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The Singidu
Long, long ago, a people came to this part of the river. They called themselves the Singidu, “Those Who Watch the Stone-Grey Fish”. For all this time this river, the Dimini, the lands that surround it, called Cernica, and the ocean it flows into, called Beo, have nourished the Singidu. It is a long river, and The People have traversed much of its banks.
The river, even near the sea, is fairly clear, and rarely floods much beyond its banks. Many of its tributaries are exceptionally clean, the visibility of their river rock bottoms and the water creatures that hide amongst them having given The People their name.
Far, far upstream up among some harsh range of terrible, stormy peaks, snow and rain feed the beginnings of the sweet Dimini. Down here where the Singidu make their homes, somewhere between those mountains and the endless, sunlit waves, the land is gentler and more fruitful.
Hills, most low, some high, lie here and there over the lands of Cernica. Forests of many varieties thrive in this temperate clime, as do meadows, grasslands, and scrub. Fish, beasts, and the fruits of plants were plentiful for The People to make use of.
Most years the Singidu have thrived in this place. They brought wisdom with them when they arrived here, things their ancestors learned in The Place Where The Birds Are Born. Wisdom about digging in the hills, and cooking metals and dirt in fires, and stretching hides, and bending wood and twisting grass or hair or leather. They discovered new wisdom living in this place, new dirt and metals to cook and mix, new ways to cut wood and fit it together. The taught and learned wisdom from other tribes in far off vales who came Cernica before or after the Singidu themselves did. They were shown how to make animals do hard kinds of work, where delicious beasts came from and went to in changing seasons, which plants to put in the ground and when to gather their seeds and when to cut their stalks.
Those whose ancestors came from The Place Where The Birds Are Born had many homes along and near the Dimini. In winter they would cluster in their cold weather camps and eat from their larders and of the wintertime plants and animals they could acquire. In the warm seasons they roamed up and down and beyond the Dimini, sometimes all the way to the sea, or up to the flanks of the mountains from whence the Dimini and her tributaries flow, or even in other directions, far from the rock grey banks, out to the vales of other peoples, or the lands of the lakes, where the journeyers could point and say to each other, “In that direction, far away, is The Place Where The Birds Are Born that our ancestors came from”. In these warm seasons between travels they stopped at camps that were like the cold weather camps, or made new resting grounds in new places, and stayed for as long as they needed, days or weeks or even an entire season if the fish jumped well and the crops swayed high in the sun's fresh warm breezes.
The Singidu have long practiced religion, though the distinction between religion and the customs of daily life is hard to point out. They believe that the power of magic comes from sleep and dreams and takes shape upon one's mind, body, and perhaps even entire tribe through dance, song, paint, and masks. From the decorations that adorned their camps and bodies during their frequent festivities came their first logographic writing system, which a large proportion of average people had at least a rudimentary grasp of, due to its widespread use in everyday as well as ritual situations. Surviving cultural artifacts from this early period usually consist of small, portable items such as decorated pottery, masks, tablets, and hides, although some early carved wooden pillars still exist. Because creation of custom, literature, art, et al. was not restricted to any particular class but was practiced by all elements of society, there is an abundant diversity of material represented by surviving folklore, literature, ceremony, and artifacts.
The People knew how to work iron, though crudely, and rarely used this skill. Their working of bronze and brass and other alloys of bright copper has grown quite skilled and they have always preferred to make their sturdy and elegant tools and ornaments with this well-crafted material.
Relatively protected from any more than the occasional famine, epidemic, natural disaster, material shortage, or external violence, The People developed into a fruitful and capable society. They found uses for obscure new technologies and even began to engage in indirect trade with far off civilizations by way of their more connected neighbors. They governed themselves with Band Leaders and a proto-senate council of distinguished persons selected by popular, though not numerical, approval. They approved of hospitality, vigor, courtesy, wit, friendly competition and displays of impressive feats, and disapproved of greed, sloth, resentment, and cruelty. Sometimes the gods were kind to them, sometimes they were unforgiving, but they saw no hidden meanings in their fates, only the need to sometimes make the best of bad events and other times to be clever and apply themselves so as to make more good things follow.
Generations of almost uninterrupted peace came to a close when the Invaders, literally, “Hunters of Men” offered their poisoned embrace to the lands of Cernica. They did not eat horses or use them to plow the earth. They rode atop them into the land of lakes and the vales and finally the valleys and hills of the Dimini among the Singidu to throw torches and spears into the people who, until just then, had contented themselves with watching the rock-grey fish.
