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The group was too large for a family, too small for a tribe. In their language they were simply the people.
It was many lifetimes since anyone had seen any others of their kind. Some of the olders said that the great dry to the South had eaten every other person in the world, others were of the opinion that more of their kind were in the spirit world where the sun was born every day and the people must travel there to meet them.
Two-dozen males, fewer females; perhaps seven women of child-bearing age and a gaggle of nut-brown infants were clustered on the edge of the biggest water they had ever seen. Far off, on the horizon, was a smear of green-grey that promised new land beyond the water.
An observer from far in the future would be hard-pressed to recognise the strip of shallow water, dotted with luxuriously green islands as the one-day Red Sea, nor the verdant land beyond as the sometime Arabia. He would, though, identify the people as human. Unusual humans, but definitely Homo Sapiens Sapiens with very thin frames but, oddly protruding buttocks. A light yellowy-brown skin and peppercorn hair with slightly everted lips and eyelids with an unusual fold. The future observer would not have been able to classify the group by race as races had yet to appear, though he might have recognised a dozen familiar features combined and morphed together.
The group stirred and some began to shout and ululate. Three males were splashing through the shallows towards them waving spears and throwing sticks and shouting in return. They had been gone for many days to spy out the new land and seek game and now had returned.
Every member of the group had to greet the returnees individually, only then could food be brought and the story told. Convention required complex explanations of their journey with many aspects physically acted out. Some concepts for which no words existed were, perforce, alluded to by comparisons with things seen or deeds performed in the past.
After hours of telling and re-telling the returning trio were able to answer the group’s main question, “What is the Land like over there?”
The Trio could tell them. “Rubbish! Waste of time!”
[FONT=&quot]Some disappointed, some relieved, the group gathered their few possessions and started to trudge Westward.[/FONT]
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