THE BRONZE AGE VISITS THE NEOLITHIC PEOPLE
The mother was old now, almost fifty, and her white hair flew around her head in a cloud that lit up when sun hit it. Her narrow face was growing sharper. She wound her wattled neck with a fox fur to keep it warm. When her joints ached, a little hoard of willow bark helped if she chewed it.
In winter she tended to say near the fire, whether in the shelter for heat or outside for cooking and smoking to cure hides. Most of the time she sat cross-legged to work on small things in her lap, whether shelling nuts or sewing with sinew and a bone needle. Tucked into her wide sash was a small chip of obsidian, always convenient to make a little slit or cut her “thread.” Since the family lived not far from the sea, her work was often mending nets the men used. Then she could taste salt on her fingers and something she didn’t know was iodine.
In summer she often sat in the shade of the tree, working while puffing on her little clay pipe. Her teeth were notched from clenching it, and worn in other ways because she used her mouth as a tool to grip or tear or soften her materials. Whether she was indoors or out, her daughters came with their babies to sit beside her. They took their little ones out of their bundle packs in winter or net back bags for summer, so baby could be face to face, gazing into mother’s eyes, babbling and generally sharing enjoyment. The babies rarely cried.
In the distance the younger boys ran as a pack, yelling and pounding with sticks, jumping and wrestling as they developed skills. When they finally tired, they tended to pair off as buddies, maybe to nap piled together. The dogs mostly went with the boys, but a few stayed close to the women, quietly sleeping, even snoring.
One day when the men were away, three round-faced strangers rode up on horses. The dogs made a major fuss, but no dogs had come with these men. They had no saddles, but used stirrups attached to belly bands. Neither did their horses have bits in their mouths but responded to neck reining. The women had heard about horses, but hadn’t seen any. They carried large burdens besides their riders. The manes of the horses were entangled with decorations, strips of leather, and small objects.
The men spoke a foreign language but were not hostile. They signaled peace though the groups could not understand each other’s words. Everyone was wary. The men dismounted and sat apart but close enough to scrutinize the women, as the women did likewise. Their eyes were caught by jewelry, bright spiral metal bits, feathers, or braided strings with drilled shells or animal teeth. Between the two groups the designs were different and were worn slightly differently — earrings on the strange men and on the women arm bands above the elbow where they wouldn’t interfere with work.
One of the daughters brought a bowl of the soup that always simmered on the fire, as well as a skin of water. The men smiled and nodded, clearly hungry and grateful. It was good to be kind to strangers.
In a while one of them went to the horses cropping nearby and brought from their burden a wrapped object. It was a round metal disc. At once they recognized it was a depiction of the sky. The beaten bronze background had been patinated green but the sun, moon and stars were polished bright gold.
The men sign-talked description of how these depicted sky globes moved overhead, day and night, and the women understood the gestures. They recognized the Pleiades cluster of stars which the men tried to say were warriors like themselves, but that the women called “sisters.” With a bit of pantomime explanation, the women saw recorded on two arc spans indications between the positions of sunset at summer and winter solstice at the latitude near them. Both groups had always watched the sky closely and noted what they saw.
As they talked, the shade of the tree slid over and past them because of the traveling sun. The babies were put back into their bags where they slept against their mothers. Sometimes the men dozed a bit, but one always stayed awake to watch. The girls, who had gone off to gather certain sweet grasses for weaving baskets, came back with their arms full. After a bit of gawking at the strange men, they settled and began to bend and cross the strands together. Fragrance filled the air.
When the men and older boys of the family arrived with fish carried in their nets, at first they pretended not to see the strangers, moving around and past them while watching out of the corners of their eyes for signs of hostility while they figured out what to think. They called the smaller boys to come tear the soft fish open with their fingers, cutting out bones with small pieces of obsidian. The dogs sat among them, waiting to gobble the viscera. The cooking fire had settled into coals, so the fish could be wrapped in leaves to be laid among the embers.
After the fishermen had eaten a bit and conferred with the oldest woman, they shared fish with the round-faced horsemen. Once again they brought out their metal sky disc. Keeping their dignity, the men of the home tried not to show how impressed they were.
While the “talk” went on with eloquent hands and dust-drawing, one of the older boys approached a nearby horse who was slashing its tail at flies while grazing. When the boy gingerly put one hand against the horse’s shoulder, it turned its head to look him in the face and stamped its feet, but didn’t kick him. The boy’s unfamiliar smell made the horse blow and snort, so the boy imitated it — which made it nod its big head up and down. That night the boy dreamt of the smell and slick heat of that big animal and for weeks afterwards he would imitate its sound and movement.
Before it became too dark to follow the trail, the men left. They preferred to sleep in their own camp. No one made a big fuss about them leaving, but they would talk about the visit for months and draw maps in dust about where they might have come from, where they were going.
The evening wind made the tree rattle and swish and the birds in the tree who had been singing about sundown began to settle next to each other, jostling and peeping a bit. Overhead the sky gyred through the night, moon rising, stars in patterns — no auroras dancing in the sky this night.
Once in a while the old woman got up to put more wood on the fire, listening a bit as the nocturnal animals went about their business. In dreams the round faces of the three horsemen came and went and by morning it seemed their faces had merged with the moon. But most of all she dreamt about the bronze sky disc of blue with shining sun and moon.
(Readers who wish to explore this object further can go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk)
