I allot four hours of each day on the mainland for observation of Neanderthal. The bulk of that time is spent watching one particular family unit officially titled #04G2D, and unofficially, “Grammy’s Clan.”
The clan appears to consist of four separate families living in close proximity, but not cohabitating or sharing communally as Cro-Magnon clans do. Each family has its own cave, berry patch and water source which it is willing to share with other members of the clan, but will protect with force against outside intrusion. At a guttural rallying cry, clan members rush to defend a family’s territory. So far, we have seen plenty of showmanship, shouts and beating of chests, thrown rocks, but no actual combat.
A few random observations include:
The Neanderthal of Gibraltar give each other a good sniffing upon meeting. If it is a ritual greeting or just curiosity, I cannot yet say. They seem to have a keen sense of smell.
Family members often touch each other. They stroke each other’s hair, search for bugs and even curl up together to take naps. Non-family members do not receive the same familiar treatment. Even members from the same clan or community are excluded from this close contact.
While Gibraltar will someday be known for its cute and cantankerous Barbary macaques, I am fairly certain the species is not part of this ecosystem in this age. The only primates we have observed in Gibraltar are Neanderthal–no monkeys, no Cro-Magnon.
Neanderthal are fastidious about their campsites and keep them free of the human waste and debris that invariably fouled all Cro-Magnon habitation areas we experienced. Grammy’s Clan uses a swift-running stream that passes close to the mouth of their cave as a toilet. No matter the temperature or weather, both men and women climb right in to take care of business. They are not shy about their dunks in the cold water, and in fact use them as a source of much camp laughter. The rest of the camp’s detritus is loaded onto sealskins and dragged to the sea where it is left for the tides to carry away.
The Neanderthal are quite capable swimmers, fearless when it comes to jumping into the sea to grab a wounded seal before it floats away, or to collect crabs, clams and other sea creatures, which are usually eaten raw. I estimate they cook less than half of the meat, fish and poultry they consume. Seal, particularly the blubber, appears to be Grammy’s Clan’s favorite food.
Another favorite, probably number two on the clan’s list, are the late-fall berries which grow in spiky bushes throughout the dunes. The small, round berries look and taste rather like modern-day currants, but grow so densely on the limbs that they resemble long, red torch ginger flowers, or maybe two-foot-long cobs of Indian corn. The Neanderthal use sharp flints to sheer the limbs at the base of the bush, near the ground, and then carry armfuls back to camp to leisurely snack upon between meals. Once the berries have been munched, they use their flints to split the limbs to reveal marrow that is much sweeter than the berries themselves. Both the berries and marrow made Paul and me puke.
Their language is a mixture of hand sign and a collection of perhaps 40-65 words. Volume, repetition and inflection, as well as gestures and hand signals, play important roles in conveying additional meaning to vocalizations. In short, these people tell stories and laugh at each other’s jokes. Their level of intelligence has me wondering how much of what Gray Beard taught us about Neanderthal was bullshit–either misinformation or just colored by his prejudice.
The Neanderthal of Gibraltar are markedly different from the few we encountered in Bordeaux and Tuscany. Shorter, stouter, with thicker hair and more egg-shaped skulls, they appear to be a pureblood version of their genetic lineage. Put simply, the Neanderthal up north may well have seen their bloodlines diluted by Cro-Magnon genes. And, vice-versa, Gray Beard’s DNA may well include some Neanderthal input. The old bugger told me the union between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal only produced non-fertile hybrids, but now I’m not so sure I believe him.
How would the clan leader who does not trust “Flat Heads” explain away a culture in which an elder woman could rise to be the head of her clan? Grammy is a matriarch who scolds wrongs, praises good deeds and rewards hard work. She sings songs, treats wounds and tells stories. She touches and is touched by members of all four families, not just the three people with whom she shares her cave.
I think each family is headed by one of her male children. The least motivated son, probably one of the middle boys, lives with Grammy along with his wife and strapping young son. A granddaughter whose family lives in a dugout cave about 220 yards away spends much of her time at Grammy’s knee. She helps her pick berries, knap flints, butcher game and keep the camp clean.
