Chapter Thirty Three
We arrived at the site quite late in the evening. Because of all that we carried the trip took a long two days, and everyone was exhausted when we finally arrived. After a cold dinner guards were posted, and the people quickly spread out blankets and slept wherever they could. I roamed through the fields around the camp, making sure there was no sign of danger. I saw or heard nothing to cause me alarm, and soon went back to camp and passed the night in watchful silence.
In the morning our first task was to put together a good camp that would be our home for the next several months. The river ran to the north, and I placed the camp north and west of where the city would be built, in the area where we would eventually pasture the animals. West and south of the city would be farm fields and cropland. We would build one bridge for passage, but for now we would not use the east side of the river.
I had Kalou use most of the people to set up the camp, while I, Catto, Ataran, and a few helpers began staking out the city. We focused first on the southern and western edges in order to define where the fields and pastures would end and the city begin.
Our camp was completely set up by early afternoon, and I called everyone together and showed them my drawings of the city layout. For most of the people this was the first time they had seen a drawing, and it meant nothing to them. I explained what the symbols and pictures meant, and enjoyed seeing comprehension appear on their faces.
Our tribe now numbered about one hundred and twenty people. Sixty had stayed at the village; approximately forty were too old or young to travel and work at the city, and another twenty had remained to help support and protect them. I had with me sixty strong and able bodied men and women that were dedicated to building the city. Together with the Northerners we would build all its private homes, public buildings, fences and irrigation ditches.
Providing food for the city was of the first order. The croplands would be prepared and planted immediately, and the orchards of fruit trees and groves of olive and fig trees would need to be planted at once. We had brought many saplings and immature trees with us, and bringing them to fruition would take a few years. We would need to care for and harvest the orchards and groves at the old village until these trees matured.
The majority of the buildings in the city would be private homes. I had come to the conclusion that given the increase in the population I expected for the new city, the tribe would need to completely change the way it lived and ate. My decision had created an uproar and I had needed to argue long and hard to bring the tribe around to my thinking, but I saw no other way for us to live in the future. I was convinced tribal meals and communal housing for unmarried men and women could not work as the tribe continued to grow larger. My idea was to make the individual family unit the focus of the tribe.
In the new city each family would receive a small piece of land with a house much larger than their current hut. This house would have a living area and sleeping rooms, and there would be a cooking area behind the building for preparing meals. The living area would be where the family ate their meals together and gathered as a family in the evenings. The land for each house would be large enough for a garden and to add on additional sleeping rooms as the family grew, since all children would now remain with the parents until the children married.
This was a radical change from the old ways of cooking, eating and living communally, and it had been extremely difficult for the tribe to accept this. After much discussion they finally had agreed it was necessary, since even now it was becoming very difficult to prepare the large meals that were required for the tribe to eat together.
If I was going to change the way the tribe cooked and ate, it would require a new way of distributing food to the people. We had built several public barns in our current village for the storage of grains and other foodstuffs, and this practice would continue in the city. There would be several large barns built to store and distribute the produce we grew, as well as other items such as milk, meat, and wool cloth. I realized this would be difficult to organize, but I could think of no better way to provide for a city as large as I expected this to become.
The city would initially include one other public building besides the barns. We were going to construct a large hall in the center of the city overlooking the river, and we would have open space all around it. The hall would have a roof but no walls, and this would be where I held court and where any public meetings would be held.
I expected this building and the area around it to replace the village fire pit as the site for the tribe to congregate and socialize. As the city grew in size I planned to construct more of these open buildings. It was important for there to be places where the people could gather and visit with each other at the end of the day.
The first days passed quickly. Once the framework of the city was laid out, those that were most experienced in farming were occupied in the fields plowing and planting trees, while the rest of the people gathered the materials we would need to build our structures.
