When the first men came, they were makers and mages,
Hunters of the sacred beast within, gatherers of the season,
Out of endless glacial advances and retreats,
Out of millennial stagnation,
Suddenly there, growing out of all recognition,
With divine speed and audacity, becoming something other,
Something never seen before on earth,
Moving across the earth with invincible determination,
Settling the new lands of the spirit.
Clad in animal furs and hides against the cold,
They lived in bone huts covered with skins,
Expert tool-makers and flint-knappers crafting flint and bone
Into tools and weapons with brilliant ingenuity,
Continually experimenting, creating new kinds of objects
In antler, bone, ivory and flint, whatever they could find,
Suddenly expressing themselves in sculptures and engravings
Of humans and animals, and cave paintings.
They fashioned necklaces from animal teeth, seashells and stones,
And decorated their bodies with red ochre,
Tattooing their skin with fine bone needles;
They fashioned bone-whistles from reindeer toe bones
Pierced with a single hole through the centre,
And created bone flutes to play for fun and ritual.
They never rested in their search for beauty and utility,
Evolving new skills and techniques for working flint,
To create tools and blades of exquisite craftsmanship and beauty,
Achieved though patient dedication and invention.
Out on the grassy plains and wooded valleys,
They felt the world’s long seasons turn,
The warm times yielding to the cold, and back again,
As the grasslands teemed with reindeer, hroses, deer, bison, ibex, mammoth.
Their special quarry was the beloved reindeer,
That they followed with awe and fascination, learning
Their daily movements and behaviour,
Each year following the vast herds’ migrations in spring and autumn,
Hunting and herding the munificent creatures
Whose every bone and fibre were manna from heaven.
Nothing was wasted; meat, bone, fur, skin, thread, oil and grease,
All were turned to human boons and graces.
But always they feared to doom themselves
By driving the herds to extinction,
And in their time they knew both feats and famine,
And kept their numbers down with infanticide, abortion and feuding.
They walked with death, afraid to love one another too much,
Ruthless in preserving themselves and the band,
Hunting and sleeping, dreaming and dancing for the gods.
In their little nomad clans they pursued the game,
Trekking far through wilderness, camping in tents or huts,
The clans congregating and dispersing in season,
Exchanging information, precious objects and ideas,
The artists seeking out the scared caves to make their mark.
They groped their way down deep into the darkness,
Into the inner sanctum of the earth, squeezing through narrow gaps,
Crawling and scrambling into claustral chambers,
Slithering down perilous slopes, drawn to the inaccessible,
To make the tiniest most constricted chambers their chapels,
Scarcely large enough for one or two to enter at a time,
Where few and seldom would ever dare to come,
Braving the arduous descent and the soul’s hazards.
Therein, they worked their magic on the walls,
Their skill the glory of the whole tribe,
Painting by the glimmer of little tallow lamps;
Invoking the spirits and deities of the earth,
They prayed for success in the hunt and the harvest,
Carving and painting hosts of beasts over walls, niches and corners,
Hunting and gathering the icons in their minds.
There they enacted the ceremonies of transcendence,
Seekers of perfection, delighting in the surprise and wonder
Their images would evoke in the visitor,
These real presences, these transubstantiations,
These animals moving in the spirit realm.
Their expert eyes traced the unseen in the seen,
Venerating horse and bison, ox, mammoth, ibex, stag and deer,
And the symbols in dots, lines and abstract shapes,
Giving each cave its own unique identity and unity.
They left their handprints and footprints on the rocks,
And laid the bones and skulls of bears out in worship,
And sculpted bears and bison with intense incantation.
Everywhere, they ground out cup-shapes in the rock,
And held funeral feasts before laying the dead in caves
With food and accoutrements to accompany their travels,
Placing them in sleeping position, ready to awaken
In the other world, the magical realm of the bear.
They lived by the waxing and waning of the moon,
Recording the phases and seasons, marking the salmon runs,
The cuckoo calls and shedding of horns, the birds’ flight,
The calving of reindeer, and the opening of flowers,
Enacting in themselves the mysteries of resurrection.
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