The Kin by Peter Dickinson Page B

know how I fought the leopard .
    He finished the stoneweed. He’d never before had so much all to himself, and the juice made him drowsy. He lay down on the hillside and fell asleep.
    A voice woke him. Tinu again, urgent, excited.
    â€œSuth! Suth! Wake! You kill … leopard! See! Gan bring!”
    The words were bursting from her. He could barely make them out. Blearily he sat up and looked. Men were coming up the slope, two of them with loads over their shoulders. He rose. They stopped a few paces away and stood looking at him. Their faces had changed.
    â€œSuth,” said Mohr stiffly. “You killed the leopard. We found it among the scrub. Your digging stick is fast in its throat. So it died. I, Mohr, praise.”
    â€œI, Gan, also praise,” said Gan. “I bring your brave digging stick. See, it is here.”
    He held it out, but froze as Suth, without thought, wiped the back of his hand across his bleeding cheek before stepping forward to take it.
    â€œSee, Mohr!” whispered Gan. “Suth’s face! He has the man-scar! The leopard made it!”

Oldtale
    PEOPLE HUNT BLACK ANTELOPE
    Such was their lust for roast flesh that the children of An and Ammu would eat nothing else. They passed by the seeded grasses and did not gather them. They left ripe berries on the bushes, and fruits on the vines, and nuts on the ground beneath the trees, as if they had been dirt. All day from sun up they hunted and killed the creatures, and at sundown they made a fire and roasted their catch and ate until their stomachs were round and full, like a ripe gourd. They fell sick, but they did not care .
    The creatures came to Black Antelope. They said, “The people hunt and kill us day after day, without rest. Tens and tens and tens of us they kill for their feasts. Soon none of us are left .”
    Black Antelope gathered the First Ones. He said, “We made this Good Place for ourselves. Now people spoil it. Go, all of you, far and far. Make new Places. Then people live there. Set these Places apart. Then people must journey between them. See to it that there is food of all kinds, a little of each kind. Then the people must forage as well as hunt. They do not fall sick from eating only flesh. Let each Place have its season. Then the people leave it. They are gone. The creatures breed. The plants seed and grow. All is new again.”
    The First Ones agreed, and did all that .
    Then Black Antelope took the shape of a common antelope and let himself be seen by the children of An and Ammu as they were setting off to hunt. They saw him grazing on the plain a little way off .
    Da and Datta said, “We hunt that antelope.”
    The others were afraid. They said, “Do we kill and eat antelope? Is not Black Antelope the greatest of the First Ones?”
    Da said, “Why do we not eat it? Which of us is of the Kin of Black Antelope?”
    Datta said, “See how fat he is. His flesh is very good to eat.”
    But still the others were afraid .
    Da and Datta said, “We are the best. You must do as we say. You swore it at Odutu below the Mountain.”
    Because they had sworn at Odutu, they agreed to hunt the antelope .
    Black Antelope saw them creeping towards him and moved a little away and grazed again. They crept further, and again he moved away, and again, and again. All day he did this, and always they said in their hearts: “Next time we have him.” The thought of fat roast flesh was strong in their mouths .
    At sunset he led them to a water hole where there was blueroot growing beside the water. They drank , and dug out the blueroot and ate it, and said, “Tomorrow we return to the First Good Place and hunt there.”
    Next day they woke and saw Black Antelope grazing close by, and again they hunted him all day, and at sunset he led them to a water hole where there were binjas growing beside the water. They drank, and gathered and husked the binja seed and ate it, and