Stories – Where stories come from |
Stories – Where stories come from |
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Histoires pour enfants Divers Regain (journal de la Confédération Paysanne) |
There haven’t always been stories. A long, long time ago there were no stories at all. Parents and aunties couldn’t tell their children stories for the simple reason that there were no stories to tell. There were no stories because people only knew how to tell the truth. There’s nothing wrong with the truth. But the problem with the truth is that it gets a little boring. For the early troglodytes, there were only two possibilities: truth or lies. They knew it was wrong to tell lies, and because they were horribly strict, the penalty for telling lies was drastic: death! The rules were the rules: anyone caught telling a lie would be thrown into a smelly pit with a fierce crocodile, which would promptly eat her. Not surprisingly, nobody ever dared to tell a lie. Because there was no school, all the children in the village would hang out in the clearing playing with a few old bones and pebbles. Mammoth bones and a few ancient dinosaur bones, and some pretty-coloured stones that they’d hunt for down near the river. They had catapults too, but no toys. They didn’t even have clothes. Just a few leaves and bits of animal skin here and there. Now in the village there was a lively little girl called Lera, who had so much energy she absolutely never stopped. Lera was never exactly eager to go to bed at night. She’d rather stay up running round the village with her friends, watching the pterodactyls in the moonlight up in the trees down past the big lake, riding the baby mammoths round the edge of the corn field, and throwing stones at the dinosaur skull that someone had placed on a tree stump behind Rafi’s house. Every night around ten o’clock, her mum, Amaparu, would go out and search for Lera, round the village, down by the lake, over by the back of Rafi’s house, and up on Sira’s roof. When she found her, she’d take her down to the waterfall for a cold shower, then drag her back to the cave to go to bed. But Lera was never, never tired at night. She’d wriggle around in bed, jump up and down like she was on a trampoline, sing strange made-up tunes, and ask difficult questions in a very loud voice. “Why is mammoth soup so horrible?” “Why does a bow have only one string?” “Why is it always the grown-ups who give the orders.” “Will I be as beautiful as you when I grow up?” “Will the tigers be able to get through the new fence?” Her mum was really very kind, and usually tried to answer every single question, even the hardest ones. But eventually she’d end up insisting that it was really time for Lera to go to sleep now. “If you don’t go to sleep you’ll be too tired to play in the morning,” she tried. “But I’m never tired in the morning,” Lera replied. On and on it went, and sometimes Amaparu would end up going to sleep before Lera, but it was very difficult because of all the wriggling, jumping and singing going on. In the morning, Amaparu was often tired, but Lera never. Then one night, Amaparu had the most extraordinary idea. Half way through Lera’s nightly questioning, she said, “Be quiet please my lovely little Lera. I’m going to tell you a story.” “¿A what?” “A story, Lera. You’ll find out soon enough.” And so it began. “Once upon a time…” “What does that mean?” “It doesn’t mean anything, Lera. It just starts like that. That’s all.” “Once upon a time, a very long time ago, before I was born, and before my mother was born, and before her mother was born, there was a beautiful island garden, surrounded by the sea. Everything was perfect in the garden. The flowers were lovely, the vegetables were delicious, and the tigers were friendly. The children could stroke them and ride on their backs. It only rained when it was hot and you felt like taking a shower. The people walked round the garden all day, looking at the trees, marvelling at the butterflies and generally feeling fine. The children played with the tigers and the elephants, and went to sleep at night exactly when their parents told them to. There was always enough to eat and drink. Everything was perfect. Oh, I forgot: these people didn’t speak and they didn’t wear clothes. They didn’t have bows and arrows, because they only ate fruit and vegetables.” “Better than horrible mammoth soup!” interjected Lera. “And they didn’t have forks or axes or cages. Nothing. They just got the vegetables straight from the ground and the fruit straight from the trees. One day, Kabossy and Velooma were walking along the beach, and Velooma started wondering to