Chapter 18 - Pioneers' Hall
Leva soils south of the Serpentine Estuary
Two boulders of sandstone, husband and wife were here first, deposited into this now dry valley by ancient ice monsters. Over millennia these glacial relics lay hidden beneath the rainforests of savages. Then barbarian progressives of the Leva kind, crossed the sea to bring their trinity religion, and to hack woodland pastures out of the wildwoods. Here they exposed the two eternal entities, transcending all limits of mortality. The pioneer degenerates marvelled at the two petrified giants of a mythical age. To these new stone age farmers, the two boulders were magical megaliths to be revered, and gateways to two of their deities, Daghnu the wheat father, and Athiratu the frog mother. Nostalgia for megaliths in their old country, the priests and witches of the Leva recognised the potentials of these large stones as divine gifts to legitimise claims to stolen lands.
So it was that Leva pioneers combined collective efforts to erect a monumental house in the presence of these two stone deities. A great hall of the pioneers with a long, quadrilateral base, walls of planks that had been split from tall trees which in turn held up the timber booms of a tall thatched roof. The interior they divided across a central aisle into stalls. Each of these stalls the space for the descendants of one pioneer. This hall stands as a statement that a new agriculture now owns these lands. The two ancient boulders within the forecourt of the hall express the lie that these lands were always intended for the new kind of people.
A circular glade of tall timber posts has been erected around the stones. To one of these timbers, a young female savage has been tethered. Daghnu and Athiratu judge Ur’salla’s worth as she waits to meet Leva masters. A wheat father and a frog mother, ancestors of the ant-people judge Ur’salla to be more beast than human. A beast to be used.
Only the orphan named Lanella remains outside of the hall acting as Ur’salla’s warden. Her brethren bring out food and drink. In exchange Lanella grunts to them some words of translation. It's late at night when the three male orphans finally stumble out of the pioneers’ hall. They laugh as Saabiaske clutches at a barbarian’s jar. Lanella eagerly joins them and her man lowers the pot so that she can marvel at its contents. A fine gift from their barbarian patrons. A jar full of precious grains of sea salt. A profit on the life and happiness of Ur’salla. She watches on as her merry abductors stroll away with their bellies full and their greedy arms cradling their new treasure. Ur’salla hears their joyful laughter. That she will never forgive.
Barbarians within their victorious hall of timber sing their praises to a trinity of venerated ancestors. To the divine givers of fertility and abundance. Ancestors who protect the cattle, those that promote wheat, to a sun goddess, and to a frog mother.
Private property means little to us wild savages. Even the few items which we carry between camps may be given away. Neither do we primitives comprehend trade and profit, because we inflate our status through generosity, and not by accumulating personal wealth. We cannot afford selfishness within our tight mobile bands, not when we depend on each other for mutual survival.
Certainly Life cannot be owned by a savage. Be it human or other kind. We don’t cruelly imprison our enemies, for that would be such a degenerate thing to do. Far better we banish or execute than to commit such an immorality. We don’t own the wilds. Rather it's the opposite, for we belong to them. We claim no rights of land property. That’s the degenerate way to claim human ownership of soils beneath Nature.
With these differences better given, I invite you to empathise with Ur’salla. She suffers a trauma difficult to bear. Over the coming days and months, she must choose between servile submission, insanity, or death. Now the sun rises from the horizon of a damaged world. It heralds Ur’salla’s first morning as a concubine of alien masters.
Her nostrils pick up on the foul stink of the Sun-devils. Short, pot bellied men of the Leva approach Ur’salla. Through lousy beards of black or brown, she sees their toothless grins and hears their laughter. Overnight Ur’salla has been offered neither food nor water. Forced to endure the discomfort of soiling herself whilst bound. The barbarian bullies begin to rip at her furs and hides. They tear at her tunic and belt as she snarls and spits just like a snared lynx. Consequently they add kicks and punches until nothing of Ur’salla remains human. She’s left as naked as any of their captive beasts. These monsters stand back to admire their violence.
One holds out a wafer of their flatbread for Ur’salla’s lips to accept. She jerks her face from their charity. Next these men produce their birch. With these cruel sticks they whip and beat Ur’salla to drive out her innate savagery. In unison the barbarians chant a verse of foreign words. Not sharing their language, Ur’salla knows their meanings,
‘Break the beast, break the beast, break the beast…’
Determined not to scream out for mercy and not to release tears. Not to give in to these degenerates. But the sting, humiliation and the pain. One of the beaters fetches a pot full of brine. These brave men of the Leva gather around as each adds his own piss to the toxin. Again that laughter. They lift up the pot and pour its contents over Ur’salla’s stubs of hair, her face, and over her broken, lashed skin. Now she screams out. Now her sobs arrive as her new masters cackle at her distress.
The wafer of flatbread is once more held out to Ur’salla’s lips. This time she accepts and bites into the salty, urinated food as her token of belonging to men. This is their tactic of domestication that they use to break an animal’s wild spirit. To make them move from pain, and towards a few skinny grains of corn. This act they've long practised on savages and on other beasts of the wild.
The stinking brine washes away Ur’salla’s blood and tears of a baptism onto the cold sandstone surfaces of two boulders. Daghnu and Athiratu, a wheat father and a frog mother accept this savage’s dehumanisation as the barbarians’ sacrifice.