The Davey Dialogues - An Exploration of the Scientific Foundations of Human Culture. John C. Madden
life expectancy likely was about twenty-five years, but a few members of your group may have lived a lot longer. You were a hunter-gatherer. Agriculture had not yet been developed. You had access to some crude tools, such as spears and stone knives. Writing had not yet been invented. History was all orally transmitted. Your spoken language was likely quite well developed, though your vocabulary was limited by your fairly restricted range of knowledge and experience, as judged by today’s standards.
The fight of your ancestors for survival amongst the competing mammals, reptiles, disease and hostile tribes, and while faced with variations in climate and environment over months, years and millennia – including cataclysmic events such as floods, fires and volcanic eruptions – meant that you had a number of innate behavioural penchants (almost all of which are subject to variations and modifications across the species) that helped you adapt to changing circumstances.
Insofar as mammalian competitors are concerned, your physical attributes were unexceptional. You were not especially strong or big, not particularly fleet of foot, nor could you climb trees rapidly, burrow in the ground, or swim with much finesse. In such circumstances, survival depended on co-operative behaviour practiced by groups of humans. These groups had to be large enough to yield survivable odds against predators and to improve chances of success when hunting, but not so large as to exhaust available sources of food within easy walking range.
You regarded most members of your small tribe with respect and affection. Others you disdained, though not so much that, for the most part, you wished them gone. You were part of a hierarchy, or pecking order. Your chief and his wife decidedly had the upper hand. The chief directed the hunt and took for himself, and his immediate family, the best part of the available food and supplies. His chief wife supervised the domestic chores (and may well, by dint of superior intelligence and drive, have been the de facto head of the tribe). No one was left without food or shelter unless he or she had unsuccessfully challenged the chief, or otherwise transgressed tribal rules in an unforgivable manner.
While your chief may have had a favourite spouse, he especially – and other males to a lesser extent – copulated with a number of females both in the group and outside it. Nonetheless most group members formed marriage-like relationships of a semi-permanent or permanent nature. Children born into longer-term relationships generally had an enhanced likelihood of survival into adulthood.
The pecking order in the group was clear. Those at the bottom were given the menial jobs and got the worst accommodation and the least tasty food. There was a constant jockeying within the group, as younger people especially attempted to improve their social position.
Now, think of yourself as having been a young woman or a young man, with, let us suppose, lots of drive and intelligence, but a pretty junior ranking in the group, a ranking that you badly wished to improve. The chief, let us again suppose, looked pretty unassailable. He was physically powerful and a good hunter. He could be vengeful and cruel, but most of the tribe respected his decisions. Those at the bottom of the pecking order feared him. His first wife was very cunning. She kept her ear to the ground for any signs of discontent, and she saw to it that the wishes of her husband were carried out. Both their children were especially favoured. The boy was likely to become the next leader. Not much hope for you there, unless (if you were a girl), you could become the first wife to the son – but age difference alone made this unlikely in your case.
It had been a disastrous last two years for the group. The rainy season hardly happened in either year, and the local water hole had dried up. Game, which had been plentiful, had moved on. Thankfully, most of the lions and leopards had moved on, as well, but some had stayed and developed a liking for human flesh. Two young children had been lost to lions in the last two months. Guards had to be posted all night, placing an additional strain on the small community. The group was surviving largely on plants still growing around the dried-up water hole. Small quantities of water were still available thanks to a second hole the women dug in the dried mud of the hole. Recently, signs of other humans in the area had been detected, and the tribe was worried about an attack from these humans.
Your mother had told you the story of the great Earth Goddess. It was generally believed that the tribe was suffering from her displeasure over some imagined slight unwittingly perpetrated by the tribe. You were dubious of this story and had seen no evidence of any earth goddess. But what other dark and mysterious force could be the cause of all your misery, and what might be done about it? You wished you knew!
It turns out that from early childhood you had been fascinated by the sun and moon. Somehow, you thought, it is the sun and moon together that decide how much rain will fall, and it is rain and sunshine together that seem to decide the health of plants and animals. Unlike the Earth Goddess – an invisible lurking shadow, imagined but not seen – the sun and moon are visible presences. If only you could communicate with them, you might learn how to arrange for more rain, so that the game animals would come back and the grass would once again be green and tender.
In order to better understand these distant but visible gods, as you thought of them, you embarked on a period of study. You found a quiet spot on a small rise of land about twenty minutes’ walk from your camp, and you spent many hours there, day and night, observing these aloof gods. You observed carefully the patterns on the moon, and thought you could discern the face of a goddess. You found a small clearing where you could drive a stake into the ground and observe the shadows cast by both the moon and the sun, and you devised a way to record the changes in shadow length and direction, and tried to correlate these with the weather. You tried saying prayers to both sun and moon. Sometimes you complimented them on their wisdom and strength, and thanked them for their gifts to you and your tribe. Other times you begged them for their help and offered them such gifts as you had that you thought might interest them, an animal hide, perhaps, or some food. All of this work took its toll on you, since you were still expected to contribute your share of labour to the daily life of your tribe, and your study of the moon in particular, being primarily a nocturnal pursuit, was both dangerous and tiring.
However, your mother encouraged you to keep going and helped you by carrying out some of your daily chores for you. Your interest in the sun and moon came to the attention of the chief quite early on – there was little in tribal life that did not – and after thinking about it, he decided to encourage you. Invocations to the Earth Goddess after all, had not been very effective, and it looked as though the tribe would have to move off south in search of better land, with all the perils that that involved. Just maybe, he thought, you were onto something that could help the tribe. Soon, all the tribe took an interest in what you were doing and came to you with suggestions. Have you tried eating some particular healing herbs before communing with the sun and moon? Have you tried going without food? What about sacrifices? You listened to all of these suggestions, especially to those coming from the chief, who was over twice your age and had some knowledge of the customs of neighbouring tribes. The chief’s first wife, unfortunately, was a problem for you. She thought your ideas would offend the Earth Goddess, and the goddess would curse the tribe even more. Fortunately, at least for a while, the chief was on your side, but several other tribe members agreed with his wife.
One night, after two days of fasting, you fell into an exhausted sleep after hours of prayer and invocation to your new gods. Times were especially harsh. The last drop of water would soon be gone from the remaining water hole, and the grass was tinder dry. A brush fire had almost demolished the campsite and its inhabitants a few days earlier. The group was becoming desperate. While you slept the Sun God came to you in the form of a handsome youth. He thanked you for your prayers to him, and told you he would answer your prayers, that he would bring rain, provided the tribe began to observe certain practices to please him. He advised you that he was the most powerful of the gods, and that the moon was his wife, and that she ruled the night. You are pleased to be told that the Earth Goddess did indeed exist and was a daughter of the sun and moon. It was therefore appropriate to worship her, too, but first obeisance must be to him, the Sun God. He commanded you to convince the tribe to worship him each morning at sunrise and to leave him some berries to eat here where you were sleeping. In the evening, you were to bring a gourd of water for him to drink. You alone were authorized to do this. He promised that rain would come on the third day of such observances, and that the animals would return