Daâh: The First Human

by Edmond Haraucourt

  They began to search for shelters in order to pile themselves up there and keep warm, as they had done beside the Sea. They disputed with predators for their lairs, and between themselves they fought over furs. The notion of property, for which the invention of the masculine loincloth had prepared them, became more entrenched in their heads. To conquer the garment they lacked and to protect the one they possessed, the strong became more ferocious and the weak more cunning.

  At the same time, the climate exercised a direct influence on the nerves, and subsequently on souls; every time the wind blew from the east, the spirit of the horde took on a more aggressive and more intolerant character; quarrels became more numerous, and degenerated into battles more surely. The women were even more subject to that irritant influence than the men; they shouted and bit one another. One day, two of them were seen to seize their new-borns by the ankles, in the guise of clubs, and strike one another with the infants’ skulls.

  As best they could, however, they adapted to the new conditions of life; the young, having scarcely retained any memory of their childhood, gave no thought to comparing the appearance of the world to its anterior state. The old suffered more; Hock and Daâh especially sometimes recalled the days of their youth, which seemed to them to have been better. Many joys were no longer for them. They contemplated the games of amour and battles gravely. Nothing tempted them anymore. The snow annoyed them. When it began to fall more thickly and the cold penetrated their bones, they sometimes looked one another in the eye, and one or the other, with a sad and weary inflection, murmured:

  “Heûh...”

  Then, both of them shook their heads. Their large hands spread out from their bodies to fall back on their hairy thighs, in a discouraged fashion, and the first couple thought:

  Everything was much better in our day...

  LXXXIV. The Crack

  In the vague hope of rediscovering the land of his youth and perhaps the vigor of old, Daâh turned his back on the region of the west and led his troop away. When they arrived at the edge of a forest and he perceived in the distance the dark blue of another forest, he pointed to the horizon and said:

  “Ta!”

  They eventually reached a mountainous country. The summits were white with snow. They went around them, following the foothills of the range, and followed rivers upstream. They crossed over torrents and forded streams.

  One evening, they emerged onto the edge of a plateau; the enormous river flowed down below, and hills covered with meager vegetation descended toward it in gentle slopes. They sheltered there. In the morning, they set out on the march again, and were about to go back into the woods when the sky was suddenly rent by a mad wind that twisted the clouds; in a matter of moments, the azure was clear; then the atmosphere immobilized in amazement. The trees, which the squalls had been twisting a little while before, were no longer moving; even the reeds on the banks ceased signaling with their long leaves. The Elephants lifted their trunks straight up, as if to interrogate space.

  That bizarre calm had lasted for several minutes when the thunder began to rumble feebly; that was a familiar noise and no one bothered to remark that it contrasted with the purity of the sky. A few of them, however, burst out laughing, for they thought they had heard that noise with their feet, and not with their ears, as usual. Some of them bent down toward the ground and sniffed it curiously.

  Their attention was quickly deflected by a stranger spectacle.

  “Ta! Ta!”

  He pointed at the plain and the hills; a frantic life was suddenly unleashed there; from all sides, they saw beasts running; they emerged from lairs, from thickets and from marshes; they arrived down below—and so many, so very many! It was as if the country, over immense extents, had suddenly got rid of all its inhabitants, in order to send them away pell-mell. The Rhinoceroses had quit their banks, and the placid Elephants were running at a gallop; Bears were shambling along, chased by Deer; Lions were running away before herds of Horses, or in the midst of them; Bison and Wolves were plunging into the path of Tigers, and Ostriches running on the heels of Hyenas. Not a single cry emerged from those suddenly emerged crowds. Herbivores and carnivores took no notice of one another; hunger no longer existed, nor murder, and the universal stampede hollowed out long parallel trails through the brush; even the Eagles were taking off in order to soar in the air high above the earth.

  Before what common enemy were they fleeing in that fashion, in that alarming fraternity? The Humans marveled at the extraordinary flight, and they laughed; cheerful young males tried to throw themselves into the path of predators in order to mock them for their lack of courage; they uttered cries, brandishing their clubs; others crept toward prey; several ran down the hillside and went as far as the bank; women, by contrast, gripped by the panic of the animals, fled toward the forest.

