Time and time again...

Introduction

Ihave had many lives .

It maybe I have lived a hundred times. Perhaps it is a thousand lifetimes. I know not the exact number and it matters little. It matters only that I grew and learned in those passages of time.

I have lived through times of feasts and through many times of famine. I know that the feast times are easier, but I am also only too aware that the famines will return, always.

I have lived with both war and with peace. I know that the times of peace are easier to endure. I also know that the times of war resolve nothing, and no nations will ever learn that war solves no argument or slight, real or imagined. Yet always the peace will come to an end as we develop new weapons and look around for an enemy, we can test our new toys on.

I have loved and worshipped many gods. I have learned that all and any of the gods will only watch our struggles. They will not interfere with our fight to survive yet another day.

I have lived and I have loved many times and with many people.

I have laughed out loud and I have shed many a silent tear.

Many people, who perhaps have an idea of their previous times on this world, harbour a fond hope they were once famous or notably brave in a past time.

In a quest for vainglory, I know I did not stand alongside Custer when he sacrificed the seventh cavalry.

I do not hold the fond hope that I was once the beautiful Queen Cleopatra or even one of her favoured handmaidens.

I know I have been many things and I have seen many things. I have made many mistakes, and my hope is that I have learned many things and that I do not have to return to relive those same lessons again.

As I recall and share some of the more memorable life experiences perhaps you may recall or imagine that you were there alongside me to share that experience.

What other reason could there be for you to pick up this book?

Chapter 1

Iwas first born in a place that had no name and in a time before time was measured.

It had no name because our family group or tribe lived in a valley from before I was born until after I died. You only give names to places when you need to know where you are going to or coming from. We rarely ventured beyond the confines of our valley. Our valley was a full day’s walk wide by a full three days walk long, with a strong stream coursing through one corner. As I later learned, we even had our own language which comprised mainly of guttural grunts and pointing. Very few of the tribe’s people had individual names. Most were identified by the word ‘hunter’. Those named hunter were the men folk of the group. The womenfolk were of little consequence and did not merit such considerations. There is no name in history for my tribe. We were a loose group of adults and children who all lived in coexistence for the purpose of mutual survival.

My earliest memory is that of lying in a cave and being swathed in furs. The cave was enormous to someone of my diminutive size. On the walls were crude paintings of wild beasts which I found terrifying. Around the wild beasts were stick figures of humans throwing spears at these beasts. At this tender age I did not realise the significance of the images. I was looking at life and death in its daily form. It scared me then as I lay in my infant bed. Later it would be even more scary as I briefly became one of the spears-throwing humans.

I recall there were other young children around me as I grew up and more young children arrived as I grew older. I have no recollection of who was my brother or sister. The family was a part of a larger group of families who all hunted and lived together and lived in caves. There did not appear to be any individual family or identity or status. If one family ate, then we all ate. If we starved because the hunting was poor, then we all starved. We did not consider our life hard. It was the way life was and we had no choice but to do the best we could do to survive.

I have only scattered memories of being a young child and growing into a young adult. Childhood was not spent playing games. Childhood was spent following the hunters as they went after food. As children we learned to hunt by mimicking what the hunters did. It may have been a form of childhood play, but we learned to hunt, and we learned to stay alive.

In reflecting upon this existence, I am aware that the surroundings were lush with trees and grasses. As I later learned, there were distinct seasons ranging from a temperate summer to a mildly severe wintertime. From these reflections I can assume my tribe lived in the mid to northern regions of what would now be called Europe.

There was always danger around from wild beasts. The beasts were large and dangerous for the most part. We killed the beasts for food and clothing. Sometimes they killed us. The strongest and most skilled lived the longest. Oftentimes the beasts won the daily survival race.

In our valley we knew every place to hide from danger, so we survived by staying on familiar ground.

Food was plentiful in the warmer times. In the cold times when food was scarce, we lived on berries and leaves. Occasionally we would stumble on a beast sleeping out the cold times and the kill was easy. Through these times of warm weather and cold weather I learned for the first time the pleasures of plenty and the pain of the famine

For all of the seasons, life was hard. I don’t recall the people of the tribe being given to complaining at the hardships of daily life. They knew no better times, so they accepted their lot.

I have only scattered memories of being a child. As I grew into a young adult the memories became more clear and more frequent. I recall making my first spear head out of a river stone. I had watched the hunters crashing their river stones onto other stones to hew the stone into a semblance of sharpness. I recall tying the spear head onto a sapling using thin strips, cut from the hide of a beast killed by the hunters. I recall a hunter picking up my spear to take it as his own. On hearing my shouts of rage, other hunters wrestled the spear from their brother and returned it to me. Because I had stood up to the hunter, I was considered old enough to go on a hunt and within just a few days had taken an active part in a kill.

