The Acorn-Planter
Джек Лондон




Jack London

The Acorn-Planter / A California Forest Play (1916)





ARGUMENT


		In the morning of the world, while his tribe
		makes its camp for the night in a grove, Red
		Cloud, the first man of men, and the first man
		of the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the duty
		of life, which duty is to make life more abundant.
		The Shaman, or medicine man, sings of
		foreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, who
		commands in war, sings that war is the only
		way to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirming
		that the way of life is the way of the acorn-
		planter, and that whoso slays one man slays
		the planter of many acorns. Red Cloud wins
		the Shaman and the people to his contention.

		After the passage of thousands of years, again
		in the grove appear the Nishinam. In Red
		Cloud, the War Chief, the Shaman, and the
		Dew-Woman are repeated the eternal figures
		of the philosopher, the soldier, the priest, and
		the woman—types ever realizing themselves
		afresh in the social adventures of man. Red
		Cloud recognizes the wrecked explorers as
		planters and life-makers, and is for treating
		them with kindness. But the War Chief and
		the idea of war are dominant The Shaman
		joins with the war party, and is privy to the
		massacre of the explorers.

		A hundred years pass, when, on their seasonal
		migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in
		the grove. They still live, and the war formula
		for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence
		of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are
		flooding into California from north, south, east,
		and west—the English, the Americans, the
		Spaniards, and the Russians. The massacre by
		the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying,
		recognizes the white men as brother acorn-planters,
		the possessors of the superior life-formula
		of which he had always been a protagonist.

		In the Epilogue, or Apotheosis, occur the
		celebration of the death of war and the triumph
		of the acorn-planters.




PROLOGUE


		Time. In the morning of the world.
		Scene. A forest hillside where great trees stand with wide
		spaces between. A stream flows from a spring that bursts
		out of the hillside. It is a place of lush ferns and brakes,
		also, of thickets of such shrubs as inhabit a redwood forest
		floor. At the left, in the open level space at the foot of the
		hillside, extending out of sight among the trees, is visible a
		portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary
		camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing
		about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies
		and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie
		about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young
		women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed
		about their camp tasks. A number of older women are
		pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An
		old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the
		hillside. All wear moccasins and are skin-clad, primitive,
		in their garmenting. Neither iron nor woven cloth occurs
		in the weapons and gear.




ACT I


		Shaman     (Looking up hillside.)     Red Cloud is late.

		Old Man     (After inspection of hillside.)     He has chased the deer far. He is patient.
		In the chase he is patient like an old man.

		Shaman     His feet are as fleet as the deer's.

		Old Man     (Nodding.)     And he is more patient than the deer.

		Shaman     (Assertively, as if inculcating a lesson.)     He is a mighty chief.

		Old Man     (Nodding.)     His father was a mighty chief. He is like to
		his father.

		Shaman     (More assertively.)     He is his father. It is so spoken. He is
		his father's father. He is the first man, the
		first Red Cloud, ever born, and born again, to
		chiefship of his people.

		Old Man     It is so spoken.

		Shaman     His father was the Coyote. His mother was
		the Moon. And he was the first man.

		Old Man     (Repeating.)     His father was the Coyote. His mother was
		the Moon. And he was the first man.

		Shaman     He planted the first acorns, and he is very
		wise.

		Old Man     (Repeating.)     He planted the first acorns, and he is very
		wise.

		(Cries from the women and a turning of
		faces. Red Cloud appears among his
		hunters descending the hillside. All
		carry spears, and bows and arrows.
		Some carry rabbits and other small
		game. Several carry deer)
		PLAINT OF THE NISHINAM

		Red Cloud, the meat-bringer!
		Red Cloud, the acorn-planter!
		Red Cloud, first man of the Nishinam!
		Thy people hunger.
		Far have they fared.
		Hard has the way been.
		Day long they sought,
		High in the mountains,
		Deep in the pools,
		Wide 'mong the grasses,
		In the bushes, and tree-tops,
		Under the earth and flat stones.
		Few are the acorns,
		Past is the time for berries,
		Fled are the fishes, the prawns and the grasshoppers,
		Blown far are the grass-seeds,
		Flown far are the young birds,
		Old are the roots and withered.
		Built are the fires for the meat.
		Laid are the boughs for sleep,
		Yet thy people cannot sleep.
		Red Cloud, thy people hunger.