  They did not have time to reach it. A formidable crack shook the region; a crevice opened up along the plateau, vomiting mud, sand and fumes; a mountain tipped over and slipped down; another emerged from the river; the furious water climbed the hills, a rising torrent; sudden darkness had enveloped the world; lightning-bolts sprang from the earth; others streaked the sky; thunderstruck eagles fell from the clouds.

  The floods went down again, with their cargo of cadavers; the dead were discarded together, animal and vegetable alike, amid the humus and the broken rocks.

  The horde had lost several members, most of whom had perished by virtue of imprudence. Undoubtedly, they could not have escaped the disaster if they had tried, but nothing had informed them of the imminent catastrophe, although the other animals, less intelligent but more alert, had been able to recognize the approach of the earthquake.

  Is it the case, then, that the latter possessed organs of information that humans do not have, or no longer have, receptive apparatus that has remained in a rudimentary state in them, or which has regressed, atrophied by the excessive growth of a neighboring organ? Has human intellect developed to the detriment of other faculties, while multiple families developing in parallel have enriched themselves with equally precious faculties? That which they will gain on the one hand, they are beginning to lose on the other. More apt to reflect on what they carry within them, they are perhaps already less able to perceive what is happening around them.

  Many species demonstrate to humans how vast the world of sensations is that escapes them; to one, the sense of smell denounces what is odorless to humans; in another, the ear vibrates to the sound of mute things; another registers light where the human retina can only see darkness, and colors exist whose notion is forbidden to them that are probably permitted to several. At several leagues distance the effluvia of sex advertise to an insect in order that he might fly toward his bride; birds that orient themselves above continents and seas are able to fly straight toward their goal. Of the thinking faculty of which humans will be so proud, others are deprived, just as humans are deprived of their aptitudes; they consider their own to be supremely noble and of primordial utility; they are not wrong, since it has led them to the conquest of the world, but the others doubtless hold their own in the highest esteem, and cherish their privilege as Daâh is beginning to venerate his.

  LXXXV. The Region of Fire

  Elsewhere! Elsewhere! Far from the region where the Earth moves like the Sea and eats humans! They were in haste to be somewhere else.

  “Ta! Ta!”

  They climbed up and came back down. These new regions were strangely uneven.

  Then they perceived, in the distance, mountains that did not resemble others: mountains without forests, only whitened by the snow at the base and on the sides, their summits remained dark, with a ruddy light, and a round cloud swayed at their crest; there were several of them, all similar in form, and each one had its glow, and each its cloud. The prodigy was amusing.

  “Ta!” said the Chief.

  The troop marched enthusiastically. Fond of novelty, the humans were excited in running toward that conquest; voices rose up at
intervals to utter the encouraging cry:

  “Ta!”

  When night fell, the spectacle became more extraordinary still; in the heart of the darkness, the top of the nearest mountain became red and yellow, as if a Sun were setting there; Stars leapt up and fell back; vivid gleams snaked around the crest; the sky above was tinted red, and the neighboring slopes were illuminated. Glimmers, brightening at times, reached as far as the horde; at the tips of branches, leaves were seen suddenly to shine; the children and women laughed as they admired their hands, sunlit in the middle of the night. They could not wait for daylight to return so that they could set out en route again and get closer to the marvel.

  Daâh, however, was suspicious of it.

  What is this new beast? Might it not be a mother of young Suns?

  He remembered having nearly perished, swallowed by the marsh, when he had tried to catch a Bird-of-Light. Several other males were also anxious. As usual, however, curiosity was stronger than apprehension, and as soon as dawn broke, they set off again gaily to get closer to the mountain.

  It sent forth gusts of warm wind that gave pleasure to the skin. However, a singular odor stung the throat, and menacing voices were growling on the heights.

  Into what new danger are we going?

  Daâh was thinking along those lines, frowning. He went even so. The horde followed without protest, but fear was laboring their souls.

