Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без онлайн txt) 📗

The Bambuti had never fathomed the art of making fire and the women carried a live coal with them when they moved from hunting-camp to hunting-camp, but Kelly flicked her plastic Bic lighter and within minutes she had a cheerful little fire burning at the base of the tree.

She opened her pack and set up her camp.  Then, armed with the digging-stick and claspknife, she returned to the carcass of the gaboon adder.  It weighed almost ten kilos, far too much for her own needs.

Already the red serowe ants had found it.  Nothing lay long on the forest floor before the scavengers arrived.

Kelly cut a thick section from the centre of the carcass, scraped the ants away, and skinned the portion with a few expert strokes.  The meat was clean and white.  She lifted two thick fillets from the bone and placed them over the coals of her fire on a skillet of green twigs.

She scattered a few leaves from one of the herby bushes over the fire and the smoke flavoured and perfumed the flesh.  While it grilled, she strung the, orange-gilled mushrooms on another green twig.  Like a kebab she placed it on the fire, turning it regularly.

The mushrooms had a richer fungus flavour than black truffles and the flesh of the adder tasted like a mixture of lobster and milk-fed chicken.  The exertions of the day had sharpened her appetite and Kelly could not remember a more delicious meal.  She washed it down with sweet water from the stream nearby.

During the night she was awakened by a loud snuffling and gulping close to where she lay in her tree-trunk shelter.  She did .  not need to see to know what had disturbed her.  The giant forest hog can weigh as much as 650 pounds and stand three feet high at the shoulder.  These pigs, the largest and rarest in the world, are as dangerous as a lion when aroused.

But Kelly felt no fear as she listened to it gobbling the remains of the adder's carcass.  When it was finished the pig came snuffling around her camp, but she tossed a few twigs on the coals and when they flared up the pig grunted hoarsely and shambled away into the forest.

In the morning she bathed in the stream and combed out her hair and replaited it while it was still wet into a thick dark glistening braid that hung down her naked back.

She ate the rest of last night's adder steak and mushrooms cold and was on her way again as soon as it was light enough.

Although she had a compass in her pack, she navigated chiefly by the fungus plates and the serowe ant nests, which were attached only to the southern side of the tree-trunks, and by the flow and direction of the streams she crossed.

In the middle of the afternoon she-cut the well-defined trail she was searching for, and turned to follow it in a southwesterly direction.

Within the hour she recognized a landmark, a natural bridge across one of the streams formed by the massive trunk of an ancient tree that had fallen across the water-course.

 Sepoo had told her once that the tree bridge had been there

,since the beginning of time, which meant in his living memory.

Time and numbers were not concrete concepts in the pygmy mind.  They counted one, two, three, many.  In the forest where the seasons made no difference to the rainfall or temperature, they regulated their lives on the phases of the moon, and moved from one camp to the next every full moon.  Thus they never stayed long enough at one site to deplete the game or the fruits in the area, or to pollute the streams and sour the earth with their wastes.

The tree bridge was polished by generations of their tiny feet and Kelly inspected it minutely for fresh muddy tracks to judge how recently it had been used.  She was disappointed and hurried on to the campsite nearby where she had hoped to find them.  They were gone, but judging by the sign, this had been their last camp, they would have moved weeks previously at the full moon.

There were three or four other localities where they might be at this moment, the furthest almost a hundred miles away towards the heartland of the vast area which Sepoo's tribe looked upon as their own.

However, there was no telling which direction they had chosen.  Like all tribal decisions, it would have been made at the last moment by a heated and lively debate in which all joined with equal voice.  Kelly smiled as she guessed how the argument had probably been resolved.  She had seen it so often.

One of the women, not necessarily the eldest or most senior, fed up with the silliness and obstinacy of the men, not least that of her own husband, would suddenly have picked up her bundle, adjusted her headband, bowed forward to balance the weight, and trotted off down the trail.  The others, many of them still grumbling, would have followed her in a straggling line.

In the Bambuti community there were no chiefs or,leaders.

Every adult mate or female of whatever age had equal voice and weight.

Only in a few matters such as when and where to spread the hunting-nets, the younger members would probably defer to the experience of one of the famous older hunters, but only after suitable face-saving argument and discussion.

Kelly looked around the deserted campsite and was amused to see what the tribe had abandoned.  There were a wooden pestle and mortar used for pounding manioc, a fine steel mattock, a disembowelled transistor radio and various other items obviously purloined from the villages-along the road.  She was certain that the Bambuti were the least material people on earth.  Possessions meant almost nothing to them, and after the fun of stealing them faded, they swiftly lost interest in them.  Too heavy to carry, they explained to Kelly when she asked.  We can always borrow another one from the wazungu, if we need one.  Their eyes danced at the prospect, and they screamed with laughter and slapped each other on the back.

The only possessions they treasured enough to keep and hand down to their children were the hunting-nets of woven bark.  Each family had a hundredfoot length which they strung together with all the others to make the long communal net.

The game was shared, with all the usual vehement debate, according to a time-honoured system amongst all those who had participated in the hunt.

Living within the bounty of the forest they had no need to accumulate wealth.  Their clothing of bark-cloth could be renewed with a few hours work, stripping and beating out the pith with a wooden mallet.  Their weapons were disposable and renewable.  The spear and the bow were whittled from hardwood and strung with bark fibre.  The arrow and the spear were not even tipped with iron, but the points were simply hardened in the fire.  The broad mongongo leaves roofed over their buts of arched saplings and a small fire gave them warmth and comfort in the night.

The forest god gave them food in abundance, what need had they of other possessions?  They were the only people Kelly had ever known who were completely satisfied with their lot, and this accounted for a great deal of their appeal.

Kelly had been looking forward to being reunited with them and she was downcast at having missed them.  Sitting on a log in the deserted camp that was so swiftly reverting to jungle, she considered her next move. It would be futile to try and guess in which direction they had gone, and foolhardy to try and follow them.  Their tracks would long ago have been obliterated by rain and the passage of other forest creatures, and she knew only this relatively small area of the forest with any certainty.

There were twenty thousand square.  miles out there that she had never seen and where she might lose herself for ever.

She must give up trying to find them, and go on to her own base camp at Gondola, the place of the happy elephant.  In time the Bambuti would find her there and she must be patient.