The People were new to the ways of war. They were not ignorant of the ways of nature; they knew they were prey, and their persons and possessions were the flesh that those that would hunt them wished to consume. They knew what prey must do to win its life from the slender, red-tipped claws of its predator.
The Singidu ran as fast and as far as they could while the Invaders filled up their bellies and their bags and their cruel lusts with the loot torn out of a scattered riverside people. The People washed their hands with their tears and stood up straight on their toes upon the hard earth. One of the Leaders of The People drew out his pouch and let his hand clench the hot, dusty remains of his home and kin. The People became warriors, those who hunted the hunters, and they were called The Lips Burnt Black, for when they prepared to fight they smeared their mouths with ashes still warm.
The Singidu took their nets and their snares and their arrows and spears and notched blades and turned them away from the rabbits and poultry and antelope and they turned them against those men who rode their horses in order to hunt men. They turned their eyes and their minds and instincts and their grim unparted blackened mouths against the Invaders who thought to make game of the riverlanders.
In the hills and valleys of Cernica the Invaders began to know fear of the men and women they had though were soft. The ghosts of these forests could not be dissuaded from having their vengeance. The Invaders soon decided to take their horses and ride away to lands where they hoped they would find easier pickings.
Our people who had once watched the fish began to build their tools and homes anew, with walls and warriors to guard them. Their neighbors from the vales soon felt the affliction of the Invaders' hooves and sent messengers asking for the aid of those who had shed blood to send the Invaders away. The Singidu looked to each other and said, “We did not ask the Invaders to be our enemies, yet they became our enemies. Surely, then, if these or any other people ask in earnestness to be our friends, we must become their friends?”
The Invaders were driven far away, and the Singidu and their neighbors had learned of cause to build strong walls and keep firm hold on bent bows and fire hardened spears and maintain alliances as peoples of the same heart. Indeed, the Singidu and their neighbors have grown very close, upon seeing the lay of the outside world and just how similar they really are. On calm days, when the wind blows sweet and watchful faces say all is safe, all the people of Cernica can sit together and watch the fish.
Long, long ago, a people came to this part of the river. They called themselves the Singidu, “Those Who Watch the Stone-Grey Fish”. For all this time this river, the Dimini, the lands that surround it, called Cernica, and the ocean it flows into, called Beo, have nourished the Singidu. It is a long river, and The People have traversed much of its banks.
The river, even near the sea, is fairly clear, and rarely floods much beyond its banks. Many of its tributaries are exceptionally clean, the visibility of their river rock bottoms and the water creatures that hide amongst them having given The People their name.
Far, far upstream up among some harsh range of terrible, stormy peaks, snow and rain feed the beginnings of the sweet Dimini. Down here where the Singidu make their homes, somewhere between those mountains and the endless, sunlit waves, the land is gentler and more fruitful.
Hills, most low, some high, lie here and there over the lands of Cernica. Forests of many varieties thrive in this temperate clime, as do meadows, grasslands, and scrub. Fish, beasts, and the fruits of plants were plentiful for The People to make use of.
Most years the Singidu have thrived in this place. They brought wisdom with them when they arrived here, things their ancestors learned in The Place Where The Birds Are Born. Wisdom about digging in the hills, and cooking metals and dirt in fires, and stretching hides, and bending wood and twisting grass or hair or leather. They discovered new wisdom living in this place, new dirt and metals to cook and mix, new ways to cut wood and fit it together. The taught and learned wisdom from other tribes in far off vales who came Cernica before or after the Singidu themselves did. They were shown how to make animals do hard kinds of work, where delicious beasts came from and went to in changing seasons, which plants to put in the ground and when to gather their seeds and when to cut their stalks.
Those whose ancestors came from The Place Where The Birds Are Born had many homes along and near the Dimini. In winter they would cluster in their cold weather camps and eat from their larders and of the wintertime plants and animals they could acquire. In the warm seasons they roamed up and down and beyond the Dimini, sometimes all the way to the sea, or up to the flanks of the mountains from whence the Dimini and her tributaries flow, or even in other directions, far from the rock grey banks, out to the vales of other peoples, or the lands of the lakes, where the journeyers could point and say to each other, “In that direction, far away, is The Place Where The Birds Are Born that our ancestors came from”. In these warm seasons between travels they stopped at camps that were like the cold weather camps, or made new resting grounds in new places, and stayed for as long as they needed, days or weeks or even an entire season if the fish jumped well and the crops swayed high in the sun's fresh warm breezes.