		Red Cloud     (Still descending.)     Good hunting! Good hunting!

		Hunters     Good hunting! Good hunting!

		(Completing the descent, Red Cloud
		motions to the meat-bearers. They throw
		down their burdens before the women,
		who greedily inspect the spoils.)
		MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM

		Meat that is good to eat,
		Tender for old teeth,
		Gristle for young teeth,
		Big deer and fat deer,
		Lean meat and fat meat,
		Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone,
		Liver and heart.
		Food for the old men,
		Life for all men,
		For women and babes.
		Easement of hunger-pangs,
		Sorrow destroying,
		Laughter provoking,
		Joy invoking,
		In the smell of its smoking
		And its sweet in the mouth.

		(The younger women take charge of the meat,
		and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.)
		(Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders
		and watches them with pleasure.
		All group about him, the Shaman to the
		fore, and hang upon his every action, his
		every utterance.)
		Red Cloud     The heart of the acorn is good?

		First Old Woman     (Nodding.)     It is good food.

		Red Cloud     When you have pounded and winnowed and
		washed away the bitter.

		Second Old Woman     As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the
		world was very young and thou wast the first man.

		Red Cloud     It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good.

		Shaman     It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns
		and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the
		Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the
		tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew
		of the morning.

		(He nods a signal to the Old Man.)
		Old Man     In the famine in the old time,
		When the old man was a young man,
		When the heavens ceased from raining,
		When the grasslands parched and withered,
		When the fishes left the river,
		And the wild meat died of sickness,
		In the tribes that knew not acorns,
		All their women went dry-breasted,
		All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,
		All their old men sighed and perished,
		And the young men died beside them,
		Till they died by tribe and totem,
		And o'er all was death upon them.
		Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,
		Did not perish by the famine.
		Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!
		Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them
		How to store in willow baskets
		'Gainst the time and need of famine!

		Shaman     (Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has
		nodded approbation, turning to Red
		Cloud.)
		Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of
		life which is the song of the acorn.

		Red Cloud     (Making ready to begin)     And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.

		Shaman     (Hushing the people to listen, solemnly)     He sings with his father's lips, and with the
		lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time
		and men.
		SONG OF THE FIRST MAN

		Red Cloud     I am Red Cloud,
		The first man of the Nishinam.
		My father was the Coyote.
		My mother was the Moon.
		The Coyote danced with the stars,
		And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night
		The Coyote is very wise,
		The Moon is very old,
		Mine is his wisdom,
		Mine is her age.
		I am the first man.
		I am the life-maker and the father of life.
		I am the fire-bringer.
		The Nishinam were the first men,
		And they were without fire,
		And knew the bite of the frost of bitter nights.
		The panther stole the fire from the East,
		The fox stole the fire from the panther,
		The ground squirrel stole the fire from the fox,
		And I, Red Cloud, stole the fire from the ground squirrel.
		I, Red Cloud, stole the fire for the Nishinam,
		And hid it in the heart of the wood.
		To this day is the fire there in the heart of the wood.
		I am the Acorn-Planter.
		I brought down the acorns from heaven.
		I planted the short acorns in the valley.
		I planted the long acorns in the valley.
		I planted the black-oak acorns that sprout, that sprout!
		I planted the sho-kum and all the roots of the ground.
		I planted the oat and the barley, the beaver-tail grass-nut,
		The tar-weed and crow-foot, rock lettuce and ground lettuce,
		And I taught the virtue of clover in the season of blossom,
		The yellow-flowered clover, ball-rolled in its yellow dust.
		I taught the cooking in baskets by hot stones from the fire,
		Took the bite from the buckeye and soap-root
		By ground-roasting and washing in the sweetness of water,
		And of the manzanita the berry I made into flour,
		Taught the way of its cooking with hot stones in sand pools,
		And the way of its eating with the knobbed tail of the deer.
		Taught I likewise the gathering and storing,
		The parching and pounding
		Of the seeds from the grasses and grass-roots;
		And taught I the planting of seeds in the Nishinam home-camps,
		In the Nishinam hills and their valleys,
		In the due times and seasons,
		To sprout in the spring rains and grow ripe in the sun.

