Rocco D’Ambrosca: 10/03/2002
Good Morning! My name is Rock. I am the leader of my clan. This is my cave that I live in with my clan. We call this cave and all of the caves that we have lived in home. We do many things in this cave. We eat, sleep, and pretty much do everything inside our cave. The fire that we had made last night is down to a low crackle. It is dark and cold inside of my cave because the fire is so low. I wake my mate Florina to gather more wood for the fire. She wakes up my two sons, Sky and Sunny, to help her. Sunny is young, he has only just stopped drinking from his mother. Sky is older, he has already started hunting small animals. I wake my brothers, Bruno and Daren, so that we can prepare for the hunt. I am older than both of my brothers, but Daren is the youngest. We then gather our spears and some berries to eat while we are on the hunt. I say good-bye to Florina, Sky, Sunny, and my elderly father Pano. Bruno says good-bye to his mate Esa, and his son Dan, who has also just stopped drinking from his mother. Finally, Daren says good-bye to his mate Mia.
We are now on our long journey in search of animals to hunt. After walking a very long distance, we stumble upon a group of horned creatures, that we call deer. We move closer in towards them getting ready to attack. I motion to Bruno and Daren to go behind the deer so that they can scare them towards me. By doing this, it allows me to easily stab one of them with my spear. They now move in behind the deer to get ready for the surprise. Once they are at the correct place that I had told them to go to, they wait for my signal. As I am looking for when to signal my brothers, Daren gets the bright idea to disobey me and runs at the deer yelling. The deer are so frightened they jump and run as fast as they can. I try to stab one of them with my spear but cannot because I was not ready to attack. We try to run after the deer but they are much too fast. We finally gave up the chase, and I go over to Daren and punch him so hard in the face that he falls right to the ground. I say to him, “Don’t you ever, ever, disobey me again!” With that, we go back on our journey in search of animals to hunt.
After walking a little farther than from where we had seen the first deer, we find another group of deer, with even more deer than the first group. Before we move in, I warn Daren again to listen to my instructions. After Daren’s reminder, we move in to get ready to attack, but for this attack, I plan to try a different strategy. Each of us goes on a different side of the deer except the direction that the deer are facing. I go on the left side, Daren goes behind the deer, and Bruno goes on the right side of the deer. Then, I give the signal. We all jump out at the deer yelling. This time we are working together and have control over where the deer are going. We continue chasing the deer, making sure that they are going in the direction we want. When we see that we are coming towards the edge of the cliff, I signal to my brothers to stop. Bruno and I stop, but again, Daren does not listen. This time because he does not listen to me, he suffers a much worse consequence. He continues running and realizes he is coming towards the side of the cliff, but it is too late. Daren runs right off the cliff along with all the deer. We climb down the cliff as quickly as we can. When we get to Daren he is cut in the chest from the rocks that he has landed on; he has broken many ribs and one of his legs. We pick him up from the rocks that he is laying on and remarkably he is still alive! But, he is still in very bad shape. We gather as many of the deer as we can carry. We then get ready for the long journey home; now with the extra burden of Daren.
When we finally get back home to our cave everyone rushes to us. Florina, Esa, and Mia rush to help Daren. They take some plants they had gathered and use them on Daren’s wounds. While they are taking care of Daren; Bruno, Sky, and I begin to cut-up the deer. We cut-up the deer inside the cave so that it will not attract other animals that may fight us for the food. First, we cut off the skin of the deer with sharp blades. Then we use rocks with a flat but sharp side to scrape off any blood or meat that was left on the skin. We will later use this skin, once it is dry, to keep us warm. We then start removing the meat from the bones using the sharp blades we used to remove the skin. We finally chop up the meat and begin eating. When we are finished we let the women eat, then the children, and then finally my father.
Night has come now. Daren has become worse. It looks like he will die soon. While the women and children go out to collect the last of the wood for the nightly fire, Daren dies. When they get back we prepare to burry him. We dig a hole for his grave and place him in it with his arms across his chest. We then drop flowers into the hole and items that he will need in the afterlife. These items include tools, weapons, and other things he might need. After we are done burying Daren we are all very sad. We light a fire inside the cave and begin grooming and relaxing with each other thinking about the loss of Daren. We finally get settled and ready to go to sleep so that we can rest from the work we have done today and begin another day tomorrow.
RoccoJoe.com 