The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [403]
“I know it. I could tell. Why do people hate them so much? What’s so terrible about them?” Ayla asked.
The woman looked at her, considering, then made up her mind. “When I said at that meeting that I had gone into deep meditation to recall all the Histories and Elder Legends, that was entirely true. I used every prompt and memory aid I know to bring out everything I ever memorized. It is probably something that should be done more often, it’s enlightening. I think the problem, Ayla, is that we moved into their lands. In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. There was a lot of room, many empty shelters. It wasn’t hard to share the land with them. They tended to keep to themselves, and we avoided them. We didn’t call them animals then, just flatheads. The term was more descriptive than derogatory,” she said.
“But as time went on, and more children were born, we needed more space. Some people began taking their shelters, sometimes fighting with them, sometimes killing them, sometimes being lolled. By then, we had lived here for a long time, and this was our home, too. The flatheads may have been here first, but we needed places to live, so we took theirs.
“When people treat others badly, they have to rationalize it so they can go on living with themselves. We give ourselves excuses. The excuse we used was that the Great Mother gave us the earth for our home, the water, the land, and all Her creation.’ That means all Her plants and animals are ours to use. Then we convinced ourselves that flatheads were animals, and if they were animals, we could take their shelters for ourselves,” Zelandoni said.
“But they are not animals, they are people,” Ayla said.
“Yes. You are right, but we conveniently forgot that. She also said the Earth is our ‘home to use, but not to abuse.’ The flatheads are also Earth’s Children. That was the other thing I learned from my meditation. If She mixes their spirits with ours, they must be people, too. But I don’t think it would have made much difference if we thought they were people or not. I think we would have done it anyway. Doni has made it easier for other living creatures that kill, so they can live. I don’t think your wolf there worries about the rabbits he kills to survive, or the deer that a pack of them may hunt down. He was born to kill them. Without them he would not live, and Doni has given every living thing the desire to continue living,” the donier said.
“But humans have been given the ability to think. That is what makes us learn and grow. It is also what gives us the knowledge that cooperation and understanding are necessary for our own survival, and that has led to empathy and compassion, but there’s another side to those kind of feelings. The empathy and compassion we feel for our own kind is sometimes extended to the rest of the living things on the earth. If we allowed it to keep us from killing a deer, or other animals, we would not live long. The desire to live is the stronger feeling, so we learn to be compassionate selectively. We find ways to close our minds. We limit our sense of empathy.” Ayla was listening closely, fascinated.
“The problem is knowing how much to stop those feelings without perverting them. In my opinion, I think that is really at the bottom of Joharran’s concern over the knowledge you have brought us, Ayla. As long as most people believed your Clan were only animals, we could kill them without thinking about it. It’s harder to kill people. The empathy is so much stronger that the mind must invent new reasons. But, if we can somehow link it to our own survival, the mind will make the devious twists and turns necessary to rationalize it. We’re very good at that. But it changes people. They learn to hate. Your wolf doesn’t need to hate what he kills. It would be easier if we could kill without compunction, like your wolf does,