Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories - Italo Calvino [78]
NEANDER: Mmm … Me if I have to go on I go on … if I have to stop I stop … if I have to eat the bear I stop and eat the bear … Afterwards I go on, the bear stops still, a bone here, on the ground, a bone there, on the ground … Behind me come the others, they come on, up to where the bear is, stopped still, the others stop, they eat the bear… My son gnaws at a bone, another son of mine gnaws at another bone, another son of mine gnaws at another bone… interviewer: Mr Neander is now bringing to life for us one of the culminating moments in the life of a clan of hunters: the ritual banquet after a successful hunt…
NEANDER: My brother-in-law gnaws another bone, my wife gnaws another bone …interviewer: As you will have heard in Mr Neander's own words, women were the last to help themselves at the ritual banquet, which constitutes an admission of the inferior social status to which women were condemned…
NEANDER: Your woman you mean! First I bring the bear to my wife, my wife lights the fire beneath the bear, then I go off to pick some basil, then I get back with the basil and I say: well now, where is the bear's thigh? and my wife says: I ate it, right? to check if it was still raw, right?
INTERVIEWER: As early as the communities of hunters and gatherers - for this is what emerges from Mr Neander's account - there was already a strict division of labour between men and women… neander: Then I go off to pick some marjoram, then I get back with the marjoram and I say: well now, where's the bear's other thigh? and my wife says: I ate it, right? to check if it was already burnt, right? And I say: well now, you know who's going to go and pick the oregano, don't you? You're going, I'm telling you, you're going for the oregano, yes you are.
INTERVIEWER: From this delightful little family vignette we can glean many hard facts about the life of Neanderthal man: first, his knowledge of fire and its use in cooking; second, the gathering of aromatic herbs and their gastronomic application; third, the consumption of meat in large detached portions, which would require the use of proper cutting implements and hence implies a highly developed ability to work flint. But let's hear if our guest has anything to tell us about this himself. I will formulate the question in such a way as not to influence his response: Mr Neander, you with your stones, yes, those nice round stones you see so many of hereabouts, didn't you ever try, I don't know, to play with them, to bang them against each other a bit, to see if they were really that hard?
NEANDER: What's that you're saying about stones? Don't you know what you do with a stone! Clank! Clank! That's me with a stone: clank! You get the stone, right? you put it on a big stone, you get that other stone, you lay into it, sharp, clank! you know where to hit it sharp? there! that's where you hit it!: clank! a sharp hit! go on! ow! that way you squash your finger! Then you suck your finger, then you jump up and down, then you get hold of that other stone again, you put the stone back on the big stone, clank! You see it's split in two, a thick splinter and a thinner splinter, one curved this way, the other curved that way, you pick up this one that's easy to hold, this way, like this, you pick up the other with the other hand, that way, like that, and off you go: clunk! understand that you go clunk there, right there, go on! ow! you've stuck the point in your hand! then you suck your hand, turn round on one foot, then you get hold of the splinter again, the other splinter in the other hand, clunk!, a little splinter's split off, ow! in your eye! you rub your eye with your hand, kick the big stone, get hold of the thick splinter again and the thin splinter, clunk! you split off another splinter right nearby, clunk! another, clunk! yet another, and you see that where they've split off they've left a nick that goes in nice and round, and then another nick, and then another nick, like that up and down all around, and then on the other side too, clunk! clunk! see how it's coming off all around,