		Shaman     Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

		The People     Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

		Shaman     Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

		The People     Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

		Shaman     Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

		The People     Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

		Shaman     Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

		The People     Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

		Shaman     Who gavest us the law of family!

		The People     Who gavest us the law of family!

		Shaman     The law of tribe!

		The People     The law of tribe!

		Shaman     The law of totem!

		The People     The law of totem!

		Shaman     And madest us strong in the world among men!

		The People     And madest us strong in the world among men!

		Red Cloud     Life is good, O Shaman, and I have sung but
		half its song. Acorns are good. So is woman
		good. Strength is good. Beauty is good. So is
		kindness good. Yet are all these things without
		power except for woman. And by these things
		woman makes strong men, and strong men make
		for life, ever for more life.

		War Chief     (With gesture of interruption that causes
		remonstrance from the Shaman but which
		Red Cloud acknowledges.)
		I care not for beauty. I desire strength in
		battle and wind in the chase that I may kill my
		enemy and run down my meat.

		Red Cloud     Well spoken, O War Chief. By voices in
		council we learn our minds, and that, too, is
		strength. Also, is it kindness. For kindness
		and strength and beauty are one. The eagle in
		the high blue of the sky is beautiful. The salmon
		leaping the white water in the sunlight is beautiful.
		The young man fastest of foot in the race
		is beautiful. And because they fly well, and leap
		well, and run well, are they beautiful. Beauty
		must beget beauty. The ring-tail cat begets
		the ring-tail cat, the dove the dove. Never
		does the dove beget the ring-tail cat. Hearts
		must be kind. The little turtle is not kind.
		That is why it is the little turtle. It lays its
		eggs in the sun-warm sand and forgets its young
		forever. And the little turtle is forever the
		Kttle turtle. But we are not little turtles,
		because we are kind. We do not leave our young
		to the sun in the sand. Our women keep our
		young warm under their hearts, and, after, they
		keep them warm with deer-skin and campfire.
		Because we are kind we are men and not little
		turtles, and that is why we eat the little turtle
		that is not strong because it is not kind.

		War Chief     (Gesturing to be heard.)     The Modoc come against us in their strength.
		Often the Modoc come against us. We cannot
		be kind to the Modoc.

		Red Cloud     That will come after. Kindness grows. First
		must we be kind to our own. After, long after,
		all men will be kind to all men, and all men will
		be very strong. The strength of the Nishinam
		is not the strength of its strongest fighter. It is
		the strength of all the Nishinam added together
		that makes the Nishinam strong. We talk, you
		and I, War Chief and First Man, because we are
		kind one to the other, and thus we add together
		our wisdom, and all the Nishinam are stronger
		because we have talked.

		(A voice is heard singing. Red Cloud
		holds up his hand for silence.)
		MATING SONG

		Dew-Woman     In the morning by the river,
		In the evening at the fire,
		In the night when all lay sleeping,
		Torn was I with life's desire.
		There were stirrings 'neath my heart-beats
		Of the dreams that came to me;
		In my ears were whispers, voices,
		Of the children yet to be.

		Red Cloud     (As Red Cloud sings, Dew-Woman
		steals from behind a tree and approaches
		him.)
		In the morning by the river
		Saw I first my maid of dew,
		Daughter of the dew and dawnlight,
		Of the dawn and honey-dew.
		She was laughter, she was sunlight,
		Woman, maid, and mate, and wife;
		She was sparkle, she was gladness,
		She was all the song of life.

		Dew-Woman     In the night I built my fire,
		Fire that maidens foster when
		In the ripe of mating season
		Each builds for her man of men.

		Red Cloud     In the night I sought her, proved her,
		Found her ease, content, and rest,
		After day of toil and struggle
		Man's reward on woman's breast.

		Dew-Woman     Came to me my mate and lover;
		Kind the hands he laid on me;
		Wooed me gently as a man may,
		Father of the race to be.

		Red Cloud     Soft her arms about me bound me,
		First man of the Nishinam,
		Arms as soft as dew and dawnlight,




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