The kill was a definite stepping stone into the dangers of manhood. Our method of hunting was to stalk our prey and make enough noise to drive the prey into a narrowing cleft in the valley walls. Once the beast was hemmed in, all of the hunters would throw their spears and other hunters on the valley walls would throw rocks at it. At best it was clumsy, but it was usually effective. At worst, if the beast did not die, it would wriggle out of its tight confines and charge the hunters in its efforts to escape. On this, my first hunt the beast was a large animal. It was twice the height of our tallest hunter with two fierce teeth erupting from its mouth. There was sufficient meat on this beast to feed the whole cave for a number of days. On this day, although it was speared numerous times, the beast did not die but turned and charged at the line of hunters that were cutting off its escape. Two of our number fell under the feet of our prey as the great beast trumpeted its way to freedom. I would have been the third to die had another hunter not pulled me to safety. It was a hard thing to be comfortable with that I was within a hands width of being killed by our prey. My youth would not allow me to think long enough to thank my brother hunter for pulling me to safety. Within a short distance from our group the beast gave up its last breath and fell dying. This was the first time I really noticed there were different people in our group. The hunters went in and threw their spears at the prey and killed it. The other group were different. They were not as strong or tall or muscled as the hunters. Their role was to collect after the kill and cut up the beast for carrying back to the cave. The youngest children stayed with this group. They were the group who bore the children and looked after those too young to follow the hunters on their trail. These were the second class of the tribe’s men, and they were called woman.

The two hunters who died on that trek were carried back to the cave with much wailing from the second group. At the cave they were laid to rest with their usual family group. For two days they were offered food at each mealtime. As they did not respond they were now presumed to be no longer a part of the tribe. On the third day they were carried away by the hunters to the far side of the valley and left for the wild beasts to devour. I believe they were taken so far away to give the wild beasts no cause to come to our side of the valley to look for easy prey.

Now that I had taken a part in my first kill my role in the tribe changed. I was given other tasks to undertake for the tribe. Other young hunters and I would be sent out at night to keep watch for marauding beasts or any other human, wandering from another valley.

In this growing period of a young adult I took part in several hunts. Always the young hunters were kept to the rear of the hunt as we trailed a beast. Our clumsy attempts at stalking were far too loud for the older hunters to tolerate and would probably have scared away the prey. We were only called forward to complete the line of hunters in their barricade of the cornered prey. If the cornered prey was a ponderous or timid beast the young hunters were allowed to throw their spears first. For the most times the elders would come in and finish off the prey.

There was a camaraderie of sorts as the younger hunters kept to themselves and the older hunters watched over our efforts. At the return to the cave the younger and clumsiest hunters would be given their roles of watch keeping. It became something of a rite of adulthood when a young hunter was no longer given the task of being among those sent out at night to keep guard over the valley trails and passes.

On one evening of watch I observed an older man crest the valley wall and enter our domain. My companions and I approached closer to the stranger. He was not of our tribe and presented a possible danger. He reached a clearing in the valley and sat down. He was aware of our presence and watched our attempted stealthy approach.  As we neared, he called out to us and beckoned us to approach him. With the bravery and foolhardiness of youth, I approached him while my companions held back. This older man was dressed in a strange manner. All of our tribe were clothed in furs recovered from the beasts we slew. The pelt of this older man had no fur for his warmth. I wondered what strange kind of beast he must have killed to secure this pelt.

He spoke to me in a language I did not recognise. As we could not readily communicate he stood up and beckoned me to follow him. My companions were also summoned but they would not approach and ran off in the direction of our cave. Hoping my companions had gone to raise the alarm and bring assistance I followed this stranger as he also walked in the direction of our cave.

With no means of measuring time or distance, it is hard to say how far from the cave we were when the stranger and I started our journey. If I say we could have walked ten times the distance during the time the sun shone on our valley. That is how I would measure the length of our journey. In today’s terms I would guess that a fit tribesman would probably cover perhaps 25 miles in a days march

Before we reached the cave, we were met by a band of our hunters who had come out to protect the family from the possible danger the stranger posed.

On seeing the stranger, the hunters did not come close. Although the stranger beckoned them to come closer the hunters seemed afraid of this visitor. Behind the group of hunters stood the strange one. I called him the strange one because, to my young eyes, he did nothing to earn his keep as part of the tribe. He did not hunt with the hunters. He did not cut and carry the spoils of the kill back to camp.  He spent a lot of the day alone in the cave and I seem to recall that he did heal some of the tribe when