herself, ‘I wonder what there is the other side of this sea’. Just as she had wondered this, a giant snake came out from under a rock and started looking at them intensely. Then it rattled its tail and a thousand tiny sparks flew all around them, each a different colour. Suddenly, Velooma found herself speaking, which absolutely astonished her, because nobody had ever spoken in the world before. ‘I wonder what there is the other side of this sea,’ she said out loud, a little frightened by the strange sounds she was making. ‘What a daft question,’ replied Kabossy, and this frightened Velooma even more because it meant that Kabossy had understood her question and was trying to answer it. Remember, nobody had ever asked a question before, let alone answered it. ‘It’s not so daft as that,’ said the snake. On a normal day, Velooma would have jumped out her skin to hear a snake speaking, but after all the strange things that had been happening, it seemed somehow normal today. ‘It’s not so daft as that,’ she agreed. ‘After all, there’s something on the other bank of the river so why shouldn’t there be something over the other side of this sea?’ ‘Well…,’ stuttered Kabossy, who had always been a little awed by his wife’s forwardness, ‘I suppose so.’ ‘The problem is,’ spoke the snake, rather confidently, ‘that you can’t swim, you can’t speak, you don’t have boats and until this mutant came along…’ (he was staring almost admiringly at Velooma) ‘…you lacked the curiosity.’ ‘Does that mean we’re in trouble?’ asked Kabossy. ‘What’s a boat?’ asked Velooma. ‘And by the way, we can speak, apparently, though I’m not quite sure how that’s going to help us get across the sea.’ ‘Please listen carefully,’ continued the snake. ‘This is the deal: it’s up to you; I’ll give you the facts and you make the decision. But remember, I cannot see into the future; I’d like to ask you not to blame me if things turn out wrong, but I know that would be unrealistic.’ ‘Sounds dangerous to me,’ said Kabossy. ‘So what are the facts,’ said Velooma. ‘The most important fact is the speaking. If you decide to go ahead, you’ll all be speaking from now on. Then once you start speaking you’ll be able to start making boats and stuff, and before you know it you’ll be over the sea.’ ‘Great. We’ll do it,’ said Kabossy. ‘What’s the catch,’ asked Velooma. ‘There are two catches, Velooma.’ Velooma didn’t stop to wonder how the snake knew her name. “Don’t be silly mummy”, interrupted Lera. “If she couldn’t speak before, how could she have a name?” “Quite right, Lerita mía,” corrected Amaparu. “In fact it was the snake that gave her the name Velooma.” ‘The first catch is that once you’ve taken the first decision, you’ll always have to be taking decisions. It never stops. Sometimes they’ll be easy, but often they’ll be hard. At first it’s fun, but the novelty can wear off.’ ‘And the second?’ ‘The second comes back to the speaking thing. Speaking will help you build boats, get across the sea, tell children stories, and basically find out anything you need to know. Little by little, of course. You can’t expect miracles.’ “But mummy, why didn’t Velooma think to ask him what a story was?” “I suppose it just slipped her mind, my Lera. She didn’t ask him what a miracle was either.” “What’s a miracle Mummy?” “It comes in another story.” ‘Sounds great,’ said Kabossy. ‘But,’ went on the snake ominously ‘speaking can also be extremely dangerous.’ ‘How might that be?’ ‘Well just like you can say nice things, you can also say nasty things.’ “But mummy, they didn’t know what ‘nasty’ meant, because the garden was perfect.” “You got it! And they didn’t know was ‘nice’ meant either, because everything was nice.” ‘So you’ll be able to build useful things, but also damaging things.’ ‘But why would anyone one want to build a damaging thing?’ ‘It’s too complicated to explain. Even I get mixed up myself. It’s just that once you start speaking everything goes really fast, the good things and the bad. It sounds ridiculous but it’s true. A bit like fire.’ Velooma was too giddy to ask what fire was. ‘What have other people usually done in this situation?’ asked Velooma. ‘You’ve got one hell of a smart mutant there,’ said the snake to Kabossy out of the corner of its mouth, giving a huge wink. Then to Velooma, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you, because that might influence your decision. It won’t work at all unless the decision is entirely yours. That’s the whole point, you see.’ ‘I think I do,’ said Velooma. ‘Can we have a little time to think about it?’ ‘Meet me here tomorrow at dawn.’ ‘All right.’ “Ideas are like seeds, Lera mía, and once the snake had planted the seeds of speaking, boats and stories, it was pretty obvious that those flowers would bloom in the fertile minds of Kabossy and Velooma. So the next day they accepted the deal, and that’s how people started speaking and making boats.” “And it’s also how people started telling stories. I like stories already,” said Lera sleepily, putting a finger into her mouth and closing her little eyes contentedly. “There’ll be more,” said Amaparu, tucking in the buffalo-skin blanket round Lera’s straw mattress. Lera’s mum was delighted: at last she’d found a way to get Lera to sleep. So every night there was story after story. It started with the adventures of Velooma and Kabossy, as they built their boats and sailed across the sea, as they struggled courageously with monsters and pirates, and as they enlisted the help of fairies, speaking condors and other magical creatures. Anyway, one evening the three friends —Lera, Sira and Rafi— were sitting on Sira’s roof watching the full moon rise. Lera thought it was so beautiful that it would make a nice time to tell a story. “Hey, Sira and Rafi, would you like to hear a story?” “¿A what?” “Oh, I’d forgotten, you pair probably don’t even know what a story is yet,” gleamed Lera a little teasingly. The other two looked at her as if she’d gone crazy, but Lera just started off calmly and naturally, “Once upon a time”. At first, Sira and Rafi couldn’t stop giggling, but by the time Lera got to the bit with the snake that spoke and the thousand sparks, they were absolutely enthralled. Well, as you can guess, pretty soon Lera was telling them stories every single evening. But one day Lera and Amaparu had to go away to the other side of the mountain, to trade some paraguayas for a store of coffee beans, and while they were gone Sira and Rafi missed their evening stories terribly. At first they played the stories, sailing across the river on a little boat they built, and fighting imaginary pirates with sticks. And they tried to make up new episodes for themselves, but they were never as good as the stories that Lera got from her mum. You see, Amaparu was not only the first ever storyteller in the history of the world, but she was also an extremely good storyteller. The catastrophe fell one night when Rafi’s mum was tucking him in. “Mummy,” he said, “could you tell me a story?” “¿A what?” “A story, you know, with snakes that talk and have sparks flying out of their tails, and pirates and witches, and fairies and things.” Rafi’s mum was flabbergasted, thunderstruck, appalled. She thought he must be ill, and went racing out of the house calling for the witchdoctor. Before poor Rafi had had the time to think how he might get out of this mess, the witchdoctor had arrived, with his huge shark-jaw saw, his sharp squid-bone scalpel and a whole barrowful of wild boar bladders full of foul-smelling ointments and potions. He thrust his warty face uncomfortably close to Rafi’s. Some of the warts had hairs growing out of them, and Rafi was terrified that they’d tickle him. In fact, Rafi was petrified altogether, because the witchdoctor was the nastiest and most powerful person in the village. Even the grown-ups were scared of him. “So what’s the matter then?” he hissed, while stamping his foot on the floor of the cave impatiently. “It’s nothing, really. I’m perfectly all right. All meals eaten obediently. No vomiting. No diarrhoea. Strong hair, look.” He tugged his hair so hard it made his eyes water, but the witchdoctor looked decidedly sceptical. Rafi threw the bedclothes off, crossed his knees and gave the uppermost one a sharp tap with the left-hand prong of the catapult that he kept under the pillow at night just in case. “Speedy reflexes,” he smiled, hopefully, jerking his leg exaggeratedly in the direction of the witchdoctor’s huge misshapen nose. “Your mum says you’re delirious.” “Oh, yes, sir. Always delirious to help my parents, go out hunting wild boars, drag the nets in from the river. No trouble, sir.” “All right, so what’s all this about a snake that talks?” “A snake that talks? I suppose it does sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it? It was just my imagination sir. No cause for concern, I assure you.” “So tell me, laddy, where exactly did you see the snake that talks?” insisted the witchdoctor obnoxiously. “I didn’t see a snake that talks. Snakes don’t talk. Everyone knows snakes don’t talk.” By now Rafi was on the verge of tears. He knew he would be tricked and terrorized into telling the hideous witchdoctor about the evening stories with Lera, and then Lera would in trouble too. But he also knew there was no escape. Grown-ups were experts