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avevale_intelligencerA student of anthropology from a large European university flew to a remote corner of the world to visit the Napurumu, a tribe of hunter-gatherers who had had no previous contact with advanced civilisation. He learned their language and participated in their rituals, and all too soon his time was up. As he was preparing to leave, Kolovi, a young tribesman, asked him where he had come from and how he had come to them. The student did his best to describe, in the Napurumu language, the city where he lived, and the aeroplane that had brought him. "It is like a great silver bird," he said. Kolovi listened carefully and remembered what he had heard, and wrote it all down on cured antelope hide when the student had gone.
Six months later a natural disaster wiped out ninety-nine per cent of the human race and devastated their lands. Only the Napurumu and a few other isolated tribes survived. Two thousand years passed, and the tribes repopulated the earth and gradually became an advanced civilisation themselves; and Kolovi's account of the stranger's visit was preserved as part of the ancient religious writings of the Napurumu.
Now there is an argument raging between two opposing schools of thought among the Napurumu. One school says "Kolovi's account must be true, because he was a prophet of god. If he says it was a big silver bird, a big silver bird is what it was. Our faith tells us so. No other view is tenable." The other school says "Birds cannot be made of silver; their wings would not bear the weight, or be flexible enough to fly. Therefore the entire incident must be fictitious. Our reason tells us so. No other view is tenable." Those who take no part in the argument tend to say "Ah well, the silver bird is clearly a poetic metaphor for the transmission of wisdom," or "We can never truly know what happened back then, so the question is moot." A few, a very few, occasionally suggest that Kolovi's account is a simplified version of an event that actually happened, but nobody pays any attention.
As for the account of the city, all reputable authorities agree that it must be purely mythical, despite some reports of archaeological finds in remote regions which might suggest the presence of some kind of settlement around that period. The stranger himself is widely regarded as a solar myth, a fact which would doubtless amuse him were he alive to know it.
Six months later a natural disaster wiped out ninety-nine per cent of the human race and devastated their lands. Only the Napurumu and a few other isolated tribes survived. Two thousand years passed, and the tribes repopulated the earth and gradually became an advanced civilisation themselves; and Kolovi's account of the stranger's visit was preserved as part of the ancient religious writings of the Napurumu.
Now there is an argument raging between two opposing schools of thought among the Napurumu. One school says "Kolovi's account must be true, because he was a prophet of god. If he says it was a big silver bird, a big silver bird is what it was. Our faith tells us so. No other view is tenable." The other school says "Birds cannot be made of silver; their wings would not bear the weight, or be flexible enough to fly. Therefore the entire incident must be fictitious. Our reason tells us so. No other view is tenable." Those who take no part in the argument tend to say "Ah well, the silver bird is clearly a poetic metaphor for the transmission of wisdom," or "We can never truly know what happened back then, so the question is moot." A few, a very few, occasionally suggest that Kolovi's account is a simplified version of an event that actually happened, but nobody pays any attention.
As for the account of the city, all reputable authorities agree that it must be purely mythical, despite some reports of archaeological finds in remote regions which might suggest the presence of some kind of settlement around that period. The stranger himself is widely regarded as a solar myth, a fact which would doubtless amuse him were he alive to know it.