understand. How could any of these women be able to fight a man? Surely any warrior would defeat a woman?”

John smiled at her and asked, “What do you mean by a warrior, Cara?”

She blinked in confusion, and stammered, “Surely a man who has trained to fight for his tribe? What else?”

John came back with, “In my tribes, a warrior is a PERSON who is trained to fight for the tribe. Do you see the difference?”

“But only a man can become a warrior!”

“Why?” John persisted.

“Because it is a man’s job,” she replied.

“I see, and why is it a man’s job, Cara?”

“Because it always has been,” she responded without a thought.

“Ah, you mean because of tradition? Tradition is surely what has happened in the past and persists because it happened that way in the past, with no-one thinking otherwise. But there is no real reason for it to happen that way in the present or the future. When a tribe is attacked, and needs to defend itself, the best response is if every adult has been trained to fight; to act as a warrior. That is the logic we use; the logic of survival.”

“Oh. So your women can be trained to be warriors.” She thought a bit then said, “But what of their other responsibilities as wives, mothers, cooks, weavers, and so on?”

“What of other responsibilities of male warriors? Making weapons, preparing food for the journey, knowing how to make a fire and how to put one out, learning how to make a temporary latrine so that the smell of human shit or piss does not give away your presence. A warrior has to be trained in other tasks than fighting, and our women are the same, just as in other tasks; making food, weaving cloth, starting a cookfire, and also birthing and raising children.”

“Hah!” Cara accused him. “A pregnant woman cannot be a warrior! It is too dangerous for her and the baby.”

“Wrong. When our tribe tackled an invader army post, most of the women warriors were pregnant at the time. Look at Salla and Tula: they are pregnant, yet they are able to do many things. A pregnant woman can easily be a warrior up to about five moons of her pregnancy, and even after that she can stay at home and make spears and arrows for the other warriors. She always remains a valuable member of the defence force, and if an enemy attacked the tribe at its home, she can wield a spear in defence of the tribe at any time. Our warriors who remain at home in a time of fighting keep a spear handy by their sleeping space all the time.”

“By the Great Mother! Your women must be tough women if they can do all that!”

“Cara, my first wife is a warrior, but she is also a mother of a small child, and is the tribal Chief. Being able to do many things has always been something that women did without thinking about it. Adding being a warrior to the list is no great problem for a woman.”

Salla intervened, “John, should we not be getting on our way?”

“Quite so, Salla my dear. Cara, you may not have rested, but you got a break from your duties. Do you feel ready to resume them?”

She suddenly noticed that she felt fine, even without a proper rest. Being diverted from her work had given her brain a change, and that had also relaxed her muscles.

“Yes, High Chief. If you are ready, so am I.”

The youngest child skipped over to John and asked, “Up, father John?” She had been told by her mother what the correct term was.

John smiled, and offered, “Shoulder high, this time?”

She giggled, “Up on your shoulders? Yes please.”

John lifted her up and over his head, so that her legs settled on either side, and explained, “Now what you must do is hold your hands tight round my forehead, so you have a good grip while I am moving. That will stop you toppling over. Try it now.”

She swiftly got the idea, and loved being up so high, where she could see everything, but quickly spotted a problem.

“Father John, what if a branch hits me?”

“When you see it close, call out, ‘Branch!’ And I will bend my knees so that we avoid the branch, alright?”

“Alright. Can I call you father, just father? If that is all right with you.”

“Why not? I will be happy for you to call me father; it sounds good to my ears.”

“Thank you, father.”

They slowly made their cautious way to Numa’s tribe, but a surprise awaited them before they got there.

They were ‘ambushed’ by a bunch of teenagers a mile from the cave. One minute all was quiet, and next minute there were six teenagers close around them, brandishing spears, and the three children screamed in terror. As Salla and Tula went to protect their charges, Cara started to swing her pole, but the High Chief called “Hold, Cara. These are friends.”