The Singidu have long practiced religion, though the distinction between religion and the customs of daily life is hard to point out. They believe that the power of magic comes from sleep and dreams and takes shape upon one's mind, body, and perhaps even entire tribe through dance, song, paint, and masks. From the decorations that adorned their camps and bodies during their frequent festivities came their first logographic writing system, which a large proportion of average people had at least a rudimentary grasp of, due to its widespread use in everyday as well as ritual situations. Surviving cultural artifacts from this early period usually consist of small, portable items such as decorated pottery, masks, tablets, and hides, although some early carved wooden pillars still exist. Because creation of custom, literature, art, et al. was not restricted to any particular class but was practiced by all elements of society, there is an abundant diversity of material represented by surviving folklore, literature, ceremony, and artifacts.
The People knew how to work iron, though crudely, and rarely used this skill. Their working of bronze and brass and other alloys of bright copper has grown quite skilled and they have always preferred to make their sturdy and elegant tools and ornaments with this well-crafted material.
Relatively protected from any more than the occasional famine, epidemic, natural disaster, material shortage, or external violence, The People developed into a fruitful and capable society. They found uses for obscure new technologies and even began to engage in indirect trade with far off civilizations by way of their more connected neighbors. They governed themselves with Band Leaders and a proto-senate council of distinguished persons selected by popular, though not numerical, approval. They approved of hospitality, vigor, courtesy, wit, friendly competition and displays of impressive feats, and disapproved of greed, sloth, resentment, and cruelty. Sometimes the gods were kind to them, sometimes they were unforgiving, but they saw no hidden meanings in their fates, only the need to sometimes make the best of bad events and other times to be clever and apply themselves so as to make more good things follow.
Generations of almost uninterrupted peace came to a close when the Invaders, literally, “Hunters of Men” offered their poisoned embrace to the lands of Cernica. They did not eat horses or use them to plow the earth. They rode atop them into the land of lakes and the vales and finally the valleys and hills of the Dimini among the Singidu to throw torches and spears into the people who, until just then, had contented themselves with watching the rock-grey fish.
The People were new to the ways of war. They were not ignorant of the ways of nature; they knew they were prey, and their persons and possessions were the flesh that those that would hunt them wished to consume. They knew what prey must do to win its life from the slender, red-tipped claws of its predator.
The Singidu ran as fast and as far as they could while the Invaders filled up their bellies and their bags and their cruel lusts with the loot torn out of a scattered riverside people. The People washed their hands with their tears and stood up straight on their toes upon the hard earth. One of the Leaders of The People drew out his pouch and let his hand clench the hot, dusty remains of his home and kin. The People became warriors, those who hunted the hunters, and they were called The Lips Burnt Black, for when they prepared to fight they smeared their mouths with ashes still warm.
The Singidu took their nets and their snares and their arrows and spears and notched blades and turned them away from the rabbits and poultry and antelope and they turned them against those men who rode their horses in order to hunt men. They turned their eyes and their minds and instincts and their grim unparted blackened mouths against the Invaders who thought to make game of the riverlanders.
In the hills and valleys of Cernica the Invaders began to know fear of the men and women they had though were soft. The ghosts of these forests could not be dissuaded from having their vengeance. The Invaders soon decided to take their horses and ride away to lands where they hoped they would find easier pickings.
Our people who had once watched the fish began to build their tools and homes anew, with walls and warriors to guard them. Their neighbors from the vales soon felt the affliction of the Invaders' hooves and sent messengers asking for the aid of those who had shed blood to send the Invaders away. The Singidu looked to each other and said, “We did not ask the Invaders to be our enemies, yet they became our enemies. Surely, then, if these or any other people ask in earnestness to be our friends, we must become their friends?”
The Invaders were driven far away, and the Singidu and their neighbors had learned of cause to build strong walls and keep firm hold on bent bows and fire hardened spears and maintain alliances as peoples of the same heart. Indeed, the Singidu and their neighbors have grown very close, upon seeing the lay of the outside world and just how similar they really are. On calm days, when the wind blows sweet and watchful faces say all is safe, all the people of Cernica can sit together and watch the fish.
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