We had much to do before we could build. Grasses were gathered and dried for exterior walls and roofs, rope for binding framework together was made, and groups went to the forest daily to cut and bring back the wood required for the frameworks of the houses and barns. We had several women that cooked communal meals for all of us, and this was a full time job with sixty people eating, and more on the way from the North.
We laid out the city in a pattern of squares. I wanted all the walking paths between houses to be straight, so all the paths ran either to the north and south, or the east and west. This pattern would allow for easier expansion and less confusion as the city grew. I would live near the main meeting hall where I would hold court weekly, and my home, the largest in the city, would also overlook the river.
My plan included a wide walkway along the river which would allow easy access for everyone, and there were several spots where people could easily draw their water. Downriver, at the northern end of the city is where the animals would drink and we would connect our irrigation streams.
We would put one bridge across the river, and it would be placed just north of the meeting house. This would be a small walking bridge for access to the far side of the river. The community barns would be on the north side of the city near the fields, and if we ever needed to plant additional fields on the other side of the river I would add a larger bridge near the barns.
I spent time daily with Lataan as he guided the farmers in preparing and planting the fields and orchards, laying out and digging the irrigation system, and building fences and the structures to house the livestock. The fences were not needed to keep the animals enclosed, as most of the livestock was allowed to range free, but to keep them out of our crops.
Setting up farms that would be required to support a city more than twice as large as our current village was a huge undertaking. Lataan was a very competent man, and he had a solid grasp on all the tasks that needed to be done. He fully understood all the aspects of caring for livestock that I had been able to teach the tribe over the years, such as breeding your best animals together, as well as the techniques for improving crops and yields that I had originated at my old home. The irrigation system was by far the biggest part of the project, as this involved the hard work of digging ditches and building the gates which directed the water where it was needed.
Catto and Ataran were making excellent progress on the cities’ structures. They were very prepared, and once the walking paths through the city were laid out, each plot was staked and marked, and all the materials were gathered, they began building. Though there was much to do, the work was organized and progress was steady.
We needed about sixty houses to allow every family from both tribes to have their own home. We had decided to begin by building seventy houses, which would give us some extra houses to allow for new marriages. In addition to the houses, we needed to build the large meeting hall, the storage barns, and the bridge over the river.
On the northern edge of the city would be all the storage barns for the tribe’s food. There would be six large barns to begin with, and we allowed space for many more to be added later when they were required. The post and beam construction we used would allow us to build large structures; unfortunately, they all had to be covered with grass.
The forest was much too far away to transport enough logs to build the structures entirely out of wood, and I had not been able to discover a source of clay nearby which would have allowed us to make our buildings out of bricks.
A builder must use the materials at hand, and for us the most abundant building material was the grasses which surrounded us. We needed to clear large areas to plant our crops and build the city, so the grasses we cleared gave us much of the material we needed for our walls and roofs.
A crew which I personally led built a sturdy bridge out of logs the third week of construction. This bridge gave us access to the fields on the far side of the river, ensuring an inexhaustible supply of grass for the city.
Kalou was invaluable to me; she was everywhere I could not be, and was focused on making sure everyone was happy and had everything they needed to do their work. Every night she updated me on the overall progress throughout the city, and attitude of our people.
Gadu had remained at the building site with us for five days in order to get a general understanding of how we planned to build the city. I spent much time with Gadu while he was in our village and also at the building site. I often kept him with me for the entire day as I met with my leaders or supervised crews in the fields or the city.
I did this for two reasons. I needed to make sure my impressions of Gadu were correct; that he was intelligent and a good leader, and I could trust him with responsibility in the new tribe. Additionally, it was imperative that I teach him our language quickly, to speed his integration into my leadership group.
The more time I spent with Gadu, the more positive I became of his abilities and trustworthiness. I was confident he would be able to join my inner group of leaders and become someone that could help me bridge the divide between the two tribes. He left on the morning of the sixth day, promising to return to the city with approximately fifty workers within thirty days.