TRANSMISSION:
Kaikane: “Here he comes again.”
Duarte: “That dorsal fin must be five feet tall.”
Kaikane: “Do you see his eye? Out of the water like that. Think he can see us?”
Duarte: “I don’t know what he sees, but it gives me the creeps. It’s like he’s hunting those seals on the beach. What are you doing? No. Stop!”
From the log of Maria Duarte
Chief Botanist
Paul and I were taking our afternoon sun on the beach today when several seals crawled out of the water and joined us. It is a common enough occurrence that we didn’t think much about it until our friend the tiger shark swam into the shallow cove and cruised along the shoreline. Rolling on his side to get part of his giant head above water, he surveyed the shore with one black, soulless eye.
Of all the thousands of sharks we have seen, this is the most aggressive hunter by far. We witness his hunts nearly every day as we paddle the kayaks to shore. He’s hard to miss as he seems to make sport of his kills. Launching himself like a missile from deep water directly under his prey, jaws clamped down on seals, sea lions, pilot whales and porpoise, he nearly gets his entire 23-foot body out the water. The fat pig eats less than half of what he slays. It’s like a game. A game in which gulls, terns and pelicans are usually noisy participants as they gorge on his scraps and dive to grab fish lured to the bloody scene. Every so often, the birds themselves are snared by one of the tiger shark’s mighty launches.
The shark was on its second pass of the shoreline when Paul grabbed his longest spear and rushed toward shore. Stopping inches from the water’s edge, he cast the yew shaft in a line to skewer the middle of the shark’s tall dorsal fin. The spear lodged with its point jutting through the fin. Lashing its head back and forth, trying to retaliate against the sudden pain, the shark could not reach the spear.
As the furious shark dove for deeper water, Paul turned to walk back up the beach. Behind him, a rippling bulge on the surface raced toward shore. With an explosion of seawater that drowned out my shout of alarm, the shark slid nearly half its body onto the beach. Mouth wide, rows of jagged, serrated teeth grabbing from distended jaws, it tried its damnedest to exact a quick revenge. Paul easily leaped to safety and then sauntered to my side with a strange smile on his face. My husband the thrill seeker enjoying his adrenalin high.
“That was close,” he said as he put his arm around me and we turned to see what the shark would do. With a few jackknifes of his powerful body, the killer worked his way down the beach and back into the water.
TRANSMISSION:
Kaikane: “How’s he gonna drag that thing all the way back to camp?”
Duarte: “Hercules knows the other hunters are watching. He’ll at least muscle it close to his family before he calls for help.”
Kaikane: “That sea lion must weigh a thousand pounds.”
Duarte: “More like 850.”
Kaikane: “I’ll take your word for it. What do you want to do?”
Duarte: “It is going to be a long, slow pull back to Grammy’s cave. We don’t need to see him sweat and groan. Let’s hike around the point to Gorham’s Cave, see what that crew is up to today.”
Kaikane: “Sounds like a plan to me.”
From the log of Paul Kaikane
Recreation Specialist
Today was a
good day.
My hands may be all cut up from weaving lauhala, but the third sail is finished. It is our biggest and best yet. All the hair on the tops of my bloody thighs may be worn away from rubbing millions of coconut fibers together, but we have all the rope–in different gauges and lengths–we will need. Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) to the Hawaiian elders who taught me these practical skills. I apologize to them for the times I thought they were wasting my time, when I had them pegged as hokey cultural practitioners playing at being “authentic.” All us young guys wanted to use back then was polymer ropes and sails.
There is no moon tonight. The wind has died off and it’s not too cold. By the fire, sitting on our piles of pine needles and ferns, it is comfortable. Maria’s banging out a report on some plant with purple sap. The Neanderthals use the sap to make a tarry glue that helps hold the bindings of their weapons and tools tight. I’ve been kicking back, looking at old pictures of home, trying to decide if I want to watch a movie. We’ve seen them all.