  Suddenly, a louder growl burst forth. They all fled, seeking shelter. On the edge of a little wood, they hid in order to observe.

  For an entire fortnight they prowled around the mountain. It fascinated them; a sharp desire to know prevented them from leaving; fright prevented them from climbing. They went around the slopes, climbing one slope and returning to their departure point. Gradually, they became accustomed to the monster. One morning, two adolescents ventured closer to it. Daâh saw the two silhouettes standing on a ridge that he had not dared attain. He growled with spite and clenched his teeth. Gripping his club, he surged forward.

  “Haâh! Han!”

  His battle cry roused the host. Men, women and children all ran; a trail of heroic clamors extended behind him, and the ascent commenced. When they were half way, the ground became hard underfoot; not a single plant, not a single blade of grass grew there. All along the route, there were bizarrely twisted protrusions of black rock, like unraveled entrails.

  Then they entered a fog bristling with motionless forms like stone Bears, rearing up for battle. The Chief brought down his club on one of them to demonstrate that he was not afraid of anything, but he was obliged to stop there for a long moment, for the beast hidden inside him recommenced biting his heart.

  LXXXVI. The Torch

  He set forth again, determined not to allow any dread or fatigue to show in front of the young men. But the rude climb exhausted him. He leaned on his club and breathed deeply. He was obliged to stop several times more. He compressed his torso with his hand and waited, bent double. Then he straightened up. Refusing to give in, he cried, angrily:

  “Ta!”

  He set off again, still in the lead. Soon, the slope became steeper. A gravel of scoria as trenchant as flints slipped at every step. A cold wind was whistling at ground level, whipping around and carrying white clouds. The noise up above was taking on a more frightful violence from one minute to the next. Brown clouds were being exhaled in bursts, illuminated by flashes. Enormous blocks of stone were flying through the air to fall here and there, amid the black pebbles. The horde was reluctant to continue climbing, but the stubborn ancestor howled:

  “Ta!”

  He continued the ascent. No one followed him, except Hock, who was whimpering behind him, tugging on the flap of his bearskin to hold him back. He turned round, irritated by that surplus of fatigue, threatening. The woman let go. Soon, she saw him stop again, breathing heavily, his head bowed, his palm applied to his left nipple. He set off yet again. Docilely, she followed him. Young men followed in their turn. The majority of the women and children stayed where they were.

  The Chief emerged onto a kind of terrace, which hardly sloped at all. The ground, covered with bluish blisters, resumed the aspect of spilled entrails and became hot under the thick pads of their feet. In places, puffs of thin clouds were emerging from that strange ground. An unfamiliar bitter odor caused the nostrils to grimace and stung the throat.

  Over his entire body, from bottom to top, Daâh perceived the friction of a caress, as warm as the contact of some creature that was rubbing itself gently against his skin. He searched around him for that living creature, but saw nothing, except that the long hairs of his legs and abdomen were standing up vertically. Perplexed, but tenacious he wanted to go on regardless.

  Suddenly, he jumped; a sharp pain had entered into the soles of his feet. No reptile was there, nor claw, tooth or bramble. The ground alone, and completely bare, was sinking those painful points into his flesh. Every time he put one of his feet down, the same inexplicable suffering obliged him to jump.

  Hock, twenty paces behind him, watched him dance and was bewildered.

  He retreated. Before he did so, furious with that aggressive ground, he struck it with a blow of his club. Then, very distinctly, he heard the plaint of a hoarse voice fleeing into the depths of the soil. At the same time, however, the black tip of the club gave birth to a small cloud: a yellow-tinted cloud, which swelled, and, scarcely born, rose vertically toward the sky. At the same time, Daâh saw a minuscule red Sun shining in the wood of the club.

  Gripped by amazement, he sniffed it and coughed. He was suffocating. The heat around him was becoming stifling. Sweat ran down his brow. The fear of the unknown entered further into his soul. In order to see whether some new prodigy was about to assail him from one side or another, he inspected the surroundings.

  “Heûh!”