I trusted Gadu, but I did not trust Aron. I still believed there existed the potential for treachery on the part of the northern tribe. This was one of the reasons I planned to split them up as soon as they returned, with most of the women and a smaller number of the men going to our village to learn the ways of farming, cooking and weaving, while most of the men would stay here and learn how to build and farm.
Splitting up the newcomers between the village and the city would weaken them, and also speed both their inclusion into our tribe and their education in our advanced practices. The men of our tribe outnumbered theirs; we had seriously weakened their tribe when they attacked us, killing over twenty of their men. Even so, I had decided that no newcomers would yet be allowed to hunt, or learn to use the bow and arrow. They first needed to learn farming, building and our language, while we learned to trust them.
I knew that the fastest Gadu could possibly travel to his village and return back with a group of warriors was about twenty-five days. After twenty days I began to range far to the north and west, mainly at night, looking for signs of a fast-moving group of men. I believed that if Aron was going to resort to treachery he would strike now, when our tribe was split and at its weakest.
If they were going to attack they would probably pass far to the west of the city, and send a party to the village where we had fewer men for protection. I had a good idea of the number of men now in the northern tribe, and I was almost certain they did not have enough to attack us successfully. But while I knew assaulting us would mean the destruction of their tribe, I was not sure if Aron in his arrogance would recognize this.
As the days and nights passed with no sign of Northerners I became more confident that Gadu would return to the city with a work group of men and women. If there was going to be treachery, it would have been swift.
They were still two days travel to the north when I found them one night. I slipped silently past the guards into their camp and could see that they were obviously not bent on violence. There were about fifty people, roughly half each of men and women.
By sending this many men to us now, the northern tribe would not be able to spare any men from hunting for their village to attack us. Aron had been true to his word, and though I still did not trust him, I was pleased that he had been wise enough to understand the necessity of joining us peacefully.
After thoroughly scouting their camp, I ran back to the city. In the morning I informed my leaders of the Northerners’ arrival the next day, and told them of my plans for dividing them up.
I would lead a group with people of both tribes to our village the day after the newcomers’ arrival. This group would contain most of their women and five men, as well as the members of our tribe that were returning to the village to rotate with new people that would come back to the city.
Remaining in the city to join our workers would be seven women and the rest of the men, including Gadu. These people would be divided among our work teams and would have minimal contact with each other. This would speed their integration into our tribe and encourage their adoption of our language.
The newcomers arrived late in the afternoon. I was pleased to see Gadu, and with his help I gathered the people in our makeshift camp. All our work crews would soon be coming into the camp for dinner, which was currently being cooked and was sending mouthwatering smells in our direction. The newcomers had a difficult time focusing on Gadu and me, and they constantly looked over their shoulders in the direction of the open building where the cooks were hard at work.
While we waited, I told them that some would stay here and some would go to the village to live. This was new to them, since I had not wanted Aron to have this information. I explained why they would be divided; that we wanted them to learn new skills and our language as quickly as possible. They seemed to understand my reasoning and accepted what they would do.
The ones that were going to the village were unhappy when they learned they would leave the following morning, but they cheered up immediately when dinner was ready. All the newcomers ate voraciously, filling their plates with the unusual food, the likes of which they had never before seen. Both the plates and eating utensils were new to them, and though some tried to use the utensils, most didn’t even bother and greedily scooped their food into their mouths using only their fingers.
Fortunately I had shown them how to wash their filthy hands with soap and water prior to eating. Though they obviously didn’t understand why this was required, everyone had obliged and had clean hands at the start of the meal. To our tribe it was a very simple meal, consisting of fresh bread and a hearty stew of carrots, potatoes and antelope that had been killed on the plains earlier that day. To the newcomers, who were used to existing almost entirely on roasted meat, this was a feast to be savored. As usual, potatoes and carrots had been cooked for me separate from the meat.