in tricking and terrorizing people, and he was no match for them. But how could they be so stupid as to not realize the difference between a story and a lie? What a dreadful surprise when Amaparu and Lera came back to the village! The witchdoctor and his guards were waiting, and they immediately tied Amaparu up and took her over to the crocodile pit for interrogation. Talking snakes, magical gardens, pirates, witches. All lies, they said. Nothing but lies. The village held a meeting, and all the grown-ups agreed that Amaparu had been corrupting the children with base lies. Death to Amaparu, they decreed, and locked her in a sturdy cage. The next full moon, when the crocodiles are the hungriest, she would be thrown into the pit and eaten. Lera, Sira and Rafi were horrified, and they met every night to plan how they might save her. Rafi’s and Sira’s parents had forbidden their children to see Lera, but the kids slipped out of their caves every night while their parents were sleeping, and met up in the little rush cabin near the lake. “I’m the strongest boy in the village,” said Rafi. “I’ll take my catapult and fire a stone over in the bushes.” When the guards hear the noise they’ll turn to look what’s happening, and I’ll creep up behind them and whack them over the head with the biggest dinosaur bone I can find.” “You might be the bravest boy in the village,” said Sira admiringly, “but you’re still a boy: either of those two great ugly apes could crush you in one hand. No, we can’t beat them by strength, but we might just beat them by being cleverer. Think about it: this whole thing came about because the grown-ups are too stupid to understand what a story is, but we understand perfectly. That means we’re cleverer than them, so we’ll be able to win.” Rafi and Lera looked at her blankly. “I have an idea. It’s a bit of a crazy idea, but I think it’s crazy enough to work. What do all parents have in common?” Rafi and Lera looked at her even more blankly. They were lost. Their world was coming to pieces. First they get dazzled by the imaginary world of stories, then Lera’s mum gets arrested and sentenced to death, and now their best friend starts to go bonkers and ask them stupid questions. Rafi thought it would be best to humour her. “Smelly boots?” “Hairy nostrils?” ventured Lera. Rather too condescendingly for an eight-year-old, Sira explained: “All parents, or the vast majority, in any case, love their children. So this is the plan…” At first, her friends were sceptical, but Sira was a convincing speaker, and eventually she convinced them. For the plan to work, they had to count on all the children in the village. So the very next day they went round whispering to all the kids that there was going to be a big meeting at midnight down by the big lake. By this time, of course, all the kids knew perfectly well what a story was, and they couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Everyone was very excited about the meeting, but they managed to conceal it from their parents. They all slipped out of their caves without being seen, and that night, in the light of half a moon, Sira explained her plan. When she’d finished, all the kids agreed to go along with it. However difficult it might be. The next morning, when Sira’s dad poured her a jar full of hot buffalo milk for her breakfast, Sira just let it go cold on the stone slab that served as a table. Same thing for the mammoth soup at lunchtime. Same thing for the delicious corn tortilla with honey at five o’clock. And same thing for the walnut and spinach omelette that was presented at dinnertime that evening. “What’s the matter, Sira love? Feeling ill?” “Not exactly ill, just sick!” “Shall I go and get the witchdoctor?” “I think the witchdoctor will be a little too busy today.” And so he was, because all the children in the village were refusing to eat. “We are all sick of your stupid behaviour, and we will not eat a bite of food or drink a drop of milk until you free Lera’s mother. Not only that, but we have no intention of going to sleep either.” At sunset, they all raced disobediently out of their caves and started to run round the village shouting and screaming and banging things. Few parents slept, either, that night. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the whole history of the world. At first, the adults were confident that the children would just get hungry and give up, but day after day they continued. Pretty soon they started to get weak from lack of food, but their minds remained strong and they refused to back down. Once, Rafi’s mum tried to force a spoonful of milk down his throat, but he bit her so hard she had to go to the witchdoctor herself. The night before the full moon, when the crocodiles are hungriest, the parents called a meeting: what should they do? The witchdoctor had an idea: he thought they should select one or two of the children and make an example of them. “Throw one of the ringleaders to the crocodiles, and you’ll see how soon the others come round. And if they don’t, well, we’ll just skewer another one the next day.” Of course, the witchdoctor had no children himself, so he couldn’t imagine the effect his bloodthirstiness would have on the parents. It is one thing to revel in skewering the members of an enemy tribe, but quite another to skewer one’s own children. Then how should the victims be selected? Should they hold a bingo session? First prize, your precious ringletted daughter gets eaten by a crocodile. Second prize, your beloved son gets skewered on a spear. In fact, the tribe was so disgusted by the witchdoctor that they decided to do exactly the opposite, and release Amaparu with a stern warning. Future witchdoctors would take courses in psychology to solve this kind of problem, but this one only had shark-jaw saws, squid-bone scalpels and foul-smelling unctions. Psychology hadn’t been invented yet. When Amaparu was released, the first thing she did was to gather all the children in the village and give each and every one of them a big hug. Then she sat them down and told them a long and incredibly beautiful story that she had thought up while in her dungeon. As she was starting, one of the cave doors opened and an adult came out and loitered slowly around looking intently at the sky. “Just checking the weather for tomorrow,” he said conspicuously. Amaparu looked at the loiterer with contempt, but the contempt very soon melted into compassion. “Why don’t you join us?” If it had been anyone else but Amaparu, the villager would have been too embarrassed to accept, but genuine compassion makes embarrassment impossible, so he joined the group. Of course, the rest of the village had been watching from their windows, and when they saw that one adult had been admitted to the circle, they all wanted to come. So that night the whole village heard its very first story. Even the witchdoctor? Even the witchdoctor, who was very upset because he saw he had lost his power over the village. In fact he was so upset that the very next morning he left to go and look for another job in another village. And you know what? In the first village he came to, there was a vacancy for a witchdoctor, so he took the job and at first everything went perfectly all right, with the wild boar bladders and stuff. But he always remembered the amazing effect that Amaparu’s stories had had on people, and because he was a particularly malicious witchdoctor, he thought that telling stories would be a good way to manipulate people. The trouble was that he was an absolutely hopeless storyteller. He babbled everything and got all the characters mixed up. Every sentence started with a long bit of incoherent nonsense, like “errrr, yer know, what I was saying like, gerrit?”, then he gabbled out a tiny chunk of the story, usually in the wrong order, and finished the sentence with another long bit of incoherent nonsense: “great init like, errrr, see what I mean yerknow, errrr, like what I was saying before gerrit, errrr”. Nobody had the slightest idea what he was talking about, and they thought he had gone absolutely nuts. So of course he had to go and get another job in another village, and this time he left storytelling well alone. Back in Lera’s village, you can guess what happened. The adults thought Amaparu’s stories were fantastic. They were almost as delighted as the children. So pretty soon they started to tell the stories to their children themselves. To start with, they were the same stories. Young children don’t mind hearing the same stories every night. They like it, even. And when the children grew up, they remembered how much they’d liked the stories, and they’d tell them to their own children. But sometimes they’d forget bits, or make up new bits, and from generation to generation the stories would change quite a lot. So in a way, all the stories we have today are descended from Amaparu’s stories, like we are descended from the apes named Velooma and Kabossy. Sure, some people —very few, though— have been able to invent new stories of their own. But there are still some very old stories around that go all the way back to Amaparu. And it would be fair to say that every story in the world still has a little tiny bit of Amaparu and Lera in it. |
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