Savannah path von abgemeldet (A narrow way to a new world, even a better life?) ================================================================================ Prolog: Prologue ---------------- The radiance of the sun reflects in the calm waves of the broad, but slow river of America, covering the beauty of nature, personified in the two Indian men, a father and his son, sitting at the waterside and staring in the sunset. The smell of fresh water and the odour of the savaged vegetation touch the hardened noses of these two human beings. Not a word, but butterflies, bees and any other kind of insects overfly the huge creeks around big Mississippi. Covered in silence, but never soundless, lies the body of water in the riverbed and every piercing shriek of a dying prey, every burst of a lost bone, every gunshot, or every smitten cry for help of a wounded victim would slice the soundlessness into resounding pieces. Today, only the ripple of a harvested fish, which may taste luscious in the mouths of these native Americans, disturb the silence. Kapitel 1: I. ------------- Agitation. A little shaking. Just the turbulence of the engine of the bus, in which the small, dark-skinned lad outstrips his annoying day at school. However the reason, why this boy, a friend for some, a social misfit for others, an outsider and for most of his teachers a hard-working scholar, leans against the thick glass panel of this motorised vehicle, transporting him off from school and back to the little town he lives in. He enjoys these vibrations, while his deep, full voice could not reveal his origin, because he was not speaking, only listening to the susurrus of the wind, rushing beside his head. Only the darkness of his skin and his eyes may betray the secret of his Ancestry. Kapitel 2: II. -------------- The young boy, like every other Indian boy, had to milk the goats on this Saturday morning. Therefore he was not pleased. He was not keen on milking the goats. In fact, he detested it. Like every other boy, when those had to do things, they disliked to do, he sometimes yelled at his parents that he would leave this place someday. But today, he just took care of those stinky animals. Maybe he just was not in the mood to open his mouth more than necessary, maybe he sensed the tension in the air, his parents and the whole hamlet launched into the atmosphere. Twice a week, the group of clansman, which included him as one of the hunters, went out to ensure the feeding of most of the Indians in his hamlet. After he had finished milking the goats, he heard that another boy of the same age as Tala was injured at the hunt of yesterday and thus Tala Enola Palátala, son of Nita Palátala, was frightened. Tala Enola Palátala, the lonely wolf of the red rising sun, was frightened. Something, he dissembled. Readily, he waited for the other hunters to accompany them. A knee-high dog escorted the four men on their way to the hunting ground. The dog seemed disimpassioned, but he was just waiting for a command to sit, to snap, or to close in on a prey. To make a long story short, the hunt was successful. More precisely said, two of the men scared up a gazelle, which was disjoined from his flock, the dog thronged it and the other two young men hunted the gazelle down. Papewas, which means as much as „lucky man“, had to carry the gazelle home. Tala returned with more luck than the lucky man, because it was him who had culled the gazelle. And now, his shoulder was untinged from the red, bleeding body of the dead animal. Additionally, this gazelle was the first animal he had ever culled. A great step for a young native American man to approach his manhood. Kapitel 3: III. --------------- Nita was frightened, but he dissembled it. Those men were different. Different from him, different from all of his clansmen and different from all he had ever seen before. They were different-colored, different-minded and, all things considered, they did not fit in this place. They looked as though they had never seen the sun before and their clothes were close-fitting, tightly sewed and mostly as bright as their skin color. Some of them were wearing leg dresses which were as blue and long as the Mississippi. These ‘jeans’ enwrapped the skinny legs of those men and reached down to the ground. Their legs looked weakly and it seemed as if those white men tried to cover the weakness of their bones with their wear. In fact, they had a weakish look, but this did not decrease the measures of the impression they made. Some of them were holding long staves in their hands and others carried curious apparatuses or bags with them. Additionally, they hided themselves from the sun. Unfeathered and enormous were their headdresses. Long, greasy hair popped from time to time through this masquerade and was directly blown back from the stiff wind of this secluded landscape. Nita also made a step back, when he first became aware of the situation. His face