He glowered at the attackers, a mix of grinning boys and girls in their early teens who obviously knew him well and knew they were safe.

He remonstrated, “One or more of you could have got hurt with this wild rush. I have been teaching Cara, the lady with the long pole, how to defend with a carrying pole, and she nearly clobbered one of you numbskulls. This was bad warrior planning by you lot. You should have stayed out of reach when you ambushed us; spears are best used from outside the range of hand weapons like knives and clubs, and also long poles with weights on the end: these can be dangerous if you get too close. Learn that lesson for the future.”

“Sorry, High Chief,” their mid-teen leader apologised. He explained, “We were practising attacking from hiding, and got a bit carried away. I am sure my team have learned their lesson. Haven’t you, team?”

The rest shouted, “Yes, leader!”

John smiled. “Now that we have that out of the way, it is good to see you working at military tactics on your own. I hope you have your backup arranged for messages.”

“Backup? Huh?”

“Yes. Do you have a communication link back to the tribe, so that you can summon assistance if needed? A member of your team appointed to seek help if needed?”

“Umm, no, High Chief. It was not much more than a game, today.”

“Game or not, it is important to have a method of getting messages back to your base. What if one of you had an accident and you needed help? Were you prepared for that?”

“Uhh ... no, High Chief. Sorry. We’ll correct that for the next time, as part of our training practice. Can we report that you are on your way with visitors?”

“Go and report to the perimeter guard, and they will take it from there. Now all of you, vanish!”

In moments all was clear again. The ambush team had vanished with hardly a sound, and there was nothing to tell now where they were moving. It was an impressive display by the youngsters. John was pleased to note that bit of good information.

Cara called, “High Chief, was that bunch from your tribe? I noticed both boys and girls together.”

“They were indeed. Even before they are officially grown-ups, they start practicing their defence activities, or in this instance offensive measures by ambushing the enemy. This was an outside practice for them, but they are still learning, as you saw. They were beautifully quiet in moving through the forest, and that was good.”

“Oh. They are training to be warriors?”

“Yes. Do you fancy being able to act as a warrior?”

“I don’t know. I’d love to be able to defend myself; fight off any man who attacked me.”

“You could learn that with us. Do you want to stay with Salla and Tula?”

“I’d be happy to stay and help with bringing up the children. It would be more interesting than doing a job related to the fishing and risk drowning at sea.”

“Then speak with Chief Numa about your desires. She makes the decisions for the tribe.”

The group made their way to Numa’s tribe, were greeted with a smile by the perimeter guard, and then announced by the guard at the cave entrance, “High Chief John and party are here!”

They were welcomed by Chief Numa, who raised a hand in welcome to her husband, gave him a happy hug and asked, “John my husband, who are these visitors you bring with you? The ladies and the children look as if they could do with a good rest and some warm food.”

John introduced Salla, Tula, and Salla’s children before adding, “Plus their friend Cara who has carried most of their goods for them. Cara deserves good treatment as well, as she is interested in learning the tasks of a warrior.”

Numa raised her eyebrows, but looked the young woman over.

“Is this your true desire, Cara?”

“It is, Chief Numa, since I learned that a woman can be a warrior as well as a woman.”

Numa nodded her agreement, saying, “In that case, we will arrange for you to join others who have that desire. In the meantime, join your friends in going to the cook-fire for food and a drink, then you can all get a well-deserved rest. We can have conversations tomorrow, when these two very pregnant ladies can tell me their tale. It is bound to be interesting, as High Chief John is involved.”

Cara concurred, “Yes, Chief Numa. They bear Mabana’s babies, and the High Chief says he will care for them all. He promised Mabana.”

“He does that. He always does care for other people.”

At dismissal Cara and the family went off, guided by the cave guard, to where the food was prepared. Numa stood for a moment or two, thinking, while John stood by waiting for the hammer to fall.

“John?” she asked. “Tell me about these women and their babies. You and Mabana were close as shamans, but how close? Tell me, husband, the full truth.”