  Some distance away to the left, he had just discovered the enemy. Between the rounded walls of its grotto, an enormous red Serpent was emerging slowly from the ground, swelling up and becoming hump-backed, lifting itself up and lowering itself down again, respiring as it advanced, red everywhere, red and turning brown in the distance, for it was prolonging itself indefinitely and the head could not be seen.

  Daâh fled and went back toward Hock.

  “Heûh!” he said, in a low voice, so as not to attract the attention of the formidable monster.

  She was trembling, and for a second time she tugged at the man in order to draw him away. She became even more frightened when she saw him, pale and with his eyes closed, put both hands, interlaced, to his heart, extend his neck, panting, and collapse. He opened his mouth in the fashion of a fish thrown on to the grass.

  She spread the broad fingers that he had flattened on his torso, and in order to tame the interior beast, she started hammering his ribs.

  Finally, Daâh opened his eyes again. His eyelids fluttered over his dazzled pupils. Turning his head in all directions, he looked around, making an effort to remember and comprehend. Then he perceived the group of young males down below, hesitant to rejoin him. The idea that they might come to defend him and attack the Red Serpent from which he had recoiled, in his stead, revolted his pride. He stood up and picked up his weapon. He shoved Hock aside with his elbows, and escaped from her, in order to run toward the giant reptile.

  He no longer felt the ground biting his feet. He arrived, the club raised, and when he brought down his blow on the torrent of incandescent lava, sparks splashed him.

  “Haâh! Han!”

  Three times, he struck. The club had caught fire and was ablaze.

  Having proved his courage, he went back down toward his family, without running. In his right hand, held high, he was brandishing his club in the air, enplumed by a flame that he took to be the blood of the wounded monster.

  Daâh brought back fire.

  LXXXVII. Toward Destiny

  On seeing him come back with that red life at the tip of his club, women fled; a panic drew the horde over the slopes o
f the volcano.

  Daâh continued to descend at his calm pace.

  Behind him, the sun was setting; a glacial wind swept the side of the mountain.

  Suddenly, everyone wanted to see the monster that the Ancestor was bringing.

  He was surrounded.

  One of the young males having decided to touch the ardent club with his own, he caught fire. Others, imitating him, ignited their clubs. When they burned their hands, it was necessary to drop them on the ground.

  Of some they made a pile. Flames danced above it. A fine heat emerge. They sat around it. Red reflections illuminated their laughing faces from below. In the descending dusk, the first Family formed a circle around the first Hearth.

  It was at that moment that Daâh fell unconscious. The beast that was eating him bit him for the last time, and he died.

  The next day, when the horde woke up, they demanded to depart, because they were hungry.

  Hock refused to accompany them.

  She sat down tranquilly beside the immobile body, and, in the morning light, the Humans who were carrying away the Fire departed, toward destiny.

  Notes

  1 The odd name of the publisher in question derives from an avant garde novel, Les Fruits du Congo (1951) by the journalist Alexandre Vialatte (1901-1971), most of whose fiction was only published posthumously, including several novels issued by Arléa.

  2 ISBN 978-1-61227-075-3.

  3 Included in the Black Coat press collection Martyrs of Science, ISBN 978-1-61227-229-0.

  4 ISBN 978-1-935558-38-5. See also Helgvor of the Blue River, ISBN 978-1-93558-46-0.

  5 It was not until the late 1940s that the invention of radiocarbon dating provided a reliable yardstick for measuring the antiquity of human remains excavated by paleontologists, although radiometric dating had begun to provide information about the age of rocks, which led to the geometric time-scale, in 1907. Haraucourt’s assumption that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon remains implied a time-scale of between 100,000 and 200,000 years turned out to be broadly correct, but his attempt to accommodate that to the time scale of the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciations, which had been debated since the mid-19th century, is inevitably awkward. Although James Croll’s Climate and Time in their Geological Relations (1875), following up the work of the Alpinists Louis Agassiz and Karl Schimper, can now be seen as a brilliant analysis of the causes of periodic glaciations, it was neither well-known nor orthodox in 1912, so Haraucourt’s analysis of climate change is understandably primitive and over-simplified, but it was not lacking in enterprise at the time.