The night sounds say all is right with the world. We are safe on our little island outside the bay. Down on the beach, the nut crabs are clacking their claws as they scavenge between the sleeping sea lions and seals. Bats and night birds flutter through the dark. The birds sleeping in the trees and shrubs coo occasionally. Every 20 minutes or so, a pod of whales cruises close enough for us to hear to their spouts. A bunch passed during dinner, six or seven big pods, not long after sunset when there was still enough light to make out the white patches of barnacles on their black backs and tails. Not all the whales are swimming east. Maybe a third are headed out the straits back toward the Atlantic.
The Atlantic. I can’t help but wonder (worry) that we’re in for some rough seas–in a little boat held together with spit and handmade rope. Hanging nearby, suspended from a tree limb by three lengths of rope, is an innovation that will either warm our months sailing north, or kill us. When Maria and I talked about rigging up a stove or hibachi to cook food while under sail, I never thought anything would come of it. Sure, it would be nice to have warm food and drink, but I couldn’t see a way to do it without the risk of setting the deck or ourselves on fire. I forgot about it. Maria didn’t.
She has been tinkering with her pot-making skills and has made big strides since her first crumbly attempts on Ibiza. She claims Gibraltar just has a better quality of clay, and that may be true, but I think her methods have improved. She’s given up on the coil style–those pots always leaked. “Pinch pot” is what she calls her latest technique. She starts with a ball of clay that has been rolled and pounded for at least a half hour, then jabs both thumbs in and starts pinching out a bowl. Lately, she has been able to narrow the tops to a neck that can be stoppered with a wooden cork. We’ll have two pots of glue to take to sea with us, as well as one with olive oil and another with a salty fish paste we’ve been experimenting with.
Hanging from the tree is her latest creation. The fire holder is an oval clay dish about 30 inches long, 18 inches wide and 10 inches deep. Its thick lip flares at the four points of the compass. In those fat spots, Maria designed four round holes, one per side, each about an inch in diameter. I was about to poke holes in her theory, point out how my ropes would surely burn if we threaded them through the holes and built a big enough fire, when she said, “The tricky part is the suspension. We can’t hang it with ropes, they would surely burn.”
From behind a tree, she lifted an armature made from green willow limbs topped by four deer antlers. When I helped her lower the clay bowl over the rig, each hole aligned perfectly with an antler point. I noticed she hadn’t been shy about using a couple spools of my new twine to string the frame together.
The clay was still green, so we built our biggest blaze yet to fire it–big enough to make me wonder if the glow sparked any interest on the mainland. She set that platter on our red-hot coals and carefully covered it with dry wood. The way everything was sparking and spitting, I never thought it would make it through in one piece, but it did.
“When did you make this?” I asked that day.
“I have been thinking about it, collecting the pieces, for quite a while. I assembled it over the past week, while you were busy with your sail. I know you are worried about torching the deck. I thought we could rig poles to suspend the frame by ropes off the stern, over the rudder. The ropes will give it some play to compensate for the waves. What do you think? Will it work?”
“Maria, you never stop amazing me. It sure looks like it could, as long as it’s not too rough, or we build a fire that’s too big. Won’t the antlers burn?”
“No. I pulled them from a mainland fire pit a couple weeks ago, and since then they have survived two of our own fires. They appear fireproof. I think they may be petrified.”
“I thought you were hardening those antlers to make spear points.”
“We have enough spears.”
When she dragged the thing from the fire pit and found it intact, Maria gave it a day to rest before saying, “Let’s build a fire and see if it works.”
We strung the armature between two trees and this is our third night feeding bits of wood into the fire holder. So far, so good. I fabricated a pair of aft brackets to support the ropes while we are under sail, and am so ready to re-rig the catamaran and get the hell out of here I can taste it. But Maria wants to make one more visit to the mainland, say her silent goodbyes to Grammy and her family. Oh well, one more paddle to shore won’t hurt.