looked as if his mind was scattered to the four winds. Or further away. Tala reacted in a completely different way. He paced forward and then he even advanced his pace. He passed some of those white men, who only observed him, tried to assess him. Their glances resulting in short comments to each other. Tala was not commenting anything, until a heavy member of his tribe thwarted him. “I want to have an audience with the shaman.” Tala gasped, glancing right in the eye of the man in front of him. “Impossible. He is occupied.” The male bristled with anger. This matched reality. It was obvious that the shaman was in negotiation, because he, his son and three strange men with big hats on their heads were sitting in front of the biggest dwelling of this hamlet. Tala was merely angry. He thought, under these circumstances, today nobody would recognise or appreciate his success with the gazelle, which he had culled down before. He asked himself, or somebody far away, from whom he would not anticipate an answer, these questions: “What happened here?” and “Why does it just had to happen today?” These questions may seem naïve and obstinate, but his father, Nita, asked himself the same questions. Kapitel 4: IV. -------------- I should sit their, next to our shaman, Nita thought, additive to the all the other questions in his mind. The barrier, Tala could not overcome, simply lost its validity, as Nita reached the tribe member and passed him with a wordless nod, pacing further toward those two unequal groups. It seemed, as though only one of the white men could speak some kind of dialect of the language, this tribe used to communicate among each other, because he always translated every single sentence and accordingly formed words of a bizarre, mysterious language with his tongue. The disadvantage: Those now three native Americans could not understand the whispering of the Whites, as long as they wanted to avoid it, wanted to evade secrets from harsh ears. But these negotiations did not seem to be disturbed by any disadvantages, because the white men were keenly friendly and frank with the shaman, his son and Nita. They responded openly to all questions the Indians had. They described all the things they were speaking of in a very pathetic way and additionally various presents were offered by them. Not only the great craftsmanship of the Whites was expressed by these presents, but also their benevolence. Was there any reason to distrust them? Kapitel 5: V. ------------- The ring composed of Indians was quaking, after the bang of one of the staves from the Whites had destroyed every hint of silence in this landscape of a natural state and had put an end to the live of the innocent pig that had squeaked nervously until the plumb bullet smashed his head. Fright and horror, shining through the eyes of shocked Indians, dominated the temper of this hamlet from now on and every word, every impulse of these strangers was considered in a different light, observed exactly and treated with caution. This demonstration of power underlined the might of these white gods, or demons, or something in between. It also changed how the native Americans thought about them. Why were they so friendly? What do they really want? Was it just affectation and they only pretending? However, this act made conversations among the different cultures nearly impossible. Even the Whites sensed the tension in the air and thus they stacked together, nodding and whispering vehemently. It seemed, as though they formed a front that resounded loud, disturbing words, which scared some of the Indians up. Others startled, hesitated. Nita could only hardly hold his vocal protest back. And his son? Tala was pondering, weighting his alternatives up. Finally, he began to say: “I…”, but faltered again, calling everybody’s attention to him. In his ears, neither the quack of a frog, nor the buzzing of a bee, nor the sough of the wind, or the scroop of a tree made enough noise to be heard. Nature avoided annoying him while speaking, afraid to loose him. Or was he just imagining? He was so confused, disordered, disrupted inside. The day has been so bizarre; first of all, his first culled animal without appreciation, but later with rejection, then the Whites, and now this question, this new possibility, this chance… Epilog: Epilog -------------- The question, the white men were asking, was: “It is free to you, to stay here, easterly from the Mississippi river, even it is not sure, whether this land will still be yours tomorrow, or whether you even will be able to survive here then, when other white men will come and take this land and every treasure which it contains with them. But you can also join us on our way to our home, leave your land and your culture, or even your relatives behind you and try to start a new, totally different life. So… Who wants to come with us?” What would you do? Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)