John shrugged, but admitted, “Mabana loved his women, but his efforts never led to pregnancies. I believe his body was not producing fertile seed; it can happen sometimes.”

Numa glared at him accusingly. “Go on,” she urged.

“He remarked on how many babies I already had or were on the way, and on that basis asked me to help him become a father, so that his position as tribal shaman would not be undermined by the suggestion that he could not father a child. He loved his women, but saw me as his only solution to his problem; a solution that would remain secret.”

“So he asked you to fuck them and make them pregnant! Did they not have any say in the matter? That is not like you, John.”

“Please, my darling Numa, let me continue before you judge me. Mabana first asked me if I was willing to supply the fertile seed in his name, and when I agreed he discussed it with his wives. Apparently they were keen to have babies, and if this was the only way, they would take it and welcome my presence in their beds. Mabana reported to me that they were amenable to this solution, and Mabana made arrangements to be at his workplace for enough time while I was at his home hut with his family. That was many months ago. I was prepared to go back and repeat if needed, but they conceived right away, and are now close to birthing time.”

“So naturally you offered them places as more wives.”

“You know me so well, Numa dear, but I also told them that it was your decision and that I would have to abide by that decision.”

Numa snorted. “As if I would reject these poor women, newly widowed and about to have babies!”

“I thought you might feel that way, my darling.”

“Very well, you are allowed to make them wives, but not until after they have their babies, so that the babies can be viewed as Mabana’s offspring in his memory. If the children’s skin colour is a little on the pale side, just as so many of your babies are, we will have to say that it is mere coincidence, putting it down to local conditions or Mabana’s family heritage. When they are old enough, we can tell them you are their true father but they must honour Mabana’s memory.”

“Sounds like a plan,” John used a phrase he remembered from somewhere in his past life. “Thank you for being so cooperative, my darling.”

“It is just because I love you, you lovely man; you know I want you to have plenty of children to carry on our family line. These two will want more of your offspring, if I am any judge of them.”

“That is the impression that I already have, love. They gave me some hints.”

“Hmmph. I am sure they did. Can I ask you about moving this tribe or expanding our territory?

“Huh? Why the change of topic? I thought we had already talked this over.”

“We had, but things have changed since then; more people, more art, more ‘making’ ideas to chase up, and now more production. According to Raka, your production ideas need to be rationalised. She says that one person sticking to the one repetitive job will make it boring in the extreme. She wants every worker to be trained in at least three tasks, so that when the worker gets bored, he or she can switch with someone else to another job and be fresh again. She also wants this to cover several production ‘lines’ she called them, as they each run in a single direction and the switching will not cause delays.”

“Several lines? How?”

“A worker can do a job on the bicycle line, then switch to a job in the soap-making line, then to a job in the moccasin making line, then switch possibly to art making if they have an art talent; and so it goes on. Raka sees variety as the solution to boredom, and something else as well.”

John’s face took on a surprised look and said, “Makes sense, I suppose, in the context. This is not 20th century America.”

“What?” Numa queried.

“Sorry, my love; just an allusion to my past life; not worth bothering about. Raka is correct in her calculations. We don’t want our people to get bored with routine. What was the something else you mentioned?”

“Oh, it was something I didn’t understand. It had to do with the effect on your body of doing the same thing over and over again. She thinks it is bad for you.”

“She may be right at that. Where did that idea come from?”

“She said Brando had worked it out from observing people using the same movements over and over again. Said they got sore muscles and couldn’t continue because of it. He took them off the job and got them to do something else that was completely different, and they recovered. Do you know what he was talking about?”

“Ah, I think it was what we called Repetitive Strain Injury. Our bodies are not like machines that can repeat the same movement all the time. We need to change how we move, every so often, for that is how our bodies developed over many generations; the ever-changing movement of our ancient form of living. It is a good suggestion to keep switching repetitive tasks to keep our bodies in good condition.”