The people lived communally in several shared huts, but as the leader of the tribe Kalou and I had our own small hut. That night we talked about the newcomers, reminiscing about how our tribe had once been just as ragged and uncivilized, living in uncertainty and constant hunger.
As we laughed about how they had used their fingers to eat the stew, Kalou surprised me by suddenly asking, “Do you think your God sent you to us on purpose, so you could teach us your ways?”
In all our years together that thought had never crossed my mind, and I sat on the ground frozen with shock as I considered this possibility.
Kalou continued, “After we first discovered everything to eat in the forest, you said that you thought He had put all the plants and animals here to be discovered by us. Is it possible that all along you were the one that was supposed to discover them? I don’t think we ever would have learned how to do every
thing you've taught us on our own.”
My mind spun as I considered what Kalou said. In order for this to be true, in order for me to have been sent here by God to teach these people, He would have known long in advance that I would kill Abel, leave my home, and come to this land. This would mean either God knew I was going to kill Abel and did not stop me, or somehow He caused me to kill my brother.
I wanted to believe God was harsh, controlling and judgmental, but I knew in my heart He was a caring God. Though it was tempting to assign Him blame for my brother’s death, I immediately dismissed the thought. But as I thought back to His warnings that night while I lay in my bed, I realized that He did know where my heart was leading me.
With sudden insight I understood that God was intent on allowing mankind free will, no matter the cost. He gave us the ability to decide for ourselves whether we would do good or evil, and follow Him or sinful ways. God had warned me, but had allowed me to make my own decisions and follow my own path. I had chosen selfishness, rage and evil. It was my decisions alone that had brought me here, far from my family and everything I once had.
“Cain, Cain, are you alright? You are far away in thought, and your face is so sad.”
“Yes, I’m fine Kalou... I think you are partially right. Though God did not send me here, He knew in advance that I would come. God gives all people free will to make our own decisions and does not force us to do anything, but He knows everything that will occur long before it happens. So yes, I think it is possible that the plants were put there so I could discover them and teach you about them.”
“Your God is so different from our gods. I think He has much more power and wisdom.”
I laughed heartily. They talked so rarely about their gods that I had forgotten they actually believed there were gods other than the one God. I found this absurd, but humorous.
“Kalou, how can you still believe there are any gods besides the one true God, the creator of all there is?”
“Well, why shouldn’t we? You never talk about your God or do anything in honor of Him. Why should we believe in a God we know nothing about?”
This brought me up short and immediately quieted my laughter. She was right. I almost never spoke about God. I believed in His existence and took His power for granted, but for many years I had been angry and resentful, and I had tried not to think about Him.
Why? Unasked for this question came into my head. Why was I angry at God? Why did I try to pretend He was not here? My face twisted as I tried to make sense of my thoughts, and suddenly I understood.
I had assigned to my own brother and God the blame for Abel's death, taking none of the responsibility upon my own shoulders. I had been hurt by what I saw as God's unjust favor of my brother, and offended by God's statement that I did not give Him the correct sacrifice of my heart. In my selfishness and pride I had used that as an excuse for my actions. I had transferred my own guilt to God.
I had believed myself wiser than God, and it suddenly occurred to me that my ongoing thoughts and actions, the way I took credit for everything and never gave any thanks to God, showed that I obviously still believed this to be true in my heart. I was confused and unsure, uncertain what to do about this epiphany.
Once again Kalou questioned me, worry in her voice. “Cain, what’s going on? You're so serious. You look like you are frightened. Is everything all right?”
I tried to reassure her, though my heart was filled with more doubts and questions than ever before in my life. “I’m sorry Kalou. I’m fine, I just need to think. I hadn't realized that I never taught you about God.”
This sounded ridiculous even to my own ears, but I quickly said good night and lay down to sleep, turning my back to Kalou.
He is scared; I have never seen that look on his face. Something just happened, and I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But maybe thinking about his God will stop Cain from always putting himself and what he wants before the tribe.