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Primordial
by
With the change of the monsoon came a lowering of the temperature. Naked and shelterless, he barely survived the first winter, tropical though it was. But the second found him inured to the surroundings–hardy and strong. When able to, he climbed trees and found birds’ eggs, which he accidentally broke and naturally ate. It was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had lain dormant in his nature.
Children the world over epitomize in their habits and thoughts the infancy of the human race. Their morals and modesty, as well as their games, are those of paleolithic man, and they are as remorselessly cruel. From the day of his fracas with the turkey he was a hunter–of grubs, insects, and young birds; but only to kill, maim, or torture; he did not eat them, because hunger was satisfied, and he possessed a child’s dislike of radical change.
Deprived of friction with other minds, he was slower than his social prototype in the reproduction of the epochs. At a stage when most boys are passing through the age of stone, with its marbles, caves, and slings, he was yet in the earlier arboreal period–a climber–and would swing from branch to branch with almost the agility of an ape.
On fine, sunny days, influenced by the weather, he would laugh and shout hilariously; a gloomy sky made him morose. When hurt, or angered by disappointment in the hunt, he would cry out inarticulately; but having no use for language, did not talk, hence did not think, as the term is understood. His mind received the impressions of his senses, and could fear, hate, and remember, but knew nothing of love, for nothing lovable appealed to it. He could hardly reason, as yet; his shadow puzzled, angered, and annoyed him until he noticed its concomitance with the sun, when he reversed cause and effect, considered it a beneficent, mysterious Something that had life, and endeavored by gesture and grimace to placate and please it. It was his beginning of religion.
His dreams were often horrible. Strange shapes, immense snakes and reptiles, and nondescript monsters made up of prehistoric legs, teeth, and heads, afflicted his sleep. He had never seen them; they were an inheritance, but as real to him as the sea and sky, the wind and rain.
Every six months, at the breaking up of the monsoon, would come squalls and typhoons–full of menace, for his kindly, protecting shadow then deserted him. One day, when about ten years old, during a wild burst of storm, he fled down the beach in an agony of terror; for, considering all that moved as alive, he thought that the crashing sea and swaying, falling trees were attacking him, and, half buried in the sand near the bushes, found the forgotten life-buoy, stained and weather-worn. It was quiescent, and new to him,–like nothing he had seen,–and he clung to it. At that moment the sun appeared, and in a short time the storm had passed. He carried the life-buoy back with him–spurning and threatening his delinquent shadow–and looked for a place to put it, deciding at last on a small cave in the rocky wall near to the pool. In a corner of this he installed the ring of cork and canvas, and remained by it, patting and caressing it. When it rained again, he appreciated, for the first time, the comfort of shelter, and became a cave-dweller, with a new god–a fetish, to which he transferred his allegiance and obeisance because more powerful than his shadow.
From correlation of instincts, he now entered the age of stone. He no longer played with shells and sticks, but with pebbles, which he gathered, hoarded in piles, and threw at marks,–to be gathered again,–seldom entering the woods but for food and the relaxation of the hunt. But with his change of habits came a lessening of his cruelty to defenseless creatures,–not that he felt pity: he merely found no more amusement in killing and tormenting,–and in time he transferred his antagonism to the sharks in the lagoon, their dorsal fins making famous targets for his pebbles. He needed no experience with these pirates to teach him to fear and hate them, and when he bathed–which habit he acquired as a relief from the heat, and indulged daily–he chose a pool near the rocks that filled at high tide, and in it learned to swim, paddling like a dog.