TRANSMISSION:
Duarte: “No wonder Neanderthal bones and tools will be so hard for anthropologists to come by. They are coastal dwellers.”
Kaikane: “Noticed that myself. These Flat Heads spend a lot of time by the sea.”
Duarte: “Just look where all the fires are located, do you see any built on land that won’t be under water when you come to Gibraltar for Doreen’s cancer treatment?”
Kaikane: “Nope, not a one.”
From the log of Maria Duarte
Chief Botanist
Paul and I got a later-than-usual start the morning of what we thought would be our last visit to Gibraltar. Someone woke up frisky, and thankfully Paul was happy to oblige. Did I really just write that? I guess I did.
We were in the middle of our daily “mirrors,” a few minutes each morning when we stand facing one another and make ourselves presentable. As we have no real looking glasses, we rely upon each other to perform a general health check, wipe away smudges, tamp down unruly hair, and make sure there is no food stuck between our front teeth.
Paul was mussing with my tangled mane, using his fingers to comb out weeds and sticks, when he said, “Close your eyes.” Pulling a swath of hair across my face, carefully unthreading pine needles accumulated from our pillow, he was unaware his ministrations were causing split ends to brush lightly across the top of my breasts. Our leather undergarments have become quite skimpy as their edges molder away.
Stepping behind me, making my whole body tingle as he dragged his fingernails over my scalp and down the back of my neck, he asked if I would like him to braid my hair. I said I did. Loins dampening with each moment of the simple chore, I waited until he finished, then reached back to see if he was in a similar mood. Surprisingly, he was soft as pudding. That didn’t last long.
Turning to gaze up into his almond eyes, I loosened his leggings so they dropped to the ground. Our first kiss of the morning was long and wet, tasting of the cedar sticks we had used to brush our teeth. Stroking gently, I rubbed his manhood against my smooth belly. Without much coaxing, it grew hard as flint. Feeling his strong hands cup my bottom, I was forced to let go as he lifted me into the air. Hugging his powerful neck with one arm, locking my legs around his mighty hips, I guided him inside slowly, encasing him all the way to the hilt.
Paul is never in a hurry when we make love. He likes to make it last, to cause me to moan and lose myself in the moment. Even when it is a quickie, he always makes sure I am satisfied, usually timing himself so we
finish together, gasping in each other’s arms.
Face buried against his wide chest, hands joined behind his back, I held on tightly as he raised and lowered me in a gentle rhythm, slow dancing my entire being to a place beyond ecstasy. Feeling my release build, holding off, letting it gather its intensity, my synapses were firing as if we tumbled in a massive wave, splashing to shore in a sea of bubbles and foam.
Hearing my gasps building to a crescendo, Paul stopped to hold me still in just the right spot. Grinding down against his pelvis, ignoring the gulls bickering overhead, I rode him to the toe-curling release of the most explosive orgasm I have ever experienced. I must have lost consciousness as my eyes rolled back in my head and my insides quivered and quaked, for I found myself being placed atop our bed of sleeping furs.
“Legs were getting tired,” he said with a contented smile as he lay beside me, studying my heaving chest and the way my eyes slowly opened and closed. Brushing my ponytail aside, he planted butterfly kisses on my neck that returned a flutter to my loins. Pulling him on top of me, guiding him back inside the warmth of my body, I asked, “What can I do for you, lover?”
“You’re doing it baby, you’re doing it.”
I reckoned my first orgasm was so strong it would be my last for the morning, but Paul has this way of kissing my neck and ears that really gets me going. He swears he never leaves the bruise of a hickey, but since he is my only mirror, how would I know if he is prevaricating? He was nibbling the tender spot just behind my left ear, thrusting his hips and making the little noises that let me know he is close, when he mouthed “I love you babe” into my ear. The feel of his warm breath, the snake of his wet tongue, they tipped me over the edge. Matching each other’s pace, our ahs and ohs joining with all the other sounds of the Mediterranean dawn, we started our day with a very satisfying finish.
Gibraltar Page 13
